Family Bonds
Disclaimer: I own nothing
A/N:
Chapter 28 (First Witnesses)
After going through the chain of control regarding all the evidence, Scott was ready with the next witness. Mr. Sikowitz himself. Sikowitz shook his head slowly at Andre and looked over to Scott.
"Just to clarify, the defendant was one of your students, was he not?"
"He was."
"You were a drama teacher?"
"Yes." Sikowitz leaned back slowly and pushed his hands along his legs while listening to the lawyer's questions. "I did receive a call from Andre. I recall the time as I always ate dinner in my office around five o'clock while grading papers."
"So it was around five that the defendant called your office." Scott put his hands at his hips and squinted his eyes. "What did he want?" Sikowitz exhaled slowly and closed his eyes.
"He wanted use of the theater room where the piano was located so he could practice. Andre told me his grandmother was yelling about burnt food and he wanted to practice where it was quiet."
"Did he make any comments about maybe when he would like to be there?"
"Yes sir. He said multiple times '7:30', he was going to get down there around 7:30 to practice. I unlocked the door and let him in at that time, then returned to my office upstairs." Scott tapped his chin with his pen and started to hum.
"So let me get this straight, you were the only other person in the building at that time, and you left your student alone on the first floor?"
"I had no reason to suspect he would do anything-certainly nothing of this caliber." Sikowitz shrugged and scratched at his beard. "I trusted most of my students, so I had no reason to believe he would do anything to the school property. I've let some of my better students have that privilege of not being supervised constantly. Mind you, I would go down and check on them often, whether they realized it or not."
"So did you go down and check on Mr. Harris?"
"I did." Sikowitz crossed his arms and pressed his lips firmly together. "At eight o'clock, I went down to the auditorium and he was not there. I assumed he went home."
"How did you not hear a struggle?"
"Easily." He leaned to the right and extended his right hand out a bit. "The west wing of the school is, of course, on the west side…the bathroom was all the way at the end of the hallway." He raised his left hand up and extended it out all the way to the left. "The theater box is in the east wing." He cupped his hand downwards and raised it up. "Right below my office."
He dropped his hands. "It would be more likely that I would hear music below than I would hear anything in the west end of the building. Even on a silent night, that wing is at least an entire block away. You must understand the size of the building, we had a very large track field behind the building, the length of the building extended past the length of that field."
"Okay. Did you hear any music between the time you let Andre Harris into the building that night and the time that you went to check on him?" Scott looked to his notes, tapping the paper with his pen. "I believe you said this was between 7:30 and 8:00 where you thought he must have gone home."
"I heard no music."
"Did you allow him to bring anyone in the building, or did you realize that the victim was being let in?"
"I did not. He informed me that he was going to be by himself. I did not let Katrina into the building, nor did I know that she was there." Sikowitz bowed his head, his voice wavered for a moment and the air around him looked to intensify as his tone dropped. "Had I known he was going to let her in, I would have been there. I should have…I certainly…"
Trina wanted to reach out and tell him he wasn't at fault. She never blamed him for anything, and he certainly couldn't have known what would happen. Hell, she knew the only reason Andre led her to the west wing was because Sikowitz would have heard something had they been on the east. She knew the teacher would have tried to intervene, and that's what mattered most to her. It meant more that she knew he would have tried to do something to stop Andre than the fact that he let the man in.
Scott waited a moment for Sikowitz to wipe the tears from his eyes. He spoke softly and turned his eyes down partially. "Is it true then that this Jason is in fact your sister's son, Jason Tyler?"
"Yes. Yes sir."
"What role does he have in all of this? Do you know?"
"He is Katrina's husband. At the time, they met and dated seriously at a camp in 2009. They separated after the camp and had no way of finding each other when my sister wound up leaving to another area of the globe with Jason. They returned to California in 2011."
"Did he know the defendant?"
"Not to my recollection, no. I do know, however, that he spoke fondly of Trina. He thought she'd moved on from him, had I known she was looking for him…had I known Andre would use my nephew to lure her…"
"It must cause you a great deal of pain. Anger."
Sikowitz huffed up. Veins began to bulge from his neck and forehead as he glared in Andre's direction. "Andre Harris was one of my better students. I had a great deal of respect for him at the time. When that bathroom became a crime scene and police started questioning me about him, I didn't know what he'd done and I didn't think he could have done anything despite his being the only other person there…"
"When did you learn the true nature of what happened to Katrina?" There was a difference between when Sikowitz found out and when he was actually told, and she knew that. The man was always observant, so though she never actually told him, he had to have known close to the beginning.
"It didn't take long to put two and two together. Between Trina's injuries and my nephew's reactions to her telling him, I knew it couldn't have been anyone else. Andre had done something to her…"
"How did your nephew react?"
