Prosecution: A Legal Thriller

by Buffa, D. W.

  Horace dominated the room. Every eye was on him. He sat completely still and fixed me with a steady gaze. "You are the husband of the defendant, Alma Woolner?" She was sitting right next to me, staring at him, too frightened to move, but his eyes never strayed from mine.

  "Yes," he replied. His deep, sonorous voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Still in my chair, I asked,

  "How did you first meet?" "We met in New York. A mutual friend introduced us." Slowly, I pushed back from the table and got to my feet.

  "When you met," I asked, as I moved toward the jury box, "she was a dancer with the New York City Ballet, wasn't she?"

  He sat there, immobile, his eyes following me wherever I went.

  "Yes," he answered.

  "She had a very promising career ahead of her, didn't she?"

  "Everyone said so."

  "When you first met, was that before or after you were in the war?"

  "After."

  Folding my arms, I looked down at the floor. I would have given anything to have been somewhere else. "You suffered a serious injury in Vietnam, didn't you?"

  There was no response, and when I looked up I found myself under that same implacable gaze he used to use on a witness who tried to lie. In that moment, I had the vague sensation of having done something wrong and not being able to remember what it was. I lowered my eyes and began to pace slowly back and forth in front of the jury box.

  "You lost both your legs in the war, didn't you?" Again there was no response. Stopping, I looked up. "Didn't you?" I insisted.

  "Yes," he said, and somehow made that one word sound like an accusation.

  "And you went through a long period of adjustment, didn't you?" I did not wait for his answer. "And your wife

  did everything she could to help you through that period of adjustment, didn't she?"

  "Yes," he said. For the first time, he looked away.

  "She gave up her career for you, didn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "She gave up her friends, her family, everything she knew, and left New York, so you could come out here to

  Portland, didn't she?"

  In a long, slow arc, his eyes moved back to mine. "Yes, she did."

  "You were in love with her, weren't you?"

  "Yes."

  The tight self-control, the formal, concise answers, the way he seemed aloof from the proceedings as if he were presiding from the bench instead of testifying from the witness stand, brought it all back again—the resentment, the anger, the sense of betrayal. I turned on him with a vengeance that surprised even myself. "It just about killed you when you found out she was having an affair with Russell Gray, didn't it?"

  Clutching the arm of the witness chair, Horace glared at me.

  "She was all you had—she was everything to you—and you found out she was sleeping with another man. How did that make you feel?" I demanded. "Knowing she was going to bed with someone else: a man so wealthy he could fly off to New York for the ballet, to London for the theater, to all the places you knew your wife dreamed about; a man who was not just wealthy but white; the kind of man who stayed home while you went to war and didn't lose a moment's sleep about it, while you lost your legs because of it!"

  I was beside myself with anger. "A man who felt sorry for your wife because she was married to you. How did that make you feel, Judge Woolner?"

  The sound of the gavel beating on the solid wood surface of the bench brought me partway back to myself. "You couldn't stand it, could you? They had to pay, didn't they? Russell Gray had to die, and your wife, Alma—the woman who had given you a reason to live— had to take the blame, didn't she?"

  The gavel struck again. Dropping my head, I turned away from the witness stand and went back to the counsel table. To stop my hands from shaking, I bent forward, spread my fingers, and put all my weight on them. "How long had you known that your wife was having an affair with Russell Gray?" I asked, forcing myself under control.

  "Long enough," he replied, strangely detached.

  "Did you confront Russell Gray?"

  Horace was breathing evenly, watching me the way he had before, anticipating not just the next question but the one after that.

  "No, I did not."

  "Did you confront your wife?"

  He clenched his jaw. "I'm not going to talk about anything I may have said to my wife."

  I walked behind the counsel table, my hands no longer trembling, and took a position at the corner, next to Gilliland-O'Rourke. She was leaning forward, elbow on the table, her face set in an attitude of rigid attention. On her right, Victor Jenkins was busily making notes on a legal pad.

  "Weapons used in the commission of a crime are kept in the police property room, aren't they?" I asked, looking

  across to the witness stand.

  "Yes."

  "As a circuit court judge, as a former district attorney, it wouldn't be difficult for you to get access to it, would it?"

  "Objection!" Jenkins called out. "The defense is assuming facts not in evidence." Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Gilliland-O'Rourke touch Jenkins on the sleeve.

  "Withdraw the question, your Honor," I said, waving my hand. "It's not difficult to find a gun if you really want one,

  is it?" I asked, as I began to move across the front of the courtroom.

  "No," he agreed.

