Mangled 23/24
Mangled 23/24
Characters: Predominantly Scotty and Kevin but of course the other Walkers all put in their appearances
Summary: So, it turns out you can mangle anything; cars, people, relationships...
Rating: PG
Genre: Part angst, part hurt-comfort and true to tradition poor Scotty seems to be the source of it all!
Disclaimer: The characters you recognise do not belong to me, I can only dream... The ones you don't recognise are my creations and are simply here for my own amusement.
X X X
At 10am, Kevin and Scotty found themselves back in the courtroom. Everyone in the room rose as the judge entered, and the proceedings were reconvened. Kevin was invited to begin presenting the case for the defence.
Kevin’s case relied solely on Scotty’s testimony and a written statement produced by Tom, the man who had helped his husband and daughter. Despite his best efforts, Tommy had been able to find nothing about that model of car that might have lead to some failure other than a computer shutdown. Kevin knew that evidence was sketchy at best, so had taken the decision that regurgitating the same supposition would provide the ideal opportunity for the prosecution attorney to completely discredit his case under cross-examination. Though the defence was credible, Kevin did not want to push his luck.
“Your honour,” he began as he stood to address the court, “I have only one witness,” and he helped it would be enough. “Before I call my witness (the defendant), I would like to draw the court’s attention to the sworn affidavit of Mr Thomas Bishop. Mr Bishop is unable to attend court today as he is in Europe and did not have sufficient notice to return in time for the trial.
“We were unable to subpoena his attendance as we have only just managed to track down his location.” Kevin turned to the jury. “You see, Mr Bishop, one of the witnesses present at the scene of the accident, one of the witnesses whose details officers Reid and Martinez failed to collect. Instead it has been left to defence Counsel to identify and track down the witness. Regrettably, when we made contact with Mr Bishop two days ago, he was in Switzerland. To help you with your deliberations and provide the fullest picture possible, we found a Swiss judge, in front of whom Mr Bishop prepared his affidavit.”
“Objection. Defence is casting aspersions against the professionalism of one of my witnesses. Move that the evidence and reference thereto be struck from the record.”
“Motion denied,” ruled the Judge. Kevin nodded and pulled some paper from a file. He handed a copy to the judge, prosecution counsel and all twelve jury members. The prosecution counsel skimmed through the material.
“Your honour, I really must object strongly and in no uncertain terms about this. Accepting this eliminates the principles of transparency and due process. After all, this affidavit provides me with no opportunity for rebuttal or expose any deficiencies in the defence’s case. I can only imagine Mr Walker’s reaction if I had presented written testimony instead of producing one of my witnesses!” John Crisp’s face was getting redder and redder.
Scotty, looking worried, was whispering quietly to Kevin.
“What’s going on?” Kevin shushed him. “But what if...”
“It’s gonna be fine,” Kevin was watching Judge Connor’s body language. He hoped his gamble would pay off, knowing full well the testimony might not be accepted.
“Thank you, Mr Crisp. Your strong objections have been noted. However, in the interests of allowing Mr Walker to present his defence and remedy the omission of one of the prosecution’s witnesses, I will allow him to submit the statement.” Kevin remained calm as he realised how unimpressed the judge had been with Officer Reid’s testimony and reports of his conduct throughout the proceedings. Crisp opened his mouth to object further, “however, I would advise all jurors that this statement should not simply be taken at face value. I must ask you to consider all the information therein within the context of everything else you’ve already heard and will hear throughout this trial. Call your witness, Mr Walker.”
“I’d like to call the defendant, your honour.” Scotty looked uncertain, but Kevin nodded his encouragement as his husband took the walk from the defence table to the witness box to give his testimony.
Like the other witnesses before him, Scotty was sworn in by the court’s clerk.
With gentle probing from Kevin, Scotty recounted to the court what he remembered of that morning. With only a few hesitations, Scotty told the story just as he had told it to Devin in the privacy and protection of their bedroom.
After an hour’s testimony, the time came for the prosecution to question Scotty.
“Mr Wandell, to the best of your knowledge, you’ve told the court what happened that morning.”
“Yes sir, I’ve told everything I remember.”
“Let’s go back a little before then,”
“Objection - irrelevance,”
“In support of my argument, your honour,” Crisp rattled off automatically.
“Overruled; get to the point, Mr Crisp,”
“Your honour. Mr Wandell, can I take you back to the evening before the accident. Can you tell me what you were doing?” Scotty looked to Kevin nervously.
“We had a function at the restaurant.”
“Restaurant?”
