By: Betsy J. Bennett
CHAPTER 9
The shoes squeaked, painfully, as Abernathy approached the witness stand again. “That’s right, he did. Now, two days after Burmas was shot, you were in the woods.”
“It was a nice day. I wanted to take a walk. I closed the store early. It was a slow day. I never take time to myself but I got to thinking Kimble could still be in the area. Lieutenant Gerard didn’t think so, but there was a cave. He could have been hiding there.”
The DA smiled, pleased with the answer. “There’s nothing wrong with taking a walk in the woods and I might add, nothing wrong with looking for a convicted murderer, especially when it might net you $10,000.”
“I wanted the money. I earned it. I could use it.”
“I agree. It should have been your money. Kimble should have gotten caught.”
“Yes, he should have. The posse, when Burmas was shot, saw Kimble. He was there. He could have been captured.”
“Yes, but this is two days later I want to talk about. Two days after Burmas was killed and you were told Kimble was long gone. Who told you Kimble was gone?”
“I don’t know. Everyone knew.”
“You didn’t know. Admit it. You went into the woods to look for him. You thought he might still be hanging around.”
“Yes.”
“So who told you Kimble was long gone?”
Corman looked at Gerard, nodded again, that bobbing head motion he apparently felt comfortable with. “Lieutenant Gerard.”
“Ahh, so Lieutenant Gerard told you Richard Kimble was long gone and yet you closed the store and went looking in the woods.”
“Yes.”
“And later that day, you went to Sheriff Bailey and told him you heard gunfire.”
“Yes. I thought it was poachers. We get poachers every now and then.”
The shoes squealed as Abernathy walked toward Gerard sitting at the defendant’s table, then turned around, clearly putting his back toward the lawman. “A logical conclusion. But it wasn’t poachers, was it?”
Corman straightened, looked not at the DA, but at the jury. There was color rising on his cheeks, and his forehead had visible sweat. “I don’t know for certain, except after that Whit turned up missing. I didn’t draw any conclusions right away, I mean I never associated Whit being absent with the gunshots I heard. And I hadn’t known Whit was out there. He could disappear when he wanted to. He wasn’t what anyone’d call reliable. I didn’t know where he was.”
“Not until his body was found three months later.”
“Yes. Sheriff Bailey came to see me, asked me again about how many gunshots I heard.”
“I can bring Sheriff Bailey back up on the stand to confirm your testimony, but can you tell me how many shots you heard?”
Corman searched his pockets, apparently looking for a handkerchief, but not finding one, rubbed his forehead with his bare hand. “I don’t rightly know. There was at least two, maybe as many as five. As I said, I thought it was poachers. I got right out of those woods, I can tell you. If people are shooting deer out of season, then bullets are flying. I didn’t want to be hit accidentally.”
“But you did tell Sheriff Bailey that day that you heard the shots.”
He looked down, apparently studying the DA’s shining black shoes. “Yes. I had nothing to hide, and I don’t like poachers.”
“No one likes poachers. But Lieutenant Gerard was still in the area, wasn’t he?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I wasn’t exactly keeping tabs on the lieutenant. I had a store to run.”
“He told you that Kimble was long gone, yet here it was, two days later and he’s still hanging around.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now let’s go back to the sounds of gunfire you heard. I have the police report here, that was filed. You say you don’t remember?”
“I remember the shooting.”
“You said you don’t remember how many shots.”
“I don’t.”
“Then can you read this aloud? It might help clear up any misunderstanding.”
“This is the police report?”
“Yes, the one you filed. That’s your signature at the bottom, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Corman started reading. “I heard two shots in quick succession.’ I’m sure I didn’t use the word succession.”
“This is a police report. So, two shots, together, quickly.”
“Alright. Yes. I remember now.”
“Keep reading.”
“And then three more shots, two together, then about a minute later, the last one, as if someone had come up on a wounded deer and moving in closer got one last kill shot in.’”
“Is that correct?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And did the sheriff find any signs of poachers?”
“I don’t think so. I was able to describe the place where I was standing when I heard the gunshots, so I didn’t go out with him, and I had no reason to ask him about the poachers, but I wanted it on record that I heard the shots, so I reported it.”
“No more questions for this witness.”
“Your witness,” the judge said to Gerard’s lawyer.
The lawyer stood, was seated again almost immediately. “No questions at this time.”
