“Is that so?”
“Most historians agree that James Buchanan, once regarded as the first ‘bachelor’ to live in the White House, was actually a homosexual.”
“I actually did know that,” said MacLeod with his usual assertiveness. “But there’s an important difference between him and Senator Stahl.”
“What’s that, Mr. President?”
“James Buchanan didn’t pretend to have a wife and didn’t try to trick the American public into thinking that the nation will have a First Lady. So I warn my fellow Americans not to be fooled by what they saw on the news this morning. That façade will be over the day after the inauguration. The nation may not have its first gay president in Evan Stahl, but rest assured, Mrs. Stahl will be out of the picture, and we will definitely have a first ‘First Homo’ in the White House.”
“That would be funny to my listeners,” the host said with a grave delivery, “if it weren’t so true.”
The president grimaced. The laxative was still working overtime; Act II had begun.
“There you have it, friends,” said the host. “Don’t be fooled. Thank you very much, Mr. President.”
“You’re welcome.”
The interview ended. The president yanked off the headset. First Lady’s Revenge was more than living up to its name. MacLeod doubled over, emitting a cry of pain so loud that a pair of Secret Service agents burst into the bathroom, weapons drawn.
The courtroom was packed, but neither the judge nor the lawyers were in it. Jack and the attorney general were on opposite sides of the table, in chambers again to argue before Judge Martin.
Another attorney might have taken the position that a “confidential” report found lying in a public courtroom was no longer confidential. Some lawyers might have blown right past the “confidential” designation, devoured the report, and then sprung it on the witness in cross-examination, sending the courtroom into chaos. Jack knew better. Judge Martin was of the “handshake generation,” a country lawyer at heart who longed for the days when a lawyer’s word was his bond. Jack had seen many a lawyer from Miami—“My-amma”—play way too aggressively for the likes of Judge Martin, only to learn the hard way that “southern hospitality” could sometimes be summed up in just eight words: “You ain’t from around here, are you, boy?”
“Mr. Swyteck, thank you very much for bringing this report to the court’s attention.”
“You’re welcome, Judge.”
“Ms. Barrow, did the FDLE issue this report to you?”
The attorney general cleared her throat. “What I’d like to know, Judge, is how Mr. Swyteck obtained a copy of the report.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear my question,” said the judge. “Is this document authentic? Is this a copy of an actual report from the FDLE to you about allegations of Mr. Scoville’s sexual misconduct?”
“Yes, but it’s confidential. So I would really like to know how he got it.”
“It was on my table when I returned from lunch.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” said Barrow. “Manna from heaven, is that it?”
“I’ll state it under oath if I have to.”
“Said the lawyer whose client scoffs at her oath,” replied Barrow.
Jack ignored her but gave her points for style on that one. “Judge, I brought this to the court’s attention because I believe it will be relevant to my cross-examination. But it was marked confidential, so I still haven’t read it.”
“Which is honorable of you,” the judge said. “And let me just add that I have read it. It’s relevant, all right. Wouldn’t you agree, General Barrow?”
“Relevance isn’t the issue. This report is part of a law enforcement investigation. Allowing Mr. Swyteck to use it to cross-examine Mr. Scoville could jeopardize that investigation.”
“The state of Florida should have thought of that before you called Mr. Scoville to the witness stand.”
Jack could hardly believe his ears. The judge was saying exactly what he was thinking. For a trial lawyer, life simply didn’t get any better than that.
“Mr. Swyteck, I’m a slow reader,” said the judge. “It took me thirty minutes to read the report. I’ll give you twenty. Be back in my courtroom then, and we’ll proceed with the cross-examination of Mr. Scoville.”
Chapter 26
Jack approached the witness with the FDLE report in hand—with more ammunition than he needed, if the goal had been to indict Tallahassee as a cesspool of sex and abuse of power. That wasn’t the goal. Jack’s mission was to prove that Scoville had lied when he testified that Charlotte Holmes was up to her neck in that cesspool. He had to choose his ammunition wisely.
“Stress balls,” said Jack. “They come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they, Mr. Scoville?”
The judge sat up in his big leather chair. “I think I know what you’re talking about, Counsel, but could we call them stress-relief balls?”
“Of course,” said Jack, and then to the witness, “People squeeze them to relieve stress. You’ve used them before, haven’t you, Mr. Scoville?”
“On occasion.”
“You kept a stress-relief ball on your desk when you were chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, did you not?”
“On my desk or around it, yes.”
“Some stress-relief balls are made of foam rubber. Yours was made of gel contained by a rubber skin.”
“So?”
“Some stress-relief balls are round,” said Jack, and then he took a step closer, his voice taking on an edge. “Yours was in the shape of a woman’s breast, was it not?”
He smiled, as if it were funny. “It was kind of a gag gift from some friends.”
“A gag?” Jack opened the FDLE report. “Are you aware that seventeen women told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that it was your practice to squeeze the breast-shaped stress-relief ball only when meeting with women in your office?”
“Whoever said that is a liar.”
