Read Online Like a Charm by Karin Slaughter (.ed) - Free Book Online

found in the grass beside Evelyn Fowler. I was then asked about my relationship with the accused and about how we had spent the evening drinking previous to the attack. The problem was that whenever I tried to expand on Cornelius's good character, his virtues, and to emphasize that, drunk or sober, he was not the sort of man who could have carried out such a brutal rape, they cut me off. Even Cornelius's lawyer never really let me get very far. As a policemen, of course, I was used to giving evidence for the prosecution, not for the defence, but this time the limitations galled me.
    Evelyn Fowler was a revelation. In court, she looked a lot more demure than she ever had in the Nag's Head: no dirndl skirts, bolero dresses or Veronica Lake hairstyles for Evelyn today, only a plain Utility dress and her hair tied loosely behind her neck.
    Lieutenant Clawson proceeded gently at first, as if afraid to stir up her feelings and memories of the events, but I guessed that his apparent sympathy was merely an act for the court. When he got to the point, he made it brutally and efficiently.
    'What were you doing in the park that night, Miss Fowler?' he asked.
    'I was walking home from a dance,' she said. 'My friends wanted to stay but I had to get up early for work. It's a shortcut.'
    'And what happened?'
    'Someone grabbed me and threw me to the ground. He . . . he punched me and tore my clothing off.'
    'And he raped you. Is that correct?'
    Evelyn looked down at the handbag clasped on her knees. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'He raped me.'
    'Miss Fowler, do you see the man who raped you and beat you here in this courtroom today?'
    'I do,' she said.
    'Can you please point him out to the court?'
    'That's him,' she said, pointing at Cornelius without a moment's hesitation. 'The accused. That's the man who raped me.'
    'You have no doubt?'
    'Not a shred,' said Evelyn, her lips set in a determined line. 'That's him.'
    And did Cornelius's lawyer attack her evidence? Not a bit of it. Did he challenge her character and question how she had arrived at her identification? Not at all. I knew that Evelyn hated and feared coloured people, and that she had been well versed in this by her beau, GI Jim, but did the lawyer ask her about her feelings towards Negroes? No, he didn't.
    I was willing to bet, for a start, that Evelyn hadn't picked Cornelius out of a line-up of similar physical types, and that as far as she was concerned one Negro looked very much like another. And Cornelius did have a scratch on his face, after all. I wouldn't even have been surprised if she had been told in advance that a charm from his bracelet had been found right beside her arm after the attack. She had told me that at one point she had sensed two men. Couldn't one of them have been Cornelius fighting off her attacker? But neither lawyer asked about that.
    All in all, it was a disappointing affair, one-sided and sloppy in the extreme. I spent the entire time on the edge of my seat biting my tongue. On several occasions I almost spoke out, but knew they would only expel me from the courtroom if I did so. I could only pray for Cornelius now, and I wasn't much of a believer in prayer.
    After a short recess for lunch, which I spent smoking and trying, unsuccessfully, to gain access to Cornelius's lawyer, there was little else to be done. Dr Harris gave evidence about Evelyn's condition after the attack, not forgetting to mention that the small piece of skin found under one of her fingernails was black.
    In the end, it was an easy decision. Lieutenant Cornelius Jubb admitted to being in Brimley Park on the night in question, around the exact time the attack occurred. It was a particularly brutal attack, and Cornelius and Evelyn, while they might have recognized one another in passing, had no earlier acquaintance, which might have earned the court's leniency. A charm from a bracelet the accused was known to wear habitually was found at the scene. He had a scratch on his face and she had