First degree - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,63

was him."

I take the ring, which Dylan had introduced into evidence, and hand it to Nick. "Do you recognize this as the ring he had on that night?"

He nods. "I believe so, yes."

"Would you try it on, please?"

Nick puts the ring on his finger and looks up at me, as if waiting for the next command.

"Alex, we were so worried about you," I say, wiping my brow in mock relief. "They said you were dead."

Hatchet admonishes me even before Dylan objects.

"I'm sorry, Your Honor," I say, then I turn back to Sabonis. "You are Alex Dorsey, aren't you?" I ask.

Dylan jumps up. "Objection, Your Honor, this is frivolous. Counsel knows who the witness is."

"Sustained," says Hatchet, staring a hole through my forehead. "Be very careful, Mr. Carpenter."

Undaunted, or at least only partially daunted, I try again. "Does it make it more likely that you are Alex Dorsey because you're wearing that ring?"

Dylan objects again and this time Hatchet overrules him.

"No, it does not."

"But putting Alex Dorsey's distinctive ring on his otherwise impossible-to-identify body would be a good way to make you believe it was him, isn't that right?"

"There is no evidence that happened. And we have the DNA results."

It's my turn to be annoyed. "That's twice that you've mentioned DNA, just like Mr. Campbell asked you. Did he promise you a lollipop if you did what you were told?"

I can see a flash of anger from Sabonis, which makes the question worthwhile, even though Hatchet sustains Dylan's immediate objection.

I change the tempo and throw some questions at him in rapid-fire fashion. "Did you run the DNA test, Lieutenant?"

"No."

"Are you an expert on DNA?"

"No."

"Would you know a piece of DNA if it walked into this room, stood on the prosecution table, and sang, 'What kind of strand am I?'"

Dylan objects again, and I move on. I like to jump around, moving from subject to subject, to keep the witness off balance. "You said that Ms. Collins didn't like Oscar Garcia, that she had a grudge against him. Do you know why?"

"I was told it was because Garcia got the daughter of a friend of hers hooked on drugs."

"When?"

"I'm not sure. I think about two years ago."

"Has Mr. Garcia ever filed a complaint that Ms. Collins attacked him? Tried to kill him?"

"No."

"So she carried this terrible grudge for two years, yet never cut off his head? Never set him on fire?"

"No."

I press on. "Was Oscar Garcia protected during those two years? Any police unit assigned to make sure Ms. Collins couldn't get to him?"

"He wasn't under police protection."

"Do you know if Ms. Collins is licensed to carry a gun?"

He nods. "She is."

A quick change in attack. "How did you happen to be there when Ms. Collins showed up in the area behind Hinchcliffe Stadium?"

"We received some information linking her to the Dorsey murder. We initiated surveillance, and she led us to the stadium," he says.

I react as if surprised by his response, though of course I'm not. "Information from who?"

"It was a phone call from an anonymous informant."

I nod. "You testified earlier that you received information from an anonymous informant initially linking Oscar Garcia to the murder. Is there an 'anonymous informant fairy' looking down on this case?"

Dylan objects and Hatchet sustains; it's getting to be a pattern.

I rephrase. "Was the extent of your investigative efforts in this case to sit by the phone and wait for someone to anonymously call you?"

"It is not uncommon to get such information. People often know things, but don't want their identities to be known."

"And sometimes the information is right, and sometimes it's wrong?"

"Yes."

"Lieutenant Sabonis, did I ask you to go over Ms. Collins's internal police records before you testified today?"

"Yes. I did so."

"Thank you. Would you please tell the jury how many times the then-Detective Collins was found to have committed any form of police brutality?"

"None that I could see."

"Any times that she was accused but not found guilty?"

"No."

"Is there anything in her record that could in any way have predicted she could be capable of a brutal act like this murder?"

Sabonis looks at me evenly. He's pissed and he could waffle, but he doesn't. "No, there isn't."

I end the cross there, and Dylan tries to patch up the holes I punched. Afterward, we break for lunch, and Laurie, Kevin, and I are all feeling pretty good about the Sabonis testimony. We cast some significant doubt in an area where there should automatically already be doubt: the question of whether someone like Laurie could have