10th Anniversary - James Patterson [53]
“That’s right. I would never lie.”
“Did Candace Martin have a gun in her hand when you left the house on the night of the murder?”
“I think so. I thought so. I don’t know anymore.”
“Right. But you would never, never, never lie. Thank you. I have no further questions.”
Chapter 67
A SHOCK OF ANGER blew all the dread and fear right out of Yuki. The defense had annihilated her damned witness, annihilated her and planted the seeds of reasonable doubt.
Yuki didn’t know if she could rehabilitate a would-be home wrecker and probable liar, but she knew that her entire case might depend on it.
Yuki barely saw Nicky’s note: “You go, girl.”
She got to her feet and walked to the witness box that wrapped around the witness. She put her hand on the arm of the box as if to communicate to Ellen that she was placing a comforting hand on her arm.
“Ms. Lafferty, did you kill Mr. Martin?”
“No. I did not.”
“Did the Martins fight?”
“All the time.”
“Did you see a gun in Candace Martin’s hand on the night of the murder?”
“I thought so. It was so long ago. And it happened so fast. I don’t know for sure anymore.”
“Okay. Were you telling the truth to this jury when you said you thought Candace Martin shot and killed her husband?”
“Yes, that is God’s honest truth.”
“The prosecution has no more questions for Ms. Lafferty.”
Phil Hoffman watched the witness step down, wipe her eyes with a tissue, and head out to the rear of the courtroom. She was still crying as she went through the doors.
It was only eleven-fifteen.
Before the jury had a chance to even think of feeling sorry for Ellen Lafferty, Phil Hoffman would launch the next bomb.
Chapter 68
PHIL HOFFMAN SAID, “The defense calls Dr. Candace Martin.”
For a moment, Yuki thought she’d heard him wrong. But when Candace Martin edged out from behind the defense table, wearing her game face, a two-thousand-dollar Anne Klein suit, and eight-hundred-dollar Ferragamos, Yuki knew that Hoffman was running the table.
Candace wasn’t required to testify.
Judge LaVan had told the jury that the defendant was not obliged to take the stand and that the jury could not hold that against her.
So for Phil to call his client as a witness in her own defense was an act of either desperation or supreme confidence.
Hoffman didn’t seem desperate at all.
Candace Martin put her hand on the Bible, and when asked if she swore to tell the whole truth, she said, “I do.” Then she sat down in the chair facing the gallery and gave her attention to her attorney.
“Dr. Martin,” Hoffman said, “some of this has been established, but for the benefit of continuity, were you at home when your husband was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Where were Caitlin and Duncan?”
“They were each in their own rooms.”
“And so that the jury can place everyone in the house, where was Cyndi Parrish, your cook?”
“She was upstairs in her room.”
“And where was Ellen Lafferty?” Hoffman asked.
“I don’t know where she was. She said good night to me about fifteen minutes before Dennis was shot.”
“And where was Dennis just before the incident?”
“I don’t know that either. I didn’t see him. I went to the bedroom wing, passed the kids’ rooms and said hello to each of them. Then I went down that hallway to my office. That’s where I was when Ellen said that she was leaving.”
“What were you doing in your office that evening?”
“I was returning calls.”
“And were you still in your office when you heard shots?”
“Yes. I was about to call a patient’s wife. It wasn’t going to be good news. I had taken off my glasses and was massaging my temples, like this.”
Dr. Martin took off her glasses and put them down on the armrest. She rubbed her temples with her thumb and third finger of her left hand.
“I had the phone in my other hand,” she said, making a claw of her right hand as if she were clutching a receiver.
Yuki thought that this demo was a pretty ingenious way to visually put a cell phone in Candace Martin’s hand instead of a gun, and she had to admire Hoffman for coming up with it.
“Please tell the jury what happened when you heard