AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I guess Larry got tired of getting beat-up because that’s when he killed Pete.”
The defense objected to her saying that, since she had no direct knowledge of the murder. The judge agreed, but the defense didn’t want to let it go. When he began his cross, the defense attorney asked:
“You were not present when Pete Michaels was killed, were you?”
“No.”
“So you have no idea who killed him.”
“Pete beat Larry up a few times. Larry was there when Pete died. I don’t think that’s hard to—”
“That’s guessing.”
“It doesn’t seem—”
“A fact is something you know to be true. Do you know that Larry killed Pete?”
“No, I don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know why Pete was killed.”
“Well, yeah—I mean, I guess—okay, I don’t know.”
“Are you popular Anne?”
“Popular enough.”
“So if I brought your classmates in and asked them if you were popular, they’d say you were?”
“Can he do that?”
She must have looked at the judge and asked that question because he answered.
“Yes, he can do that. Though, I’d like to know why he’d do something like that.”
“Anne, let’s try again. Are you popular?”
“Not really.”
“Was Pete popular?”
“Yeah. Everyone liked Pete.”
“So how did a popular boy like Pete and an unpopular girl like you get together?”
“That’s why Pete was special. Things like being popular didn’t matter to him.”
This is where I would have expected him to ask if she was making the whole thing up. But for some reason—possibly Larry himself—he stopped there. He didn’t ask the question.
I skipped forward. When the prosecution finished, Larry’s attorney asked the court to dismiss the case based on lack of evidence. The judge agreed to consider the motion and adjourned for the day. That must have been suspenseful at the time. It wasn’t for me. There was almost an entire ream of paper continuing the trial. Plus, I’d seen Larry in prison.
Basically, as nearly as I could tell, if you believed Andy Showalter and Anne Whittemore then there was plenty of evidence. If you didn’t, well, then there was almost none. Of course, Larry’s presence at the crime scene was persuasive. There was no one providing an explanation for that, and I was fairly certain Larry never took the stand.
At that point, I scanned back to the beginning of the prosecution’s case. The DA put the lead homicide detective on the stand. A man named Harper.
“When you arrived at the scene you found Larry Wilkes there.”
“Yes.”
