Moment of Truth

by Lisa Scottoline

  “What did you offer her?”

  “She drank Scotch.” Videon paused, then smiled. “You disapprove.”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “Have you ever been divorced, Mr. Clean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good for you. Was it nasty at least?”

  “Amicable.”

  “Lord, what a waste.” Videon sighed. “Sorry you disapprove of my methods. I’m a divorce lawyer, son. I keep Kleenexes for the wives and Scotch for the husbands. Sometimes, there’s a crossover, for women with more bucks than estrogen.” He waved in the direction of a dark cabinet under a window that overlooked a rooftop parking lot. “You want a snoot?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “I knew that,” Videon said, and laughed. “What do you do for laughs?”

  “I do justice.” Davis smiled.

  “Hah! I knew we had nothing in common.” Videon shifted forward in his high-backed chair. “You try to change the world, right?”

  “Perhaps,” Davis answered, though he had never thought of it that way.

  “Well, I try to keep it the same. The rich retain power and money. The poor try to get it and lose. You even up the odds, and I keep them out of whack, the way my clients want them.” Videon eased back in his chair, his dark eyes scrutinizing Davis. “You aren’t comfortable with my honesty.”

  “I’m comfortable with what pertains to the Newlin case,” Davis answered, impatient.

  “Oh, but it does. Honor Newlin walked in with all the money and she wanted to walk out with it.” Videon turned to his laptop and hit a key to scroll down. “This year I saw Honor Newlin twice, including the day she was killed. I’ll give you a copy of what I’m looking at, it’s my time records. Besides the day she was murdered, I met with her on January fourth, the first business day after the New Year. She said her New Year’s resolution was shedding Jack.”

  Davis made a note. “Back up a minute. She called you, for the first appointment?”

  “Yes, naturally.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “The first time, she told me she wanted a divorce.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She felt her marriage was moribund. Things hadn’t turned out the way she hoped. She had l’ennui, la malaise, and other French things. She was a victim of empty mansion syndrome and expected Jack to fill the void, to ascend the ranks to managing partnerdom. But he wasn’t, even with the Buxton dough. Why?” Videon glanced at Field, seeking neither permission nor approval. “They used to say Jack was too much of a nice guy. That he didn’t have the killer instinct. Hah! Perceptive, non?”

  Field cleared his throat. “That’s quite enough, Marc.”

  “I heard that Jack confessed to the police,” Videon said to Davis. “Did he?”

  “I can’t comment.”

  “Of course. What a perfect answer. How do they make people like you? So upright. You’re the good guy. I always wanted to meet a good guy, but I’m a divorce lawyer. Did I mention that?” Videon smiled at a joke only he knew. “As I was saying, Honor wanted the divorce, and she asked me, in our first meeting, to review her prenuptial agreement.”

  “She had a prenup?”

  “Do I look stupid?”

  “You drafted it?”

  “I’m more than just a pretty face.”

  “What did it provide?”

  “What else? That if they divorce, Jack gets rien. Nothing. Squat.”

  Davis made a note. “Isn’t that a conflict? I mean, you worked with Jack, so why would she come to you for a prenup?”

  “Jack asked me to draft the damn thing, and it was completely against him. Go figure. The Foundation has since become one of our most valued clients, heh heh.”

  “What’s funny about that?” Davis asked, cranky, and Field looked miffed as well.

  “Well, the Foundation is a private charity, as opposed to a public charity, like the Red Cross. That means there’s virtually no oversight of the billings at all. It’s even better than a corporate client because they watch the bills. The Buxton Foundation was a license to rape and plunder.”

  Field gasped. “Marc! Show some judgment!”

  Videon scoffed. “As if it weren’t common knowledge.”

  “It isn’t,” Field said. “Please excuse my partner—”

  “ — he knows not what he does,” Videon supplied, but Field was visibly agitated.

  “That’s quite enough, Marc. Please. Mr. Davis, leave this subject or I end the interview.”

  “Fine.” Davis nodded, though it confirmed his suspicions about the Foundation’s value to Jack. “You were saying, about the prenup.”

