The Crimson Trial Read online

  “Nurse Franklin. Can you tell the court how long you’ve worked with Dr. Adil Khan?”

  “Seven years. Three years in MSF, that’s Medecine Sans Frontiere, and four years at Everwood General.” He replied matter of factly.

  “Would you describe yourself as a colleague with no more knowledge of his personal life than anyone else sharing the same workspace? Or a friend with direct experience of his personal life?”

  “I was his friend. I’ve been to his house lots of times, and he’s been to mine.”

  “Was Dr. Khan the kind of man to sell drugs?” She asked this as though it were the most unlikely thing in the world.

  “No. Absolutely not!” Franklin shot back. “He’d seen the damage drugs do. We all have. There’s no way on earth he would take advantage of vulnerable people like that.” He shifted in his seat, breathing through his nose.

  “But then, what do we really know about even our closest friends? Sometimes dark secrets come out. Sometimes, even spouses or family have no idea. Isn’t that true?”

  “You gotta understand something.” Franklin sat forward, gesturing as he spoke. “We worked together in the hospital. We worked together in the clinic. Our families hung out together. There’s no way he could hide something like that from me, not if he was operating it out of the clinic. And I don’t know where else he could operate it from. OK?” Color was rising in his cheeks, he sat back.

  “So, in your considered opinion, there is very little chance that the money you found came from selling narcotics.”

  Franklin shook his head angrily. “No.”

  “Then where did it come from?”

  “I think he was selling medication. Nothing illegal. I mean he was authorized to prescribe medication and he was entitled to charge for his services just like any doctor. He wasn’t doing anything illegal. Just immoral.” Again, Franklin shifted, almost squirming. His shoulders hunched.

  “And that’s why you quit the clinic?” Halden asked.

  “Yeah. He was lying to me about the money and I couldn’t stand it.” Hands clenched and unclenched in his lap.

  Halden nodded to herself, looked over at the jury briefly.

  “Well let’s move on, shall we?” She said briskly. “You were an eyewitness to the assault that happened at one thirty-two p.m. on May 5th.”

  “Yes, I was.” The shoulders relaxed slightly.

  “Please tell the court what happened.”

  “Well, I was taking a patient’s blood pressure for Adil when we heard a commotion from the front of the store.”

  “Excuse me, Nurse Franklin. The store? Can you just clarify that you are referring to the same store that your colleague Nurse Kleinsatter referred to? The same which can currently be seen in the diagram on the screen?”

  “Yeah, the empty store the clinic was in. Patients came in though the main entrance, the customer entrance was out front. Adil treated them in the back office, just next to the storeroom. That’s the treatment room.”

  “Thank you. Please continue.”

  “Adil went to the door and opened it. This guy was on the other side, strung out. He was sweating, shaking. He grabbed Adil and started screaming at him.”

  “Do you see that man in the court room today, Nurse Franklin?” Halden asked.

  “Yeah. Right there.” Franklin pointed to Hunter.

  This was all pure theater to drum the image into the jury’s collective minds that he was a violent, deranged thug.

  “And what happened next?”

  “Adil swore at him. Told him there was no help we could give him.” Franklin spoke quickly, getting caught up in the memory. “Said that he needed rehab. Then the guy just laid into him, until I pulled him off and threw him out.” Again, a quick exhalation through the nose, blowing off steam.

  “And do you remember anything of what Hunter Watson said, either before, during or after the assault?” Halden inquired.

  “I’ll kill you motherfucker.”

  There was a murmur from the audience and the jury.

  “I beg your pardon?” Halden said, sounding shocked.

  “That’s what he said once we’d thrown him out. We took him out the back way so he couldn’t hurt any of the other patients. He turned around and said I’ll kill you motherfucker.” Franklin said agitatedly. He looked at me, then at Hunter. There was a sense of triumph in his voice and on his face. He thought his evidence was helping to convict Hunter.

  “No further questions, Your Honor.” Halden concluded, sounding equally triumphant.

  I stood. “Nurse Franklin. When he said those words who was present?”

  “Well, me. I’m the one who threw him out. And Adil.”

  “You’re sure Adil was present?”

  “Yeah, well the guy was talking to him. Threatening to kill him.” Franklin gave a snort of laughter as though I was being dim.

  “When you threw him out, was it through the back room? And therefore onto Duke Street?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want him going out front. I shoved him through the door and then chased him out onto the street.”

  “How long did it take to get him out of the building, Nurse Franklin?”

  “How long? Jesus, I don’t know. Thirty seconds, a minute maybe?”

