to remember. Did they interrogate you at the hospital before my father told you not to answer any questions?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t remember much from yesterday.”
“But the older fella was always with you?”
“Yes, ma’am, except when he had to go to the bathroom, and then a police officer came and sat with me.”
“Was the older fella in a police uniform?”
“No, ma’am. He was in a suit and a tie.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Do you remember when you were told your Miranda— When they said, ‘You have a right to remain silent. You have a right to counsel?’” She waited. “Kelly, do you remember when you were told those words?”
Kelly could clearly see this was important. “Maybe in the police car on the way to the jail this morning?”
“But it wasn’t at the hospital?”
“No, ma’am. It was sometime this morning, but I don’t know what time exactly.”
Sam sat back in the chair. She tried to think this through. If Kelly had not been read her Miranda rights until this morning, then anything she said before that time could technically be inadmissible in court. “Are you sure this morning was the first time they told you your rights?”
“Well, I know this morning it was the older fella that done it.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Maybe if he did it before, you can see it on the videotape.”
“What videotape?”
“The one they made of me at the hospital.”
11
Sam sat alone at the defense table. Her purse was on the floor. Her cane was folded up inside. She studied her notes from the interview with Kelly Wilson, pretending as if she did not know that at least one hundred people were sitting behind her. Without question, the majority of the spectators were locals. The heat of their white-hot rage made sweat roll down her back.
One of them could be the person who had stabbed Rusty.
Judging by the furious whispering, Sam gathered that many of them would gladly stab her, too.
Ken Coin coughed into his hand. The county prosecutor was sitting with a veritable phalanx: a doughy, fresh-faced second chair, an older man with a brush-broom mustache, and the obligatory attractive young blonde woman. In New York, this type of woman would be wearing a well-cut suit and expensive heels. The Pikeville version had her looking more like a Catholic nun.
Ken coughed again. He wanted Sam to look at him, but she would not. A perfunctory handshake was all that she had allowed. Any gratitude that Coin believed was owed to him for killing Daniel Culpepper had been erased by his scurrilous behavior. Sam was not a resident of Pikeville. She would never return. There was no need to pretend she had any affinity for the dirty, underhanded bastard. Coin was the type of prosecutor who made all prosecutors look bad. Not only because of the cat-and-mouse he had played with the arraignment, but because of the videotape that had been made at the hospital.
Whatever was on the recording could hang Kelly Wilson.
There was no telling what the girl had said. Based on Sam’s brief time with her, she did not doubt that Kelly Wilson could be talked into admitting that she had assassinated Abraham Lincoln. The legal issue, perhaps the most important motion that Rusty would argue, would be whether or not the film of Kelly should be admissible in court. If Kelly had not been read her Miranda rights before she answered questions on the record, or if it was clear that she did not understand her rights, then the video should not be shown to the jury.
Technically, that was how it was supposed to work.
But this was a legal matter. There were always workarounds.
Ken Coin would argue that Miranda did not matter because Kelly had voluntarily made the recorded statements. There was one giant legal hurdle in his way. In order for the video to be admissible, Coin had to prove that a reasonable person—fortunately, not Kelly Wilson herself—would assume that Kelly was not in police custody when the statements were recorded. If Kelly believed that she was under arrest, that handcuffs and fingerprint impressions and a mugshot were imminent, then she was entitled to the reading of her rights.
Ergo, no Miranda rights, no film shown to the jury.
At least that was how it was supposed to work.
There were other weak links in the system, including the mood of the judge. Very rarely did you find a completely impartial figure on the bench. They tended to lean toward the