by Greg Iles
“The jury will disregard that statement,” Judge Franklin cuts in. “Confine yourself to the question, Mr. Stone.”
“All right. I think John Portman is a rich, spineless bureaucrat who didn’t get spanked enough when he was a kid.”
Franklin turns red, but Livy is ecstatic. Stone is giving her exactly what she wants. Before Franklin can reprimand him, she turns to face the jury box.
“Mr. Stone, did you enter into a conspiracy with the author Penn Cage to ruin the careers of John Portman and Leo Marston?”
He blinks in surprise. “What? Absolutely not.”
“But you see the symmetry of the suggestion?”
“I do not.”
She turns back to him with a knowing smile. “Come, now. You’re a smart man. I’m suggesting that you and Mr. Cage made a deal of sorts. Mr. Cage hated Leo Marston, you hated John Portman. Alone, neither of you could do much to destroy those men. But together-”
“Objection,” I say at last.
Livy smiles. “I withdraw the question, Your Honor. And I have no further questions for this witness.”
I can’t understand why she’s releasing Stone so soon until she says, “If this is Mr. Cage’s final witness, I would very much like to call Mr. Cage at this time as a rebuttal witness.”
Her suggestion stuns me. All I can think to say is, “Ms. Sutter is out of order, Judge.”
“Just a moment,” says Franklin. “You are excused, Mr. Stone. But don’t leave the courthouse.”
Stone makes no move to leave the witness box. He looks down at Livy with contempt and says, “You’re not worth a hangnail on Catherine Neumaier’s little finger. Your father is a murderer, and you know it. But you stand there-”
“Mr. Stone!” snaps Franklin. “Leave the stand, or I’ll be forced to hold you in contempt.”
Stone looks away from Livy like a man looking away from a dead enemy, then limps off the stand with his soldier’s bearing. As he passes me, he stops, shakes my hand, and leans close.
“I told you you didn’t want me as a witness.”
I squeeze his hand and whisper, “Bullshit. I wanted the truth, and you gave it to me. The question is, was the jury ready for it?”
As Stone passes the spectators’ benches, his cane rapping on the hardwood floor, his daughter rises, takes his elbow, and helps him toward the doors.
“Ms. Sutter,” says Judge Franklin. “This is an unusual request. Whose testimony are you calling Mr. Cage to rebut?”
“Mr. Stone’s, Your Honor.”
Franklin considers this for a few moments. “Mr. Cage, do you plan to call additional witnesses?”
I had planned to recall Portman, but now that Livy has undercut everything Stone said by making him look bent on revenge, I’m not sure what to do. And now she wants to question me? I suppose she is finally answering the question of how far she is willing to go.
“I have no more witnesses, Your Honor.”
“Does the defense rest, then?”
A strange sense of sadness flows through me, not for myself but for Althea Payton, sitting out there in the benches. She nods at me as though to say, At least we tried. “Subject to calling rebuttal witnesses, the defense rests.”
“Very well. Please take the stand, Mr. Cage.”
Without looking at Livy, I mount the steps to the witness box and seat myself. Everyone in the room is watching me. My parents. The Paytons. Austin Mackey, who looks like he’s in shock from the revelations he’s heard in the past half hour. High in the back of the court, more faces watch from the balcony, and among them the larger gleaming eyes of the CNN and WLBT cameras.
One pair of eyes is not watching me. Livy Marston’s, and it’s a damn good thing. If she had the nerve to look me in the eye while playing out this obscene charade, I might decide to stand up and announce her sins to the world. But I won’t do that. And she knows it. It’s not in me to do something like that. But maybe it is in her.
“Mr. Cage,” she says, facing the jury. “Did you and I have a romantic relationship when we attended the St. Stephens Preparatory School?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a serious relationship?”
“Define serious.”
“An extended relationship of a sexual nature.”
She has guts, I’ll give her that. “Yes.”
“When did that relationship finally end?”
Two minutes ago. “Our freshman year of college.”
“Did it end that year because my father, Leo Marston, handled a malpractice suit against your father, Thomas Cage?”