  Videon sighed theatrically. “Anyway, the prenup was sound and I told Honor so. She asked me to prepare the divorce papers and came in to review them with me the day she was murdered.”

  “Did she get them that day?”

  “Actually, no. There were two typos, both inconsequential, but she wouldn’t wait for them to be corrected. I said we’d redo the papers and FedEx them to the house, but I got called into a meeting. I did have her sign the signature page for convenience.” Videon searched his desk, rifling through yellow slips that littered his desk like autumn leaves. He produced a piece of white paper and handed it across the desk. “Here.”

  Davis skimmed the page. A standard verification, and at the bottom Honor’s signature. Honor Buxton Newlin. Her handwriting was feminine, and Davis stared at it for a minute with sympathy. It was as if she had signed her own death warrant. He pondered its significance. “If Honor had lived to divorce Jack, would he have stayed at the firm?”

  Videon fingered his stiff goatee. “Probably not.”

  “Even though he was head of the estates department?”

  “Big fucking deal.”

  “Would he have been fired?”

  “No, but he would have left on his own, public emasculation being an excellent incentive.”

  “How so?”

  “Honor told me she didn’t want to deal with Jack on a day-to-day basis, on matters for the Foundation. The management and billings of the array of Buxton matters would have shifted to somebody else in the firm, probably Big Bill Whittier, because we’d be damned if we’d lose it. Jack would have been shit out of luck.”

  Davis remembered his meeting with Whittier. He turned to Field. “If Honor divorced Newlin and he lost the Buxton billings, his draw would be lowered by about a million dollars a year? Ballpark?”

  “Yes,” Field answered.

  Videon burst into laughter. “Rags to riches and back again,” he said, but Davis was too intent to make light of it.

  “Did Newlin have any other sources of income that you know of?”

  “Not that I know of,” Field answered, and Videon looked incredulous.

  “Are you kidding?”

  Davis considered it. “So the only way Newlin could keep his job and his income from the Buxton billings was if Honor stayed married to him. Or if she died before she could divorce him.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Field said quickly, and Videon waved his hand.

  “I’m a witness. He didn’t say that. If he said that, he’d get his ass sued.”

  Davis tuned Videon out, putting his case together. It no longer mattered that Newlin didn’t benefit under the will. A million dollars a year and preservation of career were more than enough for motive. Of course Newlin had planned to kill her, to keep the goodies. But Davis’s premeditation theory worked only if Newlin had known the divorce was coming. He turned to Videon, who had finally stopped laughing. “How often had they discussed divorce?”

  “They hadn’t discussed divorce at all.”

  “What? Of course they had,” Davis said, and Videon smiled.

  “How do you know?”

  “I assumed it.”

  “Mr. Clean, you should know that ‘when we assume, we make an ass out of you and me.’ Camus said that. Or Sartre. Or my fourth-grade teacher.”

  Davis still wasn�
��t laughing. “How could they not have discussed divorce?”

  “They hadn’t. I got the impression she had been thinking about it for a long time, then — boom — decided to do it. That would be Honor, impulsively destructive. She told me she was worried that Jack was thinking about it and she wanted to beat him to the punch. He had no idea she was planning to make the first move. She said she couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when she told him.”

  “Do you think she could have mentioned it to him on the phone, maybe that day?”

  “She could have, but she wouldn’t have. That’s not Honor.”

  Davis couldn’t let it go. The state of Newlin’s knowledge was the linchpin of his prosecution. Otherwise, the jury would buy Newlin’s rage-at-the-divorce defense. “It doesn’t stand to reason. People always talk about divorce for a long time before they file.”

  “Another assumption, mon frère.” Videon shook his head. “Some do, but many don’t. It’s more husband behavior than wife, but it happens with some wives, too. They avoid the issue until they have to, then do it. The perfect clean break. In fact, where there’s family money involved, I always advise a preemptive strike to maintain the advantage. Eliminate the fight over the prenup, like Pearl Harbor before the divorce war.”

