Please READ THIS: This chapter is set one month since Lawrence's body was uncovered. That's one month since Chapter One.
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One Month Later.
Wednesday 5th.
The screeching of a chair grinding against the grey pinewood flooring congested the room, the elephant in the court. The silence made her blood as cold as the crisp temperature that crept through the air conditioning. Her footsteps resonated the stillness of the room, and for the life of her, she wished for a rapid end to the aching in her bones, the twinge beneath her skin.
She was nervous. Wearing her confidence like a mask, but beneath it, was the hyperventilation of a scared child.
"Can you state your full name for the court, as well as your occupation?" There was a cough, loud, startling, the witness shifted in her seat, soil hair rustling and darker eyes trailing the council towering on a pair of Aquazzura heels. She leaned further, towards the microphone clipped onto the witness stand. And as Christina listened, she could feel and hear her pulse pounding in her veins.
What then was silence if you couldn't hear your own pulse?
Christina Gresham felt like a graduate student, fresh out of law school, confused and flustered.
"Fiona North. Medical Examiner for 34th Precinct, Broadway." Christina nodded. She had prepared for her witnesses, she'd prepared her questions, an even still, she was captive to her trepidations; whether or not Terrence would be sentenced to the death penalty or released from detention.
For a moment, a splinter of a second, Christina allowed her eyes flutter shut, her questions swarming her head like flies. In that moment, she thought of Terrence after his release from a detention. She would sue. Sue the state police department for wrongful arrest, he will be compensated, and they will move, to Brooklyn. Her eyes snapped open and she was her father's attorney once more.
"And how long have you been a medical examiner?" Sandra Parker who'd been seated meek as an all seeing mouse rose an arched eyebrow. Christina flustered. She was scattered, her game plan, nothing but jumbled notes caught in the web of her all consuming thoughts. She didn't make it known, but carried on in the wake of panic as if indeed all was well and good.
"Thirteen years." Answered Fiona. Christina scratched at the tuft of hair that had begun to resurface. She knew her hair was coming back. She'd tried and failed to conceal her excitement to a grinning Grace Gresham who'd shown up at her door, hands weighed down by to-go bags, her tummy bulging against her green floral wrap dress. She couldn't deny, seeing it, though just little strands had replenished her river of hope that had long run dry.
She was going to survive cancer.
"And how many homicide cases have you been a participant in?" The clarity in her own voice, was unforeseen. Her pace was slow, she'd returned to her desk, but she didn't sit. With hands manicured to pristine perfection, Christina Gresham clutched from her table a folder. She returned to the witness stand.
"Umm... More than twenty, less than fifty." She sounded unsure. That was always good. She could discredit her. Her lips twitched at the thought, almost as if she were going to smile, but it never reflected over her stoic features.
"And you've had to ascertain the cause of death in all of them?" She flipped through the pages of the report, one by one, page by page, ensuring the facts were as accurate as her line of argument.
"Many of them, yes." Christina nodded.
"Were you able to ascertain the cause of death in Lawrence Harrington's case?" The woman with soil hair nibbled at her blush lips, pulling them between her teeth and biting down on them. She was deliberating her response. If she had nothing to hide, why was she hesitant.
"Yes, there was a nervous-system shutdown, asphyxiation. He was most likely strangled to death." Christina frowned, gazing up from the report in her hand, she couldn't help the excitement that bubbled like champaign in her stomach.
"You don't sound so sure?"
"He was strangled to death." Fiona confirmed.
"I'd like to lay the foundation for this evidence." Christina Gresham glimpsed at Sandra Parker who'd had her eyes streaking across the clustered room. Guests and spectators had multiplied since the first hearing. "Is this the facto-logy report that you compiled Miss. North?" Christina placed it on the witness stand. Fiona North nodded seemingly uncomfortable on the stand.
"Yes council."
"In compiling this, you are assuring the court that you examined the victim?" Leaning, Christina flipped the pages.
"Yes."
"This reports your findings is that correct?" Christina straightened.
"Yes."
"I would like to enter this into evidence your honor." Christina shut the booklet, It was back in her fingers once again. And with heavy feet, she'd lugged it onto Justice Parker's table.
"Objection?" Sandra Parker opened to the prosecutors. There was none. Christina had found this all the more unsettling since her co-council Harper Berkley had been known for pointing out preliminary objections, even when they were undue, it was a tactic to destabilize new attorneys. When Sandra recognized that the prosecutors were satisfied with Christina Gresham's tendering of the facto-logy report into evidence, she entered it.
"Miss North, confirming that the victim was strangled to death means there would have been a sign of a struggle; DNA underneath the victims fingernails, hairs on the body of the victim?"
"Objection, speculation!" Blared the D.A. who'd seemed at sea with her thoughts.
"Overruled." Sandra's voice pierced.
"But was there DNA found on the victim?" Christina asked instead.
"Yes."
"I would like you to confirm to this court if it belonged to the defendant Terrence Gresham?" There was a pause. "I would like to remind you that you have taken a vow to tell the truth and nothing but the truth." Christina had her fingers crossed, Fiona's response could either make or shatter her line of argument. One thing was certain, if she confessed Barron would know he'd been lied to by the M.E. and if she didn't Terrence would be that much closer to the electric chair.
"No. The DNA didn't belong to Terrence Gresham."
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To New York's Attorney | Completed
Mystery / Thriller"Was his DNA on the weapon?" Silence. "It's his gun right? He'd pulled the trigger right? Was Terrence Gresham's DNA on the weapon?" He ran a hand through his chestnut hair. "Maybe you're right, maybe we shouldn't think about Monday, but remember o...
