“There is if she lied on it,” Cutler said. “Her credibility is an issue. I’m within my rights to explore it.”
“If she lied on the form,” Judge Saul said, “I agree this is some straw grasping, but it’s relevant to Mr. Cutler’s point. Let’s not turn this into something it doesn’t need to be, okay?”
Cutler nodded. “I’ll be brief.”
With a pit in my stomach, I walked back to my table.
“What did you write on the form, Ms. Wharton-Brent?” Cutler asked.
“I said I hadn’t been convicted of a crime because I haven’t.”
“You haven’t. You realize you’re under oath now?”
“Of course.”
“Isn’t it true that you were convicted of using and being in possession of a controlled substance twenty-seven years ago?”
Bree lost a little color. “That was … I was a minor. That was expunged.”
My blood heated.
“I asked you,” Cutler said, “and the OBN asked you if you’d been convicted of a crime. Twice under oath now, you’ve lied. You were convicted of being a minor in possession of alcohol as well as possession of a controlled substance, isn’t that right?”
“I was sixteen years old and got caught drinking and smoking pot at a party. I went to a diversion class like the judge told me. Two years later, when I turned eighteen, the thing was expunged.”
“But you were convicted and you lied about it to me. And you lied about it to the nursing board.”
“Objection,” I said. “This has been asked and answered at least twice now.”
“I agree,” Saul said. “Move on, Mr. Cutler.”
“Fine. Ms. Wharton-Brent, you didn’t suspect Jamie Simmons of any involvement in what happened to Ellie Luke twenty-two years ago, did you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know. Exactly. But you never saw fit to bring up any of this to the police all those years ago because it was nothing. It’s a fabrication. An exaggeration that you’re only now bringing up because your sister-in-law wants you to.”
“Objection!” I shouted. “I don’t even know where to start. To the extent that Mr. Cutler is now accusing me of anything improper …”
“Cool it,” Judge Saul said. “Mr. Cutler? I’m warning you.”
“Why didn’t you bring Jamie Simmons’s name up to the police when Ellie went missing?” he asked.
“Because it never occurred to me that I should,” Bree said.
“Didn’t occur to you. And you didn’t bring it up seven months later when Ellie’s body was found either, did you?”
“No.”
“Because you didn’t think of it?”
“Yes. No. I don’t … I thought they had the guy. Everyone was saying it was some cousin of Ellie’s. That he’d threatened her for saying he stole from her parents. I just assumed that’s who did it. I didn’t know the police got it wrong.”
“Thank you,” Cutler said, smiling. “I have no further questions.”
I wanted to smack the guy. And to be fair, I wanted to throttle Bree. All Cutler had really succeeded in doing was upsetting Bree. But she’d said what I needed her to say. I just hoped the jury was smart enough to see past Cutler’s stunt.
23
