“I’m sorry, Your Honor. I don’t have any other questions. This witness has completely satisfied my curiosity.”
“Ms. Castellano. Redirect?”
Yuki stood and addressed the witness from her table.
“Lieutenant Meserve, when did you learn the full name of the man who tried to hire you to kill his wife and daughter?”
“On March first of last year, when Jennifer Herman’s dismembered body was discovered.”
“The man who contacted you about two weeks earlier, on February twentieth, and ordered a hit on his wife and child: Is he sitting in this courtroom?”
“Yes.”
“Will you point him out?”
Keith Herman showed no emotion as Meserve pointed a finger at him as if it were a loaded gun.
“The defendant. That’s him. I’m positive.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. You may step down.”
Chapter 33
AFTER THE UNDERCOVER cop stood down, Yuki introduced Lesley Rohan, a strikingly attractive and wealthy friend of Jennifer Herman’s, who told the court that Jennifer had been afraid of her husband.
“Jennifer was sitting at my dining table, shaking her head and crying. She told me that if anything happened to her, I should call the police and tell them that Keith did it,” said Rohan. “Jennifer’s arms were bruised and she had a black eye. I suspected for a long time that Keith was abusing both Jennifer and Lily.”
“Objection,” said Kinsela. “Speculation, Your Honor.”
The judge said to the court reporter, “Ms. Gray, please strike the witness’s last sentence. Thank you. Just tell what you know, Ms. Rohan. Not what you think.”
“I’m sorry, Judge Nussbaum.”
“Please go on, Ms. Castellano.”
Yuki said, “Ms. Rohan, did Jennifer ask you to do some-thing for her?”
“Yes. She asked me to take pictures of her and keep them safe.”
“Your Honor, I’d like to introduce these photos of Jennifer Herman, dated February fourth of last year.”
After the pictures were entered into evidence and Yuki was sitting at the prosecution table, Kinsela addressed Ms. Rohan.
“Do you know for a fact that those bruises were put there by Keith Herman?”
“Jennifer told me he did it.”
“But do you know that Mr. Herman inflicted those bruises on Jennifer? You didn’t see him do it, did you?”
The witness squinted. She looked like she’d been struck across the face.
“No. But why would Jennifer lie?”
Kinsela said, “We just don’t know. Do we?”
Yuki called Ty Crandall from the sanitation department, who told the jury about finding the bags of human remains and that ever since he found them he n
o longer could sleep through the night. Although he was healthy, he had resigned from the city at half pension.