In the back of the courtroom Kimble rubbed his chin, trying to pull a memory. He had been leaving the area, immediately after Burmas had been shot and killed, and had heard two shots, then two shots, then a minute or so later, the final shot. He’d forgotten, but he’d swear the first two shots had been aimed at him, while he had been climbing a rock face. He turned around for a second, didn’t see the shooter, then continued over the crag, to eventual safety. The final three shots were probably aimed at him, he assumed, but he was sure the first two had been.
But that hadn’t been two days later.
***
The street was dark when Olivia unlocked the front door to the clinic, an hour before she normally made it in. She locked the door behind her, walking with familiarity through the waiting room, past the receptionist desk, not stubbing her toes until she hit a box in the hall in front of exam room number 1.
She started to swear, although she wasn’t a woman to use any type of profanity, but she knew this clinic. It was her clinic. And there were wedding presents stacked in every available corner of the clinic. She had no time to put this stuff away, and had decided, quite snidely, to wait for Richard to do it. It was his idea that they needed wedding presents of diapers and rubber pants. Let him find homes for them. The problem with that was he wasn’t back yet. That had to be part of his evil plan to make her do it.
Well, she’d outlast him, she would. Clutter never bothered her.
She turned on the bathroom light, pleased anew that it sparkled. That was his doing too. Who knew the man, trained as a pediatrician, could clean so well? Although they had another janitor/handyman now, it had been Richard’s doing, proving how much she had let some things slide, how blind she had been to everything but her patients and her paperwork.
She slipped back into the med room, pulled the test she needed, then went back to the restroom. It might be too early to tell. It probably was too early. A negative reaction wouldn’t mean anything. But she had to know. The suspense was eating her alive. Even if she wasn’t pregnant now, she could be, as soon as he returned. And, she decided, she wanted to be.
She hadn’t expected to be this nervous. She hadn’t expected it to matter this much for it surprised her how much she wanted a baby.
The test was positive.
CHAPTER 9
“The rabbit died,” she whispered, crumpling down in a heap on the clean tile. Olivia laughed, relieved of the tension she felt, and realized at the same time she was also crying. A baby. She was pregnant. She really would have something to tell Richard when he got back.
She remembered her med school classes, how starting in the late 1920’s, the only way to determine if a woman was pregnant, was to inject her urine into the ovaries of a rabbit or other small mammal. In a few days the rabbit was killed and cut open. If the woman was indeed pregnant, the rabbit’s ovaries would be deformed because of hCG, a hormone present in urine.
The phrase was still used to indicate pregnancy, although no rabbit had been involved and as a physician, she knew had she indeed used that barbaric test, the rabbit would have died, pregnancy or not. This modern test was almost immediate and involved no living creatures.
Livi swiped at her eyes, having no idea why she was crying. She had been hoping she was pregnant. She had been waiting patiently, well, maybe not exceptionally patiently, for enough time to pass so she could take the test, even if she had cut a week off the recommended time, and she was certain she was pregnant, from the changes she felt occurring in her body. Her nipples were tender. She felt the need to weep uncontrollably at odd and unexpected times. She started making plans to decorate a spare bedroom in their home.
She wanted a puppy so their child could grow up with the dog. “Changes,” she said, liking the idea. Since she met Dr. Richard Kimble, her life had gone in a completely different direction than she had planned. Over the years, and especially in med school and while she had been starting her practice, she hadn’t thought she wanted a child, the responsibility of the time commitments. No, she hadn’t wanted a baby until she met Richard. She was healing him, he was doing the same for her.
Swiping at her tears, Olivia quickly dialed her parents’ home number. Although it was early, they would be awake. She could catch her father before he started his rounds. This news was too important not to share.
“Hello?”
“Dad? It’s Livi.”
“Dr. Olivetti,” Donald Olivetti said. He meant it as a compliment, the greatest he could offer. He himself was also Dr. Olivetti, in his case, a noted heart surgeon.
“I wanted to catch you before you went to the hospital. It’s been so long since we’ve spoken.”
“Ages,” he agreed.
“And it’s Dr. Kimble. I decided to use my married name.”
“Kimble is not a man to be trusted.”
“How can you say that? He’s the most honorable man I know. He is an incredible doctor.”
“Is he?”
“Is he what?”
“A doctor.”
“Of course.”
“Then his license has been reinstated?”
“Yes. From Michigan. He told me you paid for the refresher course. I wanted to thank you for that, but as usual, things have been a little crazy around here.”
“But he didn’t finish the course.”
“Of course he did.”
“I called the school. They told me he left without leave, that he said something about looking for who killed his wife. Livi, a man who would walk out on an opportunity like that is not a man to be trusted.”
