"Now, sergeant, when a nine-millimeter weapon is fired, what happens to the casing-the brass jacket behind the actual bullet that holds the gunpowder that propels the blast?"

"It gets ejected."

"You mean it pops out of the gun?"

"Yes."

"And did you find a casing for a nine-millimeter round in Mr. Nolan's bedroom?"

"Yes. It was among the sheets on the bed."

"Were you able to match that casing to the recovered Beretta?"

"Yes."

"So there was one nine-millimeter bullet and no others recovered from the scene, one nine-millimeter casing and no others recovered from the scene, and although the bullet itself was not capable of comparison, the only casing at the scene that could have contained that bullet was fired by the nine-millimeter Beretta with the defendant's fingerprints on it."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

24

WHEN THEY ALL GOT BACK to their tables after a short afternoon recess, Washburn noticed that Mills seemed to be losing her sense of humor as the day wore on. But whether Mills was enjoying it or not, she was putting on the kind of straightforward, linear case that juries tended to like. Her next witness was Evan's direct superior in the police department, Lieutenant Lochland, who, alarmed at Scholler's absence from work, had found him in his apartment, drunk and covered in blood, and eventually placed him under arrest.

"Lieutenant," she began, "Defendant was under your direct supervision while he worked with the police department. Isn't that so?"

But Washburn and Evan had talked about this coming testimony on the break, and the old lawyer was on his feet before she'd finished her question. "Objection! Relevance. Three fifty-two, Your Honor."

Tollson turned a questioning look down to Mills. "Counselor?"

"Foundational, Your Honor," she said.

"That's fairly broad. Can you be more specific?"

"Goes to Defendant's state of mind leading up to the act. Also foundational to the break-in at Mr. Nolan's."

The judge, in what Washburn was beginning to recognize as something of a pattern, pulled his glasses off to ponder for a minute.

Before he could put them back on and render his decision, Washburn said, "Your Honor, if you will, I'd like to request a sidebar." If Mills was getting tired or losing her chops due to low blood sugar, if this was her afternoon tendency-and her body language made it appear to be-Washburn wouldn't hesitate to use that against her.

A shorter pause this time, until Tollson nodded. "Very well. Counsel may approach." When the two attorneys had gotten in front of the bench, Tollson peered over it. "What's the problem, Everett?" he said.

"Your Honor, there's no possible relevance to Lieutenant Lochland's relationship to my client. The only thing this will get the People is negative character stuff. That Evan was angry, that he lied to his superiors when he broke into Nolan's place, that he disobeyed orders, maybe got drunk on duty. There's nothing possibly relevant there and even if it is, it's far more prejudicial than probative and opens up a whole number of cans of worms."

"Ms. Whelan-Miille?"

Clearly, Washburn's attack on this point had blindsided her. But she wasn't about to give up any ground without some kind of a fight. "The lieutenant's a hostile witness, Your Honor. You think he wants to be up here testifying against another cop, and one that worked for him? He's not going to say anything bad about Evan's character. At worst, he'll say he was mixed up and still recovering from the wounds in Iraq. And that will, if anything, incite sympathy from the jury. This is all part of Mr. Washburn's case anyway. How can he want to put it in through his own witnesses and keep it out with mine?"

"If it was all that sympathetic," Tollson said, "I doubt if Mr. Washburn would object to the testimony. And in that case, why do you want it?" the judge asked. When Mills couldn't come up with an answer in the next ten seconds, Tollson stepped back in. "Let's move on, shall we? How's that sound?"

Washburn inclined his head. "Thank you, Your Honor."

Back at the defense table, he pulled his yellow legal pad over in front of him and drew a happy face that he showed to his client under his hand. At the same time, Mills tried to pick up with her witness. "Lieutenant, it was you who arrested Defendant, was it not?"

"Yeah. That was me."

"Can you tell the jury the specifics?"

"Sure." He turned to face the panel and began in a conversational tone. "Lieutenant Spinoza-he's the head of the homicide detail-called me at home as a courtesy on that Saturday to tell me he was worried about Patrolman Scholler. He'd been called on the Ron Nolan homicide and remembered that Patrolman Scholler had looked up that name on the police computer in the past few days. Spinoza wondered if I'd heard from him and I told him I hadn't. Patrolman Scholler hadn't been into work on Thursday or Friday, so when I got Spinoza's call, I was a little worried myself.