Deck the Hounds by David Rosenfelt

Author:David Rosenfelt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

There’s a court session this morning that will accomplish absolutely nothing.

It’s to go over some of the pretrial motions submitted by both sides. The only ones that have any chance of being granted are the ones that are of no consequence.

Our key motion consists of trying to get the judge to rule that the hat containing the DNA samples not be admitted as evidence because of chain of custody issues. I have as much chance of winning that one as I have of making the NFL Pro Bowl as an offensive tackle.

The absolute worst part of the day is when it is revealed that the judge assigned to the case is going to be unavailable, and Judge Henry “Hatchet” Henderson will be taking his place. He is not called “Hatchet” because of his calm and affable demeanor.

Hatchet hates lawyers in general, and me in particular. He thinks I’m a wiseass and bring disrespect upon any courtroom I enter, showing that Hatchet may be tough, but he’s not stupid. But I’m not alone in incurring Hatchet’s wrath. His attitude toward lawyers is similar to Michael Corleone’s attitude toward Barzinis and Tattaglias: he will tolerate them and let them live, until he won’t.

The prosecution’s main motion, which will also fail, is to get the judge to forbid us to challenge the DNA evidence. They do this because we declined to conduct a Kelly-Frye hearing, which specifically challenges the science.

I didn’t ask for it because Kelly-Frye hearings always lose, and they lose because the science of DNA works. I hate it because it almost always cuts against the defense, but it works. But it doesn’t mean we won’t challenge it on other grounds, including chain of custody. Just because Hatchet didn’t rule out the hat on those grounds does not mean we can’t challenge it.

Carrigan is with Hike and me the entire time, and it gives me a chance to ask him about the sign-in process at Welcome Home. “Did you always sign in?” I ask.

He nods. “Pretty much. If there was a long line to sign in I might not have, but basically I always did. I figured if they were feeding me for free it was the least I could do to sign in like they wanted.”

I don’t ask him about the night in question because if he didn’t commit the murder, there is no reason he would remember it. It would have just been another day in a life in which specific days didn’t have a hell of a lot of meaning.

At the end of the hearing, the prosecutor, Raymond Tasker, walks over and shakes my hand. “Waste of time, huh?”

“At least you got to meet Hatchet.”

He nods. “I’ve heard stories. Hey, you got a second to chat about something?”

I find that whenever people ask to chat, it means it’s about an issue of some importance. They use “chat” because it conveys that the conversation will be casual and insignificant, which means they want to make you think that and throw you off.

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