"Jason has a very quiet anger, but when he's upset about something, he will either go to the gym and stay longer or hit the punching bag we had with a greater intensity than he normally does. When he reconnected with Trina, there was a time when he would be at the gym all day and sometimes he'd be in the basement with the punching bag for hours at a time."
"That's how you knew there was something wrong?"
"Yes sir." Sikowitz flared his nostrils and studied Andre closely. Andre was leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He had a slick look on his face and for some reason appeared to be immensely confident. "I sat Jason down to talk when he and Katrina began dating again and he told me that she dated Andre for about a week before dumping him-that she still had feelings for him and didn't want to 'lead Andre on'."
"I understand. Did you have any interaction with Katrina after her attack?"
"I did not. I did, however, see her pick her sister up at school a few times. Each time, she would not drive into the parking lot and she would not look at the building, making her sister walk across the street to get to her."
"Did that alert you to anything?"
"I thought maybe something had happened, but I didn't know what. As you can imagine, I didn't look too much into it." Scott hummed for a few moments and his eyes moved towards the defense table.
"Tell me, Erwin. Did Andre ever strike you as unstable? Did he have moments in class where he would fly off the handle?"
"Not from what I observed, no." Trina smirked with pride when she saw Andre sink a bit in his chair. Sikowitz straightened his back and folded his hands neatly on the stand. "Like one of my other students, Beck Oliver, Andre was one of the more rational students in my class. At least, he always appeared to have a sensible head on his shoulder. Never the paranoid type like his grandmother was. I think that his grandmother was so paranoid was what kept him sane, he had to be sane."
"Sane. Have you ever seen him become angry?"
"A few times he would get upset, yes." Sikowitz breathed in as Andre started to scowl. "I remember him yelling at another student, Robert Shapiro, for not adjusting the stage lighting the way he wanted it. Then there were the girls he would date…"
"He dated frequently?"
"Oh yes, he had a new girl nearly every other week. I would see him dump them when he was tired of them or they did something that irritated him."
"Now, did you ever see him get into a fight with anyone before?"
"Once or twice, I would have to intervene because he didn't like the way someone talked to him or looked at him. It wasn't often though, I wouldn't say there's any indication of psychosis or anything, but I'm no medical expert."
This was a brilliant display-Scott was trying to blow Andre's defense out of the water before the defense attorney had a chance to bring out his witnesses.
At the very least, this would get the jury to think and at least consider that Andre wasn't clinically insane at the time.
Scott passed the witness and everyone listened as Brendon asked him a few questions regarding his inability to hear anything at the school and whether or not Jason may have been angry over Trina dating someone else. Sikowitz of course said the couple hadn't been together at that point, so there was no reason for Jason to be upset over it when she told him what happened.
The next witness called up was the current chief investigator of the case, also the responding officer for the next crime of which Andre was charged of being involved in. "State your name for the court, please."
"Officer Samantha Benson." Sam raised her right hand and Judge Walker swore her into the court.
"You actually knew the victim at the time of the sexual assault, didn't you?" Sam squinted and shook her head.
"Not directly, no. My friend Carly came to California with my husband and myself and we met Trina's sister. We didn't personally interact with Katrina much at all that day." She snapped her fingers and raised her eyebrows up. "I was also roommates with Catherine Valentine once, she was good friends with both the defendant and Tori at the time."
"Ah, I see." Scott ran his fingers along the surface of his desk and furrowed his brow. "You're the chief investigator of the crime in question, but you are also the investigator of a second crime of which the defendant has been charged with solicitation, are you not?"
"I am." They wouldn't cover the second crime much since it was technically over. There was the solicitation charge, and Dean was to testify relating to that. Rachel was also testifying regarding that issue, but that was about as much that would happen. "Andre Harris is charged with soliciting his son to attack Rachel Tyler, the daughter of Katrina Vega."
There were a few gasps from either the jury box or the audience, though Trina couldn't see where. She knew that was going to be a bit of a shock factor for people; they would want to know why exactly Andre sent his son after her daughter.
"In regards to the rape allegation, you have had no trouble with the evidence?"
"Both Holly Vega and David Vega ordered every bit of evidence to be stored should the investigation be reopened." David found out during the fight between Andre and Trina, as pointed out, so it came to no surprise that he had the chief investigator store the evidence away when she decided to call off the charges. "After twenty-six years, we were able to conserve the majority of DNA samples, photographic and video evidence."
"And you were able to confirm after 26 years that Andre was, in fact, a contributor of the DNA samples discovered at the scene?"
"The evidence shows with 99 percent accuracy as of the latest test that Andre Harris not only contributed, but he was at the scene of the crime when it occurred." Sam rolled her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. "Technology has also advanced to we are able to determine the time someone has gone to the restroom. The urine samples were produced at around 7:30 that evening."
