Prosecution: A Legal Thriller

by Buffa, D. W.

  Using his leg to shove back the chair as he drew himself up, Jones struck the air with his hand, an abrupt and awkward movement, like someone who reaches out to catch a fly without any expectation of success. Lumbering across to the stand, he eyed the witness suspiciously. "Tell me, Mr. Dietrich, do you have a specialized clientele?"

  "I don't think I know what you mean."

  Jones turned to the jury. "I mean, Mr. Dietrich, do you design houses only for murderers? Because if you don't," he sneered, "I'm at a complete loss to see why you've been asked to testify here today." He did the same thing in a different way with the car dealer who sold Goodwin the Jaguar. "To the best of your knowledge," he asked, searching the eyes of the witness as if he was looking for the first sign of guilt, "how many of the people you sold cars to last year killed someone to get the money to pay for them?"

  "Why, no one," the witness blurted out, before I could lodge an objection.

  The proprietor of the exclusive men's store where Goodwin had spent almost as much as he used to earn in a year was asked a less threatening question.

  "You sell men's clothing, correct?"

  "Yes."

  "To men?" he asked, as if he wanted to be absolutely sure.

  "Yes."

  "Good for you," Jones said exuberantly. "For a moment there, I thought you must be involved in something illegal, the way Mr. Antonelli was asking you questions."

  He began every cross-examination looking at the witness and ended it facing the jury. And they looked back at him, followed him where he went, and listened to what he said and the way he said it.

  After days of this, I was down to the last two witnesses for the prosecution.

  Rebecca Easton ran a small neighborhood branch of a large interstate bank, in which Marshall and Nancy Goodwin had kept their account. She was in her mid forties, with black hair cut straight across her forehead, and was dressed in a red blazer, white blouse, and a black pleated skirt. The enormous circular frames of her glasses gave her dark eyes a slightly startled look.

  In response to my question, the bank manager produced first a deposit slip and then a canceled check. The deposit slip was in the amount of thirty-five hundred dollars. This, as her testimony demonstrated, was money moved from a small savings account at the same bank. With this addition, the balance in the Goodwin checking account was brought up to slightly more than eleven thousand dollars.

  "And on that same day, did Mr. Goodwin cash a check at your bank?"

  "Yes, for ten thousand dollars."

  "And was that check drawn on his own account—I should say, the account he shared with his wife?"

  "Yes, the account was a joint account. Marshall and Nancy Goodwin. Either person," she explained, "could make deposits or withdrawals."

  I was standing at the front corner of the counsel table, closest to the witness stand. "So one person," I asked, as if there might actually be someone who did not know, "can write a check on an account like this, even if, for example, all the money has been put in by the other person?"

  "Yes, exactly. The parties have equal access to the account."

  I stared down at the floor, as if it still was not quite as clear as I needed it to be. Perplexed, I looked up. "So it would actually be possible—if two people have an account together—for one person to hire someone to kill the other and use their money to pay for it?"

  She never had a chance to answer. Judge Holloway, her eyes sizzling, brought her gavel down hard with one hand while pointing a finger at me with the other.

  "You want to be held in contempt?" she threatened.

  I stood straight and said firmly, "I apologize to the court for whatever I may have said. It certainly was not my intention to go beyond the bounds of what I'm allowed to ask." It was a formal apology that acknowledged nothing in the way of wrongdoing.

  "It was deliberately inflammatory, your Honor," Jones protested, a scowl descending over the rough-edged features of his face.

  She looked at him sharply. "As opposed, I assume, to the strictly accidental nature of your attempts to inflame the jury?"

  The scowl deepened, the shank of unruly hair dangled close to his eyes. Squinting up at her, he started to say something, seemed to think better of it, and just shook his head in a gesture of sorrowful contempt.

  She was quick to see his meaning. "Careful, Mr. Jones," she warned. "This isn't some one-horse courtroom out in the desert somewhere."

  He would not look away, and neither would she.

  "Counsel will please approach," she said peremptorily.

  Shoulder to shoulder, we stood at the side of the bench and bent forward so no one else could hear.

  Raking me with her eyes, she hissed, "You've played that game in here for the last time, Mr. Antonelli. If you want to testify, go put a subpoena on yourself."

