The jurors looked at him, wide-eyed. Some, the smarter ones, shook their heads with nervous politeness. Judge Ludman frowned at them all, then continued: ‘Well, that’s what we’re stuck with, ladies and gentlemen, so let’s get on with it. Now we’re going to select a jury out of you hapless folk from the telephone directory with no greater qualification than you ain’t got a criminal conviction to your discredit. But before we embark on that let’s put you wise about who’s who in this Floridian court of ours.’ He pointed at the back of the stenographer’s head: ‘That’s Wendy Long, our shorthand-writer. Every word that’s uttered in this courtroom, wise or stupid, often stupid, she writes down on that little machine of hers.’
Wendy raised a hand to the jury. ‘Hi,’ she smiled.
Judge Ludman continued: ‘The big fella next to her is Mervin Phipps, who handles all the files and such.’
Mr Phipps nodded importantly at the jury. ‘Mornin’.’
‘And that big guy in uniform over there is Earl.’
Earl was busy handing a file to the prosecutors’ table and waved over his shoulder. ‘Hi,’ he called.
‘Earl is like an extension of myself, any problems you have tell Earl and he’ll tell me if necessary.’ Judge Ludman turned his glower on to the counsels’ tables. ‘Introduce yourselves, please,’ he growled.
Ed Vance stood up and faced the television cameras. This was worth millions of dollars in free publicity come election time. He was a picture of groomed elegance in his immaculate suit, a handsome face to remember. He gave his perfect smile.
‘My name is Edward Vance, I am a Senior Assistant District Attorney, and I am the prosecutor in this case. This good lady,’ he indicated to his left, ‘is Miss Sheila Devereaux, Assistant District Attorney. The gentleman next to her is Commander Orwell Jackson of the United States Coast Guard, an investigating officer in this case. Next to him is Captain Vincent Orlando of the police, also an investigating officer.’
Vance flashed the cameras a brilliant smile and sat elegantly.
The cameras turned to the defence table. Old Charlie stood up. His black suit was rumpled and his bow-tie awry, his shirt and beaming false-teeth smile very white against his genial black face. He gave a little courtly bow.
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, lovely morning for such sombre business as putting a man on trial for life or death in the electric chair –’
Vance got to his feet. ‘Objection,’ he intoned wearily.
Charlie spread his hands in wounded wonder: ‘If my learned friend objects to simple, courteous comments like that, imagine how objectionable he’s going to be when we get going!’
‘Get on with it, Charlie,’ Judge Ludman growled; ‘I said introduce yourself, not make your opening speech.’
‘As your honour pleases,’ Charlie murmured. Luke smiled inwardly: Charlie had won some sympathy at the outset for appearing to be an underdog. ‘I am Charlie Benson, a humble attorney-at-law in this vast, cosmopolitan, dog-eat-dog Miami of ours where polyglot America meets Spain, Africa and the marvellous mixture of them all that is called the Caribbean. I represent this fine man,’ he dropped a black hand on Harker’s shoulder. ‘Jack Harker, a foreigner to our shores, a South African gentleman who, as a matter of conscience, fled his country to escape the dreadful apartheid era and came to live in our Land of the Free as a publisher some nine years ago, where he met, published and eventually married his beloved wife, Josephine, the tragic deceased in this case.’
‘Objection,’ Vance sighed.
‘Come on, Charlie!’ Judge Ludman snapped.
‘As your honour pleases.’ Charlie beamed apologetically. ‘I apologize for getting carried away.’ He turned back to the jury. ‘Unlike my learned friend Mr Vance the prosecutor I do not have the resources of the entire State of Florida behind me to enable me to have –’ he pointed at the prosecution table – ‘expensive investigation officers to help me or to engage the services of another attorney like the beautiful Miss Sheila Devereaux over there, one of the smartest attorneys in Florida, if not in the whole of America –’
‘Charlie …’ Judge Ludman warned.
