Page 98 of Fifty-Fifty

‘Detective, the statements made by the defendants at the scene are not significant at all, are they?’

‘They are. Alexandra and Sofia didn’t ask if their father was alive because they both knew he was already dead, because they had made damn sure he was dead.’

‘There’s another reason neither of the defendants asked if their father was alive, isn’t there?’

‘Not one that I can see. In all my years as a homicide detective, it has never occurred before.’

‘Earlier, you confirmed that before the defendants were questioned at the scene, they had been read their rights, remember?’

‘I remember. I’m certain. They had been read their rights.’

‘Suspects are only read their rights after they are arrested, yes?’

‘Correct,’ said Soames, who was tiring of this.

I took a page from the prosecution disclosure and handed it to the clerk.

‘Look at this document, please. This is the arrest record. Arresting officer was patrolman Jacobs?’

‘Correct,’ said Soames.

‘And both defendants were arrested on a single charge?’

‘Yes,’ said Soames, wary now of where this might lead.

Time to take him out.

‘According to the record, patrolman Jacobs arrested both defendants for murder. Might that be where they got the idea that their father was dead?’

Soames swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat.

‘You can’t be arrested for murder unless there’s a dead body, right?’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

‘Detective, there is precious little evidence against these defendants. You and the prosecutor are clutching at thin straws trying to make a case, isn’t that what’s really happening here?’

Soames cleared his throat, took a sip of water, leaned toward the mic and said, ‘No, sir.’

Soames had taken the hair from deep in the wound on Frank Avellino’s chest.

The hair-fiber expert and Detective Tyler would have more to say about it, but I just needed to cover my bases with Soames.

‘You testified that you removed a strand of hair from a wound in the victim’s chest, detective. You are not a hair-fiber analysis expert, are you?’

‘No sir, we have Professor Shandler for that.’

‘Good. Nothing further.’

Dreyer didn’t try and repair any of the damage, not that there was much he could have done. It did look to me like the DA was scrabbling for any scrap of

evidence that tended to show guilt – anything that could be spun in the prosecution’s favor was going to be thrown at us along with the kitchen sink.

‘The People call Detective Isiah Tyler,’ said Dreyer.

Soames left the witness stand and exchanged nothing more than a look with Tyler. It was a warning. Be careful. Tyler was much younger than Soames, and

more hot-headed. More easily led into an ambush by a clever lawyer.