Blind Faith

by Joe McGinniss

  “What is it, Roby?” Chris asked in a soft voice.

  “Brenda Dew is living at the house.”

  It took more than the usual minute for this to sink in. Brenda Dew was the wife of Ricky Dew, the man accused of the actual murder of Maria. The charge against him was that he had stood over her in the front seat of the Cadillac and had fired two shots, close together, into her back, turning a loving mother into a corpse within an instant.

  And now his wife was living at their house? Their house? Mom’s house? Brenda Dew?

  “Roby, is that a joke?”

  “No joke. Tessie McBride invited her. Said she was up here all alone, had no place to stay, the trial might last for six weeks, it was an act of Christian charity, Tessie said. She also said it was what Dad wanted. That he and Mr. Dew are on the same side now, and we’ve all got to stick together through this.”

  Chris felt dizzy and nauseated. He felt the same way he’d felt when his father had first walked into his room, sixteen months earlier, saying that he had some bad news.

  “Roby. You can’t mean this. You can’t mean that Ricky Dew’s wife is living in our house?”

  “Chris, she’s not a bad person once you get to know her. She’s really not. She’s got kind of a neat sense of humor.”

  “Where is she sleeping, Roby? In Mom’s bed?”

  “No. You know Tessie is sleeping there. Brenda’s down in the guest room. Listen, Chris, I know it sounds weird, but John likes her, she’s really good with him, and with neither of us around much, it’s—”

  “Stop, Roby. Please. You said Dad knows about this?”

  “I think it was actually his idea.”

  “But, Roby, doesn’t anybody realize that even if Dad is telling the truth—even if Dad is innocent—Ricky Dew might still have been the one who shot Mom?”

  “How could that be?”

  “Say L’Heureux was just hired as an investigator. But then he found out about all the insurance on Mom. And he told Dew. And the two of them came up to kill her and then figured somehow they could blackmail Dad, because—because—”

  “Because he’d hired an investigator? That doesn’t make any sense, Chris.”

  “Well, I don’t know why. There’s a lot we don’t know. But I do know that Ricky Dew is on trial for murdering Mom and it seems a little too weird to have his wife staying in our house during the trial.”

  “Hey, Chris, lighten up. You know what they say—it’s a small world.”

  Kevin Kelly plodded through the first week of trial, the nuts-and-bolts week, presenting the testimony of various state troopers who had been at the scene, the crime-scene photographer, the pathologist (who said it appeared to him that Maria Marshall had been sleeping when she’d been shot), the Korean cab driver who had driven L’Heureux to the Ram’s Head in June, and others whose words and documents provided the foundation upon which he’d be building his case.

  To start the second week, he called Ferlin L’Heureux to the stand.

  Fourteen months of confinement, most of it solitary, had taken much of the spring from Ferlin’s step and a good deal of the glitter from his eye. There wasn’t much of the wheeler-dealer about him now. Still paunchy, though he’d lost twenty pounds to jailhouse cuisine, and having acquired a mustache and goatee, he presented an odd mixture of the satanic and the saturnine. Indeed, he brought with him to the witness stand the morose air of a man who’d seen things go just about as wrong as they could go, and who, in addition, had pissed away the last of his integrity and self-respect by ratting on a friend to save himself.

  Kelly handled him as if he were radioactive. He ran L’Heureux through his story as if the two of them were playing Beat the Clock. There was a smattering of pathos, as when Ferlin described his July visit: “Maria was sitting there by herself,” he said in a soft-spoken drawl, “and she was holding that rose. I guess the one that she had gotten in the restaurant. Just holding that rose. And I never will forget that.”

  But the overwhelming impression created was that Kelly wanted from L’Heureux the barest, most unadorned possible recitation of the facts.

  He made sure, however, to bring Travis Greene into the story.

  “Would you tell us,” Kelly asked, “whether or not on the way back to Shreveport you told Greene about Marshall and his conversation and plans?”

  “I had pointed out Maria Marshall to Travis. And just told him, you know, ‘You see those two people? I will tell you later.’ Just like that. And on the way back to Shreveport, I made the comment to him, I said, ‘That fella is crazy.’ He said, ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ I said, ‘The man wants to have his wife murdered.’ And Travis made a comment about, you know, she was an attractive lady. And I said, ‘Well, he is willing to pay good, you know, to have it done.’ And he asked me how much. And I told him he was willing to pay fifty thousand dollars. That’s the last conversation Travis and I had about it.”

  When he got to L’Heureux’s meeting with Ricky Dew, Kelly quickened the pace even further.

  “Ricky told me,” L’Heureux was saying, “he said, ‘I understand that there is a—there is a contract out on you.’ That he had been offered a contract on me from some people out of Dallas for seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Did you ask him why?”

  “Well, I kind of knew why. You know, I mean—I knew that I hadn’t done anything up here. I just took the man’s money. So it had me shook up, you know. And we carried on there for a while. And finally he said, you know, ‘Our friend told me about it. And I talked with him about it.’”

  “You mean Greene?” Kelly prompted.

  “No,” L’Heureux said. Then he said, “Yeah.”

