The Motive by John Lescroart

Author:John Lescroart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
ISBN: 9781440620768
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2004-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

17

The only witness before the lunch break was John Strout, an ageless and usually uncontroversial figure at every murder trial that Hardy had ever attended in San Francisco. Prosaic as it might seem, usually one of the first orders of business for the prosecution was to establish that a murder had, in fact, taken place. Or, in this case, two murders.

Hardy had studied the forensics and the autopsy until he’d gone cross-eyed trying to find some wedge to cast doubt on the causes of death or, more specifically, to rein-troduce the idea of murder/suicide. It certainly didn’t look good, knowing all the facts as he did; in fact, the possibility was so remote as to be an impossibility. Still, he didn’t see how it could hurt to give the jury a nugget of doubt about that point.

So when Rosen finished his none-too-rigorous direct on what had been the obvious causes of death of the two victims, Hardy stood and walked up to where Dr. Strout sat with consummate ease in the witness box. As some people grow to look like their dogs, Strout the coroner had over time come to resemble a cadaver. Nearly six and a half feet tall, gaunt and sallow, Strout’s many-lined cheeks were covered with a crepe-paper skin that sank into the hollows of his face. A prominent Adam’s apple bobbed with every frequent swallow. But for all that, he somehow managed to retain something of a youthful air—a shock of unruly white hair, pale blue eyes that had seen it all and laughed at a lot of it. When he spoke, a Southern drawl cast much of what he said in a sardonic light. Although here, of course—on the witness stand under oath—he would strive to be nothing but professional.

Hardy had known the man for thirty years and greeted him cordially, then got down to the business at hand. “You’ve testified that both Mr. Hanover and Missy D’Amiens died from gunshot wounds to the head, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.” Strout was sitting back in his seat, arms resting on the arms of his chair, his long legs crossed in the cramped witness box, an ankle on its opposite knee.

In the kindergarten simplicity of the courtroom, Rosen had presented a drawing, mounted on a portable tripod, of the two victims’ heads, showing the entry and exit wounds of the bullets and their trajectories. Hardy went first to the location of the wound on Missy’s head—verifying that it was in the upper back. “Let me ask you then, Doctor, could this wound have been self-inflicted?”

Strout’s initial reaction, covered quickly, was a twinkle in those pale eyes. He knew Hardy well, and the question was so stupid on its face that he almost didn’t know how to respond except with sarcasm. But it stirred him from his complacent lethargy. He uncrossed his legs and pulled himself up straight. “In my opinion”—“In ma ’pinion”—“it would have been well nigh impossible to inflict this wound on herself.”

“Im-possible, you say?”

“That’s right.

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