For a long moment, and against all reason, since he was basically correct, Washburn lived with the agonizing possibility that Tollson was going to dismiss his witness and call an end to his entire line of questioning.
He also had time to reflect that Mills's objection made little sense. In theory, by granting this hearing without the presence of a jury, Tollson had provided her with a bonus-she'd get to see all of his evidence before he could present it at trial. She should want to hear everybody he brought in so she'd, in effect, have two chances to take them apart-now and when the jury had been impaneled.
But then, he realized, she was probably running mostly on nerves and adrenaline herself. And the fact remained that if Tollson did side with her and preclude Onofrio from testifying, the same objection and rationale might get some traction regarding calling his following witnesses as well, and that would truly be problematic.
Tollson ended the suspense. "Ms. Whelan-Miille," he said, "this is a hearing. That means we get to hear what people have to say before we get to trial. Mr. Washburn is right. This witness's proposed testimony is foundational to the question of trauma. The objection is overruled. Mr. Washburn, you may proceed."
Trying to hide his sigh of relief from the Court, Washburn leaned his head forward, the merest hint of a bow. "Thank you, Your Honor." He turned to the witness. "Now, Mr. Onofrio, can you please tell the Court about your relation to Mr. Scholler?"
"Until he was wounded, he was my squadron leader in Iraq in the summer of two thousand three."
Over the next few minutes, Washburn walked Onofrio through the makeup of the squadron and its general duties as a military convoy unit, then came back to the main thrust. "Mr. Onofrio, you've said that Mr. Scholler was your squadron leader until he was wounded. Would you please tell us how that came about?"
"Sure. We were escorting Ron Nolan to a meeting with-"
"Excuse me," Washburn said. "You were escorting the same Ron Nolan who is the victim in this case?"
"Yes."
"He was with you in Iraq, was he?"
"He came and he went, but basically, yes. He was working for Allstrong Security, which was handling the Baghdad Airport and doing other work over there. It was one of our regular jobs driving him where he needed to go."
"All right, so he was with your convoy on the day the Mr. Scholler was hit?"
"Yes, he was." Onofrio sat back in the witness chair and basically told it as he remembered it. The tension on the city's streets, Nolan firing on the purported suicide car, the discovery of what it had really been and who had been in it, the rock-throwing and then the sustained attack from the surrounding buildings and rooftops. "Just after it all started, though, the actual rifle firing and the first RPG, we had a chance where maybe we could have gotten out, but the lieutenant wouldn't give the order to pull out until we'd gotten the men who'd already been hit into one of our vehicles."
"He wasn't going to leave anyone behind?" This was important information, carefully rehearsed. Washburn wanted it to be clear in the jury's mind, when it came to it, that Evan was in grave danger, in the thick of it, and had acted nobly.
"No, sir. So he ran up to the lead car, which was still smoking, and tried to get out the guys who'd been hit."
"He did this while you were under heavy fire?"
"Yes, sir. But then the second car took a hit and a couple of the other guys went down, so it was obvious there wasn't going to be any chance for any of us to get out if we didn't move pretty quick. So Nolan kept firing through the roof and had me drive up to where Evan was pinned down. He still wanted to try to carry some of the guys out if he could get to them, but an RPG went off somewhere behind us and next time I looked over, he was down."
"What had happened?"
"He was hit by shrapnel, or something. In the head. There was blood everywhere. I thought he was dead. I thought we were all dead."
"All right, thank you, Mr. Onofrio. I'm glad you made it home alive." He half turned back to Mills. "Your witness."
MILLS SAW THIS as a no-win cross-examination and almost passed the witness, but decided she had nothing really to lose if she just took the judge's advice and heard what the man would say. No jury was listening now, and maybe she'd strike some promising vein that she could mine when she had him again during the trial. If Washburn was going to call up what she considered these largely irrelevant witnesses, she might as well take the opportunity to go fishing with them.
"Mr. Onofrio," she began. "First let me say that I, too, and all of us in the courtroom, are grateful that you made it home alive. Thank you for your service to our country."
Shrugging, embarrassed, Onofrio mumbled, "You're welcome."
"One of the things I was struck with in your testimony was the fact that you were not sent over to do convoy work. Did I get that right?"