“Yes.”
“In the course of that lawsuit, did your father suffer a near-fatal heart attack?”
“Yes.”
“Did you blame my father for that?”
“Yes.”
“Did that lawsuit effectively end any chance of you and I getting married?”
“Yes.”
At last she turns to me, but her eyes look opaque, as though she has closed them against all my feeling for her, steeling herself against mercy. “Did you blame my father for that as well?”
Does she want me to tell the truth? Does she want me to say, No, I blame you? The whole goddamn thing happened because you got yourself pregnant by a stupid redneck murderer and couldn’t deal with it?
“For a long time, I did.”
“And did you conspire with former Special Agent Dwight Stone to destroy my father and John Portman?”
“I did not.”
She holds my eyes a moment longer, as though waiting for me to counterattack with everything I know about her.
I say nothing. What would it accomplish, besides convincing Livy that I’m willing to sink as low to destroy her father as she is to protect him? Would it convince the jury that Marston and Portman are guilty? If Stone’s testimony didn’t do that, the Marston family’s dirty laundry certainly won’t.
“No further questions,” Livy says, turning away at last.
Judge Franklin looks at me as though I have fulfilled the assertion she made on the day we met in her office. I have a fool for a client. “Mr. Cage,” she says, “I find myself in the curious position of asking if you would like to cross-examine yourself.”
I almost laugh out loud. Here it is, my chance to say anything I want. And curiously enough, I have no inclination to say anything. Without Ike Ransom or Ray Presley to confirm Stone’s story, I can add nothing that will sway the twelve people in the jury box.
“No questions, Your Honor.”
“You’re excused, Mr. Cage.”
Excused. My parents are watching me with agony in their faces. Althea Payton nods, her lips tight. Caitlin’s black veil of hair frames her porcelain face among all the others. She’s looking at me with something like pity in her eyes. She thinks I’m unable to turn Livy’s sword against her, not trapped in a situation where my conscience is forcing me to endure humiliation without fighting back. As I walk back to the defense table, I turn toward the jury. I do not give them my lawyer’s look-full of confidence, certain of victory-but a simple human look, an unstated question.
Their faces are hard to read. Stone’s testimony resonated with the black jurors, but even they cannot help but connect the simple dots Livy held up before them. I blamed Leo Marston for making my father ill and ruining my prospects with his daughter. Stone hated Portman for his dismissal from the FBI. Once the two of us were brought together, a conspiracy was almost inevitable. Factually, this theory has at least one major hole. But emotionally it makes sense. It plays. And some of the jury members are bound to buy into it.
As I reach the table, the door at the rear of the courtroom opens, and a young woman walks in. It’s Jenny Doe. She looks toward the judge’s bench, then pans her eyes until they settle on me. She waves at me.
I nod to her and take my seat just as Judge Franklin says: “Ms. Sutter? Does the plaintiff rest?”
Any lingering illusion that Blake Sims is leading Leo Marston’s legal team crumble
s into dust.
Livy nods. “The plaintiff rests, Your Honor.”
As Franklin turns to me, someone pulls at my elbow. “Mr. Cage?”
It’s Jenny, crouching at the bar behind my table.
“Mr. Cage?” says Judge Franklin. “Does the defense rest?”
Jenny grabs my arm above the elbow and jabs her thumb into a nerve. I jerk my elbow away.
“Mr. Cage?” says Franklin. “Is that young lady bothering you?”
“May I have a moment, Your Honor?”
“If you must.”
I twist in my chair until I’m face to face with Jenny. “What the hell are you doing?”
Her eyes are glittering with excitement. “I have something for you,” she whispers. “I think I have what you need to win your case.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I tried to get in here this morning to watch the trial, but it was too crowded. And it’s a good thing for you. Because I went back to my apartment and watched it on TV. I didn’t realize what I had until I heard that Mr. Stone talking about J. Edgar Hoover. I ran-”
“Mr. Cage,” Judge Franklin presses. “I’m ready to give this case to the jury.”
