Alibi II by Teri Woods Page A

DeSimone asked Nard to explain why he had asked Daisy Mae Fothergill to lie in the first place, he solemnly told the jury that he was scared and didn’t know what else to do. The truth was the kid was weeks shy of his twenty-first birthday and had never been arrested before, not even as a juvenile. He graduated high school, but went from basketball courts to hustling.
    Of course, Barry Zone attempted to redirect, but Nard simply continued making himself out to be the victim just as DeSimone had coached him to.
    After Zone concluded his line of questioning, DeSimone brought Detective Tommy Delgado to the stand. Delgado unfortunately did nothing but offer testimony that backed up the self-defense theory by testifying that the would-be robbers, Jeremy Tyler and Lance Robertson, did in fact climb a tree and come through an open window in the bathroom of the third-floor row home. It was also Detective Delgado he requested to read aloud the criminal records of Jeremy Tyler and Lance Robertson, as both had served time in prison for aggravated assault, gun charges, and drugs.
    After he had finished with Detective Delgado, he called to the stand a ballistics specialist, who confirmed that the gun found in Jeremy Tyler’s hand was in fact the gun used to kill Ponando Fernandez, also known as Poncho. However, it was not the gun that was used to kill Lance Robertson. The crime lab specialists also confirmed that the gun used to kill Lance Robertson was the same gun that had been used to kill Jeremy Tyler. Thank God the gun had not been found. DeSimone could only imagine the possibilities, thinking of how his client had merely thrown it away in a trashcan.
    Once he was done with his hired ballistics specialist, he moved on to forensics and the fibers found on the bathroom window at the scene, which offered substantial evidence that Nard was in fact defending himself from burglars.
    Then DeSimone pulled out the big gun, one of his closest friends from law school, Bernie Madofften. Bernie had become a top-notch expert in the psychiatric study of serial killers. He was very famous, very notable, and trustworthy, and his opinions were regarded as definitive by his peers in the professions of psychology and psychiatry. And of course his testimony backed Nard’s testimony, wherein Nard claimed he panicked, was afraid for his own life, and had a complete out-of-body experience and didn’t mean to kill or harm the intruders.
    By the time DeSimone was finished marking exhibits, questioning forensics and the police, and assisting Nard in his apparent and seemingly honest and truthful testimony, DeSimone had not only made Jeremy Tyler and Lance Robertson look like America’s Most Wanted, but it was apparent that not only were they hardened criminals, they were completely responsible for their own deaths, brought on by their own actions, and technically deserved what they got when they climbed through the window that fateful night. He let his last witness go, put his fists on his hips, spread his legs apart, looking like a full grown Peter Pan, and told the judge, “I have no more witnesses, Your Honor.”
    The judge and DeSimone turned to Barry Zone, whose job was to put Nard in jail. “Will you be cross-examining, Mr. Zone?” he asked once again. And once again, Zone’s answer was the same.
    “No, Your Honor, not at this time.”
    DeSimone couldn’t help but look over at Zone, intentionally mimicking the sly eye slant of a fox. Gotcha! He smiled, showed his pearly whites as Barry Zone held up his middle finger, pretended to smile back, then rolled his eyes.
      
    Liddles, his trusty binoculars in hand, sat in his beat-up old navy blue van, just as he had yesterday and the day before, and watched as Wink and his family got into the silver Oldsmobile. Their faces were somber, and no one said a word. They didn’t seem as happy and jubilant as they had been yesterday. His sister had already taken a cab home, after filling him on the day’s