After the conversation he overheard in the laundry, Jalen was completely convinced that Wieczorek was involved in the whole thing.
Ashlyn herself, however, remained skeptical for a long time. The evidence was thin, and all they had was very sketchy information about a possible relationship between Wieczorek, Brandt, and Sanchez.
Jalen, however, was persistent, and in the end, due to the time pressure and the fact that they had no other leads at the moment, they had developed a reasonably tenable working hypothesis: they knew that Brandt, Sanchez, and Wieczorek had been in the bakery together before. Brandt had apparently shot Sanchez deliberately, and Wieczorek seemed to have a problem with Nicholas Brandt and even wanted to harm him. At least, that was the conclusion that could be drawn from the statements in the file and the very conspicuous behavior of Norman Wieczorek in his first hearing as a witness in court, which he then abandoned.
This could indicate that Eric Sanchez and Norman Wieczorek could have been in cahoots. And even though Ashlyn, unlike Jalen, was not nearly as convinced by her thesis, she had finally decided to pursue this possible lead. What could they lose?
That was her goal for today's proceedings, and now that she had decided, she would follow through with it.
After she had taken a seat at the defense table, Nicholas Brandt was led into the courtroom. Ashlyn immediately noticed the fresh abrasion on her client's right temple.
"Nicholas," she asked, concerned. "What happened?"
Brandt looked at her blankly as if he had no idea what his lawyer wanted from him.
"The wound on your forehead," Ashlyn repeated, frowning, wondering if her client really had no idea what she was talking about or if he was trying to fool her.
Brandt nodded briefly and murmured softly, "I tripped in the yard." Then, as on the other days, he folded his hands in his lap and stared rigidly and expressionlessly ahead.
Ashlyn looked at her client with consternation, and from one moment to the next, she was overcome with insecurity. She didn't know whether she should believe Brandt. She didn't know what to think of him at all. Brandt remained silent and uncommunicative. What was going on in this man's mind? Was Nicholas Brandt really worth all this effort? Or should she just give up on this game? She looked at Ryan Bauman, who was animatedly discussing something with one of the reporters present. With each day that the trial went on, Bauman got more and more confident.
Ashlyn knew they had reached a turning point. The proceedings threatened to get bogged down. If something didn't happen soon, if she didn't shed some light on the matter, the trail could end quickly and unspectacularly. So what was the point?
Her thoughts went back to the day she met Anja Brandt for the first time six months ago. She stood before the prosecutor, helpless, overwhelmed, and without any support. And she thought of Lily Brandt—a strange girl surrounded by some kind of secret that she hadn't yet uncovered.
A loud laugh made her sit up. Bauman, the self-appointed guardian of the law, jovially patted the court reporter on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, looked knowingly at Brandt and Ashlyn, and joined Bauman's laughter.
Ashlyn felt disgusted by Bauman's narcissistic behavior, and her fighting spirit was reawakened in every fiber of her body.
She ignored all personal feelings. In her job, feelings were usually only a hindrance.
She had come here to win. No matter what the defendants usually told her when she was working in her actual capacity as a prosecutor, they usually only told lies. Therefore, it made no difference that Brandt was now silent. He would tell some made-up sob story that wouldn't have helped her, Ashlyn, in the trial at all.
This was about the big game—against Bauman. And there was only one goal: to win the game. Today, she would make up for a lot along the way. She would bring Wieczorek's role in the case to light.
Satisfied with her decision, she picked up her pen and made a note in the file. She wrote on the paper in large letters:
Losing is not an option! Whatever the cost!
The next moment, the door at the front of the hall opened. Valarie Rhodes now entered the hall. Confidently and with the natural authority surrounding her, she put her files before her and turned to the audience. "May I ask you to take a seat? I would like to start."
Less than five minutes later, she opened the trail, and Wieczorek was called. He seemed to be in much better shape today than he had been last week. After re-instructing the witness, the judge granted Ashlyn the right to ask questions.
Ashlyn took a deep breath, rose from her chair, and leafed through the file she had been given for a remarkably long time as if she were looking for a specific sheet. Then, all at once, she paused and looked at Norman Wieczorek with a winning smile. "Mr. Wieczorek, I'm glad to see you looking so well today. I hope you're feeling better?"
Norman Wieczorek, unsure and afraid to say the wrong thing, nodded briefly before replying, "Yes, thank you. I must have eaten something bad."
Ashlyn pursed her lips and frowned a little. "That's unfortunate, but I'm glad to hear that you're healthy again," she said, flipping through her file again. She wanted to delay the actual start of the interrogation to raise the witness's comfort level as much as possible. "Excuse me, I'm just looking for where I noted the last appointment."
Wieczorek nodded hesitantly.
"Okay, I found it. Last time, Mr. Wieczorek, you denied my question of whether something was between you and my client, Nicholas Brandt. Did I get that right?"