  I gave a Nic a signal, a slight raising of one finger. We had cued up some video to be played on the screen which had been used to show pictures to this point. She clicked the remote and started a video playing on the screen. There was no sound but a grainy, black and white video of Hunter attacking Adil Khan. The camera was clearly high in a corner of the room. Adil was on the floor and a large man was grappling with Hunter. The large man looked like Jenner Franklin. Kleinsatter could just be seen, pressing herself back into a corner of the room.

  Then Hunter was turned around and shoved in the back by Franklin, stumbling across the screen and disappearing from view. Franklin followed. Khan was clutching his stomach, curled up in the fetal position. Hunter had been kicking on top of Khan, punching at his stomach among other places before Franklin had wrestled him away.

  “Note the time in the bottom right of the picture when you shove Hunter across the room. For the court, I can confirm there is a door there, just out of shot. You can see it in the diagram which the prosecution has been showing.” I gave another signal and Nic stood, passing printed copies of the diagram to a court official who handed copies to the judge, jury and prosecution.

  Nic then fast forwarded through the video. The movement of everyone in the shot sped up. Khan was helped to a chair, where he was bent double. Then he stood, rubbing at his head. Then he left the shot, heading in the same direction that Hunter and Franklin had gone. Pause.

  “Please note that Dr. Khan leaves the shot, headed in the direction of the door marked on the diagram, five minutes and fifteen seconds after Hunter Watson and Nurse Franklin. Can you tell the court, if it took you no more than a minute to throw Hunter Watson out of the building, what were the two of you doing for the remaining four minutes and fifteen seconds that it took Dr. Khan to join you?”

  Franklin looked perplexed. He glanced at Halden as though looking for help. But Halden remained seated, glowering at me.

  “I would like an answer, Nurse Franklin.”

  “I don’t know. We weren’t doing anything. I threw him out. He ran away.”

  “So, his threat couldn’t have been directed at Dr. Adil Khan. Dr. Khan was still on the floor of the treatment room at the time. The threat must have been directed at you.”

  “Objection! Your Honor this is speculation and an invitation to the witness to speculate. Dr. Khan was killed and the accused made a threat to kill. Those are the facts.”

  “Your Honor. We have only Nurse Franklin’s testimony as to who that threat was directed against. We must speculate given that we now know that Dr. Khan could not have been present when the threat was made.” I protested.

  Greene sat back in his seat and moved his mouth as thought chewing over the problem. �
�Sustained. Jury will disregard the speculation and consider only that a threat to kill was made according to the testimony of this witness. Counselor, you may question the veracity of this testimony but that is all. We could speculate about who those words were directed against until the cows come home. It doesn’t prove a thing.”

  Damn it! “Yes, your honor. I have one more question. Nurse Franklin. When you pursued Hunter Watson through the back room did he go straight to the door?”

  The sudden change of tack seemed to confuse Franklin. Halden looked at me shrewdly, clearly calculating where I was going with this.

  “No…no, I shoved him as far as the door. He tripped going through and caught himself on a box. Then he dodged me when I tried to grab him. I thought he was trying to get back to Adil so I kept myself between him and the door. When he saw he wasn’t getting past me, he just ran.”

  “No further questions.”

  Again, I hoped I had planted seeds of doubt in the jury’s mind. But, the questioning had yielded something more important. Something, I would be using to disprove an important piece of evidence.

  Chapter 30

  Hunter had been quiet and still throughout the evidence given by Khan’s associates. I glanced at him as I took my seat. He stared at the table in front of him frowning. The sweats were gone though he still seemed haggard. The custody officer had reported to me that Hunter had been refusing most of his food. My consultations with him in between court sessions had become more and more one-sided. I talked about the progress I felt we were making, he just nodded and stared.

  I reached over and squeezed his arm. It got a response, a startled jerk of his head and wide eyes. There was recognition there, a spark that died quickly. The worst of the cold turkey should have been over by now. I was concerned that he had given up, was withdrawing into himself. As Halden called the third of Khan’s former colleagues, I considered how I might use Hunter’s state of mind to our advantage with the jury. Halden called Dr. Kate Jarman, the third member of the volunteer team at Khan’s clinic.

  The testimony was predictable. She had witnessed the assault and gave an account of Hunter as an enraged and desperate man who had fought his way to Adil Khan and then attacked him. Unlike Franklin, she had not witnessed Hunter being ejected from the building or his subsequent threat. She had been helping Khan. Her social media feed was empty of references to Khan’s supposed fall from grace. She hadn’t blocked him either.

  When she had finished repeating the testimony the court had already heard from the previous two witnesses, Halden sat. I took her place in front of the witness box.

  “Dr. Jarman. Why did you decide to quit working at the clinic?”

  “Because of the money that was found,” Jarman replied levelly.

  “And what was your conclusion about the source of the money?”