‘We have none of the advantages of the mighty District Attorney’s department, in fact my poor client is in such financial circumstances that he has to employ me to defend him, one of the humble black lawyers in town.’
‘Mr Benson!’
‘But,’ Charlie’s finger shot up brightly, ‘we are very, very fortunate to have the help, without charge, of the defendant’s cousin, a fine lawyer –’ he pointed – ‘Mr Luke Mahoney QC, Queen’s Counsel, formerly in Her Majesty’s legal service in Hong Kong. He has now retired but has come all the way here to try to help me see that justice is done. I am deeply grateful for his assistance. Of course, being a British lawyer he cannot speak in our American court but –’ Charlie turned to the bench with a hang-dog smile – ‘your honour, may Mr Mahoney be permitted to sit beside us at the defence table so that we can confer more easily?’
Ed Vance rose. ‘No objection, your honour. And I would like to make it clear that the prosecution is also anxious to see justice done. We represent the people, the taxpayers who want their streets safe.’ He sat down with a photogenic, righteous glare.
‘Very well,’ Judge Ludman said. ‘Mr Mahoney, is it? He can sit with you.’
Old Charlie beamed at Vance, then at the judge. ‘I am deeply indebted. This reduces slightly the great disadvantage under which the defence labours.’ He sat down quickly before Judge Ludman could give him an earful. Luke moved to sit at the defence table.
The judge glowered around. ‘Okay, so let’s get going on jury selection.’ He turned to the jury stand. ‘Earl tells me you’ve all filled in your questionnaires, right? So stand up now, one at a time, and read out your answers. Starting with you, sir.’
He pointed at a pimply young white man with a Jewish skullcap, a mop of frizzy black hair. As the young man stood up, his hands in his trousers, Charlie whispered to Mahoney, ‘Go’n get some breakfast. But make it look like I’ve sent you out on some important mission, like to the Law Library. Come back in two hours with a few law books under your arm. There’s a good fast-food joint on the ground floor called the Pickle Barrel. Excellent burgers.’
Luke suppressed a smile. ‘Any particular books you’d like me to bring from the library?’
‘Any damn law books will do; just look earnest …’
41
The Pickle Barrel provided the best hamburger Luke Mahoney, no stranger to America, had ever eaten. So impressed was he that he went back into the queue and ordered another. (‘Luke,’ the black cashier bellowed when his burger was ready ‘rare but not unusual …’) Thereafter he took the elevator up to the library armed with Charlie’s card. He emerged ten minutes later with two tomes plucked at random off the shelves and returned to the fourth floor. The foyer was still packed with hundreds of people hoping to get into Court 4B. Luke shoved his way through them.
Ed Vance was closing his opening speech as Luke solemnly sat down next to Charlie. Charlie’s eyes were closed as if in sleep. ‘Good burger, huh?’ he murmured.
‘Excellent. How’s Vance doing?’
‘His usual electioneering stuff.’
Vance was pacing up and down, using his hands, cocking an eyebrow, giving his perfect smiles and dramatic scowls, his resonant voice rising and falling, just like actors do when playing in courtroom dramas. Luke had never believed that American lawyers behaved like film directors imagine they do – a lawyer behaving like that in a British court would soon get a flea in his ear from His Lordship. And when he had watched the dignified behaviour of the lawyers in the O.J. Simpson trial his opinion was confirmed – American film directors had never been inside a real courtroom. But now here was Ed Vance behaving just like a soap opera star, and Judge Ludman, who looked as if he ate barbed wire and lawyers for breakfast, was letting him get away with it. And the jury appeared spellbound.
