The Defense: A Novel by Steve Cavanagh

giving Miriam dirty looks.
    Big score.
    But the judge was not at all impressed. She saw that coming a mile away.
    “Ms. Sullivan, perhaps you could consider rephrasing your last question,” said the judge.
    Miriam was done.
    “Nothing further, Your Honor.”

 
    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    On my feet, behind the defense table with my props ready, tucked underneath the desk like a cheap magician, I suddenly became conscious that I hadn’t prepared, that I could fall flat on my ass at any second. I told myself to take it slow. My eyes closed for a moment. Just enough time to take in a deep breath, and yet I knew I would see her in the dark. Hanna Tublowski. I saw her most nights before I fell asleep. That same image woke me every morning. I’d tried to wash away that vision with bourbon and cold beer. I knew when I first saw her that my heart would forever bear a scar, and I hadn’t practiced law since. The path of my life seemed to be broken in two, a life seen in terms of what happened before I took on the Berkley case and what happened after.
    When my eyes opened and my head cleared, I looked at Goldstein and I could again see the questions in my mind.
    “Dr. Goldstein,” I heard myself say, “would I be right in saying that if you’re comparing handwriting samples, it’s best practice to compare like for like documents? So, for example, two résumés, two passport applications, two driver’s license applications.”
    “Yes, but that’s not always possible. Not unless your client wrote two different orders to have people killed and I could examine them both,” said Goldstein, looking at me over the rim of his glasses. A nervous round of laughter made its way across the audience. The doc looked rather too pleased with himself and his answer. I needed to take more care.
    “You said that you formed the opinion that the unknown author of the note and the known author of the sample documents, my client, were in fact the same person. And you came to that conclusion based upon your examination of the letter formation and construction?”
    “Yes,” said Goldstein. He’d obviously been told to keep it tight with me, to make his answers short and snappy. The idiot’s guide to surviving cross-examination—don’t say too much and you can’t do too much damage.
    “Isn’t that what graphology does? It’s an interpretation of letter and word formation?”
    “Yes.”
    “So there’s a strong similarity in the analysis?”
    “To a degree.”
    “So there’s a strong similarity in the analysis?” I repeated, very slowly, like talking to a naughty child and making sure he understood the question. He had to give a more definitive answer now or risk looking like a liar or a moron in front of the jury. My method of repeating the question already made him look evasive.
    “Yes. There is a strong similarity in the analysis.”
    Excellent, I thought.
    “The prosecutor tried to ask you about graphology. I think she was trying to ask you if it’s a legitimate system of analysis. So, is it legitimate?”
    “Yes. Of course it is.”
    “Isn’t it true that a graphologist interpreted a blot on John Wayne’s signature to be his unconscious mind telling him that he had lung cancer? That’s correct, isn’t it?”
    I gave the jury an incredulous look, like this was the craziest thing I’d ever heard, but I put my back to the witness so that he couldn’t see my expression. I had, in fact, asked him if a graphologist had made that interpretation about John Wayne, and of course, he would know that to be correct. But because I gave the jury a strong visual aid, the jury heard an answer to a different question.
    “Yes,” he said. He answered correctly, that a graphologist had indeed made this interpretation, but because of my face pulling, the jury heard him say that he agreed with the crazy theory, not the mere fact that the theory existed.
    “So it’s more like fortune-telling?”
    “No. It is a legitimate interpretational