“Cafe 429. I run it with my husband’s uncle.”
“You were busy that evening?”
“Very,”
“And what time did you finish?”
“I...I think it was 1:30am when the last guest went home.”
“1:30am? Man, I don’t know how you guys can do that. I’m in awe.” Kevin stiffened at the friendly tone. “So, come 01:30, you went upstairs to bed?”
“No, we had to clean the kitchen. We have to do a full scrubdown. We decided to leave the, in the mostpart, the restaurant until the next morning.”
“Okay, and how long does that normally take.”
“It can be about an hour, give or take.”
“Okay, so we’ll say for arguments sake that it takes an hour, that would mean you got to bed at 02:30am.”
“Yes...no, sorry, er...no. When I got up the apartment I made Olivia’s packed lunch.”
“So, what time did you, get to bed, Scotty?”
“I guess, I don’t know...maybe about three?”
“Are you asking?”
“Er...no. No, it must have been about three.”
“About three.” Crisp turned away from Scotty for the moment. “So you got rid of all the guests, you cleaned up, you made a packed lunch and went to bed by about three...Mr Wandell, I’m a little confused.”
“I always make Olivia’s lunch. If I left it to Kevin she either wouldn’t get any food or it would all be junk.”
“No, Mr Wandell, that’s not...what I’m confused about,” he turned back to Scotty, “is that I’ve been looking at the statement you gave to the police after the event and when they asked you what time you got to bed your reply was, and I’m quoting here, “Officer Reid: What time did you finish? You: I don’t remember. Officer Reid: Was it late? You: Pretty late, I guess. Officer Reid: Pretty late? Midnight? You: Maybe.” Mr Wandell, there’s a big difference, isn’t there, between midnight and 3am?”
“Objection, your honour. Prosecution may be quoting the transcript of hte police interview but defence has already shed doubt on the validity of the testimony as Mr Wandell was heavily concussed. And
on that note, I’d also like to draw the court’s attention to the response Mr Crisp just cut short. When asked whether it was midnight by Officer Reid, Mr Wandell actually replied: “Maybey. My head hurts.” Kevin sat down defiantly.
“Objection sustained. Move on, Mr Crisp.” Crisp sighed.
“Were you tired that morning, Mr Wandell? Being a chef is a very physically demanding job, you work long hours, then it’s up to you to go and make a packed lunch. That’s a lot of pressure and you were up and about in enough time to take your daughter to school.” Crisp could see that Kevin was about to object again and quickly changed the subject.
“Let’s take a look now, at what you remember of that morning, Mr Wandell. You’ve given us a very clear description of everything you remember. I do find something a little odd, though. You’ve managed to remember all of that so clearly, right down to remembering Tom’s name and enough information to track him down to this absentee telling you about Mr Briggs contacting his insurance company, which I’d like to clarify has not been substantiated, materially or not, yet you struggled to tell me what time you got to bed.”
“Objection! Your honour, we’ve already done this. Mr Wandell was concussed. He remembers the accident now, he also remembers what time he went to bed. And for the record of the court, the only reason we managed to track down Mr Bishop was Scotty remembering a couple of days after the accident that he had tried to call me using Tom’s phone. We worked with the phone company to identify the number form which he called and rang it in the hopes that we would be able to speak to Mr Bishop and present him to the court.” Kevin could feel himself losing his cool. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. Then it struck him. He stood there, not moving, and closed his eyes.
“Mr Walker?” asked the judge.
“Shhh,” Kevin was struggling to fully grasp what had just hit him.
“Kevin?” Scotty was shocked that Kevin had the temerity to shush the judge.
“Shhh,” he stood stock still for a few moments, then a small smile began to crawl over his lips. “Your honour, I’d like to request a recess and I’d also appreciate a word in chambers with the Mr Crisp.”
“Mr Walker, this is most unusual...”
“Please?”
“Mr Crisp?”
“Why not?”
X X X
“I need to call an extra witness,”
“No way! You can’t do that. You pulled that stunt with the affidavit, which was bad enough, you’re questioning the defendant there’s no way I’m going to stand by and let you bring in some random person who might support some of the your speculation.”
“I’m inclined to agree, Mr Walker. You know as well as I do that you should disclose any evidence to the prosecution and that once the defendant has taken the stand, case closed.”
“Your honour, this is new information, and I do understand where you’re coming from and John I really am sorry, but I think it’s important. And I know it’s not Scotty’s fault.”
“Explain yourself, Mr Walker,” So Kevin explained.
X X X
An hour and a half later the court reconvened and what would be the trial’s final witness was sworn in.
