Page 142 of One of Us Is Guilty

Flynn nodded, and Vanessa rolled up her sleeves and showed her scars to the jury, and the courtroom.

‘What caused those scars?’

‘A red-hot spoon, sometimes a flame, being held on my skin,’ she said.

‘Who did this to you, Mrs. Vanderpool?’ asked Flynn, keeping his voice soft, as if the question was a balloon, floating over the whole courtroom.

‘I refuse to answer, on the grounds that it may incriminate my husband.’

A sound broke the silence that fell over the room. The sound of a woman’s heels marching across a floor.

She saw Voss, walking quickly toward the door of the courtroom, looking over her shoulder at Vanessa, a hard expression on her face.

Vanessa knew then, while she may be saving herself from a life sentence, that life may not last very long.

Not if her plan didn’t work.

‘One last question, Mrs. Vanderpool,’ said Flynn, ‘for the sake of total clarity, did you kill Molly Green?’

Vanessa gave all her focus to the jury, watched their faces, as she spoke.

‘No, I did not.’

She held the jury with her eyes, looking at each one in turn.

Wondering if they realized she had just lied.

60

Eddie

‘No further questions,’ I said.

Vanessa had done well. She had said nothing.

Yet the jury had gotten the picture. Juries are smart. They understand the subtext, the nuance. They were putting together a picture of what they thought had happened in Molly Green’s apartment.

And it didn’t involve Vanessa.

Riley stood tall, in the center of the court, Vanessa straight in front of him, the jury to his right. He had rehearsed this moment in his mind. This interaction. Each question he was going to ask had been carefully weighed and considered.

Until I’d come along and thrown a hand grenade at him.

I knew by his first question he was way off his game.

‘Mrs. Vanderpool, why did you lie to the police when you told them you had never been to the victim’s apartment?’

To most, this might seem like a good question. It’s completely valid, but utterly ruined by one single word –why.

Cross-examination should be tight, leading questions that demanded a single one-word answer.

He should have said,You lied to the police, didn’t you?

No way out of that for Vanessa. The simple answer isyes. And then right away he’s nailed her as a liar.

By asking herwhyshe lied to the police, he gave her way too much room.

Now she was going to tell him why, and he wasn’t going to like it.