“Yeah, I think the ex-wives were happy with their settlements and didn’t much care for my client. My position was that the friend had embellished on what Jen…, my uh, what the hell, Jennifer had actually said. Jennifer testified that she had actually told the friend that she feared for her life and bought the gun in case he threatened to hurt her, something he’d done repeatedly. She never threatened to kill him as the friend testified, just wanted to warn him off. It was up to the jury to decide who to believe. The friend - some friend - also testified that Schofield would never have hit anybody
with his hands. ‘Too valuable. Dr. Schofield said they were a national treasure.’ It didn’t hurt us that I had a witness testify that
the friend had slept with the doctor.”
“I can see how it wouldn’t. Illicit sex can be a compelling negative force.”
“Right. The friend’s testimony about threatening to kill her husband, on direct, undermined Jennifer’s credibility. I tried to restore it on re-direct. Talk is cheap when you’re not mad, but who knows what somebody’d do when enraged even if his hands were a national treasure? I hinted at that in my throwaway comments during her cross examination. The DA objected but the jury had already heard them.”
“Did it work?” she asked and lifted her cup for a drink of coffee.
Matt followed her lead and did the same. “I don’t know. It was in the first trial.”
“What happened next?” she asked.
“Well, we got a break when the DA began asking about her ‘affairs,’ I objected and moved for a mistrial on the ground that the question was highly prejudicial and would leave the jurors with the impression that my client had killed Schofield for another man. The DA had no real proof, just inadmissible gossip, so the judge granted my motion. He gave me some latitude because it was a murder case.”
“They refiled,” she said.
“Yeah. It was a high profile case and the DA was getting lots of publicity. Not a bad thing for someone looking for a Supreme Court appointment.”
“You think he was?”
“My investigator said so. Nothing I could use in court, but it was there,” he told her.
“Her shot in the back of his head bothered me. If I were on the jury, I might have thought, as the DA suggested, the fight was over
and he was leaving. No need to shoot.” She waved her hands over the table as if to ask a question.
“That was a problem. The DA’s expert more or less said what you said. During my cross, I tried to lead him into admitting that in the heat of the argument, Schofield might have turned his head, not to retreat, but to find a weapon to hit her with. He had already hit her with his cell phone.”
“Did they buy it?”
Matt shrugged. “We won so I assume they did. They couldn’t get anything out of Jennifer. She couldn’t remember anything. Just answered everything with that innocent voice of hers.”
“Convenient huh? Her loss of memory.” She finished her coffee and glanced at his coffee maker as if trying to decide about another cup. Instead, she put the cup on the table and looked at Matt.
“Yeah.”
“The jurors said they liked you. Maybe they liked you more than they liked the DA.”
“Maybe. Justice can be a fickle thing.”
“The second trial ended in a hung jury, I think. Didn’t it?” she asked with a thoughtful look on her face, as if trying to remember.
“Yeah. I had entered two defenses, the first not guilty. I figured self-defense would be the big battle ground in that one. The second defense was insanity.”
“How’d you get a hung jury out of it?”
He smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled. It lifted his mood. “Well, first of all, my client looked like the girl next door, not a killer. I introduced his history of confrontations with his prior wives. The DA had badgered them into backing off their stories that he could be violent. I had to work on that. I hammered away on his threats to her, their fights and the fact that he was sleeping with his physician’s assistant, among others. Made a mountain out of a molehill when you come right down to it. All
proof, I said in my summation, that he wanted to get rid of her. Abuse would have been part of his efforts to do just that.”
“You were trying to paint him as the bad guy. The girl you want to take home to mother versus the philanderer. Her voice was…almost like a beautiful melody.” She said that with a smile.
“Yeah. I thought so too. I called it mesmerizing. That’s why I put her on the stand, it went with the image I was trying to present to the jury. A little hard to get everything into evidence, but I squeezed it in. The DA objected to some of it and the judge upheld his objections, but the jury had heard it and it hit home.”
“I remember.”
“The neighbors were a problem … about the fights. They said on two occasions they’d heard them argue. She pleaded with him not to hit her again. He shouted back that she was crazy. ‘I haven’t touched you.’ They hadn’t actually seen anything, just heard them arguing. I took the jury to the house and let them stand outside. Hell, they could barely hear the radio turned way up. Of course, I took them out during the busiest and nosiest part of the day.”
“She might have been setting him up.” She twisted her head to emphasize the point.
“That’s what the DA said. My loud response was that it wasn’t my client doing the setting up, but him. He had hit her then, knowing neighbors were within earshot, shouted that he had not.”
She nodded.
“So, it was up to the jury to decide who to believe. We got a hung jury out of it. 9- 3 in favor of murder.”
“That was close.”
“Yeah. Too close but it was hung. In a murder case, a hung
jury is as good as an acquittal. The DA offered to drop murder for something lesser, but we had no choice but to go for an acquittal. Any conviction would have ruined her career.”
