Page 79 of The Right to Remain

Jack pushed through the revolving entrance door, speaking into his phone. “I’m confused. We switched to a smaller courtroom because the next witness is a child. Is Austen Pollard not testifying?”

“Main courtroom,” she said again, and the call ended.

Jack got through security as quickly as he could and made his way to the main courtroom, where his client was waiting for him. The prosecutors were seated at their table. Weller looked even more uptight than usual, tapping the eraser end of her pencil on the mahogany tabletop. Before Jack could ask her what was going on, the bailiff called out the familiar command, the murmuring in the public gallery immediately stopped, and everyone was standing as Judge Garrison entered through the side door.

“Please be seated,” he said as he took his place on the bench. His gaze immediately fixed on the prosecutor. “Ms. Weller, what’s the status on your next witness?”

“Your Honor, as I explained to your assistant on the telephone, it appears that Austen Pollard has not yet arrived at the courthouse.”

The judge scowled. “Whose fault is that? Other thanyours, Ms. Weller?”

“I take full responsibility,” she said. “I didn’t want to subpoena a child, and I took his mother’s word that she would have her son here on time. That was my mistake.”

“We are not going to sit and do nothing until they get here,” the judge said. “Call another witness, if you have one, or rest your case.”

“Yes, Judge. The State of Florida calls Ms. Swathi Gupta, deputy director of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

The witness entered the courtroom, swore the oath, and took her seat. Gupta earned her bachelor’s degree from MIT and worked with FDLE’s forensic division for sixteen years, but a hint of an Indian accent recalled her childhood upbringing in Mumbai.

“Deputy Gupta, did the FDLE conduct a ballistics examination in this matter?”

“Yes,” said Gupta, who then described the chain custody of the specimen, starting with the veterinarian’s examination of the Pollards’ pet and ending with the final transfer of the “foreign object” from the MDPD homicide division to the FDLE ballistics team.

The prosecutor retrieved a clear plastic evidence bag, showed it to Jack, and then allowed the witness to inspect it.

“Deputy Gupta, is this the specimen that FDLE was asked to examine?”

“Yes. The evidence bag contains our usual markings. There is a vial inside, which came from Dr. Swan’s office. The object he removed from the dog’s fur is inside the vial.”

“Was FDLE able to identify the object?”

“Yes. We determined that it was a bullet that had been fired from a twenty-two-caliber handgun.”

“Were you asked to do any other analysis relating to the bullet?”

“Yes. The veterinary report stated that the bullet did not break the dog’s skin. Therefore, we were asked to conduct a series of test shootings to determine how a twenty-two-caliber bullet fired from a handgun could impact a sheepdog without penetrating the skin.”

“Good grief,” said the judge. “I hope you didn’t shoot any sheepdogs.”

“No, Your Honor. These were laboratory ballistic experiments with nonbiological targets that we designed to mimic the double coat of fur that protects a sheepdog’s skin. We then conducted two different tests.”

“What was the first test?” asked Weller.

“Distance. The question was this: Assuming a direct hit on the target, at what distance would the bullet lose the kinetic energy it needed to penetrate the double coat?”

“What did you conclude?”

“Assuming no other factors such as weather affecting velocity, the shooter would have to be more than two hundred yards away to get beyond the effective range.”

“So, if the shooter was standing more than two football fields away and fired a twenty-two-caliber handgun at a sheepdog, the dog’s thick double coat would probably prevent the bullet from penetrating the skin.”

“Correct. Assuming you could even hit the dog. Accuracy goes way down at that distance, especially with a handgun.”

“All right. What was the second test?”

“Ricochet. The assumption here is that there was an indirect hit after the bullet ricocheted off a foreign surface and then got trapped in the sheepdog’s double coat without breaking the skin.”

“What did your test show?”