Page 84 of The Best Lawyer
“Do we still have a case?” I asked.
Jeanie handed the bottle to Miranda and took a seat beside me. “It was an interesting day.”
“To say the least,” Eric said. Miranda was still flipping through Maisy’s photographs.
“You go first,” I told Jeanie.
“Welp,” she started. “A whole lotta chest thumping from Quick today. The jury was only in the box for half the day. He’s trying to subpoena Tallon Shipley so he can put her on the stand tomorrow. He’s trying to get her to reveal who Lissa Daughtry is. I checked with the prison. Nobody’s been to see her yet. For the moment, Tallon’s source is staying secret. And Tallon’s AWOL. She’s not answering anybody’s calls or texts. I sent Emma out looking for her. I did an about face on my edict to keep her away from this. I didn’t see how I had a choice.”
“She’s around somewhere,” Miranda said. “She uploaded a teaser for the next episode of her podcast. A bonus episode, she says. It’s supposed to drop sometime tomorrow.”
“It ought to be a doozy,” Eric muttered. He sat on my other side and put his feet up on Jeanie’s coffee table.
“Anyway,” Jeanie said. “I put up a fight. Surprise witness, and all. But Dr. Wall did all right. Quick was so worked up about this jailhouse witness he didn’t fight me on some stuff he probably should have with the doctor. I got all of Katy’s medical records in. Her history of insomnia. Her toxicology. Wall wasable to render his opinion that Katy could have plausibly been under the influence at the time of Tom’s murder.”
“Did he say she could have plausibly slept through everything?” I asked. That was the key.
“Oh, he said it all right. I’m just not sure how much it stuck. Quick got off all the usual hits. It helped that Wall actually treated her. It didn’t help that he never wrote her a prescription for the zolpidem that was in her system. But Quick tripped him up a little. Landed the very good point that Wall’s theory is just that. A theory. Her meds and alcohol could have kept her unconscious through a ruckus like that. And considering there were no signs of a struggle, I think the jury believes that Tom’s death was bloody, but not a battle.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Jeanie, that’s really good.”
“I’m not done,” she said. “The problem is, Quick also got the doctor to admit thatifshe was that sauced from the drugs, it’s also possible she could have done things she didn’t remember or that her inhibitions were compromised.”
“How bad?” I asked.
“Bad. Wall likes to hear himself talk. And he likes being the expert.”
“Damn,” I said. I’d gone over his testimony with him. He came off as arrogant, but authoritative.
“He went off on a tangent during cross that I couldn’t rein in. Quick got him talking about all kinds of anecdotal evidence of weird things people do on zolpidem. Especially if she took too much of it or hadn’t ever taken it before. The strength Tom had of it in his medicine cabinet was higher than Wall said he would have prescribed Katy. Then, with the alcohol. He tried to drawsome parallels with that one comedian in that murder-suicide in the early aughts.”
“Castor let him?” I asked.
“Gave him leeway, yep. I coulda reached across the bench and smacked him.”
“That doesn’t do much to help Quick’s case for first degree,” Miranda said. “If he’s now teeing it up that Katy might not have known what she’s doing? How does that help the prosecution?”
“That’s why I couldn’t get Wall to shut up. He thought he was helping.”
“How bad is it, do you think?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Cass. I should have done a better job keeping the genie in the bottle.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “It would have happened to me too. Quick had a good strategy and executed it well.”
“Well, if the jury is confused, that’s to Katy’s benefit,” Miranda said. “Reasonable doubt, remember?”
“I’ve only got the station manager lined up,” Jeanie said. “I’m not so sure it’ll be enough. Please tell me you got something usable with Maisy Carmichael.”
“About that,” I said. Miranda on cue handed Maisy’s photos to Jeanie. She had the same reaction: a wide-eyed stare.
“What the devil are these?” she asked.
I let Eric do the talking. Jeanie was speechless. Miranda punctuated Eric’s retelling with about three “I’ll be damneds.”
“So let me get this straight,” Jeanie said. “Tom Loomis has a lucrative, upward trajectory gig at a station in a major market. Only he can’t keep it in his pants around a young intern. How old was she at the time, six years ago?”
“Twenty-one, twenty-two,” I said.