Luke looked at the twel
ve jurors. They looked as mediocre a bunch as he had ever seen. There were five whites, three of them female, and seven blacks, three female. Two of the whites looked like grandmothers who would believe anything nice Mr Vance told them, the third looked like a gum-chewing hat-check girl who would do anything to get out of here, including sending a man to the electric chair if that’s what everybody wanted. All three of the black females were large scowling matrons. All the men except one looked like construction workers, big tough guys with arms like hams and bellies like barrels, who took no shit from nobody, especially South Africans. The exception was a prim little white man with wire-rim spectacles and a forelock slicked over a balding pate. He was the foreman of the jury: he was the man to win over, the one who might sway the others in the jury room. Indeed it was this little man that Vance had his eyes on as he wound up his theatrical address, forefinger on high.
… and I will prove that those gossamer threads of circumstantial evidence hang –’ he pointed at Harker dramatically –‘hang as heavy as a millstone around the defendant’s neck!’
He paused, his face flushed with righteousness; then he turned and strode back to his table, a fine figure of a man.
‘I call my first witness, your honour, Dennis Mayton.’
Mr Dennis Mayton was a bespectacled, chubby-cheeked man in a dark suit, every inch a respectable witness. He took the oath and sat importantly.
Vance oiled up to the witness box and said, ‘Are you a chartered life underwriter for Manufacturers Life Insurance Company in New York?’
‘I am, sir.’ Mayton touched his spectacles.
‘Do you know the defendant?’
‘I do. I visited his apartment in New York about six months ago, on the fifth of June to be exact, to write an insurance policy on the life of his wife, Josephine Harker, the deceased in this case.’
‘Did you know Josephine before this?’
‘Yes. My company had insured her life for a small amount about ten years ago. The defendant telephoned me to secure some more insurance for her. I arranged to have Josephine medically examined, then I went to their apartment to do the necessary paperwork. There I met the defendant for the first time.’ Mr Mayton touched the bridge of his glasses.
‘How much life insurance was the deceased seeking?’
Mr Mayton opened his file. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’
‘A quarter of a million …’ Vance echoed. He waved his hand. ‘Continue, please.’
‘I asked Josephine Harker the usual questions and completed the application form for her.’ He produced the document and added, ‘The defendant was present throughout, assisting the deceased in answering certain questions.’
‘I put that application form in as Exhibit One, your honour.’ Vance turned back to Mayton with a very puzzled frown. ‘But with what sort of questions did Josephine need the defendant’s assistance?’
Mr Mayton said primly: ‘Generally he was taking a great interest in the proceedings. As if to ensure there was no hitch in getting the insurance.’
‘Objection!’ Charlie Benson rose to his feet creakily, theatrical injury on his face. He scowled at the witness, then at the judge. ‘Your honour, we’re not interested in this man’s impressions of what was going on in somebody’s mind. He’s not a thought-reader, is he?’
‘Sustained,’ Judge Ludman said. He turned to the jury: ‘You will disregard the witness’s last answer because it is only his opinion.’
Vance was quite happy – the jury would not disregard it. He said to Mr Mayton: ‘Now, who did the deceased specify was to be the beneficiary of this life insurance policy?’
‘The defendant.’
‘And this policy was for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’ Vance gave the jury a significant look. ‘Did you ask the defendant about his own life insurance needs?’
‘I did. And he said that he was taking out an additional two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cover with Sun Life, who had insured him before.’
‘Did you ever hear from the defendant again?’
Mr Mayton adjusted his spectacles with a dab of his forefinger. ‘I did. On the seventh of September this year he telephoned me. He said he was calling from Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands. He sounded agitated. He said, “I have to report the death of my wife”.’ Mayton paused dramatically. ‘I was astonished, your honour, as this was only a few months after the policy had been taken out.’
Vance shook his handsome head and murmured, ‘And what did you say?’
‘I said, “How did she die, Mr Harker?” And he said, “She was drowned, fell overboard.” Before I could ask any more questions he said, “Please fax me all instructions about what I’ve got to do concerning the policy, care of American Express, Tortola.” Then he hung up.’
