“In other words, you’re positive that Mr. Moar was dead at that time.”
“I think he was, yes.”
“Well now, are you guessing, or do you know?”
The deputy district attorney jumped to his feet, said, “Your Honor, I object. This is not proper cross-examination. This witness couldn’t possibly tell...”
“I object to the Prosecutor coaching this witness,” Mason interrupted. “She’s an educated woman and is thoroughly competent to take care of herself under cross-examination. She has said Mrs. Moar was standing over the lifeless form of her husband. She used that word ‘lifeless’ to prejudice Your Honor against Mrs. Moar, and I’m going to make this witness take back that statement. I am going to make her admit that she doesn’t know whether the form was lifeless or not.”
“You’re not going to do any such thing,” Aileen Fell snapped. “I said the body was lifeless, and it was lifeless.”
Scudder slowly sat down.
“You mean that Mr. Moar was dead, then, when you came up the stairs to the boat deck?”
“Yes.”
“Then, when you state that the defendant hoisted him to the rail and fired another shot into his body, you want the Court to understand that she was firing that shot into a dead man, and that shot had nothing to do with the murder of Mr. Moar, because Mr. Moar was already dead. Is that right?”