I hold up my hand. “Jenny, for God’s sake, get to the point.”
“It’s the tapes.”
I blink in bewilderment. “Tapes?”
She reaches into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out a black Maxell cassette tape. “This,” she says. “It’s one of the tapes I stole from Clayton Lacour’s office. Remember? The mobbed-up lawyer who handled my adoption? When I stole all the files relating to Marston, I stole his phone tapes too. Lacour’s conversations with Marston. Twelve tapes. And on this one he’s talking about your case. About Del Payton. He never actually says the name, so I never realized what I had. But when that poor Beckham woman started saying the name Ray Presley, something zinged in my mind. I couldn’t place it until Mr. Stone started talking about J. Edgar Hoover. I had to fast-forward through eight different tapes before I found it. I sprinted the three blocks over here.”
“Jenny, what is it? What do they say?”
She shakes her head, her eyes brimming with secret joy. “Just get the judge to play it. You won’t believe it.”
I close my eyes, thinking furiously.
“Mr. Cage, I’ve had enough,” says Judge Franklin. “Does the defense rest?”
I take the tape from Jenny, get to my feet, and lay my hands on the table. “No, Your Honor. I request a conference in chambers. Critical new evidence has just come to my attention. I believe it will be conclusive evidence, and-”
“Objection!” Livy cries, shaking her head. She has already seen the tape in my hand. She probably thinks it’s Dwight Stone’s recording of her father and Ray Presley talking in the gazebo of Tuscany. “No such evidence was disclosed to us!”
“Your Honor, I didn’t know about it myself until a moment ago. The young lady behind me just brought it to my attention.”
Livy looks at Jenny with dread in her face.
“Who is that person?” Franklin asks.
Livy closes her eyes.
“Her name is Jenny Doe, Judge. Who she is, is less important than what she has.”
“What does she have?”
“A tape of Leo Marston discussing the Payton murder with a New Orleans attorney named Clayton Lacour.”
Judge Franklin looks to Livy for an objection, but Livy is still standing with her eyes closed, as though she can no longer stand the schizophrenic nature of what she is being called upon to do today. Prodded by Leo, Blake Sims gets to his feet.
“Judge, I object to the introduction of this surprise evidence on the grounds of -”
Eunice Franklin stops him with an upraised hand. “I’ll hear argument in my chambers.” She stands in her black robe and looks down at me. “Mr. Cage, this had better not be desperation grandstanding.”
“The tape will speak for itself,” I assure her, praying that Jenny knows evidence when she hears it.
“Counsel in my chambers,” says Franklin. She points at Jenny. “You too, young lady.”
CHAPTER 41
We stand like human islands in Judge Franklin’s chambers, an archipelago of attorneys situated around the mainland of her mahogany desk. Blake Sims to the left. I’m in the center with Jenny behind me. Livy stands to the right, apart and alone, reading the spines of the books in Franklin’s shelves.
“Ms. Sutter, are you with us?”
Livy half turns to the judge but doesn’t come close to eye contact with me or Jenny. “Yes, Your Honor.”
The judge looks up at me, her eyes hard. “All right, Mr. Cage. What exactly is on this tape?”
Blake Sims is shaking his head, but he doesn’t speak.
“I haven’t heard it myself, Judge. But this woman claims that it refers directly to the murder of Del Payton, and I have reason to believe she’s telling the truth.”
Franklin transfers her glare to Jenny. “How did you come by this tape, young lady?”
“I worked for Clayton Lacour. The lawyer who made the tape. I went to work for him to try to find out the identities of my birth parents. I’m an adopted child, and I knew that Lacour had handled my adoption.” Jenny glances at Livy, who is pointedly ignoring her. “While working for Lacour, I found out Leo Marston had been involved in my adoption. When I quit that job, I took all the files and tapes pertaining to Judge Marston with me.”
“You mean you stole them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Judge Franklin looks like she wants a cigarette or a drink, and probably both. “I don’t understand. Why were there tapes at all?”
“Mr. Lacour taped most of his phone calls. He was connected with the Marcello family in New Orleans. You know, Mafia. He was seriously paranoid.”
