The tick-tick-tick started up again.
Leigh watched Reggie ’s throat work from across the room. She gathered from his silence that he was suddenly uncomfortable with his crimes. And crimes was the appropriate word. Private detectives were barred from using illegal means to gather information, just like attorneys were barred from using unlawfully obtained information in court. If Reggie went on the stand, he would be opening himself up to a perjury charge. If Leigh called him up knowing he was going to lie, she would be facing the same.
Andrew was trying to fuck them both over in plain sight.
He prodded, “Reg?”
“Yeah.” Reggie’s throat worked again as he swallowed. “Sure. I’ll be ready.”
“Good,” Andrew said. “What’s next?”
Tick-tick-tick.
“Just give me a minute to—” Leigh indicated her blank notepad. The pen clicked. She started writing nonsense words so that Andrew would think she was seriously contemplating losing her law license and being thrown in jail.
At least Cole Bradley’s absence from the meeting made sense. The slick bastard didn’t want to expose himself to prosecution, but he had no problem letting Leigh take the risk. He’d even tested her back in his office, asking her opinion on whether or not she felt comfortable suborning perjury with Sidney on the stand. Now, she had to work her shadow case against Andrew, plus the actual case, plus put on whatever dog and pony show Cole Bradley was expecting.
“All right.” With great difficulty, Leigh made herself look at Andrew. “Let’s go over your appearance in court. First, I want to talk to you about your presentation. What you’re going to wear, how you’re going to behave. You have to remember during voir dire that potential jurors are watching your every move. Do you have any questions about procedure?”
The ticking had stopped again. Something about Andrew’s posture held a warning. He took his time asking, “Voir dire?”
Leigh fell back into lawyer mode, launching into her usual speech. “Voir dire is the process by which each side gets to question prospective jurors. Generally, a pool of around fifty people is randomly selected . We’ll get an opportunity to question each person. We’ll be looking for perceived bias, backgrounds, qualifications, who we think will be sympathetic to our side—or not.”
“How do we know?” Andrew had broken her rhythm. She could tell he had done it on purpose. “What if they lie?”
“That’s a good question.” Leigh had to stop to swallow. His voice was different, softer but still deep in register, the same way that Tammy had described. “All jurors have to fill out a questionnaire, which we’ll get access to ahead of time.”
“Can we investigate them?” Andrew asked. “Reggie can—”
“No, we don’t get enough time and it’s counter-productive.” One glance at Reggie told Leigh that he was on board with whatever Andrew wanted. She tried to move them away from another scheme to rig the system. “When prospective jurors are on the stand, they are under oath. They have to be honest, and judges will give you a lot of leeway to look for possible conflicts.”
Reggie said, “You should really get a jury consultant.”
“We’ve already discussed that.” Andrew kept his attention on Leigh. “What kind of questions will you ask?”
Leigh’s internal siren sounded an alert, but she listed off some of the possibilities. “The judge will ask some general questions first, like have you or a family member ever been the victim of a violent crime? Do you think you’re capable or incapable of being impartial? Then we’ll get into education, work experience, clubs or organizations they belong to, religious affiliation, whether there’s any relation between themselves and anyone on the case, whether or not they are prepared to hear graphic details about sexual assault, whether they’ve been sexually assaulted themselves.”
“Right,” Andrew said. “Will they have to talk about that? If they believe they’ve been sexually assaulted?”
Leigh shook her head. She didn’t know where this was going. “Sometimes.”
“And are you saying we do or we do not want those people on the jury?”
“It—” Her throat had gone dry again. “We get challenges, and—”
“I think the best strategy is to try to pull out the details. For instance, how old they were when it happened, whether it was child abuse or—” He paused. “Forgive me, is there a difference between a sex act with, say, a teenager and one with an adult?”