Not I, Said the Vixen

by Bill S. Ballinger

  I folded up the paper, and returned it to my jacket.

  Taylor had been standing near me during the conference, and we walked back to the court together. Ivy, accompanied by Lydia Gorham, was to take a taxi at the last minute.

  Bert said, as we walked down the street, “Beyond this sexual prejudice, I think Ivy is on trial for being… a ‘glamour girl.’ The public considers her a member of… well, a dilettante group. She’s been discovered and dragged from the sanctuary of her so-called gilded class—and now she must pay for her misdeeds the same as any ordinary man or woman. And perhaps more so.”

  I agreed with Bert entirely. He had neatly summed it up. Bert knew, as I did, that Ivy had not been brought to trial by grand jury indictment. The charges against her had been pressed by “Information,” an action filed by the police as permitted by the state law.

  “Do you think, now, that you should’ve sought a change of venue?” Bert asked me.

  We’d discussed this before, right after my first meeting with Willard and Canfield. At that time, I might’ve argued a motion seeking postponement of the trial, contending that a fair trial for Ivy in Los Angeles County was impossible. That she had been prejudged by not only the newspapers, but by radio and television as well. I would, under ordinary circumstances, have asked for sufficient time to permit public interest to die down, and to have the case tried in another county.

  We had considered these steps, but finally rejected them. Because of the sensational elements in the case, interest would have again flared high at any later date.

  As if reading my thoughts, Taylor said, “And… you would have had the problem of keeping Ivy out on bail.” Of course, in the long run, that had been the deciding factor. Although with the filing of the “Information” by the police, there had been a presumption of guilt, I had managed to keep her out of jail on bond. Ivy’s freedom, however, had been dependent on the cooperation of Robert Knox, and I had been afraid that he might at any time withdraw his financial support of the bail bond and Ivy would then be returned to jail. For that reason I had been willing to go to trial at the earliest possible date.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  After the court had convened, Willard called Detective Howard Ringow to the stand. Ringow, with assurance, testified to much the same information covered by Officer Apfel. However, upon introducing the name of Dr. Bruce Cook, Ringow was temporarily excused from the witness box, and Dr. Cook replaced him on the stand.

  Dr. Cook identified himself as being the physician on duty at the Citizens-Wilcox Emergency Hospital when Ivy Lorents had been taken there by Ringow on the way to the Hollywood police station to give her statement. Cook was a young man, hardly past his internship, and was ill at ease in giving his testimony.

  “Dr. Cook,” Willard asked, “what was your professional opinion of Ivy Lorents’ condition—physically and mentally—when Detective Ringow brought her to the hospital?”

  Although March might have taken exception to Dr. Cook’s qualification as an expert in psychiatry, he preferred to remain silent. The young doctor seemed to have the sympathy of the attentive jury. Furthermore, March instinctively felt that the young man might do as much damage to Willard, as he would give him help. Willard, obviously, was attempting to demonstrate that Ivy Lorents was capable of giving correct answers to the questions asked her later by the police. And that the alterations in her story were made knowingly, in an attempt to improve her original version—following the identification of Arthea Simpson.

  Dr. Cook testified that she appeared in good health and was aware that she was at the hospital.

  March stood beside the defense table. “It would appear to me that Mr. Willard is leading the witness with his questions, Your Honor. It might even seem that he has a fully prepared set of questions and answers.” It was natural that Willard had gone over the testimony, in advance, with the doctor, and this was entirely within his rights. But an objection of this kind, March knew from experience, impressed the jury who were not aware of the true situation. “I object,” March added, and seated himself.

  “Mr. Willard, I’m sure, will refrain from leading the witness,” observed Judge Raleigh, who was used to such byplay between the state and the defense.

  Willard drew his frail shoulders straighter, and ignored March’s interruption. “I’ll ask you, again, Dr. Cook. Did Ivy Lorents answer your questions… if you asked them?”

  “Yes.”

  “In other words, she knew what was going on, all right?”

  “Naturally, Your Honor, I also object to that!” March was on his feet. He stared at Willard. “What was going on? Isn’t that about the loosest of all possible loose terms?” Willard turned swiftly to face March, but Judge Raleigh’s gavel interrupted them both. “Objection sustained.”

  The district attorney again addressed Dr. Cook. “I’ll ask you this, Doctor. Did Ivy Lorents act in a normal manner?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  March approached Cook after Willard had turned him over for cross-examination. He nodded at the witness in a friendly and casual manner. The physician visibly relaxed, although he did not return the smile. “Now, Dr. Cook,” he began, “when you first saw Ivy Lorents, what did you think?”

  “I don’t quite understand you, sir…”

  “All right. When you first saw her, was she crying?”

  “No.”

  “Had she been crying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You knew she had been crying because you saw evidence of it?”

  Cook nodded. “There were tear stains, dried ones… on her face.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” March bowed slightly. He made a gesture of glancing at his notes. “Now, when you took the usual tests, as you said… temperature, blood pressure and pulse, did you give her any medication?”

  “Yes, sir. I gave her a tranquilizer to take… and another to take later if she needed it.”

  “So.” March paused. “So… you gave her a tranquilizer? Aren’t tranquilizers usually given to calm a patient… to free her from agitation?”

  “Well… yes.”

  March turned partly toward the jury before asking, “Then it would seem that Ivy Lorents wasn’t exactly in a normal state… if she needed a tranquilizer? Certainly not such a… normal state as Mr. Willard has tried to make out.”

