by Diane Capri
“So the President’s kid was not just rebelling like other kids, maybe. Still, that was a long time ago.”
“True,” he said. “But the President, the man supposed to enforce the law of the land, knew his son and his son’s friends were guilty of committing federal crimes in the White House. Benson covered it up. And that cover-up put Thomas Holmes in a place where he got killed.”
I nodded now, seeing the larger scope of the problem.
President Benson, himself, was guilty of the cover-up. He covered up the drug use and Thomas Holmes’s transfer, which led to Holmes’s death.
In the court of public opinion, at least, Benson would be crucified. And he could have been prosecuted.
Sheldon Warwick and General Andrews were just as guilty. While the younger men might have been treated gently at the time, the adults had national responsibilities and obligations to enforce the law.
When they forced Andrews to retire, Warwick and Benson hadn’t really had to do anything except make a promise that could, after all, turn out to be an empty one.
Since no Supreme Court vacancy had occurred in more than ten years, it was just as likely that Benson’s term would have ended with no appointment made. Andrews’s conditions would have been met but he would not have been named to the court.
Benson and Warwick had wanted Andrews to retire quietly and go away. By making the deal, Andrews’s retirement would be voluntary and another messy military sex scandal avoided.
Not to mention that both Benson and Warwick would avoid criminal prosecution, assuming the statute of limitations on the cover-up hadn’t expired.
Forcing control of my anger, I said, “Okay. I get your point.”
Still, there were missing pieces to this puzzle, too. “What if Benson and Warwick had refused? How did Andrews coerce them?”
Jason ignored me.
“Seriously. I gather Andrews’s threats were not hollow. Andrews would have had to prove the blackmail? With Thomas Holmes dead, how would Andrews prove Benson and Warwick were complicit without disclosing his own participation? Andrews had as much at stake, didn’t he?”
Jason looked down at his hands and didn’t answer me immediately. Then he sighed, as if he’d accepted that the only way to get me off this train of inquisition was to tell me the whole sordid story.
“Andrews had surveillance tapes of Charles Benson and Thomas Holmes using cocaine at the White House together. Andrews told Warwick and Benson that he destroyed the tapes when the incident first occurred. But he’d kept them. And he threatened to release the tapes to the press if Benson refused his requested nomination.”
One picture, as they say, was worth a thousand words; incriminating video was apparently worth a Supreme Court appointment.
“What did Benson do?”
“What choice did he have? Charles has apparently straightened his life around. He’s married now. Got a couple of kids. Shelly Warwick, too, is doing well. Fathers will do things to protect their kids that they’d never do for themselves.”
My ears warmed again. Did he think he could sell me that altruistic crap? “And of course, going along with Andrews saved Benson and Warwick’s own asses.”
He ignored me. “Benson said he’d think about it, but Warwick and Andrews both knew Benson would appoint Andrews, and Warwick would have to do his part, too. If the opportunity came up,” Jason finished, his own weariness now obvious.
As much as Jason had high ambitions, I hoped he was appalled at the pure self-preservation in which these corrupt politicians had engaged. At least, I hoped he was a fraction as appalled as I was.
I wrapped up the loose ends. “So you were all hoping there wouldn’t be another court vacancy before Benson’s term finished out next year and you’d never need to pay the piper. If Benson’s term ended without a vacancy, Benson would leave office and Rumpelstiltskin wouldn’t get the Kings’ first born sons.”
“But then Chief Judge Miller announced his retirement and there you have it.” Jason drained his glass and sat there, both palms up, as if there had never been a more obvious conclusion.
Now I knew why Andrews had been appointed to the Supreme Court and I felt certain that appointment was related to his death, even though I still believed he would never have been confirmed.
But I could prove none of it.
Yet.
The nomination was too controversial from the start and after President Benson’s midnight emissary told the Democratic senators they could vote against Andrews without being disloyal to the chief, there had been very little chance that Andrews would be confirmed.
All of which didn’t answer the big question.
“Jason, we both know George didn’t kill Andrews,” I started, but Jason interrupted me and stood up to leave.
“I’d like to help you, Willa, I really would. You know I love George as much as everyone else does. I hope he didn’t kill Andrews. But if he didn’t, then I don’t know who did.”
“If you knew, would you tell me?”
“I guess that would depend on who did it.” Jason was nothing if not honest.
As much as his answer pissed me off, it also made me believe him. Go figure.
Jason headed toward the door. When he placed his hand on the doorknob, I called his attention back.
I had one last thing I wanted to know.
“Where were you the night Andrews was killed?”
He shook his head slowly, from side to side, beyond the point of being surprised by anything I had to say, I guessed.
“I can’t tell you that.”
I cajoled and argued and threatened for another fifteen minutes before he simply walked out and I was forced to give it up.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Tampa, Florida
Monday 9:10 a.m.
January 31, 2000
I HAD TO RETURN to my day job, but the missing pieces of the Andrews murder still careened around in my head like a set of billiard balls on the opening break. By sheer force of will, I could concentrate on something else, but not for long.
