Bad blood

by Linda Fairstein

  “Did she call you before coming over?”

  “Yes, from a taxicab. She was on her way to a hotel, she told me.”

  “Objection!” Lem Howell was on his feet now, all business, ready to rein me in. From this point forward, he would hold me to the rules of evidence. The insidious growth of the marital conflict I wanted to lay before the jury would be difficult to show without a victim who could tell her own tale.

  Judge Gertz looked down at Kate Meade on the witness stand adjacent to his bench, cautioning her against the hearsay testimony she was trying to deliver. “Don’t tell us what Mrs. Quillian said to you, young lady. You may testify about your observations and your actions, but not about conversations she had with you.”

  I had prepped Kate for the manner of this examination-and for the fact that Howell would fight to keep out parts of the story-but she was visibly upset that the judge had chastised her.

  “Can you describe Amanda Quillian’s appearance when she arrived at your home that night?”

  “She was crying. Crying hysterically. May I say that, Your Honor? I had never seen her as upset as she was that night. I held her and talked to her, but I couldn’t get her to stop crying.”

  “Don’t tell us what she said, Mrs. Meade,” I guided her, since Amanda’s words themselves would violate the hearsay rules. Kate could be cross-examined by Lem about her observations, but Amanda’s statements to her could not be offered for their truth. “But did she explain to you why she was crying?”

  “Yes, she did,” Kate said, turning her head to grimace at Brendan Quillian.

  “Did she appear to have any injuries?”

  “No, no, she did not. Not that I could see on her face.”

  “Did she spend the night at your home?”

  “Amanda spent five nights with us. She refused to go out of the house. I could barely get her to eat.”

  “Did you see the defendant during those days?”

  “Once. Brendan came to our door two days later, first thing in the morning.”

  “Did you let him in?”

  “No. I talked to him in the hallway. I told him that Amanda didn’t want him there.”

  “Do you remember any specifics of your conversation with the defendant?” These statements by Quillian were not considered hearsay.

  “Certainly. Of course I do.”

  “What did he say to you, as best you can recall?”

  “He asked me to let him in. No, he begged me to let him in.”

  “Once?”

  “Three-maybe four times.”

  “Did he ask you how Amanda-how his wife was?”

  “No. No, he did not.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “The only other thing he wanted to know was whether Amanda had told her father that she had left home.”

  “What answer did you give him?”

  “I told him that she had not. Not yet.”

  “And then?”

  “He wanted to know if I was sure of that. He asked me to promise him that I wouldn’t let Amanda admit to her father that she had walked out on him. Brendan said he’d do anything to get Amanda back.” Kate Meade was speaking softly now, trying to hold back the tears that had formed in her eyes.

  I let the jury observe her for several seconds. I was relieved to have gotten this much of the story told without the backfire that Lem had hinted at to scare me. Maybe his warning had just been a scam to unnerve me as I started my case.

  “What did you say to the defendant?”

  She spoke to the foreman. “I told him to get out of my building. I told him I couldn’t make any promises to him.”

  “When was the next time you spoke with the defendant after that?”

  “It was on the sixth day. A Saturday, I think. Amanda had spent a lot of time talking with him on the phone the night before. He convinced her to come back home. He picked her up around ten o’clock that morning.”

  “Did you talk with him then?”

  She shook her head from side to side before she answered. “Only to say good-bye to Amanda as they left.”

  I took Kate Meade through four more years of Amanda’s sudden visits, at least one every six months. The episodes of tearful nocturnal flights made little sense without the substance of the revelations that my victim had made to her best friend over the years, but the pattern of conduct established before the jury the profound unhappiness in her relationship with her husband.

  I tried to lay the foundation for the expert witness whom I planned to call later in the case, the one who would explain some of the dynamics of domestic violence. I expected her to be able to answer the question of why Amanda Quillian did not simply leave Brendan, the question I had been asked about my spousal-abuse victims more times than I could possibly count.

  Kate Meade had been responding to my queries for more than ninety minutes by the time I caught her up to the last lunch the two women had together on October 3 of the previous year.

  “You told us that you snapped this photograph-People’s two in evidence-at about two o’clock in the afternoon?”

  “Yes, just before we paid the check.”

  “And for the record, it’s fair to say that Amanda is smiling, am I right?”

  “She was very happy that day.” Kate nodded to the jurors.

  “If you know, Mrs. Meade, where was Brendan Quillian on October third?”

  “He was in Boston, Ms. Cooper.”

  Lem Howell didn’t mind that tidbit of hearsay. It helped him to have his client as far away from the scene of the crime as possible.

  “Do you know why Amanda was so happy?”

  “Yes, I do. I certainly do. She had made some decisions about her future, about ending her marriage. She told me that-”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained. You can’t tell us what she said.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor. I gave her a business card-the name and phone number of a locksmith. It was a man I’d used when my children’s nanny lost her keys the week before. I made an appointment for him to change the locks at Amanda’s house the next morning, before Brendan was due back in town.”