“What? Yes, he left, but only after he had completed the coursework. Medicine is important to him. Is that why you didn’t come to the wedding? You thought he was working here without a license?”
“He left the course.”
“There were extenuating circumstances. The man who hired Johnson has been arrested. He’s going to die in prison, thanks to the work Richard did.”
“He’s no good for you. He’ll only leave you.”
“No he won’t.”
“Then put him on the phone now.”
“You know I can’t. There’s something going on in Wisconsin. I’m sure you’ve read that in the papers.”
“How to murder your wife and get away with it, does that ring any bells for you?”
“I’ve read the article. It’s full of misstatements and downright lies. Richard never murdered anyone.”
“Yet he’s in jail now, for another murder.”
“No not in jail. And he’s trying to solve the murder, to help a friend.”
“Aren’t you a little suspicious that Kimble’s trying to solve this murder, and not the local authorities?”
“What are you insinuating? Richard was convicted but never guilty. He’s not guilty of this crime either. He’ll be back as soon as he can. He’s my husband and my partner.”
“You take care of yourself. You should come here for Thanksgiving. I know your mother would love to see you.”
“And Richard? Would my husband be welcomed?”
“You didn’t have to marry him.”
“I wanted to marry him. And if Dr. Kimble is not welcome at your holiday table, don’t expect me. Oh, and there’s one other thing you should know, it’s the reason I called. You’re going to be a grandfather in another eight months. I’ll give you a more precise due date when I figure it out.”
There was a long silence on the line, then Dr. Olivetti the elder said, “I taught you how to prevent that. You come home and we’ll take care of it.”
“It?” she said, and disconnected the line before she could say anything else. Olivia crumpled to the floor and wrapping the phone cord around her, started crying in the dark exam room.
Knocking at the front door brought her back to her senses. She checked her watch. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock, and the clinic didn’t open until nine. That meant an emergency, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared to deal with one.
Leaving the test on the sink, Livi unlocked the front door.
It wasn’t a patient. It was a delivery driver, with a hand trolley filled with crates that were used to deliver meds and medical equipment. “Dr. Olivia Olivetti?”
“That’s me.”
“Sign here.”
She signed and accepted the crates. She knew who had done this when she opened the first shipping container, and started mentally categorizing children’s immunization drugs. Richard, who complained every day how he needed them. There were also piles of other things they had been desperate for, pain meds and alcohol wipes, syringes, IV tubing, and saline solution, a wheel chair, crutches, canes, and a hundred other desperately needed items.
He said he had a surprise for her, for Monday. Well, this was almost a week late, but she wouldn’t complain. It was as much his clinic now as it was hers. He knew the way to her heart consisted of exactly what was in these bins.
And he wouldn’t know what hit him, when she explained her surprise.
She rubbed her wedding ring. It fit so naturally, she wondered how she could have survived so long without it.
“Come on, Baby,” she said, speaking to herself as much as the tiny life developing deep within that couldn’t be a month past conception. “Let’s get this stuff put away. It’s the least we can do, should Richard ever return to us.”
“Livi?”
She checked her watch. Had no idea how much time had passed. “What is it, Dora Ann?”
“Did you leave this out for me to see?” she said, indicating the pregnancy test.
“No, not necessarily. I mean well, probably, now that I think about it. I was so shocked by the result I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Negative?” The hour that had passed had changed the color of the solution.
“No. Positive. Eighteen years from now or so, I suspect Dr. Kimble and I will be sending a kid off to college to study pre-med.”
Dora Ann wrapped her in the biggest hug. “But before we get busy, and there’s already people outside the door, I need to show you this.”
“What is it?” Olivia asked, opening the local Detroit newspaper.
“I’d keep this from you if I could, but I think you should see it.”
Olivia unfolded the paper, read the headline. “Kimble abused wife for years before murder,” the headline shouted.
She thought of a letter she had read, of a woman who had grieved, but who had only love for her husband. “This is absolutely not true. He never hurt Helen. How could they write this?”
“Most of their facts came directly from the trial. Someone must have gotten a hold of the transcript. It mentions how they fought, and there is a statement that Helen had bruises. One of their neighbors. I’m with you, I’m sure it’s a fabrication, but there are people who are going to believe these lies. There’s another thing I know.”
“What?”
“Although it doesn’t say, I have to believe Korl is behind this. He said he’d get even with Richard for the child abuse claims.”
