I SEE YOU an unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by PATRICIA MACDONALD (bookstand for reading txt) 📗

Castor turned to the defense table. ‘Your witness.’

Marjorie Fox arose and approached the witness in the box. ‘You referred to that lamp as a weapon and you said that Mr Petty was unconscious when the explosion occurred. Could he not have sustained that head wound, and been knocked unconscious by debris falling on him?’

‘Possible. But unlikely. The head injury was caused by a direct blow to the skull.’

‘Could the lamp have been pulled out of the socket by the force of the blast? Could it have flown up and whacked Mr Petty in the head?’

‘He could have been hit by debris, but a direct hit like that would be highly unlikely.’

‘But it’s not impossible that his head injury was incurred during the blast.’

‘Not likely. But not impossible,’ Evans conceded.

‘Dr Evans, what if Mr Petty had been outside, doing some nighttime fishing on his dock? What if he had walked back into the house at the moment of combustion?

‘He would have been blown back out the door,’ said the coroner.

‘And if he came in, smelled the gas, and approached the propane stove to turn it off? Would his body have remained in the house during the blast?’

‘It might have,’ the coroner conceded.

‘Did you do a toxicology test on Mr Petty’s remains?’ Marjorie asked.

The coroner nodded. ‘I did.’

Marjorie looked at him innocently. ‘Did you find any traces of alcohol in his system?’

The coroner nodded. ‘Yes, I did find traces.’

‘Enough to determine if he was intoxicated?’

‘I determined that his blood alcohol was at the legal limit.’

Marjorie pounced. ‘In fact, could intoxication have accounted for Mr Petty’s inability to recognize the danger he was in as the gas filled the house?’

‘It might have slowed his reaction time. However . . .’

‘No further questions,’ said Marjorie.

‘Objection,’ said the D.A. ‘The witness should be allowed to answer.’

‘Sustained. Finish your answer,’ said the judge.

‘The victim would have had to be unconscious not to notice the smell.’

‘Or just severely inebriated,’ said Marjorie tartly.

‘The defense attorney is testifying,’ the D.A. objected.

‘Withdrawn,’ said Marjorie politely. ‘No further questions.’

ELEVEN

The coroner’s testimony and Marjorie’s cross-examination were the last exchanges of the day. Hannah and Adam left the courtroom feeling slightly hopeful. It seemed as if Marjorie had turned the prosecution’s witness, the coroner, against the people’s case, because of the opportunity his testimony gave the jury to see other possibilities for Troy’s death. ‘Reasonable doubt,’ said Adam into the darkness, as he held Hannah in his arms that night. His words soothed her, and she fell asleep more easily than she had in weeks.

They were the first spectators to arrive in the courtroom the next morning. But they were not there before Marjorie Fox and Lisa, who were already seated at the defense table. Marjorie was making notes on papers and frowning. Lisa saw her parents and her eyes lit up behind her glasses. Hannah and Adam slipped into the two chairs directly behind her. Hannah ran her index finger gently down the side of Lisa’s face. Lisa smiled at her.

‘How are you holding up?’ Hannah asked.

Lisa shrugged. ‘Not too bad. I read. I try not to listen to the other prisoners, who are howling most of the time. I tell myself that it’s almost over.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Adam.

‘I thought we did really well yesterday,’ Lisa enthused. ‘The coroner seemed to waffle.’

‘Yes,’ said Hannah. ‘By the way, Sydney sends kisses.’

Lisa nodded and then frowned as Marjorie leaned over and told her to turn around. Lisa did so just as the ‘all rise’ was announced, and the judge entered the courtroom. Although she did not turn back around to look at her parents, Lisa lifted two crisscrossed fingers to show them. It was a symbol, Hannah realized uneasily, which could have two very different meanings. One indicated ‘Hoping with all my might’. The other meant, ‘I am not telling the truth.’

The first witness of the day whom the prosecutor called to the stand was a middle-aged woman who lived on the same dirt road as Troy Petty. Vera Naughton had hair like a haystack from being bleached mercilessly and she held it off her face with a black elastic headband. She was clearly in her fifties, was overweight and wore a wildly patterned turquoise and black stretchy top, black stretch pants and black patent-leather thonged sandals.

She took the stand in an almost dainty manner and when asked where she lived by the D.A., she launched into the story of her life which had led her to that house near J. Percy Priest Lake.

‘My husband, Beaufort, bought that land so we could build out there and he could go out in his boat whenever he wanted to. Of course, he was an air-traffic controller at the Nashville airport but he got asthma and then he hurt his back and he had to take early retirement which meant . . .’

‘Mrs Naughton,’ the D.A. interrupted. ‘Just tell us, briefly, where you live in relation to the house Troy Petty was renting.’

Like a chastened but obedient schoolgirl, Vera pointed at the map which stood on display next to the other prosecution exhibits. ‘I live right there. Two doors away.’

‘Right where?’ asked the D.A. ‘Can you point your home out to the jury?’

Vera frowned and craned her neck. Then she started to rise from the witness box. ‘May I?’ she asked coyly.

The D.A. nodded, and Vera descended from the box and approached the map which sat on an easel. She leaned forward, and squinted at it.

‘It’s little bitty on this map,’ she said, but then she placed a pudgy index finger on a spot over which it had been hovering. ‘Right there.’

The D.A. gallantly swept an arm toward the witness box and Vera resumed her seat, wiggling herself into a comfortable position.