"Would you please tell the court…" Scott closed his eyes and raised his hand up. "When you arrested the defendant, what was he doing?" Sam adjusted herself in the chair and pulled her hair back over her shoulders.
"Andre Harris was arrested in the Central City Parking Garage with a 9 millimeter Ruger Revolver. He was seen holding Katrina Tyler at gunpoint from behind." Sam reached up, pointing to her ear. "I personally heard him threaten her life, and then make suggestive statements."
"Suggestive?"
"He was threatening to sexually assault her before killing her unless she would return to Judge Walker and demand his son be granted bail." Sam looked at Judge Walker, then back to Scott. "This happened after the bond hearing for his son."
"And you said he had a 9 millimeter Ruger Revolver?"
"Yes sir. It was the same type of gun that we have kept in storage from the crime scene at Hollywood Arts. We have that weapon in evidence now."
"Now according to you, you heard him make a sexual threat to the victim. What is your recollection of what he said?"
Sam's eyes lifted up and to the right as she recalled the statement. "I remember everything he said before I was able to read him his rights. Before we subdued him he said 'this reminds me of last time'."
"Last time?"
"I took that to refer to the assault." She swept her hair over her ear and cleared her throat. "As I was preparing to read the charges he continued to threaten Trina, stating 'I'll find you. If my son's case isn't dismissed, I will find you.'" She narrowed her eyes. "Then as I read the aggravated sexual assault charge, without knowing that Katrina was the victim of our case, he proceeded to call out to her."
"And what was said?"
She looked to the right with a sigh and closed her eyes. "He said: 'You callow, sly, sneaky bitch. Don't tell me you're getting me on sexual assault.'"
"So you're saying, he knew before the full charge was read to him that you were referring to our victim?"
"That is correct. He then proceeded to announce that, 'that was thirty years ago. You can't possibly have evidence'." Sam crossed her arms and shrugged her shoulders. "I promptly read him his rights and led him to the car."
"Thank you." Brandon asked her a few questions, but nothing that would suggest her answers or actions were related to any potential bias. To be honest, Trina felt like the defense didn't have a prayer.
There was a recess called. For many celebrities or people with plenty of money, they could buy time and trials would last forever, but Judge Walker wasn't biting. The court, however, would resume within the day.
Trina met with Mr. Sikowitz outside the courthouse and almost immediately threw her arms around him. She understood the man's stress. "Thank you for your testimony," she whispered to him, "I want you to know that I have never held any blame or anger towards you."
Sikowitz smiled and hugged her back. "I know. Thank you, dear." Someone cleared their throat and Trina stepped away from Sikowitz. She turned around and froze when she spotted her mother.
"M-Mom?"
Holly put her hands to her hips and smiled sadly as Tori, Rachel, Jason and even Mr. Sikowitz cast wary gazes on her. "I wanted you to know I'm proud of you." Trina furrowed her brow as Holly moved towards her. "I know what I said before, I know things between us…things can't easily be repaired…and yes I am sorry."
Trina looked to the side and crossed her arms. "You said up there…the reason you became distant or 'lost your daughter' was because of Andre."
"And myself." She dropped her arms and Holly bowed her head. "I was angry because you didn't want to put that asshole away." Trina closed her eyes and Holly breathed in sharply. "That man hurt my baby, and you were going to let him walk."
"Because he threatened me, momma."
"I know, and now, I don't blame you for that." Holly's shoulders fell and her lips twisted into a small smile. "I'm glad you're putting him away though. Honestly, I am."
It meant a great deal to have her mother's support, even though her mother basically disowned her. "I'm glad you actually decided to testify." Holly smirked playfully and swept her hand through her silver hair.
"Well it wasn't like Amy is around to testify right now, and I was the one doing most of the work." Holly's smirk faded and the woman stepped forward, taking Trina by surprise by hugging her close. "You've become so strong, and even if we never speak again…I am proud of you."
She reclined her head and started to speak. Holly pulled away and wiped her eyes, gazing at Trina as the silence surrounded them. "Goodbye honey." Trina furrowed her brow as a knot grew in her throat. "I know where I went wrong, I know I'm not the healthiest person to have around your family-"
"Mom-"
"No. Sweetie, I can't. I can't pretend that things will get better between the two of us." Her heart sank as Holly took a small step back. Holly bowed her head and closed her eyes. "The least I can do is give my testimony and pray…pray you will be a better mother than I could ever be…A stronger woman, a better person, a better wife. Someone that would never hurt the man you love. Goodbye Trina."
Trina gasped out as Holly turned and started to walk away. Tears fell from the corners of her eyes as Tori and Rachel hugged her. "Are you okay?" Tori asked. She wiped her eyes and looked back to the courthouse, clearing her throat.
"I-I think I'll be okay. I just…I need time…"
Well there's the first batch of witnesses, what are your thoughts as you go through them? What do you think of Holly's farewell?