  “I don’t know. It was just suspicious. And I couldn’t keep working there.” No emotion was in her voice, she could have been talking about her groceries.

  “Why?” I feigned intense curiosity.

  “I don’t know. I just wasn’t comfortable.” There was an edge to Jarman’s words now.

  I waited, saying nothing but holding her eye.

  “I wasn’t comfortable carrying on working with Adil with the others gone.” The edge got sharper; she licked her lips.

  “Why?” I persisted.

  “I just wasn’t!” Anxiety was breaking through the calm now.

  “Forgive me, Doctor Jarman. But you volunteered that you quit because you were uncomfortable. Given that the origins of the money may have a direct bearing on this case, I must insist on an answer.”

  “Objection. Your Honor. Is the defense going to be allowed to go off on a tangent with every witness?” Halden intervened.

  “Your Honor, is the prosecution going to try and close down every line of cross examination? I have to be allowed to ask questions which may lead to further questions depending on the answer of the witness.”

  “Perhaps if the motives in your questions were clearer, we would have less objections from the prosecution, Counselor. However, in this instance I’ll allow it. Over-ruled.” Greene commented.

  “Doctor Jarman, when speaking to a member of my team, you insinuated that Dr. Khan was having an affair.”

  “Your team?” Jarman looked at Nic who stared back without shame. “Oh my…I didn’t realize I was being interviewed for evidence.” Spots of color appeared on her cheeks.

  “You didn’t realize that you were speaking to a member of Hunter Watson’s defense team? Did she not identify herself?”

  “Well, yeah but…I mean…” Jarman looked down frowning.

  “Good. Could you answer the question, please?”

  “Yeah. Um. OK, well I thought Adil was cheating on his wife.” Daggers flashed at Nic who gave a nonchalant smile.

  “What made you think that?”

  “I saw him with another woman.” A quick reply, regaining her composure.

  “What made you think he was having an affair with her?” I returned just as quickly, keeping up the pressure.

  “What do you think? Huh?” She replied petulantly. “It was the way he was behaving with her. They were clearly more than friends.”

  I sensed the objection coming and spoke quickly. “Before the DA objects, could you clarify exactly what you saw?”

  There was a smattering of laughter from the public gallery.

  “They were kissing. They were sitting in Adil’s car just outside the clinic and they were making out.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a month ago. The clinic had closed. Adil had left me to lock up. After I locked the front door I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the back so I walked around the corner to check it from the outside. Adil was parked just a little way down the street.”

  “Do you know if this was an affair or a one-night stand?”

  “How would I know, for God’s sake?

  “Did you see this woman at any other time?” I asked.

  “No.” She replied emphatically.

  “Hear Dr. Khan speaking to her on the phone?” I persisted.

  “No.” Exasperation entered her tone again.

  “Did Dr. Khan’s wife know about the affair?”

  “How the hell would I know that?”

  “Quite.” I said with a slight smile. “Thank you, Doctor Jarman. No further questions for this witness, Your Honor.”

  Dr. Jarman was dismissed. She shot another hostile look in Nic’s direction as she left.

  “Such a shame.” Nic muttered to herself.

  “The sacrifice is noted.” I whispered to her. She replied with a grunt of laughter.

  It was hard to say for sure, but so far I felt like I had sown a few seeds of doubt for each of the key prosecution witnesses. It wasn’t enough on its own but it might just prevent a unanimous verdict by suggesting the possibility there was another suspect out there.

  A drug dealer, if Khan was dabbling himself. A jealous lover or even his spouse. I still had my own witnesses to call and a few surprises up my sleeve.

  Next on the schedule was a ballistics expert. I knew what Halden was trying to prove with his testimony and I had been happy to see him on the witness list. I knew what he was going to say and I knew what I was subsequently going to make him say.

  He would have more value to the defense than the prosecution. He would also be Halden’s last witness.

  There was a commotion to the rear of the court room. A police officer was making his way to the bench carrying a piece of paper. He gave it to Greene who unfolded it, read it and then looked directly at me.

  “I’m adjourning for today. We will reconvene at nine a.m. tomorrow. Counselor Jones, if you could see me in my chambers. You too, Counselor Halden.”

  He cracked the gavel. “Court is adjourned.” He said sharply and pushed his seat back, standing and striding from the room.

  The public and the jury stood at his departure, as did myself an
d Halden.

  “What the actual…?” Nic began.

  “Look after Hunter.” I told her, cutting across her. “Let’s take this as an opportunity. More time to review our strategy.”

  Halden was halfway across the floor heading for the judge’s chambers. I followed, catching up with her at the door.

  “That was some low trick you pulled tipping off the press.” I snapped in a low voice.