  "The prosecution has based most of its case on the fact that the defendant's fingerprints were found on the gun used to kill Russell Gray. But isn't it true that if your wife had held that gun in her hand just once—if, for example, you were showing her how to use it—her fingerprints would stay on it until someone wiped them off?"

  Jenkins started to get to his feet, but Gilliland-O'Rourke held him back.

  "Yes," Horace replied.

  "So if someone took that gun—with her fingerprints on it—and was careful to hold it with a handkerchief, or to wear a glove, her fingerprints would continue to be the only ones on it, wouldn't they?"

  "Yes, I suppose. If someone did that."

  So close to him I could have touched him with my hand, I threw the words back in his face. "If someone did that? It's exactly what you did, isn't it? You murdered Russell Gray because he was having an affair with your wife. You murdered him with a gun that had her fingerprints on it so she'd be blamed for what you did."

  "You forget," he said, defiance blazing in his eyes, "your client admitted she was there. She admitted she shot him."

  "My client - your wife?" I asked. "Yes, she did say that." I conceded it with a nod. "And we both know she was lying, don't we? She lied because you convinced her it was the only way to explain how her fingerprints got on the gun. She trusted you with her life, and you betrayed her, didn't you? You killed Russell Gray, didn't you?" He looked away and stared straight ahead.

  "Why don't you deny it?" I demanded. "If you didn't kill Russell Gray, deny it!"

  Everyone was watching. The judge was peering down at him. But still, nothing, not a sign he had even heard me. "If you didn't do it, deny it!"

  The obstinacy of his silence drove me over the brink. "She saved your life, she gave you a reason to live, and you want her to spend the rest of her life in prison for something she didn't do? Don't you have any decency left?" I turned on my heel and walked away.

  "Russell Gray was sleeping with my wife!"

  I stopped and looked back. Horace was bent forward, shaking with rage, pointing at Alma. "What right did they have to do that to me?" The words reverberated around the high walls of the courtroom and then, like a complaint thrown at the gods, echoed back.

  Exhausted, I sank into my chair. Alma was hunched over, rocking back and forth on the hard wooden chair, tears streaming down her face. For a moment, no one said anything. In a voice subdued and distant, Judge West asked if the prosecution wished to cross-examine the witness.

  Gilliland-O'Rourke's chair made a harsh, rasping sound as it slid back over the varnished hardwood floor. "No, your Honor."
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  Horace Woolner left the stand and, his eyes once again on a point ten feet in front of him, walked out of the courtroom.

  "Mr. Antonelli, you may call your next witness." I glanced over my shoulder, searching along the rows of spectators until I found him. Andre Barbizon was sitting on the aisle in the back row. His knees were pressed tight together and his hands were folded in his lap. The corner of his mouth twitched nervously. I had hoped to use him to show that someone other than the defendant had a motive to murder Russell Gray; now the only reason to call him was to have him confirm the affair that had given Horace Woolner a reason to kill.

  "The defense calls Andre Barbizon," I announced.

  Gilliland-O'Rourke was on her feet. "Your Honor," she said firmly, "I have a matter for the court."

  We waited while the clerk led the jury out of the room. Tapping his fingers together, the judge looked at Gilliland-O'Rourke. "Your Honor," she began, standing straight, her red hair swept back over a blue jacket, "the prosecution has a duty to pursue justice. That sometimes means admitting a mistake."

  I looked over, wondering what she was doing. "In light of the testimony we have just heard, there can be no doubt that a mistake has been made. The defendant is clearly innocent of the murder of Russell Gray, and it would be a serious injustice to subject her to the hazards of a jury verdict. For that reason, your Honor, the state at this time moves to dismiss all charges against the defendant."

  The judge did not seem pleased. "Perhaps a more thorough investigation should have been made before the charges were brought in the first place," he said. "That might have been a better exercise of prosecutorial discretion." Shaking his head, he turned to me. "Mr. Antonelli, I assume the defense has no objection?"

  "No, your Honor."

  "Very well. The case is dismissed."

  It was over, just like that. Alma was a free woman, and she looked more shattered than anyone I had ever seen convicted. I started to say something to her, but I could not find the words. She touched my arm, turned away, and disappeared into the crowd.

  No one paid any attention to me as I made my way out of the courtroom. Everyone wanted to hear what the district attorney had to say. In the hallway outside, Gilliland-O'Rourke stood in front of a battery of television cameras while a dozen reporters shouted the same question.

  "I moved to dismiss the case because it became obvious the defendant is not the person who murdered Russell

  Gray," she explained patiently.

  "How soon is Judge Woolner going to be charged?" someone asked.

