The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [130]
“Thank you, Dr. Gutierrez. I have no further questions at this time.”
The judge turned the witness over to me and as I passed Freeman on the way to the lectern she gave me a deadpan look that transmitted the message: Take your best shot, asshole.
I intended to. I put my legal pad down on the lectern, tightened my tie and shot my cuffs, then looked at the witness. Before I sat down again, I wanted to own him.
“Around the medical examiner’s office, they call you Dr. Guts, don’t they, sir?”
It was a good out-of-the-gate question. It would make the witness wonder what other inside information I knew and could possibly spring on him.
“Uh, sometimes, yes. Informally, you might say.”
“Why is that, Doctor?”
Freeman objected on relevance and it got the judge’s attention.
“Do you want to tell me how this ties into the reason we are here today, Mr. Haller?” he asked.
“Your Honor, I think if allowed to respond, the answer Dr. Gutierrez will give will reveal that he has an expertise in pathology that is not in the area of tool patterns and head wounds.”
Perry mulled things over and then nodded.
“The witness will answer.”
I turned my focus back to Gutierrez.
“Doctor, you can answer the question. Why are you called Dr. Guts?”
“It is because as you said I have an expertise in identifying diseases of the gastrointestinal tract—the guts—and it also goes with the name, especially when it is pronounced incorrectly.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Now can you tell us how many times you have had a case in which you matched a hammer to the wounds on a victim’s skull?”
“This would be the first one.”
I nodded to underline the point.
“So you’re sort of a rookie when it comes to a killing with a hammer.”
“That’s right, but my comparison was painstaking and cautious. My conclusions are not wrong.”
Play to his superiority complex. I am a doctor, I am not wrong.
“Have you ever been wrong before in giving court testimony as a witness?”
“Everyone makes mistakes. I am sure I have.”
“What about the Stoneridge case?”
Freeman quickly objected as I knew she would. She asked for a sidebar and the judge waved us up. I knew this would go no further but I had gotten it out in front of the jury. They knew from what little had just been said that somewhere in his past Gutierrez had testified and been wrong. That was all I needed.
“Judge, we both know where counsel is going and not only is it not relevant to this matter, but Stoneridge is still under investigation and there has been no official conclusion. What could—”
“I withdraw it.”
She looked at me with searing hostility in her eyes.
“No problem. I have another question.”
“Oh, as long as the jury hears the question you don’t care what the answer is. Judge, I want an instruction on this because what he is doing is not right.”
“I’ll take care of it. Go back. And Mr. Haller? You watch yourself.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
The judge instructed the jurors to disregard my question and reminded them that it would be unfair of them to consider anything outside of the evidence and testimony while later conducting their deliberations. He then told me to proceed and I went in a new direction.
“Doctor, let’s zero in on the fatal wound and get a little more detailed. You called this a depression fracture, correct?”
“Actually, I called it a depressed calvarial fracture.”
I always loved it when the prosecution’s witnesses corrected me.
“Okay, so the depression or dent that was left by this traumatic impact, did you measure it?”
“Measure it in what way?”
“How about its depth? Did you measure that?”
“Yes, I did. May I refer to my notes?”
“You sure can, Doctor.”
Gutierrez checked his copy of the autopsy protocol.
“Yes, we called the fatal impact wound one-A. And, yes, indeed, I did measure the definitions of the wound pattern. Shall I give you those measurements?”
“My next question. Please tell us, Doctor, how did it measure out?”
Gutierrez looked at his report while speaking.
“Measurements were taken at four points of the circular impact location. Using a clockface, the measurements