  Davis thought about it. “Wait a minute. You work here, at Tribe, on the twentieth-fifth floor. Newlin works on the thirtieth. How is it that Honor comes to see you without him finding out?”

  “He may have found out, for all I know. I asked her if she wanted to meet me somewhere else, both times. You can see, it ain’t Versailles.” Videon gestured to his office mock-grandly. “I was trying to respect her privacy and not tip off Jack. But Honor insisted we meet here.”

  Davis brightened. “So if Honor comes in to see you, the firm’s divorce lawyer, everybody who sees her knows she’s coming in to divorce Newlin. Secretaries, messengers, other lawyers, they’ll all see her coming here. It would be a gossip item, wouldn’t it?”

  “Very dishy stuff. Not as cool as the sex-in-the-shower story I spread last week, but that’s not pertinent here.”

  Davis ignored it. What a loon. “So it’s possible, even likely, that Newlin could have found out that Honor had been in to see you that morning?”

  “Correct, as you say.”

  Davis felt a relieved grin spread across his face. He could prove through Videon that Newlin knew he was about to be disposed of, and it would also support Whittier’s testimony that Newlin appeared agitated when he was leaving to go home. Newlin must have guessed Honor would be breaking up with him at dinner and decided to kill her then. That was premeditation, for sure. The law was premeditation could happen in a matter of minutes; it didn’t require weeks to plan. And Newlin couldn’t hire somebody to do it because he didn’t have time. Honor’s murder was simply damage control. Davis almost jumped up in excitement as the puzzle fell into place. “I assume you would testify for us in court?”

  Videon looked at Field. “What’s my line, boss man?”

  “If you are subpoenaed, you must appear and give testimony.”

  Videon looked at Davis. “What he said.”

  But the prosecutor had one last question. “Why would the wife want to come here, to see you, for a divorce? Why risk it herself and why make it public? Why, even, embarrass her husband?”

  “Again, you assume others see the world as you see it, but that is a critical mistake. You cannot imagine why Honor Newlin would humiliate her spouse because you wouldn’t. And undoubtedly didn’t. You had an amicable divorce, you said.” The angles of Videon’s face hardened. “You did not know Honor Newlin. She was a beautiful woman, a gorgeous woman, but not a kind woman. Not a nice woman, at all.”

  “Don’t speak ill, Marc,” Field interrupted, but Videon waved him off.

  “You must understand, Honor Newlin was one of the meanest women on the planet. It was subtle, it was socially acceptable, but it was true just the same. She just didn’t connect with people. Maybe men, but not even them for long. She had no enduring emotion except indifference. Honor Newlin was a sociopath in silk.”

  “Marc, Jesus!” Field cried, but Davis bristled.

  “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” he asked. “She was a philanthropist. She did good works through the Foundation.”

  Videon scoffed. “Are you completely naïve, or just rehearsing for the jury? Honor Newlin didn’t care about charity. The Foundation existed for generations before her and it will exist for generations after. She had no interest in where the money went. Jack made all those decisions. He actually cared about the causes. Honor couldn’t care less.”

  Davis resisted it. “Did you know her that well?”

  “Well enough. Women tell their divorce lawyers everything. We’re the gynecologists of the profession.” Videon leaned over his messy desk. “I tell you, Honor Newlin would have enjoyed humiliating Jack in front of his partners, the secretaries, the clients, the whole fucking firm. She had decided to cut his balls off with a dull knife, merely to alleviate her own boredom, and she would want everybody to see it. All the better, so they all knew that she wielded the knife. Except, surprise, Jack upped the ante. He’s more of a man than I knew.”

  “Marc!” Field jumped to his feet. “I think that’s enough, quite enough. Mr. Davis, you have the information you need, do you not?”

  Davis nodded quickly. “From Mr. Videon, yes. But I do have one last stop before I leave.”

  30

  “Trevor’s gone,” Mary said, bursting into the conference room, cluttered with papers from the Newlin case. It was after hours so the firm was closed and nobody was working overtime with the boss away. She slipped out of her coat, tossed it onto a swivel chair, and told Judy and Lou what had happened at the train station with the blonde and the Metroliner to New York.