  She turned to Jones. "You listen to me, Mr. Richard Lee Jones. You ever give me a look like that again, you'll have reason to regret it. Now, both of you, get out there and act like the gentlemen I know you are."

  Like chastened children, we resumed our places, consoling ourselves with the secret pleasure we had taken in the punishment inflicted on the other.

  Rebecca Easton, her hands folded neatly in her lap, had waited patiently in the witness chair, trying to ignore the angry colloquy taking place on the other side of the bench.

  I began as if nothing had happened. "Mrs. Easton, what I was trying to ask you is whether each person on a joint account has the power to withdraw money from it, no matter which one of them may have put the money in?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Now, I'd like to go back to this one transaction. What is the date on the canceled check, made out to cash, by which Marshall Goodwin withdrew ten thousand dollars from that joint account?"

  The date was two days before the date on which Travis Quentin had been released from the county jail.

  My head bowed, I walked toward the jury box, my arms folded across my chest.

  "And do you have a record of the way in which that ten thousand dollars was given to Mr. Goodwin?" I asked, as I stopped in front of the railing and raised my eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she replied. "I don't understand."

  Turning just far enough to see her, I said, "What denominations were the bills he was given?"

  She understood. "Hundred-dollar bills."

  I looked back at the jury, my eyes darting from one to the other until I had gazed briefly at them all. Travis Quentin had testified that both the money he had found in the envelope and the money he picked up later at a bus station locker had been in hundred-dollar bills. "No further questions, your Honor."

  "Cross-examination, Mr. Jones?" inquired the judge.

  Without any questions he could usefully ask, Jones sought to discredit the bank manager's testimony by simply dismissing its importance out of hand. With a shrug of his shoulders, he shook his head and then, rising halfway out of his chair, as if that was all the time he wanted to waste, flapped his hand like someone trying to speed things up. "No, your Honor," he sighed, and sank back into the chair.

  I had only one witness left. "The State calls Conrad Atkinson," I announced laconically. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Goodwin whisper something into Jones's ear. Lean and graceful, Atkinson moved up the aisle with the easy self-assurance of someone who neither doubts his own importance nor thinks it worth mentioning to anyone else. His gray pinstripe suit coat, square across the shoulders and curved inward at the waist, was tailored perfectly.

  He sat on the front edge of the witness chair, one leg on the floor, the other crossed over it, and leaned his right elbow on the arm of the chair.

  I had only a few questions to ask him, and he answered each of them directly and without embarrassment.

  "Mr. Atkinson, you were once engaged to Kristin Maxfield, now Kristin Goodwin?"

  "Yes, I was."

  "You were in love with her?"

  "Yes."

  "And she was in love with you?"

&nb
sp; "No, I don't think so." He said it the way he would have expressed a doubt that the stock market will always go up.

  "She was engaged to you and you don't think she was in love with you?"

  An indulgent look creased his well-tanned face. "Kristin was—how shall I say?—along for the ride. With Kristin you always had the sense that she'd always be there for you—unless you ran into difficulties or"—he lowered his voice—"she found something better."

  Bolting out of his chair, Jones began to wave his gangly arms. "Your Honor," he bellowed, "I really don't see where any of this is taking us."

  Neither did Irma Holloway. "Mr. Antonelli, are we going somewhere with this?"

  "Yes, your Honor."

  She fixed me with a prickly stare. "Then could we get there soon?"

  Immediately, I went to the night of Nancy Goodwin's death. "Were you engaged to Kristin Maxfield when that happened?"

  "Yes, I was."

  "Were you living together?"

  "Yes, we were. She kept her own place, but we had been living together at my house for about six months."

  "And did she spend that night with you?"

  "I suppose it depends on how you define night," he replied, with a wistful look.

  I was standing in front of him, a few feet from my end of the counsel table. I tilted my head and waited.

  "She was involved in a trial. With Goodwin there," he added, nodding briefly toward the defendant. "And I knew she

  was probably going to be working late. In fact, she'd told me she probably wouldn't be home before eleven or so."

  "And what time did she come home?"

  "It was after four in the morning. Closer to five, actually. She didn't bother coming to bed. She showered, changed clothes, said something about having to get back to the office, and next thing I knew she was gone."

  "How much longer did the two of you continue to live together?" I asked, as I turned and began to pace in front of the counsel table.

  "Not long. I had thought for some time she might be seeing someone else, and that night pretty well convinced me."

