Innocent or Guilty?

“And would you describe yourself as Mr Hall’s best friend?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“You suppose?”

“I’ve never really thought about it, if I’m honest,” Kevin says shrugging, “I guess he’s my best friend. He’s kind of my only friend.”

“And vice versa?”

“Yeah.”

“And as established in your conversation with my esteemed colleague just now, you were with him on the night of the incident in question, August 23 and the early morning of August 24?”

“Yeah, he was at my place.”

“Your parents’ house?”

“Yeah, sorry, my parents’ house.”

“And what were you doing there?”

Kevin shrugs again, his signature move. If Kevin has ever been bothered by anything in his life, he has never let anyone know it. The phrase ‘water off a duck’s back’ was invented for him. I once overheard our moms talking about how little both their sons had cried growing up, and whereas Mom had worried constantly about Ethan’s lack of lungpower, Kevin’s mom had said he didn’t seem to ever cry because he was too busy laughing. At the time, this had sounded a little creepy to me, but now watching him on the witness stand I can easily see how his good-natured languorousness could put you at ease. “We weren’t really doing anything,” he says, “we were just chilling, you know? Hanging out?”

“And was it just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“So, you didn’t attend Jessica Heng’s party that night at all?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we weren’t invited.”

There’s a ripple of movement, a shifting reaction from the other side of the courtroom when he says this. Jessica Heng and her friends bristling at this mild accusation, despite the fact that Kevin doesn’t look or sound bothered by it at all. I’ve spent my life carving a space for myself at the very center of things, but Ethan’s never been bothered by any of it, and Kevin even less so. His tone is even, indifferent, and he leans back in his chair, looking more relaxed than anyone else who has taken the stand up to this point. I look over at the jury to try and gauge their reaction to Kevin, but their faces are a wash of boredom. They have already been here so long.

“Now, Mr Lawrence, as we’ve just heard from your testimony, you claim Mr Hall left your parents’ house at between two fifteen and two thirty in the morning, but in your initial statement to the police you told them Mr Hall had left your house by two a.m.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t completely sure. I said it was around two, two thirty.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying you can’t be sure?”

“I think it was just before two thirty, but I know I said it was more like two a.m. at first, so I’m just saying I can’t be one hundred percent sure.”

“If you weren’t sure then, and you aren’t sure now about what time Mr Hall left, where did the two or two thirty am time frame come from?”

“I figure he was gone by two thirty because I know I went online for a while, and when I logged off it was about three a.m.”

“And how long do you think you were online for, before you logged off?”

“It was like twenty to thirty mins max, which is why I think maybe Ethan left a little later, more like two thirty.”

“What was it exactly you were doing? Online, I mean.”

“I was just on AIM.”

“And by AIM you mean AOL instant messenger?”

“Yes.”

“So, you were messaging with someone?”

“Yeah,” Kevin says, and for the first time he looks a little unsure of himself, a little worried.

“Who was it you were messaging with?”

“Just a friend,” Kevin says, shuffling in his seat, shifting his eyes suddenly to the jury bench and back again.

“A friend? I thought you said you didn’t have many – or any – friends, apart from Mr Hall?”

“At school, yeah, but this was someone I know outside of school.”

“Is this person your boyfriend, Mr Lawrence?”

“What?”

“Is this – Caleb Donovan – who you were messaging on that night, your boyfriend?”

“No – I – I’m not … with anyone,” Kevin says, stricken, almost speechless.

“Because we have a record of those messages and not only do they indicate that you and Mr Donovan know one another intimately, but they’re also time stamped.”

“Objection!” Ethan’s lawyer finally calls, getting to his feet. “The witness’s sexuality and relationship status has nothing to do with the trial, and these messages haven’t been entered into evidence.”

“I have them right here, Your Honor,” the prosecutor continues smoothly, unruffled. He picks up a file from where it’s been waiting this whole time, and walks it over to the judge’s bench. “And they clearly show that Mr Lawrence had finished … messaging with Mr Donovan, and logged off by 2:47 in the morning, indicating that if he had been online for around thirty minutes as he claims, then Mr Hall would have left the Lawrence home before two fifteen in the morning, leaving him plenty of time to meet the victim in the woods and kill him before getting home just before three in the morning.”

Kevin starts speaking rapidly, filling up the silence that has fallen over the courtroom, “I might not have been online for as long as thirty minutes though, like I said, it might’ve only been twenty minutes, maybe even less time, I’m not sure. We’d been smoking and I might have –”

The judge holds up his hand, interrupting Kevin’s hurried speech, indicating he should stop talking. Taking the file from the prosecutor, the judge peers down at both the prosecutor and the defense attorney with bored equilibrium, while flipping the file open, paging through the thin document, before finally looking up. “Your objection is overruled, Mr Castle,” he says to Ethan’s lawyer. “While I agree that the witness’s sexuality and relationship history has little to do with the proceedings here, these records clearly show that his online interaction with this Caleb Donovan had ended by 2:47am.”

“The defense hasn’t had the opportunity to examine this evidence, Your Honor, and we demand a recess in which to do so. Why didn’t the prosecution enter this into evidence before the trial?”

“It’s only just come to light, Your Honor,” the prosecutor says.

“That’s all well and good,” Castle interjects, “but if you have the conclusion of the message stream between Mr Donovan and Mr Lawrence, surely you also have proof of when the AIM conversation started between the two of them, and we can put this all to rest.”

“The defense raises a fair point, Mr Curtis,” the judge says, “I don’t see any indication here of when this conversation started or what time it was initiated. Do you have the start the of these messages?”