"Yes, that's right. I remember that. It was right before I got so sick."
Ashlyn was still smiling, and that seemed to irritate Wieczorek for some reason. "Excellent. Do you want to stay, Mr. Wieczorek, or did you perhaps think of something that might possibly connect you with my client after all?"
"Well, no. Actually, there isn't anything," he replied uncertainly, looking back from Ashlyn to Judge Rhodes.
"Actually," Ashlyn replied, folding her hands as she stepped towards the witness stand. 'So there is something?' she asked. And before Norman Wieczorek could answer, she continued, "Let me rephrase my question. Is there anything between my client, Nicholas Brandt, and you that Henry Moran might know?"
"Henry Moran?" Norman Wieczorek asked, looking genuinely baffled as if the name meant nothing to him.
Suddenly, Ashlyn felt insecure and noticed her adrenaline level rising. What if Wieczorek was telling the truth? Despite this uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach and because she had previously committed to her strategy, she brushed this thought aside. Turning back now wouldn't help her. Instead, she decided to just corner the witness more.
All or nothing!
As she made this decision, she secretly knew how she was now throwing out all the rules of witness examination that were part of the basics of every good lawyer.
Above all, her most important rule: Never ask a witness a question if you don't know their answer!
"Henry Moran," she said, "the Fresh Start Laundry Lab downtown employee."
"Oh, him," Wieczorek replied, suddenly appearing much calmer. 'Yes, I know him.' He smiled and looked relieved. 'And what was the question again?' he asked, looking in Ashlyn's direction.
"My question was whether there was something between you and Nicholas Brandt that Mr. Moran might know."
"No, there really isn't!" Norman Wieczorek replied so persistently that Ashlyn paused momentarily.
Was Wieczorek telling the truth, or was he just playing his role so well that he brazenly lied to her? After all, she thought it was possible and continued with her ruthless guesswork. "And if I were to ask Mr. Moran if he knew something, would you still be so sure?"
At that moment, Bauman jumped up from his chair, but before he could say anything, Judge Rhodes waved him away with an apparent hand gesture and spoke herself.
"Ms. O'Laighin, as much as I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and your strategy, I wonder what you're getting at. How many times do you plan on asking the witness the same question? If you have proof that something is wrong here, I'd like to know. We don't have time for games here, which is certainly not their place!"
Ashlyn turned to the judge with confidence.
All or nothing.
"Your Honor," she began. "May I approach?"
Rhodes took a deep breath and motioned for the defense and prosecution to approach the bench. Both attorneys followed the silent request.
Ashlyn frowned slightly. "The witness seems to have forgotten, but I submitted a motion to hear the witness Henry Moran."
Bauman merely snorted and suppressed an eye roll.
"And what is this witness supposed to testify to?" Judge Rhodes asked, stating the apparent admissibility requirement of a motion to hear a witness.
Ashlyn returned to the table where Nicholas Brandt was sitting, took her motion from the file, and was about to hand it to Rhodes when Wieczorek spoke up.
"Excuse me, I think I know what you're getting at after all," he said, looking Ashlyn confidently in the eye. "But that was a few years ago, so I didn't think it mattered. Well, I thought you wanted to hear something else."
Ashlyn felt bad. She looked into the audience, where her cousin Jalen was sitting, but he just shrugged.
"Well," Norman Wieczorek continued. "Nicholas Brandt and I lived in the same house until four years ago. And, well, there was always noise in the evenings because his daughter screamed so much. Of course, I didn't like that. And so I spoke my mind that I didn't like it. Well, maybe I was a bit blunt, and it came to an argument, and then something broke too." He paused and then looked at the judge. 'But I replaced everything! Penny by penny.'
As Norman Wieczorek continued speaking, Ashlyn felt panic rising within her. One look at Bauman made her realize that she had just scored a catastrophic own goal. With every sentence Wieczorek said, it became more apparent that Jalens and her remarkable relationship with Brandt, everything she had read into the testimony and its wording, the whole connection she had seen in Wieczorek with Brandt's act, was vanishing into thin air.
Norman Wieczorek had argued with Nicholas Brandt years ago about noise in a rental house that had gotten a bit out of hand. And the entire conversation in the laundry room that Jalen had read so much into was utterly irrelevant. There was obviously no connection between Eric Sanchez and Norman Wieczorek and no conspiracy against Nicholas Brandt. In the end, he had nothing to do with their trial. The whole thing was nothing more and nothing less than an ordinary neighborhood dispute.
xxx
Ashlyn rolled over in her bed, breathing heavily. She bit her lower lip and put her hand on her sweaty forehead before closing her eyes.
Dominic Burke, her good friend and former colleague, was lying beside her, breathing heavily and blinking at the ceiling.
