D.A. Sternhmms in what I can only describe as accusatory condescension. “Those little bottles last me forever. I usually end up throwing out half-used bottles after they’ve expired.” Ms. Pembrooke stares at D.A. Stern, awaiting a formal question. Finally, he adds, “Do you happen to know the expiration date of those bottles found in Emblem’s teddy bear?”
“No,” she answers flatly.
“Well, it’s interesting.” He walks over to the prosecution table and picks up a manila folder, opens it. “All three of those bottles held the same expiration date, almost two years out from the day Joe Kitsch died”—he closes the folder—“meaning they were all retailed and purchased within a short period.”
“I don’t know how that works,” she says, closing her eyes in seeming exasperation.
D.A. Stern belabors the point, referencing research his team has done on the manufacturing and distribution of the product in question, outlining the extreme likeliness that the three eye-drop bottles were purchased in close date proximity, if not all at once, though this doesn’t dispel Ms. Pembrooke’s statement that she buys them in bulk.
Finally, he moves on. “Ms. Pembrooke, would you consider your relationship with Margot a close one?”
“Yes, I suppose I would.”
“As someone close to her, as you’ve just described, did Margot ever share with you the details of where she was during those seven days she went missing when she was sixteen?”
Durrant Hammerstead objects. I mark the tally and look to Damon, who winks in approval.
D.A. Stern nods before Judge Gillespy can make her determination and quickly pivots, his goal of getting the room to think again about Margot’s teenage disappearance, her corresponding estrangement from her parents, achieved—though clumsily, in my opinion. “Did you actually witness Mr. Kitsch consuming his smoothie?”
She shakes her head. “No. I cleaned up the kitchen, then went upstairs for some chores. I couldn’t say if he had started drinking it when I headed up. I came back down after about an hour, and the glass I had filled for him was empty in the sink. So I washed it out. Then I went back upstairs.”
“Where was Mr. Kitsch?”
She closes her eyes, a seemingly unwilling owner of this last memory of him. “He was at his usual seat at the kitchen table, looking at something on his phone.”
“And then what?” D.A. Stern demands.
“Then I headed back upstairs.”
D.A. Stern riffles through the papers at the prosecution table, the silence long enough that a few jury members begin growing restless. “Ms. Pembrooke,” he says finally, stepping toward the witness stand,then halting. “Do you know anything about the tarantulas that suddenly appeared in Tenley Storms’s backyard roughly two years ago, the day after Margot confronted her about her affair with Joe?”
The callback to Tenley Storms’s day one testimony is unexpected. Many brows in the room furrow in unison at the line of questioning.
“No,” Ms. Pembrooke says, though she doesn’t seem as surprised by the question as the rest of us.
“Tell us, what did you go to school for, before going into this current line of work.”
Faces in the gallery twist in confusion, wondering D.A. Stern’s angle. I expect the defense team to interject, but they don’t. Durrant Hammerstead seems too curious about where the conversation might be headed to intervene.
“Arthropodology,” she says, switching the cross of her legs.
I catch Durrant Hammerstead whispering into his co-counsel’s ear. Wherever this is going, it appears the defense is not well-versed.
“Explain what that means?” D.A. Stern urges.
“It’s the study of arthropods. So, insects, crustaceans—”
“Spiders?” D.A. Stern interjects.
Damon’s hand is across my lap before Durrant Hammerstead officially objects, and I have to hold back a smile as he ticks a tally mark to the top right corner of my notebook page.
After some thought, Judge Gillespy asks Ms. Pembrooke to continue.
“Yes,” she says. “Technically, spiders fall into this field of study.”
“So, just to ensure this is all clear,” he says, “you have an incredibly close relationship with Mrs. Kitsch, and then the day after Margot confronted Ms. Storms about her affair with her husband, her backyard is overrun with tarantulas, and we’ve come to find out you studied arthropodology, the study of, among other things,spiders?”
Gray Man scoffs from behind Damon, and I can practically hear his thoughts. This is unreasonably ridiculous. I’m inclined to agree. Still, it’s on par with the outrageous storylines on the show. I can practically guarantee that this specific detail from the trial will be a topic in the next season, one that garners ample screen time.
