Page 108

WITH SONNY BLUM OUT of play, I call Steve Salzman, the learned young crime scene evidence technician, back to the stand, first thing the next morning.

“I have only a few more questions, Mr. Salzman,” I say in opening. “And I apologize in advance, because these are questions I should have asked when you first testified.”

This is a lie, of course. But I’m not the one under oath.

These are questions I’ve been saving.

“Still happy to be of assistance,” he says.

“I’m sure you are,” I say. “Now, if you don’t mind, could you once again take us through where you found the DNA evidence, hair and skin and whatnot, that allegedly belongs to my client.”

“Ob jection !” Katherine Welsh says, cutting me off right there.

“Counsel is completely aware that there is no such thing as alleged DNA. We’ve gone over this.

That the trace evidence found at the murder scene comes from the defendant wasn’t in dispute the first time Mr. Salzman testified, isn’t in dispute today, will never be in dispute. ”

“Sustained,” Judge Horton says.

“With all due respect, Your Honor,” I say. “Aren’t we really splitting hairs here?”

I turn long enough to give Katherine Welsh a quick wink. “Hair,” I say. “See what I did there?”

Horton pounds his gavel.

“Ms. Smith,” he says. “For the last time, let’s dispense with what you obviously think are humorous asides.”

“Sorry, Your Honor.” I turn back to Salzman. “We were discussing DNA,” I say.

He takes us all through it again, what he found in the front hall, in Lily Carson’s bedroom, in Morgan’s.

“Anywhere else besides those three areas?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

“So if I understand what you’re telling us, Mr. Salzman,” I continue, “you only recovered my client’s DNA near where the bodies were found?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Did you swab all the other surfaces of the Carson home?”

He hesitates.

Because he now knows what I’ve known all along about his work from that night.

“No,” he says finally.

“Mr. Salzman,” I continue, “how many murder scenes have you been present for in your career as a crime scene tech, whether as troubling or grotesque as this one or not?”

Salzman hesitates again, shifts slightly in his chair, gives a quick roll to his neck.

“This was my first,” he says. “Of any kind.”

“And by the time you did arrive there, as part of the second wave of respondents, that house must have been crawling with cops,” I say.

“It was.”

“Did they tell you to sweep all the other rooms in the house?”

“There was so much going on.”

“I’m sure there was,” I say, almost as if trying to be helpful.

Salzman swallows. I see a light sheen of sweat forming over his bald head.

“They told me to focus on the bodies,” he says. He pauses, and looks over to Katherine Welsh, as if looking to her for help. But none is forthcoming. Her witness is on his own. “There was so much blood,” he says in a small voice.

“Totally understand,” I say. “I’m a former cop, and have seen bad things, too.

But just for the sake of this conversation, about this particular crime scene, let me ask you this: If you were looking to manipulate a murder scene, wouldn’t you sprinkle DNA, almost like pixie dust, only in the immediate vicinity of the bodies? ”

“Objection,” Welsh says. “Ms. Smith once again leading a witness into a familiar fever dream.”

“Overruled,” Horton says, surprising both Katherine Welsh and me. “I’ll allow it.”

“I mean,” Steve Salzman says, “I guess it’s possible, if you look at it that way.”

“And the best kind of DNA evidence, as I understand it, is the kind that shows hardly any indication of deterioration, which you’ve already testified yours didn’t,” I say, trying to sound smarter about science than I really am. “I mean, as opposed to more organic material.”

“Again,” Salzman says, almost reluctantly, “if that’s your hypothesis, I guess so, yes.”

“You guess ?” I say. “Mr. Salzman, that’s exactly how Cooper framed Bruce Willis in Red !”

The sound of Judge Horton’s gavel and Katherine Welsh’s objection fill the courtroom at almost the exact same moment.

“The next time I am forced to warn you about asides like that, Ms. Smith,” Horton says, “I will hold you in contempt.”

I nod, walk back toward Salzman one last time, as if Horton has just sent me to my room.

“So you didn’t sweep all the rooms of the house, and you only found evidence near the bodies,” I say.

“No,” he says. “Or maybe I should say yes.”

“No further questions for this witness,” I say.

Katherine Welsh is already out of her chair and walking toward the guy who’d been her witness and turned out to be mine instead, looking to clean up the mess this tech just made, because sometimes that’s all you can do, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on.

As I pass her, I whisper, “That guy did frame Bruce. Big time. ”