He’s weak, I imagine them thinking. The kind of man whose wife might just prefer female sex partners.

LeMarcus begins the direct with the normal background questions, eliciting that Stuart and I have been married for six years and have a five-year-old son.

Then it’s time for the lying to begin.

“Mr. Goodwin, on the night of Ms. Wright’s murder, where was your wife?”

“With me. At home. From about seven o’clock, when we had dinner with our son, until the following morning when she left for work.”

“Any time during that period when she was out of your sight for more than . . . let’s say ten minutes?”

“No. We have a small home, and we spent the evening together. First reading in our living room, then watching television in our bedroom, then asleep. Wait—I should amend that. There was one period of time when she was out of my sight.”

I hold my breath. This wasn’t in the script.

I know LeMarcus doesn’t want to inquire further, but he has no choice. “When was that?”

“If memory serves, Dana read to our son that night and put him to bed. That process normally takes anywhere from twenty to forty minutes. So during that time, Dana was with Jacob, and I was cleaning up after dinner.”

“Understood,” LeMarcus says, no doubt as relieved as I am that Stuart’s going off script has been effective.

“Did your wife have her cell phone with her on that evening?”

“She did not. I remember that very clearly because we searched throughout the house, and it was nowhere to be found. I assumed she’d left it at the office. But of course, when she was arrested and they told us that text had been sent from her phone, I knew that someone had stolen it.”

Ella objects, but she’s a beat too late to stop Stuart. Judge Gold sustains the objection and instructs the jury that Stuart’s speculation as to what happened to my phone is to be disregarded. Then he directs the court stenographer to strike Stuart’s last statement—the line about someone stealing my phone—from the record.

LeMarcus finishes his direct at four. If he’d timed this better, he would have run out the clock, giving him the weekend to work with Stuart on how to handle cross-examination. But stalling for an hour will be too transparent. Besides, I know LeMarcus has already spent hours with Stuart. They’re well past the point of achieving anything more than they already have—only diminishing returns would be achieved through further preparation. Still, my husband is not a man who does well under attack.

53. ELLA BRODEN

53.

ELLA BRODEN