Animal Instinct by Rosenfelt, David (novels for students TXT) 📕

wouldn’t be sitting in a courtroom wearing a GPS ankle bracelet.

Andy is taking an interesting approach here. My talking to Nichols in the first place supports Dylan’s position on my motive, that I was out to get Kline out of my guilt at not doing more the night I was called to the house.

Andy’s belief is that since the jury already heard testimony about it, and it happens to be true, we should embrace it. We should show it as evidence of my inherent goodness in wanting to protect Lisa, and my desire to see justice done after she died.

Legal, by the book, no violent vendetta, justice.

Andy takes him through the original night, what he heard, and why he called. Andy pays particular attention to Nichols claiming that he heard Kline say, “You’ll do what you’re told.”

“Did you know what he was referring to?” Andy asks. “Do you know what he was saying she was told?”

“No.”

“Could it have had to do with something outside of their domestic situation?”

“I suppose so.”

On cross, Dylan tries to make it seem as if I was obsessed with Kline. Nichols, to his credit, is not going along with it. He says I was just asking questions about that night, and that he didn’t get the feeling I was intent on any kind of revenge.

Lunch brings two more times that Andy checks for messages, with the same result.

“He would have called if he was going to,” I say, and Andy nods his agreement.

Laurie joins us for lunch because she is going to be our next witness. It is rare that Andy calls on her in this capacity, but in this case she is easily the best one to get certain points across. We don’t talk about her testimony; I’m sure she and Andy have gone over it as much as they need to. And we also don’t talk much about Mahler; all of us feel the same sense of dread that our plan has not worked.

When Laurie takes the stand, Andy asks her what her occupation is. She says private investigator and confirms that she has been working for the defense team.

He introduces Lisa Yates’s phone records, which we have legally subpoenaed, and which match the ones that Sam had obtained through other-than-legal means.

“When we looked at these records together, did we notice anything that we found of particular interest?”

Dylan is out of his chair and objecting to this testimony as not being even “tangentially relevant” to the case we are trying.

Judge Wallace calls the lawyers to a bench conference so they can discuss it out of earshot of the jury. I can’t hear what they are saying, but I’m sure that Andy is explaining that Dylan opened the door to testimony about Lisa Yates’s death by trying to set up my motive.

I assume that works, because the lawyers leave the bench and Andy continues his questioning. He asks what about the bill caught Laurie’s eye, and she mentions the repeated calls from Lisa to Jana Mitchell. Most notable was the forty-five-minute call the night before Lisa was killed.

“It wasn’t stunning news,” Laurie said, “and it could have just been that they were friends talking. But it was significant enough to get me to call Jana Mitchell and ask her about it.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. She was friendly enough, but as soon as I asked her about Lisa Yates, she seemed to get fearful. She even denied knowing Lisa. Almost immediately after that she hung up on me.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well, it was such an unusual reaction that it piqued my interest. So I flew out to Cincinnati the next day to try and get her to talk to me, to tell me anything that she might know about Lisa Yates.”

“And did you do that?”

“Yes. I flew there the next afternoon, had dinner, and went to her home at around eight thirty.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She was murdered in her home ninety minutes before I got there.”

I can see the jury react in surprise to Laurie’s statement.

“Did you consider it a coincidence that Ms. Mitchell was murdered the day after appearing frightened by your talking about Lisa Yates?”

“I did not. I felt, and will always feel, guilt that I did or said something that ultimately led to her being murdered.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

Dylan’s cross-examination does not attack the accuracy of Laurie’s testimony. She related a series of events that are obviously true, and that she lived through. Instead he asks if she has any evidence that any of this is related to the death of Gerald Kline.

“I can’t prove that it is, no,” Laurie says.

“I didn’t ask if you could prove it,” Dylan says. “I asked if you have evidence of a connection that you can present to this court.”

“I do not. But we’re getting there.”

Dylan could object and ask the judge to strike the last comment, but he’s smart enough to know that the jury has already heard it. So instead he just smiles condescendingly and says, “Please let us know when you do.”

Laurie leaves the stand and exits the courtroom as the judge gives the standard spiel to the jury to not talk to anyone about the case or let themselves be exposed to media coverage.

When he’s finished and the jury has been dismissed, we turn to leave as well. As we reach the rear door, Laurie is coming back in. The look on her face causes Andy to ask, “What’s the matter?”

“Richard Mahler hanged himself this morning. His housekeeper discovered the body.”

I have no idea if Richard Mahler really hanged himself.

He could certainly have been murdered, and it was then intentionally made to look like a suicide. The way this case has gone, that would certainly not be a shocker. But I am certain of one thing, and that is that he’s dead.

Laurie makes a couple of calls to friends on the force who are in positions to know. They say that the prevailing wisdom is that Mahler did, in