Read Online Fox is Framed by Lachlan Smith - Free Book Online Page A

conviction.
    â€œWe’re here today in the matter of the people versus Lawrence Maxwell. Counsel and others present at counsel table, state your appearances.”
    Crowder rose. “Your Honor, Angela Crowder for the people. Here with me is Detective Shanahan from the San Francisco Police Department.”
    â€œWelcome, Detective Shanahan. And I see we have new counsel for the defendant.” Nina introduced herself, and Liu said, “Ms. Schuyler is no stranger to this court. Anything else we need to take up before we begin?” Hearing no response, the judge went on. “Very well, then. The state may call its first witness.”
    Crowder rose. “The state calls Detective Shanahan.”
    Crowder stood at the podium while he was sworn. Two weeks ago, arguing against bail, she’d been tentative, almost reluctant. Now she radiated intensity, her stubby hands gripping the edges of the open binder before her. I knew from previous experience that her excitability often tripped her up. At the same time, it gave her a powerful presence in the courtroom, like a flood that overwhelms all obstacles.
    Crowder and Shanahan worked through the preliminaries, establishing that he was the lead investigator, that he was trained and qualified, and that he’d reviewed the complete investigative file. The next part of her examination was devoted to establishing that a homicide had in fact been committed on that April morning twenty-one years ago, the day my life shattered. She introduced my mother’s death certificate, the coroner’s report, and finally, the crime scene photos.
    One by one Crowder had the pictures marked, then handed them to the clerk, who passed them to Judge Liu. He studied each intently, as if the waste that is violent death was being revealed to him for the first time. Between photos he glanced at my father with new and keener appraisal. Though his sympathies had seemed to rest with Lawrence during the bail hearing, today his mood, like Crowder’s, was somber.
    He’d freed Lawrence, and he’d clearly considered the prosecutorial malfeasance that necessitated that freedom as something akin to a personal wrong, a violation of the processes and principles that he administered. However, all that now was behind us. The books were cleared, the slate wiped clean; we were starting over. And Liu, who in two years would be required to run for reelection, could be counted on to treat my father like any defendant accused of a heinous crime.
    I’d seen the pictures he was looking at, of course. Since discovering that my brother was working on my father’s case, I’d been through the file from front to back numerous times. It wasn’t their gruesomeness that affected me. After all, I’d seen crime scene photos of dead bodies before. Rather, it was the details of the scene, the deeply familiar patterns of wallpaper and carpets, objects long forgotten that seemed to leap back to vivid life in my mind’s eye.
    Watching Liu study the photos, and noticing him glance solemnly at my father, I felt my own doubts return. The DA’s version of events was certainly the most probable story from the perspective of anyone on the outside looking in: that he’d caught her with her lover or come home just after the man had left, then beaten her to death in a jealous rage. Such a scenario was wholly consistent with the semen samples taken from my mother’s body showing that she’d had sex with another man shortly before her death. This evidence had been concealed from the defense by Gary Coles, the DA who’d prosecuted my father, necessitating his retrial now.
    I heard the courtroom door creak open. Turning, I saw Car, my investigator, beckoning me. I slid from the spectators’ bench and went out through the double doors into the hall.
    â€œI talked to Russell Bell, served him with a subpoena. If you want him in court, you’ll need a body attachment. He