  II stopped directly in front of Goodwin and looked out over his head at the crowd that was shoved tight together on the courtroom benches. In the back row, Kristin Maxfield was listening to every word. "Thank you, Mr. Atkinson," I said, with a brief smile. "No more questions, your Honor."

  Scrambling to his feet, Richard Lee Jones went right up to the witness stand.

  "So, Mr. Atkinson, you thought your fiancee was seeing another man?"

  Atkinson uncrossed his legs and, both feet on the floor, squared up and stared straight into Jones's face.

  "Yes, that's correct."

  "And to confirm this suspicion, you hired a private detective?" he asked.

  "No, of course not."

  Spinning away, Jones faced the jury from across the room and exclaimed, "You think your fiancee is seeing another man, and you don't try to find out if it's true or if it's just your own imagination and your own—insecurities?" He wheeled back to the witness. "Why is that, Mr. Atkinson? Surely, someone with your means could afford to investigate?"

  "It's not difficult to know when someone you're with is thinking about someone else."

  "That must not have been a very pleasant experience. Must have made you jealous."

  "You're right. It was not pleasant."

  Jones's voice sank to a whisper. "Not pleasant at all. And now you have a chance to get even, don't you?"

  Amused, Atkinson replied, "By telling the truth?"

  Drawing himself up, Jones asked sharply, "The truth is, you don't know if she was seeing anyone or not, do you?"

  "No, I suppose I don't. Not in the sense that you mean."

  "And the truth is, even if she was seeing anyone, you don't know who that someone was, do you?"

  "No, but—"

  "The truth is, Mr. Atkinson, the only thing you know for sure is that—as you were telling Mr. Antonelli just minutes ago—you were in love with a woman who wasn't in love with you. A woman," he added, lowering his forehead, "who broke off your engagement. Isn't that correct, Mr. Atkinson?"

  "I told her it was better if we didn't see each other for a while," he explained.

  "And she told you," Jones countered quickly, "that it was better if you didn't see each other at all. Isn't that right?"

  "Re-direct?" Judge Holloway asked me, as Jones settled into his chair with a smug look.

  "Mr. Atkinson, would you happen to recall the funeral of Nancy Goodwin?" I stole a glance at Kristin Maxfield, sitting expressionless in the back of the courtroom.

  "Yes, I remember Kristin saying she felt an obligation to go. I think everyone in her office went."

  "Yes, of course," I said sympathetically. "You were still living together then?"

  "Yes."

  "You weren't invited to go with her?"

  "No."

  "Do you remember what time she returned?"

  "No, I'm afraid I don't. It was sometime early the next morning."

  "Do you mean by that a little after midnight?" I asked casually, as if I were certain of the time.

  "No, Mr. Antonelli, I mean sometime after the sun was already up. I remember I had already showered and dressed when I heard her car come up the drive."

  "How did she explain staying out all night?"

  He made a wry face. "I don't think it occurred to her that she needed to explain anything."

  A contemptuous wave of his hand was Jones's only response when asked if he wanted to cross-examine the witness again. Conrad Atkinson left the stand and, with everyone watching, hesitated before he pushed open the door to the hall. Slowly, he turned his head and searched the faces in the last row until he found the one he was looking for. Kristin Maxfield refused to look back, and the door swung shut behind him. For a brief, tantalizing moment, everyone watching had the feeling that they knew more about these two strangers than they did about most of their friends.

  "Mr. Antonelli?" Judge Holloway prodded. "Are you ready to call your next witness?"

  There is a certain formality by which we mark off the important intervals of our lives. Births, marriages—death itself—each have their ceremonies, the rituals by which we try to make more lasting the memory of the things we do not want to forget because they change forever the way we are. The law follows forms of its own. I had no more witnesses I wanted to call, and there was only one allowable way to announce that I had finished putting on the case against the defendant.

  "Your Honor," I said, with all the gravity I could summon, "the prosecution rests."

  There was no acknowledgment beyond a rapid, barely noticeable nod, as the judge directed her attention to the other side. "Mr. Jones? Is the defense ready to proceed?"

  Jones never seemed to lead with the same part of his body. Sometimes his head popped up, sometimes his hand shot into the air, and sometimes, as now, one shoulder seemed to clear the way as he clumsily extricated himself from his chair.