As Sebastian sat down, he glanced at the crowded courtroom. Jameel and Miss Luella were in the first row directly behind him. Across the aisle, in the front row behind the prosecution, the city’s police chief and half a dozen of his finest were packed shoulder to shoulder, in full uniform, watching the jurors and frowning gravely. It was a part of their playbook when a cop was involved, and it was nothing but intimidation. Judge Schofield knew it too, but there
The first witness was Melody Lester, Buck’s widow. When he died, they had been married for twenty months and had no children. With Max lobbing up easy questions, she began crying almost immediately as she described what a wonderful person her husband had been. Schofield allowed them to go all the way back to Buck’s high school days, to his glorious athletic career, then the Marines and the wars, his medals and heroics.
Max worked deliberately, trying to build as much sympathy as possible. Sebastian offered nothing on cross-examination. Melody was still in tears when she left the box. Next was Buck’s mother, and another round of crying.
Almost all of this nonsense was irrelevant and inadmissible. Buck’s glorious past had nothing to do with his tragic death. Nevertheless, one or two grieving relatives were always admitted to open a trial and warm up the jury.
During the lunch break, Mancini asked Sebastian to step aside for a word. He whispered, “I don’t like this jury. We’ll offer a deal.”
“I’m listening,” Sebastian said.
“Plea to first degree, we’ll drop the death penalty.”
“Great. So my guy will spend the next forty years in prison.”
“Does he want the death penalty?”
“No, but he’d rather get the needle than forty years.”
“Are you saying no?”
“I can’t do that. I’ll run it by him, but I’m sure he’ll say no.”
Tee Ray said no quickly. They were eating sandwiches at the defense table, along with Will Kendall, and prepping for the afternoon. The courtroom was empty except for two armed deputies lounging in the back row. Their job was to keep an eye on the defendant, but after hauling him back and forth between the jail and the courthouse for days now, they knew they had little to worry about.
The medical examiner, Dr. Glover, took the stand and swore to tell the truth. Sebastian conceded that he was an expert in forensic pathology. Glover had been doing this for years and had a solid reputation. He and Max wasted no time getting to the gore. As Max handed the jurors enlarged color photos of Buck’s head, Glover talked about the autopsy. A single bullet entered through the right eye socket, fatally damaging the brain, lodging there and making no exit. They had a large photo of the bullet and one of Buck on the sidewalk. Buck on the slab. Buck’s cranium cut open. The female jurors turned away. The men couldn’t get enough. It was like watching a car wreck: awful, but compelling.
Glover was a seasoned expert, and Sebastian knew he had little to work with on cross. He asked the doctor if it was possible to determine the angle at which the bullet entered Buck’s right eye socket. The answer was no, because he, Glover, did not know if Buck had been standing, kneeling, falling, sitting, or lying down when he got hit. Nor was there any evidence as to the position of Mr. Cardell when he fired the shot.
Perfect. Sebastian was trying to put to rest the original lie that Buck Lester had been executed as he begged for his life. This had been leaked by the police right after the shooting and became another front-page story. Not even Keith Knoxel, in his fabricated version, had included the bit about Buck on his knees, pleading.
Sebastian asked Dr. Glover if it was possible to determine the distance between the.38-caliber pistol when it fired the fatal shot and the bullet’s point of impact. The answer was no; not without additional facts. Any guess would only be speculation.
Thank you, Dr. Glover.
The first officer on the scene-actually the second after Keith Knoxel-was Nat Rooker. He and his partner had been in their car near the Flea Market when they heard the frantic call from Keith Knoxel. Rooker described the scene for the jury: the body of Buck Lester lying on the sidewalk, the blood, his fading pulse, the defendant also on the ground, bleeding from an arm wound. A large screen was set up in the courtroom, in front of the jury, and Max walked Rooker through every inch of the crime scene.
Interesting but also tedious. Sebastian watched the jurors. They were fascinated at first, but Max and Rooker soon bored them. No detail was too small for the prosecutor to hammer on. Nothing was in dispute here. It had been a gunfight; both men had been hit.
After Buck and the defendant were taken away, Rooker and his partner helped the crime scene technicians scour the area. They found two spent casings from the.38. They found four from Buck’s Beretta.