  “Greene had told him about what you were doing in New Jersey?” Kelly asked, in as leading a fashion as possible.

  “Right.”

  “All right” Kelly said, and never asked another word about the supposed “contract” from “some people out of Dallas.”

  The entire direct examination of the state’s key witness in the murder case against Rob Marshall and Ricky Dew took only two hours to complete. It was as if someone had told Kelly that there would be a bonus if he could finish before lunch.

  John Marshall was the only one of Rob’s three sons present in court to hear L’Heureux’s testimony. He was sitting in the front row, between Tessie McBride and Brenda Dew, directly behind his father’s position at the defense table.

  As L’Heureux described his first trip to Atlantic City, quoting Rob as saying, “I want to get rid of her, I want her done away with, as soon as possible,” John Marshall started to cry.

  Rob turned and looked at his son. “You all right?” he said.

  John nodded, his eyes wet with tears.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Rob whispered. “Don’t believe him. This guy is lying.”

  An hour later, at the lunch break, John jumped up and ran to the railing that separated him from his father. He reached across, hugged Rob tight, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Sheriffs deputies stood by awkwardly, knowing that physical contact with a prisoner was not permitted, but not wanting to interfere.

  Returning to court for the afternoon session, Rob caught John’s eyes and asked, “Are you going to be here all week?”

  John said he would.

  “Good,” Rob said. “I want you to be here for the rest of the week so you can hear the other side of this.”

  John smiled.

  On his second day as a witness, with Carl Seely cross-examining, L’Heureux asserted that he had been “constantly trying” to talk Rob out of his plan to have Maria murdered. “I had no intention of fulfilling my end of the bargain,” he said.

  In fact, he went so far as to claim that even on the morning of September 6, after he and Dew had already arrived in Atlantic City, he still did not intend that Maria would die. It was not, he now said, until “after my meeting with Marshall at Harrah’s, and my being in need of money, and Ricky in need of money, it was agreed that
we would carry out the murder.

  “I guess I was having a fight with my conscience,” he said.

  “In other words, you had a pang of conscience at that point?”

  “Well, somewhere in there, you know, we crossed over. I felt Robert Marshall would pay the money if Maria Marshall was murdered.”

  “So what you are really saying,” Seely asked, “is that in terms of your motivation, and your conscience, it was money that motivated you, right?”

  “The whole thing was motivated by money,” L’Heureux said. “Money was the only motivation that I had, and I believe—well, I don’t—” But there he stopped himself.

  Suddenly, he was perspiring heavily and his voice sounded as if his throat had gone dry.

  “Do you need a glass of water or anything?” Seely asked.

  “Please.”

  “I noticed you lifted your collar. It gets a little warm in here,” Seely said.

  L’Heureux nodded, but said no more about the motivation of anyone other than himself.

  On the afternoon of the second day, Nathan Baird took over the cross-examination.

  “Mr. L’Heureux,” he said, rising like a great lumbering bear awakening from a nap, “do you remember my telling the jury that I was going to demonstrate that you had a great motive to lie?” The very timbre of his voice—that rich bass quality—seemed intimidating. Particularly when one recognized that this was the confrontation that would quite likely determine whether Ricky Dew returned to Louisiana and freedom, or faced lethal injection while strapped to a table in a locked room somewhere in Trenton.

  “I don’t recall that particular statement,” L’Heureux said.

  “Do you have a great motive to lie about this case?”

  “Do I have?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess from all signs it would appear that I do,” L’Heureux conceded.

  “There is nothing more precious to you than saving your life, is there?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “That is part of the motive you have to lie about what happened out on that highway that night, isn’t it?”

  “If I were lying.”

  “Well, we are just talking about motive now. We will talk later about whether you are lying. For the moment,” Baird said, speaking slowly and pacing just as slowly, back and forth, in front of L’Heureux, “I would like to explore the size and enormity of your motive. Do you agree that you have a very, very substantial motive to lie?”

  “That’s correct,” L’Heureux said.

  “As a matter of fact, you have made a plea bargain with the state of New Jersey, is that correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And in the plea bargain, when it says that you are not the shooter, that was something that was negotiated between your lawyers and the state to make it clear that you were not the shooter, isn’t that so?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Because the state made it clear to you through your attorney that if you were the shooter they weren’t going to give you the wonderful deal they gave you, isn’t that true?”

  “Only by telling the truth,” L’Heureux said.

  “Sir,” Baird intoned sternly. “We will deal with the subject of truth—which we hopefully have been dealing with throughout your testimony—later. Right now, answer my question, which is, did you understand as a result of what your attorneys told you that the state would not give you this wonderful deal if you in fact were the shooter?”

  “That’s correct,” L’Heureux said.

  “Okay. So in order to buy freedom from the death penalty, and the other things you got in this deal, you had to say that you did not shoot Maria Marshall, isn’t that true?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And whether it was true or not, you wanted very badly not to receive the death penalty and to get this deal in the alternative, didn’t you?”

  “I think had it not been true,” L’Heureux said, “I would have said so.”

  Nathan Baird took a step backward and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling of the courtroom. “You mean,” he said incredulously, “you wouldn’t tell a little teeny lie to save your life?”