  Kate Meade had blurted out the sentences in rapid-fire sequence, then slumped back in her chair as though satisfied she had done her best for her friend without a chance of interruption from Howell.

  “What time did you and Amanda Quillian leave each other on the corner of Madison Avenue and Ninety-second Street?”

  “Ten or fifteen minutes after I took this photograph.” Kate Meade lifted a handkerchief embroidered with pink flowers out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. Then balling it up in her hand, she pointed at the life-size picture of her friend on the easel beside her.

  “Did you speak to Amanda Quillian again after that?”

  “Yes, I called her shortly before three o’clock. Preston suggested to me that we invite her to dinner that evening since she was alone, and so I called to tell her what time to come over.”

  “At what number did you call her?”

  “On her cell phone. I called on her cell because I wasn’t sure whether she would have reached home yet.”

  “Did she answer?”

  “It went to voice mail. She picked it up a few minutes later and called me back.”

  “Was that the last time you heard from Amanda Quillian?”

  Kate Meade’s fingernails clipped each other more loudly than before. “No, ma’am.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I was opening the door to our apartment when my own cell phone rang again,” Kate said, tearing up as she hung her head. “She must have hit redial, it was so fast.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. This speculation, this guesswork, this ‘must have,’ ‘should have,’ ‘could have’ business is-”

  “Sustained. Keep your voice up, will you, madam?”

  Kate Meade lifted her head, picked out her favorite juror-the teacher-and locked eyes with her. “I flipped open my phone and I could hear Amanda sc
reaming. Just a long, terrifying scream.”

  “Did she say anything, any words you could understand?” This excited utterance, as the law called it, was an exception to the hearsay rule. I was confident that the judge would allow Kate’s testimony about this last call.

  “First Amanda screamed. That’s the only awful noise I could hear. Then she started crying and speaking to someone at the same time.”

  I lowered my voice and waited for Kate Meade to stop hyper-ventilating a bit. “Do you have any idea with whom she was speaking?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “Did you hear what she said?”

  “Very clearly. She said, ‘Brendan sent you, didn’t he? Brendan sent you to kill me.’ They’re the last words I ever heard Amanda say.”

  “Did the other person ever speak while your phone line was open?”

  “He didn’t speak, Ms. Cooper. He just laughed. Amanda screamed one more time and the man just laughed.”

  I paused, letting the jury absorb the impact of the image Kate Meade had just re-created. “Was there anything distinctive about the laugh? Anything that you recognized or can describe to us, Mrs. Meade?”

  “I remember he had a deep, gruff voice. He sounded like a madman, like he was enjoying the fact that he was torturing poor Amanda,” she said, again pressing the handkerchief to her eyes. “I could still hear her screaming-more muffled at the end. And then the phone line went dead.”

  3

  “I’m Lemuel Howell, Mrs. Meade. I’m sorry we haven’t had the opportunity to meet before today, but I have some questions to ask you as well,” he said to the witness, following a twenty-minute break given the jurors to refresh themselves. Howell wanted to make it clear to them that I had an advantage he had been denied.

  He was polite and charming to Kate Meade, but whatever brief period of comfort she had achieved in recalling her friendship with Amanda during the first part of the direct examination had been wiped out by the last. Her body tensed up, and she wrung the handkerchief in her hands as her eyes darted back and forth between Brendan Quillian and his lawyer.

  “So you’ve known Brendan for more than half your life, haven’t you?” Howell had been standing behind his client, hands resting on his broad shoulders, and patted him on the back before walking closer to the jury box. He was telling the panel that he not only represented Quillian, but liked him, too.

  Kate smiled wanly and nodded.

  “You’ll have to speak up, for the record,” Judge Gertz said.

  “Yes. Yes, sir. I’m thirty-four now. I met him when I was sixteen.”

  “Spent time with him during your high school days, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Saw him often throughout your college years?”

  “Occasionally.”

  Howell ticked off a litany of social events at which Kate Meade and the Quillians had spent time together. There were intimate family gatherings and celebrations of every variety, countless business functions in which the Meades had participated, and enough philanthropic work that both couples had engaged in that might have allowed the defendant to call on Mother Teresa as a character witness.

  I had figured that Kate Meade would present the opportunity for Howell to put as much of Brendan’s pedigree before the jury as Amanda’s, and that she would establish for the defense some of his best qualities. It might even weigh in the decision that Howell would later have to make about whether to let his client testify. If he could establish enough of the defendant’s good nature through the prosecution witnesses, he might not expose him to the cross-examination I so dearly wanted the chance to do.

  But I had no other choice than to use Kate in my direct case. She gave me facts-the repeated separations that occurred in the middle of the night, the revelation that Amanda had chosen to end the marriage, and the last phone call before Amanda’s death-that were among my strongest evidentiary links to Brendan’s motive and role in the murder of his wife.

