The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross 25)

Wills crossed to a blown-up diagram of the factory floor and pointed at the far left end of the rectangle. “Watkins was here before he ran?”

“Yes, in front of that alcove.”

“What happened then?”

For the first time, Binx looked over at me. “Cross went crazy.”

“Objection!” Anita cried.

“Overruled,” Judge Larch said. “Continue.”

Binx testified that Virginia Winslow stepped out of the shadows of an alcove in the middle of the far long side of the factory room and that I then shot Soneji’s widow without provocation.

“Was Mrs. Winslow armed?” Wills asked.

“No way,” Binx said. “She hated guns.”

“Tell us why she was part of this performance in the first place.”

“Virginia told me that she couldn’t get away from Soneji’s legacy, so she’d decided to try to make art out of it, a bitter commentary, you know?”

“And Dr. Cross shot her?”

“Right in the chest. I couldn’t believe it. I started screaming, but he didn’t care. He just kept shooting, Claude, and then Lenny Diggs.”

“All of them unarmed?”

“Yes. And after he shot Lenny, he was swinging his pistol around and yelling for more.”

“What exactly was Dr. Cross yelling?”

“Like ‘Who’s next? C’mon, you bastards! I’ll kill every single Soneji before I’m done.’”

Wills looked at the jury. “‘I’ll kill every single Soneji before I’m done.’”

Juror five was shaking his head. Juror eleven was shaking hers.

Wills rubbed his hands together as if he were washing them and said, “Thank you, Ms. Binx, that must have been difficult. Your witness, Ms. Marley.”

CHAPTER

54

ANITA HAD BEEN scribbling notes on her legal pad. She looked up and said, “Your Honor, the defense asks the Court’s leave to delay our cross-examination of Ms. Binx pending an ongoing line of inquiry we are following.”

“An ongoing line of inquiry?” Wills asked.

“Right,” Anita said.

Judge Larch didn’t like that. “How much of a delay are you asking for?”

“I would think tomorrow afternoon would work, Your Honor.”

Larch got a sour look on her face, but then seemed to think of something that brightened her mood. She said, “Ms. Binx, you are excused for the day. Ten minutes’ recess before Mr. Wills calls his next witness.”

The judge banged her gavel, got up fast, and hurried for the door, no doubt dreaming of that first puff.

Larch came back in a much better mood exactly ten minutes later. She returned to the bench, popped a mint, and said, “Mr. Wills?”