“Even he wouldn’t—no I take that back, he certainly would. I should have let Richard beat the crap out of him.” And she knew her father would see this, and that maybe there would never be a chance to fix the rift between the two important men in her life.
“No. Get to work. We’ll find some way to get this straightened out.”
***
The courtroom was packed, people pushing in close together, removing their jackets so there could be an extra quarter inch of shoulder room. There must be nothing good on daytime tv, Kimble thought, looking at all the good law-abiding local citizens ready to be entertained. He wondered, snidely, if the local businesses shut down. Circus is in town. Everyone gets a free day off to enjoy the show!
Strangely, or more likely expected, no one sat too close to him. This circus came with a freak show that promised violence, regardless of what the word “exoneration” meant. Innocence and guilt wasn’t on trial here. Justice wasn’t on trial here. No, this was good old-fashioned entertainment that centuries ago would have required Christians and lions being shown exactly what mercy meant: absolutely nothing.
The judge smiled, said something to his bailiff. The man straightened his spine, his shoulders, killed his own grin, tried to look menacing. There was no need. He could not compete with the malevolence radiating from the elevated bench. That smile was clearly just for show, or to show yes, the judge was already entertained before the day’s first motion was made, the first opening argument started. The courtroom doors were shut. With a single bang from a gavel, heard only because Richard Kimble was specifically listening for it, the rabble silenced. It was almost too bad no one was selling popcorn, peanuts and hot dogs in this new macabre American pastime.
The judge preened, running his hands through his slightly too-long hair. “You may call your next witness.”
With Gerard’s name, a low, pervasive mumbling started, like thunder in the distance, a storm coming that could possibly prove fatal. An artist poised a sharpened pencil over a clean sheet of drawing paper. The stenographer readied herself. Yes, it was a good day to have a job in the legal system and be assured a place in the courtroom. Not everyone who wanted in, got in. People probably came from three counties away, but that only made sense. First, there was probably nothing to do in those little backwater towns either, and second, the posse out for blood hunting Richard Kimble and Jack Burmas, that latter almost as an afterthought, had been pulled from those three towns. They had a claim to the show, paying for their tickets by the sweat of their law enforcement officers who had combed the hills looking for those who killed and tried to get away with it.
“Raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do,” Gerard said, his voice heavy with phlegm. He stood straight, his hand steady. He’d probably testified in dozens of murder cases, and perhaps hundreds of other cases as a policeman, testifying of what he discovered in assault cases, in domestic abuse, every time he had responded when a law had been broken.
This case was a bit more personal.
“I want to ask about Saturday May 20, 1967. You were in Browntown county, hunting Richard Kimble, weren’t you?”
Gerard shifted. Although he was generally comfortable testifying, he wasn’t feeling well. His body felt heavy, his mind dulled. He would have taken cold tablets, but on the whole they made him sleepy, and he figured he needed his wits about him.
“Yes. We got a reliable lead that Kimble had been sighted in the area, and I came to apprehend him.”
The DA, Donald Abernathy, was an older man, reed thin, who wore a suit that had probably been new twenty years before, with a green polka-dot bowtie, but the shoes were shining new, and still squeaked as they had the day before. “Apprehend him? Is that what you were willing to do?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Gerard stopped, waiting until he got his coughing under control before he continued speaking. “As a sworn officer of the law, it was my responsibility to recapture Dr. Kimble and bring him to justice.”
“Would you say you were obsessed with Kimble’s capture?”
Gerard rubbed his forehead. He was sweating profusely. Kimble had handed him the handkerchief a few minutes before they entered the courtroom. He was having trouble breathing, starting to feel a growing pressure in his chest. “I’m not sure I would use the word obsessed.”
Abernathy’s smile was snide. “If the court will allow, I will present Exhibit H. This is an article from the Chicago newspaper, a column called “Top of the Deck” This particular article written by Lieutenant Phillip Gerard.”
“The court will allow it.”
“Did you write this, Lieutenant?”
Gerard scanned the paper, felt his breathing become more labored as he realized the hole he had dug himself. “Yes.”
“Would you care to read the first three sentences, Lieutenant?”
“Richard Kimble was a convicted murderer, with a death row conviction. I was the arresting officer. After his escape from a train wreck, I was obsessed with his recapture.”
“Is that accurate? What I want to know is, did someone take your words, edit them for clarity or perhaps shock value?”
Gerard wiped his face again. His left hand felt heavy. He could barely manage the task. “No. Those are my words.”
“Yet you didn’t capture Mr. Kimble.”