  “I believe that you served on several nonprofit boards over the last decade, some organizations that do great work for the people of this city, am I right, Mrs. Meade?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  One art museum, one major medical center, two diseases in need of a cure, and the junior committee of the best public library in America. Howell called out the name of each, his mellifluous voice investing them with even greater dignity.

  “And was Brendan on any of those boards with you?”

  “Yes,” she answered quietly.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Meade,” Howell said, cocking his head so that the jury could see how pleased he looked. “You did say yes to that, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “And, let me see, God’s Love We Deliver,” he said, referring to a well-regarded New York City organization that delivers meals to terminally ill people in their homes. Lem was holding out one of his well-manicured hands as he counted fingers to mark Brendan’s good works.

  “No, no.”

  “No, ma’am? You’re saying Brendan wasn’t involved in that very noble cause?” Howell said, pressing his arm across his chest in a false sign of distress.

  “No, Mr. Howell, you’re mistaken about me. I’ve never served on that board.” Kate Meade was becoming flustered. She held out a hand with the crumpled handkerchief in the defendant’s direction. “Brendan did.”

  “So, I am also correct that my client found time for even more community involvement than someone such as yourself, Mrs. Meade?” Howell asked, ticking off the names of four other charitable groups that Brendan helped.

  “The Quillians were both very generous. It was Amanda’s way.”

  Howell had made his point and moved on. “Your eldest daughter, Mrs. Meade, that would be Sara?”

  Kate stiffened again, peeved that her child’s name was being brought into the proceedings. She pursed her lips and stared at the defendant. “Yes.”

  “And you told us, in answer to Ms. Cooper’s question, that the Quillians are her godparents, isn’t that right?”

  Her answer was another clipped “Yes.”

  Howell took the witness through another list of personal duties that established the close relationship between the nine-year-old girl and her parents’ best friends-shared holidays, overnights when the Meades had other engagements, vacations together on ski trips and to beach resorts.

  “In fact, with whom did Sara attend her first Yankee game last spring?”

  “Brendan.”

  “With or without Amanda?”

  “Without.”

  “And whom did you call to take Sara ice-skating in Central Park when your husband had the flu a few months before that?”

  “Brendan.”

  Howell was getting nothing from Kate Meade. One-word answers seemed barely able to escape from her lips before she clamped them shut again.

  “With or without Amanda.”

  “Without.”

  “So, I take it you never said to your daughter as you sent her out the door-and we all assume you love her dearly-‘Now you watch out, Sara, ’cause your uncle Brendan, well, he’s a murderer, did-’”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Amanda Quillian was very much alive then.”

  Some of the jurors were chuckling along with Howell-and with the defendant himself-always a bad thing to hear at a murder trial. The hammer in my brain had resumed its dull thud, reminding me that Lem had something in store for Kate Meade.

  “I’ll allow it.”

  “No.” Kate Meade was looking to me to rescue her, but there was nothing I could do.

  “And by the way, you never took stock around the boardroom at the Museum of Modern Art-or when he was raising millions of dollars for Mount Sinai Hospital-you never said to any of your colleagues at either institution that your dear friend Brendan Quillian wasn’t to be trusted with your money-or your life, did you?”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Gertz said. “Let’s move on.”

  �
�Now, Alexandra-sorry, Ms. Cooper,” Howell said, winking at me as though to apologize for slipping into the familiar, so that the jurors would know we had a friendship outside this arena. “Ms. Cooper asked you about the night that Amanda Quillian first appeared at your door, at one a.m. You told us that you didn’t see any injuries on her face, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, did you call a doctor-that night or any day thereafter during the week?”

  “No, no, I did not.”

  “Did you take Mrs. Quillian to an emergency room?”

  “No.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No.”

  “Was your husband at home with you that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “And apart from him-that would be Preston Meade, am I right?-apart from your husband, did you tell anyone else about Amanda’s visit?”

  “No.”

  “Her parents?”

  “No.”

  “Her sisters?”

  “I’ve told you that I didn’t,” she snapped. “No one.”

  Howell was setting himself up nicely for his closing argument, three weeks away. He didn’t want to ask Kate why she had told no one, because he was aware that the answer would be that Amanda had pleaded with her not to. Rather, he would leave the impression that things hadn’t been serious enough to require any intervention. I made notes to try to clarify that question on my redirect of Kate Meade, hoping that the judge would think Howell had opened the door far enough to let me go there.

  “Not even your nanny?” Howell asked. “Surely, Mrs. Meade, you have a nanny for your girls?”

  “We do,” she said, ruffled again. “I simply forgot about her, Your Honor. I-uh-I didn’t mean to hide it.”

  Howell used his softest expression to try to calm her. “I didn’t think you were doing any such thing. I’m sure your memory of those events isn’t quite as clear now as it was back then. Did you tell the nanny why Amanda Quillian was staying at your apartment?”

  “No. She knew Amanda was my best friend. I didn’t have to tell her anything.”

  “Because she just worked for you, isn’t that right?”