  I did not want to hear any more. Feeling friendless and alone, I shook my head and started to walk away. "But there isn't any evidence that Horace Woolner killed Russell Gray, is there?"

  I stopped and looked back. On the other side of the crowd, standing next to the last television camera, Harper Bryce was waiting for an answer.

  Gilliland-O'Rourke raised her chin and smiled. "He confessed in open court. That's fairly conclusive, don't you think?"

  "He didn't confess to anything," Harper replied. One hand shoved into his pocket, he turned the pages of his notebook with his thumb. "Antonelli kept accusing him, kept challenging him to deny it, but," he said, raising his eyes, "I didn't hear any confession."

  The smile vanished. "You've obviously forgotten that outburst at the end."

  His thumb flashed forward until he found the page he wanted. " 'Russell Gray was sleeping with my wife. What right did they have to do that to me?' " Harper closed the notebook and looked up. "Did you think that was a confession?"

  "The way you read it isn't the way he said it," she replied irritably. She turned her head, looking for the next reporter who had something to ask.

  "Before you have him arrested," Harper drawled in a voice she could not ignore, "you might want to have someone check out his alibi."

  Her eyes flashed. "Alibi?"

  "The night Russell Gray was murdered, Horace Woolner was playing poker with three other judges."

  As soon as we were outside the courthouse and free of the crowd, I asked. "How do you know what Horace Woolner was doing the night of the murder?"

  Harper started to smile, but when he saw the look in my eyes he became serious. "Because I was there. We've had that same poker game going for years. Just the five of us. Four judges and me." He paused for a moment, a twinkle in his eye. "They needed me. I was the only one who didn't cheat." He paused again and stared down at the sidewalk. "The one thing you can be sure of, whoever killed Russell Gray, it wasn't Horace Woolner."

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Why did I come back? What did I achieve? I convicted a man who may have been innocent and convinced a courtroom that my best friend was guilty of a murder he did not commit. The woman who may have hired Travis Quentin on her own was living on the money intended for Nancy Goodwin's child, and it was almost certain that no one would ever know who really killed Russell Gray. The innocent had been condemned and the guilty had gone free. I should have stayed where I was, in the solitude of my library, reading all the books I could, minding my own business, staying out of other people's lives.

  For the second night in a row, I could not sleep. The two trials played over and over again in my mind, words, phrases, whole paragraphs of testimony, more vivid in the way I now remembered them than when I heard them spoken. I kept listening to Horace Woolner's voice, answering each of the questions I asked, listening this time without any of the anger and outrage I had felt when I asked them. I kept hearing Kristin Maxfield, swearing her husband had confessed to murder, no longer certain she was telling the truth.

  A few minutes after four, wide awake and restless, I went downstairs, searching for something I had first read just weeks before I started the trial of Alma Woolner. In the ninth chapter of the first book of Aristotle's Rhetoric, I found what I was looking for.

  And those things are noble which it is possible for a man to possess after death rather than during his lifetime, for the latter involve mere selfishness; all acts done for the sake of others, for they are more disinterested; the successes gained, not for oneself, but for others; and for one's benefactors; for that is justice; in a word, all acts of kindness, for they are disinterested.

  It was the perfect abbreviated biography of Horace Woolner, who had been willing to give his life to save three wounded strangers. I stared at those lines, thinking about their meaning, listening again in the solitude of the early morning silence to what he had said. I looked around at the towering book-lined shelves and then down at the writing desk in front of me. I felt like a character in a story written by someone else.

  I found him at the courthouse a little before eight, hunched over his desk, his glasses pinched to his nose, lost in concentration as he wrote out a letter in longhand on a sheet of court stationery. I stood at the door, waiting until he finished.

  "Come in," he said, without looking up. "Sit down." I sat on the other side of the desk, watching his large hand move across the page in smooth, unhurried strokes. He signed his name at the bottom, put the pen down at the side, and then, for the first time, looked up.

  "My letter of resignation," he told me, as he sat up and placed his hands on the arms of the chair. Pushing himself up, he caught his balance and then, in a halting, jerky motion, made his way to a small table next to a file cabinet on the other side of the room.

  "Would you like a cup?" he asked as he poured coffee from the dented metal pot into a chipped white mug. The clear morning light streamed through the window and ran across the floor, framing his silhouette as he bent his eyes on the simple everyday task that had been part of his routine for more years than either one of us could remember. When he came back, he put the cup on the desk, braced himself with both hands, and lowered himself into the chair. His eyes on mine, he lifted the cup to his mouth and took a drink.