“All seventeen of them?”
“Yes. That’s ridiculous.”
Jack turned the page in the report. “During your last legislative session, do you recall a meeting in your office with State Senator Amelia Suarez, who asked you to support her bill on sales tax exemptions for hurricane supplies?”
“I do recall that.”
“And when Senator Suarez asked for your support, you—while squeezing your breast-shaped stress reliever—replied, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
“That’s a lie.”
The attorney general rose. “Judge, I object. You wouldn’t let the state of Florida call just four witnesses to testify about their sexual relationship with Ms. Holmes. But now Mr. Swyteck wants to drag Mr. Scoville through seventeen meetings about stress balls?”
“Stress-relief balls,” the judge said.
“Whatever. It’s just not fair,” said the attorney general.
“What’s not fair,” said Jack, “is Mr. Scoville’s false accusation that my client offered sex in exchange for his vote.”
“Excuse me,” said Scoville from the witness stand. “Judge, I want it to be clear that she offered it, but I did not accept it.”
“That’s my point exactly,” said Jack. “Your Honor, this report documents repeated instances of Mr. Scoville’s abuse of his power and position by actively soliciting sex from numerous women. If Ms. Holmes had ever offered sex for his vote—as he claims she did—Mr. Scoville would have immediately dropped his pants. And his stress ball.”
“Stress-relief ball,” the judge said.
“My apologies,” said Jack. “If the court can indulge me for just ten minutes, I can demonstrate that the witness is lying.”
“I’ll give you five minutes. But no more.”
Jack quickly went to work, laying out the FDLE findings in machine-gun fashion. The strand of pearls he bought as a gift for a lobbyist, “joking” (or not) that she should visit his office sometime “wearing only the pearls.” The monthly payments from his polit
ical committee to “consultants” with no political experience, including a Hooters calendar girl and a Playboy “Miss Social.” Unsolicited compliments about working out, losing weight, or “nice dress,” coupled with the innuendo, “What do I get?”
“Mr. Swyteck, you have two minutes remaining,” the judge announced.
Jack took the reminder—and then moved in for the kill.
“Mr. Scoville, let’s focus on something you didn’t say on direct examination. Something you left out.”
“You need to be more specific than that,” said Scoville.
“I’m talking about the first time Ms. Holmes visited your office as a lobbyist. She was twenty-eight years old.”
“That would have been some years ago. I’m not sure I remember my first meeting with Ms. Holmes.”
“Would it jog your memory if I told you that the first time Ms. Holmes was alone with you in your office was also the last time she was alone with you in your office?”
“No memory.”
Jack checked his notes from his meeting with Charlotte in the empty jury room. “You don’t recall saying, ‘Madeline Chisel hired herself one hot assistant’?”
“I would never say anything so inappropriate.”
“You don’t recall squeezing your stress-relief ball and asking Ms. Holmes how ‘firm’ she was.”
Scoville shifted uneasily in his chair, the way most witnesses did when confronted with details and specifics. “I can assure you that I was referring only to how firm she was in her position.”
“Which is the same phony explanation you gave her when she got up and said she was leaving.”
“I don’t recall any of that.”
“You followed her to the door, didn’t you, Mr. Scoville?”
“It would be the polite thing to do, walking a guest to the door.”
“And when Ms. Holmes tried to open the door, you held it closed.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“You pressed your body against hers, pinning her against the wall.”
“That’s a lie.”
“You placed your hand on her breast—”
“I did not!”
“You put your mouth to her ear and said: ‘This is how things get done around here.’”
“Objection,” said Barrow. “Judge, clearly Mr. Scoville denies that any of this happened, and there is absolutely no basis for these questions.”
The judge looked confused. “Mr. Swyteck, is this in the FDLE report? Because I don’t recall reading anything about Ms. Holmes in there.”
“It’s not in the report,” said Jack.
“This entire line of questioning is improper,” said Barrow. “It’s out of left field with no basis in reality.”
“This incident is very much a part of my client’s reality,” said Jack.
“But it’s not in the FDLE report,” said the judge.
“She chose not to report the assault,” said Jack.
“Because it didn’t happen,” said the attorney general.
“Because like most young women in her position, Ms. Holmes felt powerless against a man in Mr. Scoville’s position.”
Barrow groaned. “Judge, now Mr. Swyteck is just testifying for his client.”
“The objection is sustained,” the judge said. “That’s enough about this alleged incident for now. Mr. Swyteck, call your client to the stand as part of your case if she wants to tell her story.”
“Story is a good word for it,” said the attorney general.
“Ms. Barrow, please,” said the judge.
Jack checked on his client with a quick glance. Charlotte had kept the senator’s assault to herself for years. He wondered if she was up to the kind of ridicule she’d get from the attorney general on cross if he put her on the witness stand. Charlotte couldn’t say if it had happened on a Monday or Friday, whether it had been morning or afternoon, or what bill she’d gone to the senator’s office to discuss. She would fail on any number of little things that, to the interrogator, were just as memorable as the event itself—a man old enough to be her father pressing her against the wall, grabbing her breast, and telling her “this is how things get done.” Jack wasn’t sure he would put Charlotte through it. But they would make that decision later.