“You handled the trial by yourself. Why didn’t you get help? The DA had all sorts of bodies handling his side of the case, didn’t
they? It had to wear you down.” She again emphasized the point with a palms-up gesture across the table.
“It did. In retrospect, I should have had help. I was always a one-man office and she was running short of cash. However, an associate counsel might have saved my sanity.”
“One newspaper story said you’d fallen in love with her.” She half-laughed. Then, as if having a second thought, asked, “Had you?”
He sighed, looked away, then back at her. “That’s one reason I didn’t want to be interviewed. That story. An attorney in love with a client should disqualify himself from representing her. I didn’t.”
“So…you were in love with her?”
It crossed his mind that she already knew the answer.
He looked at her, hesitated then answered. “Body and soul. Probably from the first time she walked into my office, the first time I heard her voice, but I didn’t admit it to myself or tell her until the second trial.”
“Wow! That’s a story all right. Maybe that’s why you fought so hard to get her free.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. May also be why I never brought in
associate counsel. I didn’t want to have to explain that.”
“Had you made plans, assuming you got her off?”
He shook his head. “I was in love with her, still am, I think. Maybe not so much anymore, but I still can’t get her quite out of my mind. I think that’s why I stay depressed all the time.”
Matt stared over the table at the young woman as if to gauge her reaction. He didn’t see one he could identify so he continued.
“She wasn’t in love with me though. I tried to make her love me. Tried hard. I don’t mind saying it now, but she kept putting me off. ‘Wait until the trial is over, Matt. Then we’ll discuss it. It wouldn’t be right to do anything now.’ I began to suspect that her only interest was in keeping me totally committed.”
compliment I could think of to boost her ego, little weekend trips to relieve the stress of the trial. I tried it all. Hell, we even slept in the
same bed once, but she refused to let me touch her. Friendly kisses and sterile hugs were all I got. As it turned out, that was all I would ever get.
He cursed himself for being such a fool. Stupid bastard, that’s what I was.
Chapter 5
The young woman sitting at the table brought him back to the present with a loud, sympathetic sign. “They say you more or less closed down your office.”
“Yeah. Her dead husband’s heirs enjoined her from using any of his separate property, even though under the pre-nup she had some rights to it.” He shook his head with resignation. “So, not so cleverly, I sold my office and leased it back to get the money to fight for her. When I ran out of money, I closed it.”
“You put everything you had on the table,” she said, alluding to playing roulette.
“I didn’t have a choice. She was faced with a law in California called the slayer rule. That rule precludes a killer from inheriting from a victim under certain circumstances. So, pending the outcome of the trial, the court prevented her from disposing of, or using, property which she otherwise might get under the pre-nup or his estate if convicted of murder.”
“You were between the rock and the hard spot. It was crucial that you win,” the girl said.
“About seven million dollars’ worth of crucial. And, she owed a lot of that to me.”
Still does.
“In the third trial, you pulled out your Pavlov’s Dog defense.” She added a laugh at the end of that comment.
“I know. People said it sounded like a joke.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Well, maybe I did.”
“Yeah. It was actually a variation of the Pavlov thing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder mixed in. My lapsed sanity theory that the press had fun mocking. We didn’t have a choice. If I claimed straight insanity, that’d be the end of her professional life. So, I
had to claim only a lapse. It cost me big bucks to get noted criminal psychologists around the world to testify that it was valid…after they’d counseled with her. And, I coached the hell out of her before each counseling session. Of course, the DA had their psychologists as well, but mine had more academic letters behind their names and more dollars in their bank accounts, if you know what I mean.”
She said she understood completely about the psychologists and then said, “I know what the press called it, but I never completely understood what it was.”
“I’m not sure anybody understood it. I just wanted to give the jury something to hang their hats on if they wanted to acquit her even if they didn’t completely understand why,” he said.
He gave her a thumbnail sketch of what he had presented to the jury. “Russian physiologist Pavlov won a Nobel prize by showing how stimuli could induce uncontrolled responses in dogs. A guy by the name of Watson did the same thing with humans. Then, soldiers began coming back from the wars with what the doctors called post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, from having been exposed to high trauma. If exposed to something similar once back
home even in a safe environment, they could and did often react violently without knowing what they had done. That’s what I said Jennifer did.”
“I recall,” she said.
Matt nodded and continued. “Schofield’s years of traumatizing her left her with a conditioned response, PTSD, I postulated. So, when her husband confronted her that night, like the returning soldiers with PTSD, she lapsed into an induced insane mental state, feared for her life and reacted to eliminate what was causing it. Once the stimulus was removed, when Schofield was dead, her sanity returned.”
“Your case, right, the doctor who only wants to save lives versus the bad philanderer. He induced her lapse into insanity and she killed him, a fight or flight kind of thing.”
“That’s about the size of it. And I wanted to give the jury every
reason to hold for her. She always dressed conservatively. I didn’t
want to give the ladies any reason to feel resentful about her. You know, a doctor making all the money people think they make. And, she was attractive. I tried to down play that by having her dress as plainly as possible. Wear her hair like she did it herself.”
