to the theory that Richard overdosed on conventional pills.
He also talks about how quickly liquid Amenipam works, and that the Coast Guard would have had to appear very quickly after any injection, or Richard would have died.
Finally, Coletti takes him through Dr. King’s testimony about the presence of campene. “Is campene used only to preserve Amenipam?” she asks.
He smiles a condescending smile. “Certainly not. It’s used very commonly with all kinds of drugs. I’ve actually never heard it used with Amenipam, though it’s possible that it would be.”
I start my cross-examination by asking Dr. Turner if he has ever done any acting.
He seems taken aback by the question. “What do you mean by acting?”
“I mean playing a role… pretending. I don’t mean professionally; have you ever been in a school play or anything?”
“In high school… once or twice,” he says.
Coletti objects, asking where this could be going. Judge Gordon tells me to get to the point.
I nod. “Okay. Dr. Turner, I’d like you to act something out for me. Imagine you’re sitting at a table, and you’ve decided to swallow a whole bottle full of pills. Show me how you would do it.”
“How I would swallow the pills?” he asks.
“Yes. Do it like you’re acting it out, or playing charades.”
Coletti objects again, but Judge Gordon lets it proceed. Dr. Turner pours some imaginary pills from the imaginary bottle into his hand, then puts them as far back in his mouth as he can. Then he takes a drink from an imaginary glass and swallows the imaginary pills.
“Very nicely done,” I say. “For the court reporter’s sake, let the record show that you pretended to take pills out of a bottle, put them in your mouth, pretended to take a drink from a glass, and swallowed them. Is that accurate?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“You weren’t undecided about how to do it, were you? That was the obvious way?”
“It was the obvious way,” he agrees.
“Except there was no glass,” I say, taking some papers from Kevin. “Your Honor, here is an inventory of the boat that night. All the glasses were clean and put away in the cabinet. There were none on the table or on the sink. There were none anywhere except the cabinet.”
“Maybe he cleaned it,” Dr. Turner says, making the classic mistake of answering a question that wasn’t asked.
I nod. “Right. He was willing to have someone find his own dead body, but a dirty glass would have just been too embarrassing.”
“Perhaps he took the pills over the sink, cupping water in his hand.” Dr. Turner is feeling trapped, even though he has no reason to be. He’s a scientist, not a cop, and he shouldn’t feel that he has to defend the investigation. But that’s how he feels, and I’m going to take advantage of it.
“A whole bottle of pills?” I ask, not bothering to mask my incredulity.
“It’s possible.”
“There were no traces of Amenipam found in the sink. Do you find that desperate suicidal people who’ve just committed a violent murder are usually that neat?”
I move on to the pill bottle itself, which we have asked to be brought to court. I show it to Dr. Turner and ask him to read the label and tell me what pharmacy it came from.
“There is no label,” he says. “It’s been torn off… There are traces of the back of the paper.”
“According to the police reports, the detached label was not found on the boat, and seventy-one pharmacies nearest to Mr. Evans’s house were canvassed. None had provided the prescription. Can you explain that?”
He shrugs. “He didn’t want anyone to know where he got it.”
“Is it illegal for a pharmacy to dispense Amenipam?”
“Not with a prescription.”
“Is it hard to get a prescription for it?”
“Depends on the doctor, and what the patient tells him.”
I nod. “How about ‘I’m not sleeping well’? Might that do the trick?”
“Depends on the doctor,” he repeats.
“In your experience, is it likely that a suicidal murderer would care if people knew where he got his prescription?”
Coletti objects, and Judge Gordon sustains. I let him off the stand, having made enough points to satisfy myself.
In fact, all the morning witnesses have gone as well as we could have hoped, but the gallery and press in attendance have barely been paying attention. It is as if they have been watching the undercard before a heavyweight championship fight.
Our lunch hour is spent in an anteroom finalizing our plans. Karen will be bringing Reggie into the courtroom, and she will have a key