Page 95 of The Proving Ground

I shouldered past him.

“Let’s go,” I said to Cisco.

We headed toward the courtroom door. I needed to get out of there to rethink and retool, to find some way of salvaging the case after the day’s disastrous ending. I had told Lorna to take Naomi Kitchens down to the attorney conference room. When I got out to the hallway, there were three reporters waiting for me. I pushed by them too.

“I’ve got no comment right now,” I said. “I need to talk to my witness.”

The conference room was crowded. Lorna sat at the table with Kitchens and her daughter. Lily was trying to console her mother, who had tears streaming down her face. McEvoy was standing, apparently to leave the fourth chair at the table for me.

“Okay, look, it’s too crowded in here,” I said abruptly. “Lorna, can you take Lily into the hall? Jack, you go with them. Cisco, you stay in case we need to work on something tonight.”

“I want to stay,” McEvoy said. “Fly on the wall, remember?”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” I said.

Lorna and Lily left the room without protest. I took the seat vacated by Lorna and sat directly across from Naomi. Cisco was to one side. McEvoy started pulling the remaining chair way back from the table, apparently taking the fly-on-the-wall metaphor literally.

“Jack, before you sit, can you go out and see if Lorna has any tissues?” I asked.

McEvoy left the room. I slid my chair in closer to the table that separated me from my witness.

“Okay, Naomi, we need to talk,” I began. “Let’s start with who is Patrick May?”

She didn’t answer at first. McEvoy reentered and handed her a small packet of tissues. She finally spoke as she started to take one out.

“He was my boyfriend,” she said. “I didn’t think anybody knew about us.”

“Was?” I asked. “You’re not together?”

“We broke up last year.”

“Who broke up with whom?”

“I broke it off.”

“Is he still with Tidalwaiv?”

“I think so. Last I knew.”

“Was he upset when you broke things off?”

“At the time, I didn’t think so. He knew it was coming. It was a slow breakup. He was staying with the project and I couldn’t handle that.”

I nodded and looked at Cisco. He nodded back.

“He ratted her out,” he said.

“You need to do a full workup on him,” I said. “If Mason doesn’t call him as a witness, we want to be ready to.”

Cisco asked Kitchens if she knew May’s birthdate. She provided that, an address for him up in San Mateo, and the cell phone number she had used for her last contact with him.

“On it,” Cisco said as he stood up.

He left the room and I refocused on Kitchens.

“Naomi, I have to decide whether to bring you back tomorrow for redirect. Can you think of anything that might help us rehabilitate your testimony?”

“I told the truth. You don’t have to rehabilitate it.”