“And, she spoke in her calm, innocent voice,” Cynthia noted. “That she did very well.”
“Thanks.”
“I appreciate you telling me about it. I know it must be hard for you to talk about, when you think about…how you felt about your
client.” She reached out with her hand.
“Yeah.”
“Did she ever pay you back?”
“Not yet. I haven’t felt up to asking.” Matt said, shaking his
head.
“You should.”
“Yeah.” I damn well should.
The young woman glanced at his CD player. “If you don’t
mind my asking, why do you keep playing that same piece? Shostakovich’s Second Waltz, I think. I’m not complaining. I like the piece myself. Just curious.”
Matt took a deep breath and sighed. “Jennifer said she liked it. I think it was more my invention than hers. I’d had my first waltz with my wives. I doubt they did. I thought I was having my second with Jennifer. That’s why I still play it. I don’t think I’ve ever come to grips with what happened.”
“You mean she didn’t love you?”
“Yeah. That’s what I mean.” He stood and turned to the player.
“Don’t turn it off. I like it. I just wanted to know,” she said.
He sat back down and looked at her. “Okay, I’ve bared my soul to you. What’s your story? I doubt you’re homeless. The bartender said you might be running from somebody, or desperate. Maybe the same thing. If you’re looking for an attorney, you’ve come to
the wrong place. I’m washed up.”
“I’m not looking. I’ve been through a divorce. I married young. Too young. I woke up a year or so later, looked at my husband and wondered who he was. I think he felt the same way about me. We had both changed. We hated to admit it, hated more to face the consequences of a divorce, having to tell our families and friends, but in the end, we did. I felt like you must have felt, like you’re still feeling, I suppose, about Jennifer Schofield. But, once it was over, I faced life with fresh eyes,” she said and looked at him as if to gauge his reaction.
He shook his head to show he understood.
She continued, “The divorce decree was like a new birth certificate, the date of my new life - December 12th at ten o’clock.
Now, I know what makes me happy. I love my work and I enjoy life.” She smiled. “I also have a cat. My mother gave it to me after the divorce. The cat and my mom are my best friends.”
“You’re lucky. I was so busy enjoying keeping people out of jail I may have missed something along the way. Hell, I took marriage for granted. My wives didn’t. They wanted the real thing. And when they didn’t get it from me, they looked elsewhere."
"I think there’s something to what people say about stopping to smell the roses, Matt. Since my divorce, I’ve been able to do that. Right now, I’m working to elect Congressman Reid to the senate seat vacated by Senator Bradford. He’s retiring. You might not believe - well, you might - the stuff that goes on, behind the smiles and the glad hands. It fascinates me.” Her face took on a serious look.
“I wouldn’t know anything about it. I resigned from the human
race after the trial.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to un-resign. Anyway, Clint, that’s his name, won the primary but has to beat a democrat in the final election. It’s going to be close. He can’t have a down moment. It wasn’t anything serious, but things got heated after one of our
political meetings. Not with Clint, with somebody else. I felt a bit
uneasy and
didn’t want to go back to my condo until I’m sure things have cooled down. I think it’s okay, but I was, still am I guess, concerned. I hope you don’t mind if I stay awhile? I’ll pay you.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. Stay as long as you like, so long as you can stand it. You don’t have to pay me anything. Just buy whatever you need. I’m not good company. Not good for anything, come to that.”
“If I’m any judge, you are. I believe you have lots of good miles left in you.”
He disagreed with a grimace. “If so, they’re not leading anyplace I care about.”
“Get a map, Matt. Don’t waste yourself. You’re a talented man.”
He laughed to himself. She may be basing that on what the newspapers were saying during the trial. Nothing he did in the trial was real. He was playing a role; one he hoped would result in a favorable verdict for his client. And, it did.
However, having talked to her did make him feel better. He showered regularly, and washed his clothes, even his bedclothes. His washer and dryer were in a shed at the back of the carport. She left after coffee and didn’t return until after dark.
They exchanged pleasantries over coffee in the mornings and sometimes shared a glass of wine in the late afternoons, when she was home. More often than not, she wanted to know more about him and the trial. His plans for the future? He didn’t have any, but was feeling a little better. He no longer dreaded getting out of bed every morning.
“Maybe it’s not too late to make a comeback,” she said.
He smiled with a twist of his head. “Maybe you’re right.”
Sometimes they just sat with glasses of wine and watched the ocean rolling over the sand. Sometimes when the waves were
particularly high, they’d send floating waves of mist over the
beach and almost into his back yard. Matt wasn’t a wine aficionado so he drank what she drank.
He asked who was looking after her cat or was she doing it?
“A friend lives with me. She pays enough rent to help cover my expenses. She also looks after my cat. But, I do drop by to give her a brushing. She loves a good brushing. Does yours?”
That La Jolla Lawyer Page 3
