“You understand the exact legalities here?”
He nodded. “It’s not rocket science. She’s in deep shit, whichever way you cut it. If there was abuse, she’s blown it anyway by being so premeditated. If there wasn’t, then it’s murder one, pure and simple. And whatever, she has zero credibility because she lies and exaggerates. Ballgame over, if Walker didn’t want to be judge so bad.”
“Exactly,” Alice said.
“You happy about riding that kind of luck?”
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
“Not morally, not practically,” Alice said. “Anything could happen here. Maybe Hack’s got a love child somewhere, and it’ll come out and he’ll have to withdraw anyway. Maybe he likes to have sex with armadillos. It’s a long time until November. Counting on him to stay electable no matter what would be foolish. So his tactical problem with Carmen could disappear at any time. So she needs a properly structured defense.”
Reacher smiled again. “You’re even smarter than I figured.”
“I thought you were going to say than I looked. ”
“I think more lawyers should dress that way.”
“You need to stay off the stand,” she said. “Much safer for her. No deposition, either. Without you, the gun is the only thing that suggests premeditation. And we should be able to argue that buying the gun and actually using it weren’t necessarily closely connected. Maybe she bought it for another reason.”
Reacher said nothing.
“They’re testing it now,” she said. “Over at the lab. Ballistics and fingerprints. Two sets of prints, they say. Hers, I guess, maybe his, too. Maybe they struggled over it. Maybe the whole thing was an accident.”
Reacher shook his head. “The second set must be mine. She asked me to teach her how to shoot. We went up on the mesa and practiced.”
“When?”
“Saturday. The day before he got home.”
She stared at him.
“Christ, Reacher,” she said. “You definitely stay off the stand, O.K.?”
“I plan to.”
“What about if things change and they subpoena you?”
“Then I’ll lie, I guess.”
“Can you?”
“I was a cop of sorts for thirteen years. It wouldn’t be a totally radical concept.”
“What would you say about your prints on the gun?”
“I’d say I found it dumped somewhere. Innocently gave it back to her. Make it look like she had reconsidered after buying it.”
“You comfortable with saying stuff like that?”
“If the ends justify the means, I am. And I think they do here. She’s given herself a problem proving it, is all. You?”
She nodded. “A case like this, I guess so. I don’t care about the lies about her background. People do stuff like that, all the time, all kinds of reasons. So all that’s left is the premeditation thing. And most other states, premeditation wouldn’t be an issue. They recognize the reality. A battered woman can’t necessarily be effective on the spur of the moment. Sometimes she needs to wait until he’s drunk, or asleep. You know, bide her time. There are lots of cases like that in other jurisdictions.”
“So where do we start?”
“Where we’re forced to,” Alice said. “Which is a pretty bad place. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Res ipsa loquitur, they call it. The thing speaks for itself. Her bedroom, her gun, her husband lying there dead on the floor. That’s murder one. We leave it like that, they’ll convict her on the first vote.”
“So?”
“So we back-pedal on the premeditation and then we prove the abuse through the medical records. I already started the paperwork. We joined with the DA’s office for a common-cause subpoena. All Texas hospitals, and all neighboring states. Domestic violence, that’s standard procedure, because people sometimes drive all over to hide it. The hospitals generally react pretty fast, so we should get the records overnight. Then it’s res ipsa loquitur again. If the injuries were caused by violence, then the records will at least show they could have been. That’s just common sense. Then she takes the stand and she talks about the abuse. She’ll have to take it on the chin over the bullshit stories about her past. But if we present it right, she could even look quite good. No shame in being an ex-hooker trying to reform. We could build up some sympathy there.”