Franklin sighs and holds out her hand. “Let me have the tape.”
I hand over the cassette. The judge studies it for a few moments, then speaks without looking up. “Did you learn who your birth parents were?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Who are they?”
Livy goes rigid beside the shelves.
“At least one of them is in this room right now, Judge. Do you want me to say more?”
Franklin shakes her head in amazement. “Not at this time.” She looks up at me. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on behind this lawsuit, but I don’t appreciate having my court used as an arena to play out private vendettas. Is that clear?”
“Absolutely, Your Honor.”
“I want counsel back at their respective tables. You”-Franklin points at Jenny-“stay with me. I’m going to listen to this tape. Then I’ll make my decision as to admissibility. If I walk back into that courtroom and announce that the tape will be played, I don’t want to hear a single objection. If I don’t mention the tape, the same holds true, and I will give this case to the jury. It’s late, and there’s too much craziness surrounding this trial to drag it into tomorrow if we don’t have to.” She claps her hands together. “Everybody out.”
As I walk back to my table, Caitlin nods in encouragement from the bar. I take my seat and slide back within earshot of her.
“What do you have?” she whispers.
“I’m not sure. A tape of Marston and a New Orleans lawyer. Jenny says it will nail Marston.”
“You haven’t heard it?”
“No. Franklin’s listening to it now. She’s going to rule on admissibility.”
“I’m praying here,” Caitlin says. “I’m actually praying.”
The wait is almost impossible to bear. Two minutes stretch to five, then ten. The spectators are silent at first, but as the minutes drag on, they begin to whisper. Without Franklin to intimidate them, the whisper grows to a hum, then a dull roar. It reminds me of students assembled in a gymnasium. Twice I look across the aisle to Marston’s table, but Leo and Livy stare straight ahead, their faces set in stone. Only Blake Sims looks worried. Sims looks, in fact, like
he would rather be getting a root canal than sitting at his client’s table.
At last Judge Franklin’s chamber door opens, silencing the court. Jenny Doe walks through first and heads for the spectators’ benches, her head bowed. Franklin emerges carrying a cassette tape player, a cheap jam box with a silver antenna sticking up off of it.
At Marston’s table, Blake Sims actually covers his eyes.
“Yes,” whispers Caitlin from behind me.
Judge Franklin takes the bench, sets the tape player before her, then turns to the jury box. “Members of the jury, I am about to play a tape recording of two voices having a telephone conversation. One, I am told, belongs to a lawyer in New Orleans. The other, I am convinced, belongs to the plaintiff in this case, Leo Marston. I have instructed counsel to make no objections to the playing of this tape. The supreme court might disagree with my decision, but this is not a murder trial, and I suspect that it will never see an appeals court.”
A murmur of anticipation ripples through the crowd.
“The language on the tape is profane,” Judge Franklin goes on, “as language spoken between men in private sometimes tends to be. I will play only that portion of the tape I believe relevant to this case. I want no displays of emotion. I want absolute silence. I will eject anyone who disobeys that order.”
She rubs the bridge of her nose and sighs. Then another liver-spotted hand emerges from the black robe. It presses a button on the machine and turns the speakers toward the jury.
Static fills the courtroom. Then an unfamiliar male voice comes from the speakers, the New Orleans accent plain: Brooklyn with a little crawfish thrown in. This must be Clayton Lacour.
“… and this problem, Leo, it’s, you know, one of those things you could earn a lot of gratitude by fixing.”
“I’m listening.”
A collective intake of breath by the crowd as it recognizes the resonant voice of Leo Marston.
“Order!” demands Judge Franklin.
“This goddamn new guy they got at the field office here,” Lacour goes on, “Hughes, his name is, he’s not playing by the old rules. This is the new SAC I’m talkin’ ’bout. He’s stoppin’ by for coffee at Carlos’s office at the Town and Country, for God’s sake, got surveillance on him around the clock. Uncle C is gettin’ ulcers. You gotta help me out here, cher.”
