80

LA took the stand looking dapper and decidedly Hollywood. He smiled widely for the ladies on the jury, and just the sight of him lifted my spirits. Witnesses aren’t allowed to hear the other testimony in the case, and so as far as LA knew, everything was still on track.

I walked him through the investigation, and he testified with confidence and precision. I found myself ashamed that I had been doubting his loyalties throughout the case.

LA did a beautiful job putting the pieces of the puzzle together—the links to the Van Wyck case, the dramatically increased levels of drugs in Rikki’s bloodstream starting shortly after Tate’s research of that case, Tate’s financial distress, the life insurance policy, the marital difficulties, Rikki’s conversion to Christianity, and her determination to become something other than Caleb Tate’s trophy wife.

I then asked him if he was aware that Caleb Tate had called Dr. Aaron Gillespie about four months prior to Rikki’s death, informing Gillespie that his wife was addicted to painkillers and asking for Gillespie’s help.

“Yes. We learned that during our investigation.”

“Doesn’t that show that Caleb Tate wasn’t poisoning his wife?” I asked.

LA nodded as if to say, Excellent question. “On the contrary, it sets up the perfect alibi. Think it through,” LA suggested. “If Caleb Tate was secretly slipping a few pills now and then into his wife’s food, she would deny she had an addiction problem if Dr. Gillespie asked her. Or maybe Tate discovered a few painkillers and saw it as his opportunity to call Dr. Gillespie and establish an alibi. That way, when he gave her a massive overdose, he would be able to point to this phone call as proof of his innocence, proof that he tried to stop her from taking the pills.”

I noticed that some of the younger female jurors were nodding along. I couldn’t blame them. LA could be very persuasive.

“What about the absence of fingerprints on the pill bottles?”

“Well, Ms. Brock, the defendant is smart enough to know that there’s going to be an autopsy. That means the authorities are going to find OxyContin and codeine in his wife’s blood. He has to account for that somehow. So he slips the pills in her food, watches her die, then puts her hands on the pill bottles. He’s probably wearing gloves the whole time. As soon as he does that, he calls 911, and the show is on.”

Next, I walked LA through the timing of the fingernail testing. I established the fact that when Rivera first came to us and told us about the morphine, nobody other than LA, the DA’s office, the medical examiner, and the toxicologists knew about the morphine. “What did that tell you about Rafael Rivera?” I asked.

I thought this would draw an objection, but Tate let it pass. That worried me.

“He was telling the truth about supplying the drugs to the defendant.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself. I had been working on the phrasing of this next question since Rivera left the stand earlier that day. I was hoping that LA would pick up on my vibes.

“What if, during the course of your investigation, you had learned that Rafael Rivera had threatened the defendant? What if you found out that Rivera asked the defendant to bribe a judge and that, when the defendant refused, Rivera came to us with this evidence about supplying the defendant with drugs? What would that have done to your investigation?”

LA twisted his face into a who cares frown. “It wouldn’t have done anything. We already knew Rivera was a convicted felon. Would he try to get his lawyer to bribe a judge before coming to us? Probably. Everybody knows that you’re tough on plea bargains. There was no guarantee he could get a good deal from you. So if he could get out of jail by bribing a judge, he’d try that first.

“But that doesn’t mean he lied to us. What Rivera told us was confirmed by the scientific evidence. The fact that he knew about the morphine before it was physically possible for him to know proves that he was telling the truth about supplying the drugs.”

I wanted to kiss the man. Honestly, I had been wanting to kiss him for a long time. But the answer was so smooth, and so believable, that it almost felt like he had been listening to every word Rivera had said earlier that day. Had he been? I really didn’t want to know.

But I knew that I would never forget that moment in the case. The tape, which had seemed so devastating before lunch, now seemed like an afterthought. In a few short sentences, LA had brought things back into perspective. Some couples find out that they have chemistry on the dance floor. For me, it was this exchange in the courtroom.

“No further questions for this witness. At least not right now,” I said. Maybe later. Maybe at my place.

My heels clicked across the floor, and I sat down at counsel table. “Nice work,” Masterson said under his breath.

Unlike with prior witnesses, Caleb Tate did not spring up to confront the witness. I assumed for a minute that he had been stunned by the turn of events. In the euphoria, I had forgotten a cardinal rule that I had been taught by my trial advocacy professor.

Never assume anything at trial.

And another rule, this one harped on by my brother, the preacher.

Pride cometh before a fall.