  “I don’t believe so,” L’Heureux said. “Not at someone else’s expense.”

  “Mr. L’Heureux!” Baird thundered. “Your whole life is a history of lies, is it not?”

  “I object,” Kevin Kelly shouted.

  “Objection sustained,” Judge Greenberg said quietly. “The jury will disregard it.”

  “You want this jury to believe,” Baird persisted, “that to save the life of Ferlin L’Heureux you would not tell a lie to the extent of saying you weren’t the shooter?”

  “Not at someone else’s expense.”

  “Is that because of your conscience?” Baird asked.

  “It’s my conscience that would have kept me from being the shooter.”

  “Well, your conscience didn’t keep you from being involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, did it?”

  L’Heureux shrugged. “That’s true,” he said.

  “Your conscience,” Baird suggested, “is somewhat of an elastic thing, isn’t it? The elasticity depending on how many dollars are involved?”

  “It seems to have a battle there.”

  “So I take it different degrees of money accomplish different things with your conscience.”

  “At the time I needed some money,” L’Heureux said.

  “Let me ask it this way: would you lie about where you were at night to your wife for fifty dollars?”

  “I might for zero dollars,” L’Heureux said, and for the first time all day there was laughter in the courtroom.

  Baird himself had no choice but to grin. “As a great statesman once said,” he said, “now that we have settled the issue, let’s talk about the amount. Do you have different values for different lies? Some are hundred-dollar lies, some are two-hundred-dollar lies?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you have different values for different other bad acts besides lying, some things you do for a hundred dollars, some for two hundred?”

  Finally, Kelly was on his feet. “I object and ask he stick with the facts the witness testified to.”

  “Judge,” Baird responded, “this is cross-examination. His credibility and morality are at stake in judging his truthfulness in this courtroom.”

  “Well,” Judge Greenberg said patiently. “The question, I think, is overly broad. It really is getting into what he would do in a hypothetical situation. It is not calling for a factual response.”

  “I withdraw it,” Baird said, and then turned quickly to confront L’Heureux again: “How much money would it take to ease your conscience in terms of incriminating an innocent man in a murder?”

  “I don’t think there is any amount of money that could ease my conscience,” L’Heureux said.

  “How much money do you think your life is worth?”

  “Had I committed the murder—”

  “Just answer that question!” Baird shouted. “What value do you put on your life? A million dollars? Five million dollars?”

  “I object again,” Kelly said. “It’s argumentative.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Greenberg said.

  Baird now walked across the courtroom until he was standing very close to Ferlin L’Heureux. “Do you agree with me,” he said softly, “that living is worth a tremendous amount of money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Living is worth enough money that it would ease your conscience in lying about Ricky Dew, isn’t that so?”

  “No,” L’Heureux said, but he did not sound terribly convincing.

  “Anytime you can be involved in murdering somebody and be sure you are not even going to do three years in jail, that might make an impression on your conscience in terms of pleading, don’t you think?”

  “Are you looking for a response?” L’Heureux said.

  “Yes, I am.”

 
“I don’t think so.”

  Baird turned his back to L’Heureux and walked away, shaking his head. From the far side of the courtroom he spoke again. “Tell me something, sir, is there a way in which the jury can tell—something you know about yourself that will help them know when you are telling the truth and when you are lying?”

  “Objection,” Kelly said.

  “Objection sustained.”

  “I don’t understand why, Judge,” Baird said.

  “It’s not calling for a factual response,” Judge Greenberg said.

  “Well, for example, Judge—if I know I have gas every time I tell a lie, I can answer that question.”

  “It is not calling for a factual response,” the judge said evenly. “It’s also calling for an opinion or conclusion on the part of the witness, it’s calling for conjecture, so I will sustain the objection.”

  Again, Baird spun—surprisingly quickly for a man of his bulk—and confronted L’Heureux.

  “Did you see the movie Pinocchio?” he asked.

  Kevin Kelly, who had been tapping lightly on his table with a pencil, now tossed the pencil into the air and jumped to his feet. “That’s wonderful,” he said, with a full complement of sarcasm. “I object.”

  “I will withdraw the question,” Baird said before Judge Greenberg could even rule.

  Baird took another step closer to L’Heureux.

  “Does your nose get longer when you lie?” he asked.

  “I object again, Your Honor!” Kelly shouted.

  “I will sustain the objection,” Judge Greenberg said. And then, with just the barest trace of annoyance in his voice, he added, “Furthermore, Mr. Baird, I will instruct you at this time to refrain from facetious questions. I realize that in this trial, as in most trials, things happen that are humorous, but I think it is up to counsel when they are posing a question to do it in a professional manner.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Baird said.

  Then, through further questioning, Baird established that it was L’Heureux’s gun that had been used to shoot Maria Marshall, that it was L’Heureux who had purchased the gloves intended to conceal the fingerprints of the person holding the gun, that it was L’Heureux’s car that had been used to transport the shooter to the scene, and that L’Heureux was the only person known to have received any money from Rob Marshall in connection with the shooting, and that L’Heureux himself had acknowledged being present at the scene.