Gerard leaned forward, trying to find a comfortable position to make breathing easier. “No. He’s an intelligent, personable man. People helped him. And he was clever enough to devise his own escapes, over everything law enforcement could provide. He would slip through road blocks and vanish while the police were conducting house to house searches. He always managed to escape.”
“Always?”
“No. Not always. I did capture him in Los Angeles, California a few days before his complete exoneration. He waived extradition. I rode with him back to Stafford, Indiana, to face charges.”
“To face charges,” Abernathy paused, letting that sink in, before he continued. “I’ll allow that, but tell me, Lieutenant, was Mr. Kimble in handcuffs during the train ride back to Indiana?”
The police officer let a second go by, then another long moment, while he tried to pull air into his lungs. Silently he begged for his lawyer to stand up and object, but the kid was sitting forward in his seat in rapt attention, as if this were a play and he were only part of the audience, fascinated in how it would come out.
“I’ll repeat the question. Mr. Kimble was a convicted felon. Was scheduled to die in the electric chair for the murder of his wife. Under those circumstances, it would have been logical, no strike that, it would have been police policy to have him in handcuffs. My question, was Mr. Kimble in handcuffs on the long train ride from California to Indiana?”
“No. I had started to believe—“ Gerard began, then realizing a second trap had been set and he was blindly jumping right in. “Dr. Kimble gave me his word he would not run.”
“And the word of a convicted murderer is good enough for you?”
“No, never.”
“Except it was that time.”
“Yes, it was that time. He did not run. That was documented. He gave his word and he kept it. I came to believe in Dr. Kimble’s innocence, and was taking him to Indiana to look for the one-armed man both Dr. Kimble and I believed was the actual murderer.”
“Wasn’t there another reason you were bringing him back home?”
“To find Fred Johnson.”
“Let’s be clear here. You had been looking for Fred Johnson off and on for six years.”
“Yes.”
“Did you always believe he existed? Or did you state for years that you thought the one-armed man was a figment of Dr. Kimble’s imagination?”
“For years I looked, but I had little confidence in Kimble’s testimony of the killer. I did believe the one-armed man was imaginary, an excuse, an attempt for his defense to deflect guilt. No other reputable witness saw him. Not one. We checked the bus terminals, the hotels, the places were a stranger in town would stay. Because of the loss of his arm, he would stand out. People should have noticed him.”
“But they didn’t.”
“No. But after a few years of chasing Dr. Kimble, I came to believe the one-armed man had been in Stafford that night. That he had killed Mrs. Kimble. By the time Dr. Kimble and I were on the train ride back to Indiana, I came to know Dr. Kimble and came to believe he was innocent in Helen Kimble’s murder, as he had stated all along. The one-armed man was real. He had been arrested in Los Angeles and after his bail was paid, I knew he was on his way to Stafford, to tie up loose ends.”
“You knew? I suppose Fred Johnson told you himself?”
“No. But I had met Fred Johnson. By the time Dr. Kimble and I were on the train back to Stafford, I had come to understand Richard Kimble was innocent.”
There was a start, almost a pretense of a loud “Ha!” not vocalized so much as implied by a growing smirk and an intake of breath. “Because Richard Kimble told you he was innocent?”
“Yes.” Gerard leaned forward, as if unconsciously hoping that lowering his head would help pull oxygen into his starving lungs.
Gerard had experience speaking in court. It was part of his job and he was an intelligent man. He understood the trap he had laid for himself, the way his testimony could be construed, the way the jury no longer looked at him as credible. He was telling the truth, yet for the first time he started to have sympathy for Dr. Kimble. Truth wasn’t always enough, was it? Not against lies, innuendos, and a strongly held belief that the person speaking could not be believed.
He fought through the fog in his brain for facts he could get those twelve peers to accept. Abernathy would require more. The jury listen to him, would understand him. “And because of good, solid police work,” he added.
The shoes squeaked again, sounded pained, and disbelieving. Silently Gerard cursed himself. Now he was providing human emotions to a new pair of loafers. He really must be sick.
“But irrespective of this ‘good solid police work’ you had no proof of Johnson’s guilt. You knew nothing of the man, except that a man convicted of first-degree murder in a particularly gruesome death of a woman who could not have children, told you Johnson was guilty.”
There was hesitation as Gerard cleared his throat again. “Yes.”
“Let’s recap this for the jury, shall we? A man who for years you believed was guilty, a man who had been convicted by a jury of his peers and was scheduled to die in the electric chair told you there was another killer, and you believed him, enough that you took a train ride home without handcuffs?”
