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“Well, he laughed. We all kind of laughed. It sounded like a joke.”
“My question was: Did Mr. Nichols say anything?”
“Yeah. After he stopped laughing, he looked over at me. The joke was over, and he looked kind of serious.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He said, ‘Yeah. We should try that.’”
The prosecutor paused to let the words have their intended effect. Then he looked up to the judge and said, “I have no further questions.”
The judge looked toward Jack. “Mr. Swyteck? Cross-examination?”
The testimony fell far short of proving that Imani and Shaky were on a bloodthirsty campaign to rid the world of music pirates. But it did show that they’d heard of a pirate’s dreadful punishment prior to the murder of Tyler McCormick, and that they would have fully understood the significance of the manner in which the victim’s body was put on display.
Jack had to prove the witness was lying.
“Mr. Paxton, you didn’t tell yourPirates of the Caribbeanstory when I deposed you at Florida State Prison. Did you?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t tell this story two days ago, the first time you testified for the prosecution. Did you?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
“But now you do think it’s important, is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“Because the prosecutor told you it’s important,” said Jack, his tone more aggressive. “Right?”
“Objection,” said the prosecutor.
“Overruled. The witness can testify as to what the prosecution told him.”
“Let me ask it this way,” said Jack. “After you testified the other day, you went out that side door, got in the elevator, and went straight down to the stockade. Am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“And while you were sitting down there in a jail cell, you didn’t have an ‘Oh my God’ moment when it suddenly occurred to you that, ‘Holy cow, I forgot to tell Mr. Owens about the pirate conversation.’ That didn’t happen, did it, Mr. Paxton?”
“No.”
“No,” said Jack. “What happened is that Mr. Owens came to see you and said, ‘I need you back on the stand.’ Right?”
“He came, right.”
“It was Mr. Owens, notyou, who first brought up the subject of piracy. Correct?”
“He was the one asking the questions.”
“He did more than ask questions,” said Jack, his voice a little louder. “Hetoldyou that piracy was suddenly an important issue in the case, right?”
“Objection,” said Owens. “Mr. Swyteck is putting words in my mouth.”
“Overruled,” said the judge. “This is cross-examination. The witness can tell us what the prosecutor said to him.”
“He brought up piracy,” said Paxton.