She called him after the day of the trial and told him that she had put her foot in her mouth and urgently needed a distraction.
He knew precisely what the blonde was talking about and knew that it was more a matter of frustration reduction, which the two of them had experienced years ago under the influence of alcohol after a crystal-clear court case that they had worked on together and yet had lost by a considerable margin, and a child murderer had got away.
He and Ashlyn had agreed at the time that this sexual slip had been a one-time thing because they got along too well professionally and personally to destroy this excellent professional partnership, this close friendship, with a little act of frustration sex. But it hadn't stayed just that one time. Whenever Dominic or Ashlyn lost a case, they would end up in bed together again. Or when one of them won a case that seemed to be lost. Nevertheless, they had both agreed that they did not want to jeopardize their unusual friendship with a relationship that, in the worst case, would lead to them falling out. They had also promised each other that the sex would end if either of them met someone they wanted to enter into a serious relationship with.
So, no strings attached.
Dominic blinked a few times and turned his head to the blonde. "Well?" he asked after a long silence.
Ashlyn bit her lower lip again and shook her head. "I made a fool of myself today, Dom." She looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought. "And even worse: I damaged the case and reduced the chances of winning. And I also harmed my client."
Dominic remained silent. He knew she needed a moment to organize her thoughts and put them into words.
"This witness, Norman Wieczorek, testified last week and then got sick." Ashlyn paused and licked her lips. 'I was so damn sure that he had something to do with this.' She sounded annoyed but also a bit self-deprecating. As if it would do her good to talk about her defeat today. "And Jalen, too! His investigations seemed to underline that. Unfortunately, he was mistaken. And I didn't check it. And then I drove it into the fucking wall. With a run-up. And Bauman celebrated." She pulled in her lower lip and continued to frown as she stared at the ceiling before speaking of the disaster she had experienced in the courtroom that day.
"Well," Dominic replied sympathetically, turning to look at her and pushing his hand under his head. "Yes, it went horribly wrong. But look at it this way. Wieczorek's testimony in the file had, until then, cast an unchallenged negative image of Nicholas Brandt. And at least you were able to clear that up today."
Ashlyn looked at him only briefly out of the corner of her eye, and her facial features relaxed for a moment. She was obviously grateful for the encouraging words. But then her expression darkened again. "The whole Brandt case makes no sense at all. We know what happened but not why. Brandt is still silent, and I have no idea why he isn't talking. Right now, it all boils down to me losing the case! And that can't be!" She sat up and pulled the blanket far over herself. "Maybe I should meet with Anja Brandt again. Even if she's unaware of what's at stake here, she might have some information to help us. There has to be something!"
Dominic nodded and rested his head on his hand, frowning a little. "That's right. And maybe I even know what that could be."
She looked at him in astonishment.
He took a deep breath. After he had left the public DA's office as an investigator, he had promised Ashlyn that he would continue to help in the spirit of their friendship as long as he remained within the law. "However, it's not so much about Anja Brandt as it is about her daughter. In fact, we need to talk about Lily. Because I found out something today. The little one is a unique young girl with an extraordinary nature." He paused and looked intently at the lawyer.
Ashlyn raised her eyebrows. 'What do you mean?'
"I think she has a handicap. If you don't know it, you hardly notice it. And no one has noticed it in the past few months. The few times I met her, Lily seemed happy and laughed. But when Anja Brandt was at your office last week, and I kept Lily busy for a while and did some painting with her, I noticed something. Lily seemed very jerky and started laughing and clapping her hands several times, seemingly for no reason."
Ashlyn closed her eyes and rubbed her neck, sighing. "But that doesn't mean anything, does it, Dom? Maybe the girl is cheerful and so absorbed in her painting that she forgets about her surroundings. She wouldn't be the only child like that."
Dominic took a deep breath and frowned. "You're right. That's why I asked my good friend Evelyn Reid. She's been a pediatrician for over ten years and said it could be Angelman syndrome. It's a disability in which physical and mental development is delayed, more or less noticeable depending on the severity. One of the symptoms is that those affected laugh more often and more than average and seem very happy."
Ashlyn pricked up her ears. 'Angelman syndrome. I've never heard of that.' She immediately thought of Maggie – the only medical professional she really knew. She would definitely have to ask Ashlyn about it.
And then she suddenly had an idea. And she saw in Dominic's eyes that he obviously had the same thought. "If you're right, I mean if the little girl really suffers from this disease, this disability – what kind of care does a girl like Lily usually need?"
He took a deep breath and frowned again. "According to Evelyn, it depends a lot on the intensity of the disability. What is certain, however, is that those affected require the support of others throughout their lives, and developmental aids and interventions significantly improve the independence of those affected. And --"
"... and these measures are likely to be correspondingly expensive, depending on how intensive they are," Ashlyn concluded the thought. She smiled now.