“Do you understand what you’ve just promised? That what you say has got to be the truth?”
“Sure,” Olivia nodded. “And you’re happy to tell the court what you remember?”
“I guess,”
“Olivia, you can’t guess. You either have to do it, or we need you to step down now.”
“I’ll do it.” She resolved, looking more determined than Kevin had ever seen.
After Kevin had persuaded the Judge and Attorney Crisp to accept testimony from Olivia, he had called Justin, who had been looking after. Kevin asked his brother to put their daughter on the telephone and asked whether she could be brave and tell the Court what she remembered about the accident. At no time on the telephone did he refer to his ‘golden ticket’; he knew John Crisp was already gearing up to play the
collusion card.
Olivia didn’t understand the sudden turn of events; having been told one day that there was no way she would be allowed back into the courtroom to be asked to speak in front of all those people. The only thing she did know, from her own intuition and the way Kevin was talking to her was that whatever she had to say might help Scotty. She swallowed her fear and agreed to tell everyone what she knew. She handed the phone back to Justin, and Kevin asked to him to get Olivia to the courthouse as fast as he possibly could. Confused, Justin agreed and they had arrived 45 minutes later.
For his part, Scotty was sitting back at the table. When Kevin had explained he planned on calling Olivia, Scotty had objected strongly, arguing it wasn’t fair to put her through that, particularly if the jury found against him. He didn’t want that on her conscience.
“What do you remember about that morning, Olivia? What happened when you left to go to school?”
“We walked through the restaurant.” She began nervously, “there were a couple of the servers there. They were trying to clean up the mess in the dining room. There had been a huge party the night before and there was one heck of a mess.”
“Okay, and then where did you go?”
“We went out to Scotty’s car.”
“Did you put your seat belt on?”
“Scotty refuses to even start the car if I’ve not got my belt on.” Olivia said matter-of-factly.
‘That’s good, honey,’ thought Kevin, ‘paint Scotty as the responsible parent. Always safety conscious.’
“Okay, you remember that part clearly?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And can you remember what happened next?”
“Scotty pulled away. There was a lot of traffic. We sat there for ages and I was really worried I would be late to school.” She looked a little sheepish, “that was my fault. He told me to get ready and I didn’t come straight away. I think that made him stressed!” she smiled. Kevin winced inwardly as he noticed Crisp’s ears prick up. He was now confident where cross-examination would go. Keen to move Olivia on, Kevin urged her to continue her account.
“Right, so you sat in the traffic; were you moving quickly?”
“We were going real slow,” Olivia drew out the ‘real’. “We only seemed to go a little tiny way and then we had to stop again.”
“And what happened when you reached the intersection where the accident happened.”
“The lights were green, so Scotty started to turn round the corner,” she closed her eyes. Kevin could see her thinking really carefully. “The car felt funny. It didn’t turn right and it felt bumpy, like going over speed humps. That’s when I saw the lights change. I think Scotty knew something was going to happen. I saw him check I had my seatbelt on and then I heard a clicking noise.” Scotty’s head shot up; he had forgotten about that. Kevin surmised she was talking about the hazard lights. “He tried to keep us right at the side of the road and he knew he just had to get us round, but the car just wasn’t moving fast enough because there was a lot of other traffic coming around us. Next Scotty told me to sit very still and cover my face with my hands.” Scotty gripped the desk tightly; it was all coming back to him again, too. “Before I covered my face I remember seeing a red car. It was coming right towards us really fast. All the other cars travelled around
us, but that one just kept coming. I remember Scotty was really scared.” In his seat, Scotty wiped away a tear that he felt starting to trickle down his face.
“It’s okay,” Kevin said softly, “you’re doing really well, but I need to ask you a few more difficult questions. Is that all right?” Olivia bit her lip and nodded. “That’s good. Can you tell me now, what you remember about everything that happened after the accident?”
“I remember hearing a really loud bang and I felt a crash. Then my leg really hurt. There was another bang too, and my face was really hot. I think it was my air bag exploding. It got really dark then.” Olivia paused and took a very big breath. Olivia’s testimony had included some details Kevin hadn’t heard before. Scotty either hadn’t remembered those details or he had deliberately omitted them. This was difficult for her, Kevin knew, but he just had to try and get that nugget of gold from her. Truth be told it was difficult for him to, and a quick glance behind told him that, sitting alone in the middle of the court room, it was particularly tough on Scotty.
“Can you remember any more, honey?” Kevin encouraged.
