Her mouth dropped open and her eyes almost fell out of her head.
“I…I…No…I…”
“So you did not place your hand on Mr. Callahan’s arm and offer to do ‘anything’?” he pushed.
She swallowed as she shook her head. “He may have misunderstood, I was trying to comfort him—”
“Instead of helping his wife,” he cut her off.
“There were more than enough people working on her.”
“Were you assigned to Mrs. Callahan’s case then?”
She sighed loudly. “No, I was in the wing when he came in—”
“So you approached him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he seem distraught?”
“Yes, that’s why I went to him!” she snapped quickly. “He looked like he was going to break down at any moment.”
“Because he loved his wife and was worried?”
She stopped for a second and nodded. “Yes. I guess so.”
“Dr. Lewis, did Mr. Callahan threaten anyone else at the hospital?”
Her head dropped as she stared at her hands. “No.”
“These are Mrs. Callahan’s X-Rays taken after she lost her baby, correct?” DiMarco clicked, and on to the screen x-rays of Mel’s chest, hand and legs appeared.
Dr. Lewis looked slightly confused, as she leaned in to see before she nodded. “Yes, those are hers.”
“And how do you know?”
“The old breaks in her left radius, right tibia, and long with the healed breaks in her proximal phalanx.”
“Proximal phalanx?”
“Those are the bones in her hands.”
“Yes, of course. And what about her rib cage?” he asked as he clicked to another picture.
“More of the same, healed breaks along fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs.”
“How long ago was this?”
She shrugged. “I’m not a forensic anthropologist, but I would say anywhere between twelve to fourteen years ago for some of them.”
“At which time Mr. Callahan could not possibly have—”
“Objection! Beyond the scope!” the prosecutor yelled. “There is no way Dr. Lewis can testify to that.”
Are you fucking kidding me? She can say I scared her but she can’t fucking testify using her bloody medical degree?
“Your Honor—”
“Sustained. Please keep it on the facts, Mr. DiMarco,” the judge stated, and I was torn between screaming and taking a bat to her little head.
Maybe both.
“Why would someone have those types of breaks, Dr. Lewis? Could it possibly be that she was a fighter?”
“Objection—”
“No further questions, Your Honor,” DiMarco said as he walked back over to me. The good doctor quickly got off the stand, trying her best not to look at me.
“Your Honor, the defense would like to call to the stand Fedel Morris,” DiMarco said reading from his paper.
I wasn’t even aware that any of our men were in the room, but there he was, dressed in his Sunday best. It was odd how everyone seemed to look the same. I’d been away for five months, and the only two people who looked different were Ethan and myself.
DiMarco stepped forward again. “Please state your name for the record.”
“Fedel Gino Morris.”
“Thank you, Mr. Morris. I’ll get right to it, how long have you worked for the Giovanni family?”
“A little over a decade.” He looked bored.
“So you would know why she was so badly hurt?”
“Yes, I can testify to being the reason for at least one of her broken hands,” he snickered.
“You broke her hand?”
“More like she broke it against my jaw once.”
She’d probably done it more than once.
“Was she violent? Why did she hit you?” he asked him before looking to the jury.
“We trained together. She spent years learning to defend herself. Her father didn’t want her to be a victim for any reason.”
“And if Mr. Callahan had put a hand on her…”
“She would be sitting in his place right now.”
“You have a lot of confidence in her.”
“Objection! Is there a question in there somewhere?”
This motherfucking prosecutor was working my last fucking nerve.
“Excuse me, Your Honor, let me rephrase,” DiMarco replied. “Why do you have so much confidence in Mel?”
“She’s a fighter, always has been, always will be. She isn’t some weak abused Stepford wife that allows her husband to take advantage of her. And if in some twisted reality Mr. Callahan was hurting her, I can say without a doubt that he would not be sitting here today.”
Well that’s comforting, and here I thought I’d been making progress with her people.
I hear the door open, and the clicking of heels along the ground, and the hope in me built up as I fought with myself to not turn around. It wasn’t her. It was never her. There was no point in turning back.
“No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Morris.”
As he sat down, the prosecutor stood. “We have no questions for this witness, Your Honor. But we would like to call Officer Anthony Scooter to the stand.”
It’s like a who’s who of everyone hates Liam.
I had no doubt that this would be entertaining.
He sat tall and proud as if he were expecting the city to give him a fucking medal. I wanted chop off his head and stick it on a motherfucking flag pole.
“Officer Scooter, you were one of the arresting officers on scene, correct?”
“Yes, I was. I was also the point man on the case.”
Keep talking, asshole, you’re burying yourself six feet deep and you don’t even know it.
“Why did you suspect Mr. Callahan?”
“Mr. Callahan did his best to avoid talking to us. Then I found a connection between his past girlfriends and it became increasingly clear that Mr. Callahan was hiding something. There was blood belonging to Mrs. Callahan on his boots, along with three guns, in his bedroom alone.”
What, they’d only found three? Declan must have locked down everything else.
“Surely you questioned him about your findings, what did he say?”
“He said nothin’. His hotshot lawyer came in and he didn’t say a word to anyone. He looked dazed.”
“Dazed?”
“Yeah, like he was high or drunk—”
“Objection! Speculation.” DiMarco stood.
“No further questions,” the prosecutor replied, saving us all the time.
“Officer Scooter, is it true that this isn’t the first accusation you’ve directed towards my client and his family?” DiMarco asked.
“I don’t understand the question,” he replied.
Really this was the man everyone trusted to tell the whole truth?
“Do you have a vendetta against the Callahans, Officer Scooter?” DiMarco snapped causing the jurors to shift in their seats.
“No. I just believe the rich shouldn’t get away with murder. They aren’t untouchable, no matter how badly they want to be,” he snarled, glaring into my eyes.
“So it’s the rich you have a problem with.”