Vance strolled along the edge of the jury stand and repeated softly, ‘“Instructions concerning the policy” …’ He sighed sadly. ‘So what did you do?’
‘I sent Mr Jefferson, one of our insurance assessors, down to Tortola to investigate. But the next thing I heard was that the defendant had promptly been arrested for murder.’
‘Objection,’ Charlie Benson said with long-suffering weariness. ‘“Promptly”? Hearsay. And untrue.’ He shook his head sadly at the jury with an apologetic smile.
‘Sustained,’ the judge said.
Vance smiled unctuously. The answer was disallowed but the jury had got the message that the defendant’s guilt had been apparent to the authorities from the outset. He continued: ‘Finally, Mr Mayton: has your company paid out the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars assured under the policy?’
Mr Mayton touched his spectacles. ‘Certainly not, sir,’ he said. ‘My company’s policy is – and indeed the law is – that nobody can be allowed to profit from his crime. Therefore, if a man insures his wife’s life and then murders –’
‘Objection, your honour!’ Charlie looked like an old war-horse whose patience had been sorely tried. ‘Objection,’ he repeated. ‘The prosecutor knows perfectly well he can’t sneak in so-called evidence like this!’
‘Why, your honour?’ Vance appealed. ‘The witness is only telling us what his company’s policy is; he’s not telling us what his opinion of this case is. He is simply saying that his company’s policy is that no man may legally benefit from his crime – that is a fact, not an opinion.’
‘That,’ Charlie said, ‘is exactly the same as saying that the company’s board of directors are of the opinion that a crime has been committed, your honour. And my young friend knows it!’
‘Objection overruled,’ the judge said.
Charlie sat down and whispered to Harker: ‘Good. A good hiccup, good point for appeal.’
‘No further questions, your honour,’ Vance said smugly.
Old Charlie sighed and got to his feet to cross-examine.
‘Mr Mayton, good morning to you.’
Mayton looked taken aback. ‘Good morning.’
Charlie smiled. ‘Mr Mayton, please don’t think I’m being unpleasant if I ask you some difficult questions – I’m just doing my solemn duty to the cause of justice. You understand?’
‘Of course.’
‘Mr Mayton, you don’t like the defendant, do you?’
Mayton seemed disconcerted. ‘I neither like him nor dislike him, sir,’ he said primly. ‘I feel entirely neutral.’
‘Good. So when you say he sounded agitated when he telephoned you from Tortola, you mean he sounded upset, how you’d expect a man to feel when he’d just lost his wife overboard accidentally at sea?’
Mayton shifted fussily on his chair. ‘If he had just lost his wife accidentally.’
‘Exactly. So his behaviour was precisely what you’d expect in those circumstances. And similarly his behaviour when Josephine applied for insurance was what you’d expect from a husband being helpful to his wife.’
‘Well, he seemed anxious that the application be successful.’
‘Of course, they
both wanted the application to be successful, that’s why they were applying. And you – don’t you get a commission on every policy you write?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you were also anxious that the application be successful? Or is money a matter of supreme indifference to you?’
Mayton smirked. ‘No, it’s not a matter of indifference.’
‘Then you also were anxious that the application be successful? And,’ Charlie frowned, ‘the deceased was a perfectly healthy young woman. So there would be absolutely no difficulty in her getting insurance? So you’re imagining it when you say the defendant appeared anxious! Surely you, a neutral, unprejudiced, honest witness will concede that?’
Mayton looked uncomfortable. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Thank you,’ Charlie beamed. ‘Now, when a policy holder dies, you expect to be informed at the earliest opportunity, don’t you? So that if somebody is to blame for the death – as may happen in a car accident, for example – your company has the opportunity to investigate in case you decide to sue that person. Correct?’
‘Correct,’ Mayton admitted.
‘So there was nothing sinister in the defendant telephoning you with the sad news of his wife’s death, was there?’
‘No, not really,’ Mayton agreed.
Unofficial and Deniable Page 33