“The next thing I remember is a man. I couldn’t see him properly, but he was talking to Scotty.”
“Was he the driver of the other car?”
“No,” she said confidently, “although he was telling Scotty about him. He wanted to make sure we were okay and he stayed with us until an ambulance arrived. I think Uncle Justin came, but I didn’t see him.”
“Can you remember what the man said to Scotty?”
“He was talking to him through the window and helped him get out of the car. I think they were talking about a cell phone, too. Scotty wanted to call you. And there was something else, too; he said that an ambulance had been called but it wasn’t the man in the other car. He said he was too busy on his telephone. I think he said something about him speaking to his insurance company. Should we have done that? I think Scotty was too worried.”
Kevin gave Olivia a small smile: “No further questions, your honour.” He went to sit down behind the table next to Scotty; before he sat down he gave his husband’s shoulder a small squeeze. Scotty looked a little like he had seen a ghost.
“Mr Crisp, your opportunity to question the witness.” Crisp smiled calmly and stood up.
“Olivia...is it okay if I call you Olivia?” she nodded, “great! Olivia, please can you tell me about what happened before you set off. You said you made Scotty mad.”
“He called me because he was ready to go, and I ribbed him a bit because he was late up.”
“Does Scotty like to stay in bed late?”
“No,” she smiled, “he was late coming in the night before because of the party.”
“Do you know what time he got off work?”
“No, I just know it was late. He kept asking me if I’d done all this stuff and I kept saying he’d have known if he’d have got up earlier.”
“And did that make him grumpy?”
“I think it did a little bit. I get grumpy when I’m tired.” Crisp smiled indulgently.
“Me too. Was Scotty mad when he got in the car?”
“No, he was fine.”
“A little stressed maybe, because you were running late.”
“I guess he could have been a little, because I kept panicking. I didn’t want to be late to school because I would have got a detention.” Kevin’s head was telling him to object to this line of questioning; trying to trick Olivia into saying Scotty was so stressed the accident was his fault, but he couldn’t seem to form the words in his mouth.
“Did you distract him a little with that?” Crisp asked, almost playful in his tone. This time Kevin managed to form the words.
“Objection Your Honour; this has nothing to do with the accident.”
“The testimony demonstrates Mr Wandell’s state of mind at the time of the accident...”
“With respect your honour, it simply shows father-daughter bantering before they even left the restaurant,”
“She harassed him in the car,” Crisp turned round and spat at Kevin.
“She was worried about being late for school,” Scotty said quietly, “she didn’t want to get into trouble...”
“There you are. Mr Wandell would do anything for his daughter. Did her persistence make him that stressed he lost concentration? Perhaps he was that keen to get her to school on time he took a risk too far. Either way it certainly indicates a lapse in judgement on the part of Mr Wandell...”
“Order,” called Judge Connor, banging her gavel, “end the line of questioning Mr Crisp, you’ve made your point.”
“Thank you, your honour.”
“Now Olivia, I want to talk to you about the story you’ve told us; what you remember after the accident. Is that really clear in your mind?”
“Yes sir, it is,”
“That’s good. Have you remembered it all since the accident?”
“No. After the accident I didn’t really know what had happened. I mean, I thought that Scotty had left me alone; I know now that he didn’t do that.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I talked about it with Kevin.”
“And did you talk about any of the other details with Kevin.”
“Some,”
“Have Scotty or Kevin told you anything they know?”
“No.” She looked sheepish, “Scotty was really sick after the accident. I don’t think he was well enough to talk about it.”
“You obviously heard some stuff when you were in here yesterday, too?”
“Sure, but I had to go home.” Crisp nodded.
“Did you talk to your father or grandmother about what happened?”
“Grandma Nora wouldn’t say much, other than she knew Kevin was going to do his very best. I spoke to Kevin a little last night. I wanted to know why the man rang his insurance company.”
“You heard about that when you were in court, right? I know these things can sometimes be a little difficult to understand, even for adults,”
“No sir,”
“I’m sorry?” Crisp didn’t understand.
“I didn’t hear it in court,”
“But we talked about it yesterday. Kevin talked about it; surely you remember?” Olivia wracked her brains, a little disappointed that she couldn’t remember something that she was sure was so important.
“Your honour,” Kevin stood, “I’d like to explain; we discussed this after Olivia had left the court room.”
“Thank you, Mr Walker,” said Judge Connor.
“Anymore questions, Mr Crisp?”
“No, ma’am, thank you.” John Crisp returned to his seat, a small smile touching his lips; he obviously felt he’d taken the upper hand.