Sons of Fortune

“I’m not sure I have a particular one,” she replied, “but my favorite author is Hemingway.”

“Mine too,” said Fletcher, taking the stopwatch out of his pocket. Turning to face the judge, he asked, “Your honor, may I have your permission to briefly leave the courtroom?”

“For what purpose, Mr. Davenport?”

“To prove that my client did not fire the first shot.”

The judge nodded. “Briefly, Mr. Davenp

ort.”

Fletcher then pressed the starter button, placed the stopwatch in his pocket, walked down the aisle through the packed courtroom, and out of the door. “Your honor,” said Ebden, jumping up from his place, “I must object. Mr. Davenport is turning this trial into a circus.”

“If that turns out to be the case, Mr. Ebden, I shall severely censure Mr. Davenport the moment he returns.”

“But, your honor, is this kind of behavior fair to my client?”

“I believe so, Mr. Ebden. As Mr. Davenport reminded the court, his client faces the death penalty solely on the evidence of your principal witness.”

The chief prosecutor sat back down, and began to consult his team, while chattering broke out on the public benches behind him. The judge started tapping his fingers, occasionally glancing at the clock on the wall above the public entrance.

Richard Ebden rose again, at which point the judge called for order. “You honor, I move that Mrs. Elliot be released from further questioning on the grounds that the defense counsel is no longer able to carry out his cross-examination as he has left the courtroom without explanation.”

“I shall approve your request, Mr. Ebden,” the state’s attorney looked delighted, “should Mr. Davenport fail to return in under four minutes.” He smiled down at Mr. Ebden, assuming they had both worked out the significance of his judgment.

“Your honor, I must…” continued the state’s attorney, but he was interrupted by the court doors being flung open and Fletcher marching back down the aisle and up to the witness stand. He handed a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls to Mrs. Elliot, before turning to the judge.

“Your honor, would the court judicially note the length of time I was absent?” he said, handing over the stopwatch to the judge.

Judge Kravats pressed the stopper and, looking down at the stopwatch, said, “Three minutes and forty-nine seconds.”

Fletcher turned his attention back to the defense witness. “Mrs. Elliot, I had enough time to leave the courthouse, walk to the public library on the other side of the street, locate the Hemingway shelf, check out a book with my library card, and still be back in the courtroom with eleven seconds to spare. But you didn’t have enough time to walk across your bedroom, dial 911 and ask for assistance when you believed your husband might have been in mortal danger. And the reason you didn’t is because you knew your husband had fired the first shot, and you were fearful of what he might have done.”

“But even if I did think that,” said Rebecca, losing her composure, “it’s only the second bullet that matters, the one that killed Ralph. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that the first bullet ended up in the ceiling, or are you now suggesting that my husband killed himself?”

“No, I am not,” said Fletcher, “so why don’t you now tell the court exactly what you did when you heard the second shot.”

“I went to the top of the stairs and saw Mr. Cartwright running out of the house.”

“But he didn’t see you?”

“No, he only glanced back in my direction.”

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Elliot. I think you saw him very clearly when he calmly walked past you in the corridor.”

“He couldn’t have walked past me in the corridor because I was at the top of the stairs.”

“I agree that he couldn’t have seen you if you had been at the top of the stairs,” said Fletcher as he returned to the table and selected a photograph, before walking back across to the witness stand. He passed the photograph over to her. “As you will see from this picture, Mrs. Elliot, anyone who left your husband’s study, walked into the corridor and then out of the front door could not have been observed from the top of the stairs.” He paused so that the jury could take in the significance of his statement, before continuing, “No, the truth is, Mrs. Elliot, that you were not standing at the top of the stairs, but in the hallway when Mr. Cartwright came out of your husband’s study, and if you would like me to ask the judge to adjourn so that the jury can visit your home and check on the veracity of your statement, I would be quite happy to do so.”

“Well, I might have been halfway down the stairs.”

“You weren’t even on the stairs, Mrs. Elliot, you were in the hallway, and you were not, as you also claimed, in your robe, but in a blue dress that you had worn to a cocktail party earlier that evening, which is why you didn’t see the television debate!”

“I was in a robe and there’s a picture of me to prove it.”

“Indeed there is,” said Fletcher, once again returning to the table and extracting another photograph, “which I am happy to enter as evidence—item 122, your honor.”

The judge, prosecution team and the jury began to rummage through their files as Fletcher handed over his copy to Mrs. Elliot.