  Judy’s eyes widened. “Sex in a coatroom with Paige? Then he hops a train with another girl? What a jerk!”

  “I ain’t surprised,” Lou said sadly, smoothing out his pants and easing into a chair at the conference table. He had just gotten in himself and was wishing for a roast beef special, a bag of chips, and a Rolling Rock. “I knew the punk was bad news, only you two don’t know how bad. I got a story to tell, too.” He filled them in about Paige and Planned Parenthood. When he was finished, the three fell silent.

  “It has to be an abortion,” Mary said, after a minute. As much as she disliked Paige, she couldn’t help sympathizing with her predicament. “Abortions are what they do, mainly. That’s why they get picketed all the time.”

  Judy nodded. “I used to get diaphragm cream there, but I’m the only person cheap enough to do that. You’re right, Mare. I think she’s getting an abortion, too.”

  “Think she got one right then?” Mary walked to the credenza, where she poured a Styrofoam cup of hot coffee and powdered it with fake sugar and fake milk. She took a sip but it didn’t thaw her nose. Italian noses took longer. “It could be, with the disguise and all.”

  “No way,” Judy said. “She just had sex, remember? Who gets a pelvic after that, much less an abortion?”

  Lou didn’t want to hear this. Pelvics. Diaphragm cream. Breast exams. If it kept up, he could turn gay. Where was the beer?

  Mary sipped her coffee. “So she’s talking to a counselor. That makes sense. She’s got no friends, her mother’s dead, and her father’s in jail. She needs someone to talk to. Since Trevor wasn’t with her at the clinic, it sounds like she’s not talking to him about it.”

  Lou stretched his legs, then crossed them. “I don’t think he knows. I don’t think a guy who knows his girl is pregnant does what they were doing in the coatroom, and they weren’t talkin’ babies at lunch.” He sighed. “I feel bad for the girl, I do. Pretty girl like that, everything going for her. She’s on her own and I think it’s a crying shame.”

  Mary felt worse for Paige’s father. “If Jack knows his daughter is pregnant, that gives him a stronger reason to protect her. He has to protect her
and the baby. In fact, we’re missing something here. At her age, doesn’t she need parental consent for an abortion?”

  Judy frowned. “Of course, you’re right. Seventeen or younger, in this state. But if Newlin knew Paige was pregnant, he wouldn’t let her abort at a clinic. If he’s such a great father, he’d get her to the best doctor in the city.”

  “What if he knows about the pregnancy, but not the abortion?” Mary asked, thinking aloud. “That could be, especially if she’s getting counseling about it. She wouldn’t need the consent for that, not yet. If Jack knows only that she’s pregnant, he’d take the rap for her.”

  Lou was shaking his head. “You never asked me, but I wouldn’t take a murder rap for my kid. I’d want her to accept the consequences of her actions. How’s she gonna learn anything otherwise? How’s she gonna become an adult?”

  Mary was again surprised. It was two to one. “What if you felt responsible for it? If you had let the mother abuse the kid over time. Not physically, but emotionally.”

  Lou puckered his lip. “Sorry, Mare. If she picks up the knife, she’s responsible. She should do the time, even though she’s my kid.”

  “My father would do it, and I think Jack would, too.”

  Judy’s expression was tense. “Mary, isn’t it possible that you’ve got Newlin on a pedestal? You don’t know him that well and you’re projecting all sorts of qualities onto him. He’s not your father.”

  “I know that,” Mary snapped, her face suddenly hot. This case was straining their friendship. “Jack is innocent, and I’m not going to see him convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. We’re close to something and we have to get to the bottom of it.”

  “But Bennie’s been calling us.” Judy gestured to a stack of yellow slips. “She may be out of the country, but they have phones. Do I have to tell you what she’d say about this? Working against our own client’s instructions, to prove his innocence? Allegedly?”

  “I don’t care.” Mary heard her voice waver and knew her emotion came only partly from the injustice of the situation. “We have momentum now. We’re making progress.”