Bury the Lead - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,47

and eight prospective jurors admits to knowing about this case, but ninety-nine of them claim they can be open-minded in deciding it. It is my task to determine, through gentle probing of their attitudes and experience, the few of them that might be telling the truth.

Tucker, for his part, has a different challenge. Since this is a death penalty case, he wants to make absolutely sure there are no jurors who are opposed to capital punishment. Tucker would view life imprisonment for Daniel as a defeat; lethal injection as a modest victory; torture and public beheading as a triumph. I don’t think the chance of acquittal has even entered his mind.

Considering the circumstances, the jury that we come up with isn’t half-bad. Kevin thinks we did great, and Daniel shares his enthusiasm. Even though Daniel reads the newspapers each day, and even though I’ve always been straight with him about our chances, I don’t think he has a clue as to how dim those chances are.

The preparation necessary in the days just before trial is incredibly intense, and we’ve been working fourteen-hour days. But with opening statements tomorrow, I observe my superstitious ritual of taking the night off from work.

I usually spend the pretrial evening quietly, with Tara, but this time I’ve amended it to include Laurie. I ask that we not talk about the trial, and she happily agrees. It helps me clear my mind and ready myself for the job ahead.

Laurie makes dinner, and afterward she suggests that we go to the den to play some gin. I think she does so as a way to boost my self-confidence, since she is the worst gin player that has ever lived. She speculates to the point that she takes cards with no regard to whether or not she needs them; I think she just goes by whether she likes the color or the pictures. I have always been an outstanding gin player, memorizing every card played and never taking an unnecessary chance.

We play five racks, and she wins only four.

With that confidence boost behind me, I take Tara for our walk. It is a time when I can think of the job ahead of me, especially the points I want to make in my opening argument. Most important, I must make myself remember to have fun.

There is a scene in the movie Dave where Kevin Kline, impersonating the president, is about to confront Congress at a personally perilous time. He sees that his adviser looks stricken with worry, and he stops to tell the man to “enjoy the moment.” That’s what I must do to be effective in trial. It is a game to me, and I am at my best when I am enjoying that game and playing it loosely and confidently.

As Tara and I are heading back, a car drives down the street toward us. Suddenly, there is a crashing noise, and I see that a liquor bottle, obviously thrown from the car, has landed less than a foot from Tara’s head. “You’re going down, asshole!” is the yell that comes from the idiot in the passenger seat as the car roars away.

I reach down and pet Tara everywhere, making sure she hasn’t been cut by the shattered glass. She seems okay, but shaken by the scare, as I am.

So far I’m not having much fun.

• • • • •

“NOT TOO MANY weeks ago, we were all afraid” is the way Tucker begins his opening argument. “People were dying, our neighbors were being mutilated and murdered. We worried for our wives, for our mothers and grandmothers, for our daughters. Because there was a monster out there targeting women, unsuspecting women who were going about their lives, until one day they didn’t have those lives anymore.”

Tucker is very well aware of the public sentiment regarding this case, since to be unaware would have required spending the last few months on the planet Comatose. He wants to put the jury in the frame of mind where not convicting Daniel would be threatening the safety of their friends and relatives.

“The police have done an extraordinary job investigating this case. They have gathered facts, not theories or suppositions. They have discovered items in Daniel Cummings’s possession that absolutely prove he murdered these people. As a prosecutor, I am grateful for that. As a member of this community, I am very grateful for that. They’ve done the hard work; my job is the easy one. I merely have to lay out those