“Redirect,” Welsh says, almost before the words are out of my mouth.
“If it would please the court, Your Honor, I am requesting that your deputy be so kind as to read back the parts of Mr. Salzman’s previous testimony about the DNA found at the crime scene,” Welsh says to Judge Horton.
Horton nods. The deputy, a woman, types furiously away at her laptop, before looking back up and nodding at the judge.
It hasn’t taken Katherine Welsh long to adjust to what I just did to another one of her witnesses, and on the fly, but she has.
She really is very good.
But I already knew that.
And I was setting a very high bar for her.
The deputy, a woman, begins reading the relevant testimony about the DNA, and where it was found near the bodies, with about as much inflection as if she were reading a grocery list.
When she’s finished, Katherine Welsh walks over to the witness stand.
“Now Ms. Barry,” she asks, “did you hear anything from the man who collected scientific evidence the night Lily Carson and her family were murdered in cold blood about finding DNA thatdidn’tbelong to the defendant?”
“I don’t think anybody heard that,” Julie Barry says.
“So the only man with whom your friend Lily Carson was involved who left DNA behind at the Carson homewasthe defendant.”
“Objection,” I say, not expecting to do much more than slow Katherine Welsh’s roll. “Was there a question in there, Your Honor?”
Katherine Welsh turns and gives me a withering glance. “I frankly didn’t think I needed one.”
“Well, I’ve got one for you, Madam District Attorney,” I say, knowing I am way out of line, but wanting to get in one last shot. “Didn’t you mean to say DNA that someoneplantedat the Carson home that night?”
Welsh objects, the judge sustains, it’s all by the numbers from there until Judge Horton says that court is adjourned until tomorrow morning.
“And by the way? The jury will ignore Ms. Smith’s last comment,” Horton says, getting in one last shot of his own.
Then he pounds his gavel so hard it sounds like a gun going off.
We all rise, and then he’s gone, but not before the last big sound in Judge Michael Horton’s courtroom is him slamming the door behind him.
I turn to Norma Banks.
“You think it was something I said?”
“I’d tell you that you need to do a better job of getting on his good side, missy,” she says, “except that it’s been my experience that once he puts that robe on, he really doesn’t have one.”
I turn to my right and see Thomas McGoey shaking his head.
“You,” he says, “are a very bad girl.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” McGoey says.
EIGHTY-TWO
I’VE GOTTEN OFF THE Long Island Expressway and am in Manorville making my way across Route 111, the connecting road to 27 East, when Danny Esposito calls.
“Where you at?” he asks, and I tell him that I’ve just passed the McDonald’s on 111, but withstood temptation and kept driving.
“Glad I caught you when I did,” he says. “You’re gonna want to make a stop in Southampton, which is where I happen to be at.”
