Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [49]
Eloise shook her head. “No, after you quieted everything down, it stayed quiet, Chief.” She added, “You look nice today.”
Alex smiled briefly. “Thanks.” She looked at Ruiz and nodded toward her office. “Come on, Ed.”
Once they were in the office, Ruiz said, “I just wanted you to know that we’ve already had an emergency meeting this morning, and the council voted to authorize the curfew. And we, uh, put yesterday’s date on the paperwork.”
Alex raised her eyebrows. “That’s putting your ass on the line to cover mine, Ed,” she told him bluntly.
“Maybe, but you’re our police chief and you’re trying to do what’s best for the town, so the council thinks you deserve our support.”
She noticed that he didn’t say the council had voted unanimously to take the action they had. She wasn’t sure which way Ed had voted. But he was willing to along with what the council decided and deliver the news to her, and she had to give him credit for that.
“Thank you,” she said, and meant it. “I appreciate that more than you and the other council members know. I just hope this mess is over soon.”
“It’s not going to end well,” Ruiz warned. “Not for Pete McNamara, anyway.”
Alex sighed, nodded, and said, “I’m afraid you’re right.”
“When she came into the courtroom forty-five minutes later, the first thing she noticed was that Joe Gutierrez and Dave Rutherford were sitting alone at the defense table with Pete McNamara. The crowd from the previous two days was gone.
Alex went to the railing, leaned over it, and called, “Dave.”
Rutherford turned around to look at her. His expression was grim as he stood up and stepped over to the railing.
“What happened to all the lawyers from the gun manufacturer?” she asked.
Rutherford shook his head. “They’ve cut and run.”
Alex stared at him in disbelief. “They’re not even going to defend against the suit?”
“Word is that they’re having a settlement conference with one of Cochrum’s associates later today. They’ll fight for a non-liability clause, but other than that they’re going to roll over and give Navarre whatever he wants.”
“My God,” Alex murmured. “So you and Joe are the only ones still fighting?”
“That’s right … and I advised Ed that it might be best to explore the possibility of the city settling, too.”
“No! You can’t. Everybody else has already deserted Pete.”
A rueful smile appeared on Rutherford’s face. “Don’t worry. Ed showed more backbone than I thought he would, although I’d deny under oath that I ever said that. He said fight it out to the end, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Well … good. Somebody needs to keep fighting.”
“Even though it’s a lost cause?”
“Do you really believe that?”
“After that press conference Cochrum and Ms. Encinal held yesterday, we don’t have a chance in hell,” Rutherford said, lowering his voice so that only Alex could hear.
Her heart sank at hearing it put into words like that. She said, “I hope you’re wrong,” and put her hand on Rutherford’s arm for a second to give it an encouraging squeeze. Then she went back out into the hall to wait and see what happened.
The morning was mostly a rehash of what had gone before, with Alex and the other officers being called to the stand to testify as to what they had seen and done on the night in question. Cochrum asked each of them two questions in cross-examination:
“Did you see the gun allegedly belonging to my client in his hand at any time?”
And, “Did tests indicate that the gun allegedly belonging to my client had been fired on the night in question?”
The answer to both questions was no, of course.
By the time the trial resumed after lunch, the only thing that was left was for the defense to call Pete McNamara to the stand to testify in his own behalf.
Rutherford told Alex later, “Cochrum’s cross-examination was awful. He never badgered Pete or anything like that that might have made him sympathetic to the jury. No, Cochrum was as polite and respectful as he could be. And he still made Pete seem like a doddering old fool who didn’t really know what happened