Lion Plays Rough Read Free

it. Car’s done the legwork. He can tell you what he’s found out about the family situation.”
    Car finished whatever he was doing on his BlackBerry and tucked it away. He succinctly summarized the parents’ deteriorating marriage. The uncle, the wife’s younger brother, had been living with the family after losing his job as a teacher; he’d been the girl’s nanny, basically, picking her up from school, taking her to friends’ houses or home, watching TV with her. While he lived with them, Erica spent more time with him than with her parents. Then she’d become pregnant and the uncle had taken her to have an abortion. She hadn’t told her parents until after the procedure. Then she accused Scarsdale.
    The uncle had refused to talk to Car, which suggested he had something to hide even if he didn’t. In the meantime, we’d kept the pressure up. Car had showed up at the guy’s new job and apartment, until he hired a lawyer who told us to stay away. I had the uncle under subpoena. When we finally met in the courtroom, he was sure to be hostile and scared. In the meantime, Car was looking into his background, turning over stones.
    â€œSo you’re going to concede that she was molested,” Scarsdale said when Car and I had finished.
    I shot a glance at Jeanie. “Probably.”
    â€œThere’s no chance in your mind that she’s just making it all up, trying to get attention.” His breath was short now, his cheeks flushed, and I saw that over the past few months he’d grown capable of hating this little girl. Even if he were innocent, even if we managed to clear his name, some vestige of this hatred would remain, like the scar from a burn, the lasting damage that always results from prolonged involvement with the criminal justice system.
    If the emotion I was seeing now surfaced at trial, we were in trouble. On an impulse I took a DVD from the file. “This disc has the interviews the police videotaped with the girl.” I held it out. “It’s the story she’ll tell in court.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t want to look at it. That’s your department.”
    â€œYou have to. And you need to do more than just look at it. You have to live with it. Take it back with you to that hotel and watch the whole thing. Watch it again and again. Every day until trial starts, whether you can stand it or not. I want you to keep watching until you can hear her talk about you doing these things without getting mad, without flinching, without so much as raising your blood pressure.” I shot Jeanie a glance and saw her pensive frown. This wasn’t the plan, but we had to do something to neutralize the reaction we’d just witnessed.
    â€œIt’s a good idea, actually,” she said. “You might see something we haven’t seen. You know Erica better than we do. She’s your daughter’s best friend. What we’re looking for is something that doesn’t sound like her own words, some turn of phrase that gives us an opening on cross-examination.”
    Jeanie gave me a look of apology, but we’d already agreed that she would be doing the cross.
    â€œI don’t know if I can do this,” Scarsdale told us.
    I sighed. “Then you might as well plead guilty. Because if the jury sees the look on your face that I saw a few minutes ago, you’re done. Look, you can’t show anger. You have to pity her. Find a way. That’s your task over the next eight days.”
    Car was on his BlackBerry again. He shook Scarsdale’s hand, then ducked out of the conference room. Scarsdale rubbed his bloodshot eyes, and I realized we’d probably done all the work we were going to be able to do today. I suggested we wrap it up and meet again on Wednesday.
    When I returned from walking Scarsdale out, Teddy and Jeanie were at the conference table, Jeanie on her laptop, Teddy gazing out the window