Breathing was hard. It felt like his lungs were starving. His heart thumped, loudly enough he was sure everyone in the courtroom could hear it. “Yes. I was not wrong. Johnson was guilty. At a trial several days later, Dr. Kimble was completely exonerated.”
“Yet, at the time you had no proof of Johnson’s guilt, only Kimble’s word.”
His eyes were starting to appear unreliable. The courtroom was foggy, the judge and the district attorney becoming indistinct. He rubbed them, using his right hand. He was having trouble getting his left hand to move. “I stand by my actions. This I swear to you. While in my custody, Dr. Kimble did not try to escape and forty-eight hours later was exonerated.”
“A couple more questions. Just to be clear, did you take Richard Kimble directly to the precinct when you arrived in Stafford, Indiana? Did you take the time to follow standard police procedure and place this convicted murderer in official police custody?”
Gerard looked for Kimble in the audience, could no longer see him. “No. You’re missing the point. I did bring him in, after Johnson was dead, after we found out there was a witness. Kimble was exonerated. He was innocent of the crime of murder. When we arrived in Stafford, I stayed with him. I could not let him have his freedom, but I felt it would have been a gross miscarriage of justice to have Dr. Kimble behind bars again.”
Abernathy slapped his hand on the banister in front of the jury. The action was unnecessary, each juror was hanging on in rapt attention to every word he said. “Because the murder was blamed on a man who was dead, who could not act in his own defense, a man, I might add, you murdered.”
Gerard struggled, gasping, desperate for air. His lungs didn’t seem to be working. “I did not murder him. Fred Johnson was shooting at me. I was injured. I took a bullet to my leg. Under those conditions, I was acting as I was trained, as a police officer. I returned fire. Johnson was killed in the resulting fall. I would rather he was alive, so I could get his confession but as it turned out, I didn’t need his testimony. A federal judge recognized his guilt.”
Abernathy was not willing to let this thread die a natural death. “Johnson was shooting at you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t shooting back at you, protecting himself? Are you sure you didn’t fire first?”
“I would not have shot first. I wanted him alive. It’s police procedure and good policy to take a suspect in alive.”
“Ahh. Good policy.” Abernathy let the two words ring around the courtroom. “Where was your gun?”
“My gun?”
“Your police service revolver. Right now we have it in the police evidence room, where it was being tested for ballistics. But it is not that gun which killed the one-armed man, Fred Johnson, is it?”
“It’s not that gun.”
“What happened to your gun, Lieutenant?”
Gerard rubbed his forehead again, was almost surprised when his fingertips did not come back blood soaked. It felt he was bleeding from every pore. He coughed, tried to find enough air in his lungs to form words.
“It has no bearing on this case.”
Abernathy pointed, raised his voice. Except for him, and Gerard’s labored breathing, the courtroom was absolutely silent. “It is my belief it has every bearing on this case. I am looking for a pattern of behavior and I think I’ve found it. Every time, every single time you were in the field hunting the convicted murderer Richard Kimble, he got away.”
“He—“
“I’m not finished. Every time, until you had someone else you could pin the actual murder of Helen Kimble on, Richard Kimble got away.”
“Johnson was guilty—“
“And what else, Lieutenant? What happened to your primary police weapon that day when Johnson was killed? Where was it? I’ve got trial transcripts if you can’t remember. I’d be glad to read them.”
Muttering started up in the courtroom, as this man was slowly being eviscerated. “I had given my gun to Dr. Kimble, to protect himself while he went to apprehend Johnson.”
The DA waited a heartbeat, no longer before he nodded, making sure every juror watched him score his point with deadly efficiency. “Ahh, the same gun that you swore was never out of your possession? That you would never lend to anyone?”
“Yes. I want to say—“
“Kimble had the gun? Is that what you want to say? Richard Kimble, a man who at the time was a convicted murderer, an escaped felon, a man facing a death row conviction had your weapon?”
Gerard tried to speak, was forced to cough to clear his throat. When the word came out it was clear and damning. “Yes.”
“He didn’t find it discarded somewhere and picked it up?”
“No”
“Did he fight you for the gun? At the time you were wounded. He could have overpowered you.” He smiled, looked friendly, supportive, “I’m sure we’re all willing to accept that.”
Gerard pulled air into his lungs, the sound overly loud in the silent courtroom. He shut his eyes, counted to three. “I handed him my service weapon.”
“Let’s get this perfectly clear. Not only did Richard Kimble have your loaded weapon, you just testified that you gave it to him.”