The jurors had arrived and the litigants were set up in the courtroom. I asked my Court Security Officer to go in and tell them they could take a short coffee break and I’d be ready to begin at nine-thirty. No one dared to question a federal court judge’s trial schedule. But I felt guilty anyway.
There was no way I could reschedule the status conferences for three hundred asbestos cases, so I did the first group of ten, simply agreeing to the previous scheduling order and then sending the lawyers away. Asbestos cases rarely went to trial anyway. The important thing for me was to be sure I got rid of these quickly and then avoided getting assigned to any more.
Olivia had left several messages at my office, each with a more demanding tone. The last one said she’d meet me at three. I’d tried to reach her several times previously, but she’d not answered her cell or returned my calls. Now, I had no choice but to ignore her calls as I struggled to get a handle on my workload.
I glanced at the rest of my pink message slips, quickly reviewed my notes from the last trial day, slipped into my robe and walked slowly into the courtroom. I hoped they thought I made a stately entrance and the day would go smoothly, but that was too much to ask for.
During the Newton trial, paying attention had become a real struggle. I had so many things to do and so little time to accomplish them. The testimony had been long and tedious. There were few evidentiary arguments I had to rule on. Even the jury was bored.
Why did people still go to law school? If every prospective student was required to sit through a month long trial before they took the LSAT, law school admissions would be down at least fifty percent. The rest of the applicants were just masochists.
I worked furiously through the break, signing orders, responding to telephone calls and e-mail. I gulped down my tuna sandwich and returned to the courtroom, head down, without even replacing my lipstick.
Looking up from my seat on the bench, I saw
that the gallery was full of reporters again. If the CJ walked in, he’d blow a gasket. I recognized at least two from each newspaper as well as the local and network news stations. And I saw Frank Bennett in the back. Whatever was expected, it was big news if Frank was here to cover it personally.
Before we brought the jury back, I called counsel to the bench.
“What’s up?” I asked them both simultaneously, covering up my microphone with my hand so the question and answer wouldn’t be broadcast at six and eleven.
“I have no idea, Judge,” Newton said. I believed him. We were still in the middle of the plaintiff’s case.
I turned to Tremain. “Well?”
“Me neither.” He looked me right in the eye. I wished I was a better judge of liars. I was pretty sure Tremain’s was a whopper, but aside from public flogging, I had no idea how to get the truth out of him.
“In my chambers. Both of you. Alone.” I looked up and said, “The court will stand in recess for ten minutes.”
Both lawyers followed me back, leaving the goslings twittering around at the defense table. I signaled the court reporter to remain in the courtroom.
Our conversation would be off the record.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Tampa, Florida
Monday 12:00 p.m.
January 31, 2000
WHEN WE SEATED, EACH of the lawyers in one of the bilious green client chairs, I moved aside a tower of files that had appeared in the center of my desk in the last ten minutes and turned to face them. “I know you’ve got something up your sleeve here. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not continuing this trial until I find out.”
They kept looking at me, neither one of them volunteering so much as a chagrinned expression. I ran my hand through my hair and felt it move into a style resembling an angry rooster.
“So, you can tell me now, or you can all go home.”
Tremain thought it over. Newton looked merely curious. I’d entered a gag order in the case, and besides, if Tremain had already spilled the beans to the press they wouldn’t be here en masse to find out what the story was.
So I guessed Tremain had only announced that there’d be big news today. He’d have to send the reporters home, in which case they might not come back, or he’d have to tell me what he had planned and risk ruining his show.
I began to flip through the tower of new files, throwing each one on the floor beside my predecessor’s throne as I saw what kind of case it was. Asbestos. Splat. Asbestos. Splat. Asbestos. Splat.
As the files landed on top of one another, my annoyance at the CJ grew. If he’d walked in at that moment, I might actually have thrown one of the files at his toady little head.
Meanwhile, the two lawyers played chicken with each other, neither one being willing to blink first. I’d made it all the way through the tower of files before Tremain said, “Mr. Newton plans to present the Court with a motion this afternoon for an injunction preventing us from publishing his tennis club membership list.”
“Why do you want to use his tennis club list?” I asked, standing up to retrieve another stack of files on the left side of my desk and beginning to flip through those and drop them on the floor.
“Because I have a witness, a member of the club, who will testify that the club is all-gay,” Tremain told me.
I glanced at Newton, who seemed prepared to deny the claim, but he surprised me slightly when he took a different tact. “The names of the people on that list include men who are not publicly out, Judge. These matters are of the most sensitive nature. Only a first rate scandal rag like this defendant would ever consider publishing such a thing.”
I rubbed the throbbing that had started between my eyes again, reminding me of the list of things I still had to do for George. I didn’t have the mental acuity to deal with this issue today. I doubted I ever would.
I turned to Tremain, “Putting aside for the moment how you got the list if it’s so top secret, why is it relevant to this trial?”