“I have just a couple more questions for Mr. Scoville,” said Jack.
“Proceed,” said the judge. “But let’s wrap this up.”
Jack retrieved the FDLE report. “Mr. Scoville, you were aware of the fact that the FDLE was investigating you for alleged incidents of sexual misconduct, were you not?”
“I may have heard something about it.”
“May have? On page three of the report it states that FDLE officers interviewed you for forty minutes. Did that escape your memory?”
“No. We met.”
“So, when you walked into this courtroom today, you knew you were under investigation by the FDLE, correct?”
“I guess that’s true.”
“You knew that the FDLE had issued a report to the attorney general, correct?”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“It was also your understanding that this report was confidential—that no one would see it, unless the attorney general authorized its release.”
“Objection.”
“Overruled,” said the judge.
“Yes,” said Scoville. “That was my understanding.”
“You were shocked that this report ended up being part of this public proceeding, were you not?”
“It—yes, I found it surprising.”
“You were shocked because it was your understanding that if you testified against Charlotte Holmes, the attorney general would never authorize the release of this report.”
“Objection!” the attorney general shouted. “The insinuation that I made some kind of quid pro quo arrangement for Mr. Scoville’s testimony is outrageous.”
“Sustained. Mr. Swyteck, time to wrap up.”
“I’m finished with this witness,” said Jack.
The attorney general rose. “Judge, I renew our objection to the use of the FDLE report, and, for the record, the state of Florida will be launching a full investigation into how this confidential report came into Mr. Swyteck’s possession.”
“Judge, I’ll say it again for the third time: the report was sitting on my table when I returned to the courtroom after lunch.”
“Someone had to put it there,” said Barrow.
Jack glanced again at his client. Charlotte’s chair was at an angle—enough of an angle so that with a slight turn of her head, her gaze carried toward the back of the courtroom. Jack followed her line of sight until it landed in the last row.
On Madeline Chisel.
It suddenly came clear. If anyone had the ability to make that report land on Jack’s table, it was Chisel. He wondered if Officer Dalton knew what she was planning to do with it when he’d come to the courthouse, ostensibly to meet with Jack, and delivered it to her.
“Mr. Scoville, you are released,” said the judge.
Scoville stepped down from the witness stand, walked in silence past the attorney general, and started down the center aisle. If there was any doubt in Jack’s mind as to the source of the report, it was erased by the look Charlotte’s mentor shot in Scoville’s direction as he reached the exit doors and left the courtroom.
Jack took a seat beside his client.
“By any chance, did you call in a favor from your old mentor?” he asked beneath his breath.
“I only had one,” she whispered.
Jack smiled with his eyes. “You made it a good one.”
Chapter 27
“The state of Florida calls Megan Holmes,” said the attorney general.
Jack glanced at his client. “Is that—”
“My sister,” said Charlotte.
The double doors opened in the back of the courtroom. Megan entered, walked down the aisle, and passed three feet away from her sister on her way to the witness stand,
never once making eye contact with Charlotte. Not a good sign.
“She hates me,” Charlotte whispered.
Not good at all.
The bailiff swore in the witness, and Charlotte filled Jack’s ear with the quick and dirty, as Megan took the stand. Since college, the sisters had seen each other only at major family events. At best, they’d tolerated each other. It all went back to a party one night, held off campus. Megan had left with the wrong people and ended up in the woods, alone and unconscious. Somehow it was Charlotte’s fault.
“Are you the older sister of Charlotte Holmes?” the attorney general asked, moving quickly through Megan’s background.
“Eleven months older.”
“Ah, Irish twins,” said Barrow, a little levity to put the witness at ease.
Megan seemed confused. “But . . . we’re not Irish.”
“She’s just not smart,” Charlotte whispered. Jack took it with a grain of salt, not ready to write off Megan as a dummy. She was a little rough on the edges, not as well-spoken or refined as Charlotte, but she was every bit as pretty as her sister, which left Jack no reason to believe that the luck of the genetic draw had left her any less intelligent.
“Would you describe your relationship with your sister Charlotte as a close one?” asked Barrow.
“Objection. May we have a sidebar?” Jack asked partly to prevent the witness from hearing, but mostly to keep it away from the media. The judge called them forward, and the lawyers huddled at the side of the judicial bench that was farthest from the witness stand.
Jack started. “Your Honor, I understand that the issue in this hearing is my client’s fitness to serve as an elector. But there has to be a limit as to what’s relevant. Testimony from Megan Holmes as to how she feels about her younger sister is beyond the pale.”
“That’s not the purpose of her testimony,” said Barrow.
“Sure sounds like it,” said the judge. “You just asked if she and her sister were ‘close.’”
“I asked that question only to be upfront with the court that these sisters do not get along. But that’s not the point of her testimony.”
The Big Lie Page 15