Tremain looked at me as if I was the last idiot on earth. “Because Mr. Newton’s name is on it, your honor. It’s an all-gay club and he’s a long-term member. The list establishes our truth defense.”
I thought about it, and it seemed he was right. At least, the list was evidence of the truth of the matter, clearly relevant. The list would provide Tremain with the facts he needed to get the case to the jury.
“What’s your response to that?” I asked Newton.
Now he was the one who seemed uncomfortable. “Judge, the prejudice of this document is unfair. If you allow him to publish this list, even say that the tennis club is not just a men’s club, as everyone believes, but a gay men’s club, a number of innocent people will be irreparably harmed, including me.”
I considered the matter for what I like to think was longer than it would have taken me if I’d been a little more with it. “What exactly are the issues here? In short sentences, please.”
Newton started. “Judge, this list is information that is completely unrelated to any legitimate purpose. Its only value is to justify public curiosity about people who are not even parties to this case. If you disclose this list, everyone on it will be thrust unwillingly into the full glare of bigotry, with no corresponding benefit to the public.”
Good point. I looked at Tremain for his response.
“Mr. Newton has alleged two things in this case. The first is that whether or not he is gay is a private fact that The Review should not have printed in any event. The second is that he is not gay and the article is defamatory as untrue.”
He seemed to be winding up, instead of down. “This list is evidence of the truth of the “Mr. Tampa” article. Beyond that, whether Mr. Newton is gay is newsworthy, and the list goes to our defense.”
Tremain stopped to take a breath, and I hoped he was finished. No such luck. “This is a question of fact and it can only be determined by the jury’s informed weighing of the competing interests involved. Mr. Tampa had the tennis club list at the time she wrote the article Newton has sued us over. If we are precluded from using the list, the policy you’ll be espousing is that the media should always skirt trouble by completely avoiding any possibly sensitive area. Surely, that is a chilling effect on the First Amendment.”
I hated to admit it, but he made a good point, too. Perhaps he really was worth the $850 an hour he was getting paid, even though the possibility gave me a stomach ache.
“Look, the only way I’m going to be able to resolve this is to look at the list. I presume you both have law on this subject?”
“Yes, Judge,” they said in chorus.
Of course, they did. They knew there would be a fight over this point. Nice of them to give me notice. Lawyers.
I tossed the last file on the floor and buzzed one of my clerks to come and take them all somewhere else, where I wouldn’t have to look at them.
“Ok.” I stood up and gestured that they both should rise as well. “What we’re going to do is to go back out there. I’m going to put an innocuous statement on the record and call the jury in and dismiss them for the day. You’re going to submit your briefs and the list, and I’ll consider the issues.”
Ignoring everything else on my desk, I promised, “You’ll get my ruling tomorrow morning.”
They glanced at each other, probably realizing that they each had an equal chance of victory and defeat.
Wanting no misunderstandings, I admonished them both, “Between now and then, if one word of this appears anywhere outside these four walls, you two will be spending some quality time together in close quarters, do you understand?”
So that’s what we did.
When I got the paperwork from them, I recessed the trial for the day.
After that, I served the lawyers in the asbestos cases like a butcher at a meat counter, handling each case in line and giving them scheduling orders, until all of them were gone.
I was mindlessly marking time, trying not to worry about what Olivia mi
ght have to say.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Tampa, Florida
Monday 4:30 p.m.
January 31, 2000
BY THE TIME I’D driven over to meet Olivia, I had worked myself up into a bundle of anxiety that I hoped had to do with excess caffeine consumption and not news that Drake had obtained his indictment.
Ybor City is a unique enclave in Tampa and a good example of the fickle nature of popularity. The area began as a cigar manufacturing community populated with Cuban expatriates. Cigars eventually went out of vogue and the community declined. In the late 1980s, the area was rediscovered and became a thriving nighttime destination. Teens cruised Seventh Avenue under the canopies of twinkle lights until the residents finally insisted on a curfew and an anti-cruising ordinance.
Nightlife doesn’t start in Ybor until ten o’clock and it carries on until the wee hours, getting progressively more wild and loud. I had signed an order dismissing a case last week brought by a tourist against a fictitious “John Doe.” The Tourist actually got shot while cruising the bars and didn’t even know it happened. There was so much noise in the bar, no one heard the gunshot. She was so drunk, she didn’t feel her missing tiny phalange until two bars later.
The case had to be dismissed because the tourist couldn’t identify which bar she’d been shot in, let alone who shot her. At least she had a vacation story to tell that would top most of the others for the folks back home in Toledo.
The rough brick paved streets rumbled under the wheels of my car as I searched for a place to park. Mid-afternoon on a weekday, the streets were sparsely populated, but there was no parking allowed on the picturesque Seventh Avenue. I circled the block twice and finally found an open parking meter on the other side of the street. I pulled in and parked. Standing on the sidewalk facing my car to put eight quarters in the meter, I didn’t realize I’d parked illegally, facing oncoming traffic, right in front of a police sub-station.