  “Tranquilizers aren’t…”

  March smoothly interrupted the physician. “That isn’t what I asked, Doctor. You may have misunderstood my question. Obviously, you… as a physician… wouldn’t prescribe medication—unnecessarily.”

  “Oh, no!” Cook agreed hastily.

  “And you gave Ivy Lorents two of them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Think of that!” March dismissed the witness.

  Allen Fletcher was next sworn in and qualified as an expert witness. Fletcher was a quiet, scholarly man from the crime laboratory, and he spoke with knowledge and assurance. Willard introduced into evidence, as exhibit B, for the state, three .32 caliber slugs taken from the body of Arthea Simpson, and which Fletcher identified as having been fired from the revolver, exhibit A, found in Ivy Lorents’ apartment. He continued his testimony by stating that the bullets had been fired from a comparatively short distance, although there were no powder burns on the clothes of the deceased, which had also been turned over to Fletcher for examination.

  When Fletcher discussed Arthea Simpson’s clothes, March turned to Ivy. “Was Arthea wearing a coat or a sweater that night?” he asked her.

  Ivy gave no immediate reply, as she tried to recall. Finally, she said, “I don’t remember. I don’t think I saw one…”

  Willard was continuing his questions. “Could the bullets have been shot from a distance of thirty feet?” Willard asked Fletcher.

  “No, sir.”

  “Say… from twenty feet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “All right… how about ten feet?” Willard drove it home. “Highly improbable,” Fletcher replied bri
skly.

  “Then… the three bullets were fired from a distance of less than ten feet, is that correct?” asked Willard.

  “Yes, sir. Less than ten feet.”

  Ivy stirred abruptly beside March. He cautioned her with a sharp glance.

  “Thank you.” Willard turned the witness over to March. The defense attorney had anticipated that such testimony might be offered by the state. He had prepared for it. March began his cross-examination slowly. “You mentioned clothes turned over to you for examination. I gather these were the clothes worn by Arthea Simpson?”

  “That is correct.”

  “What did the clothes consist of… what were they?”

  “A white shirt and a pair of dark colored slacks.”

  “No underclothes, shoes, or a jacket or sweater?”

  “Yes, sir. A sweater.”

  “What kind of sweater?”

  “It was more like a knitted jacket—black.”

  “Did you examine it?”

  “Only briefly—it wasn’t important, as the dead woman had taken it off.”

  “Where did it come from?” asked March.

  “It was found in the living room. Dr. Edwards’ office sent it over.”

  “All right,” March hesitated to follow the line of question further. “On the shirt and slacks, you have testified that you found no powder burns. Why not?”

  “Obviously, the gun was fired at a distance which left no burns nor embedded powder marks.”

  “And what would be this distance?” March asked casually. “Four feet,” Fletcher replied.

  “It could also be five feet, couldn’t it?”

  “Well… yes.”

  “Or six feet… or seven… or eight… all the way up to thirty?”

  “That depends… if…”

  March cut Fletcher short. “I’m asking you, yes or no? If from beyond four or five feet there are no powder burns, then as far as the clothing is concerned… and the clothing alone… you can’t say definitely from what distance the gun was fired?” March stared levelly at the laboratory man.

  “No… sir,” Fletcher admitted reluctantly.

  “But you’ve gone to great lengths to tell the jury that Ivy Lorents couldn’t have fired from the steps where the revolver was found… a distance of thirty feet?” March bored relentlessly. “Now tell them why you said that.”

  Fletcher began to squirm uneasily on his chair. “To anyone who isn’t a marksman… thirty feet is quite a distance… especially to place three shots in a limited area.”

  “But you’re an expert, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You could do it, but Ivy Lorents couldn’t?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, I want you to consider carefully. From your expert experience… what would be the odds of Ivy Lorents shooting from thirty feet and placing three shots in a limited area?”

  Fletcher considered cautiously. Finally, he asked, “And in a dark room?”

  “Yes! Are you stalling…?”

  “I’m not stalling, Mr. March. I want to be accurate. I would say the odds are thirty to one, or better.”

  “Thirty to one? You’re sure?”

  “At least those odds.”

  A shaft of sunlight turned March’s suit to a blaze of color. His hand, in the pocket of his trousers, jingled a handful of coins into a silvery tune. “I want you to feel safe, Mr. Fletcher. Would you feel better if we said thirty-five to one?”

  “Yes, sir…”

  “So, you’d feel even more safe if we said forty to one. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, sir.” Fletcher nodded.

  “So, it’s forty to one.” Calmly, March took a newspaper clipping from his pocket and displayed it to Fletcher. “This is from the morning Register. Will you read it please… just the line which I have underlined.”

  Fletcher squinted at the clipping and cleared his throat. He began to read. “Yesterday results… Fifth Race… Santa Anita… winner… Lucky Lodestar… 40 to 1.”

  March took the clipping from Fletcher and held it up. “Forty to one.” He turned firmly to the jury. “It happens!” March waved the uncomfortable Fletcher from the stand.

  Willard, however, was determined to continue to explore the details of the actual shooting. Edwards, the medical examiner, was still under oath when he was called back to the stand again, and now under the direction of Fuhrman, introduced a number of exhibits for the state. These included two large-scale drawings of the living room, plus the actual crime laboratory photographs of the corpse, feet toward the window, head toward the center of the room.

  Although March vigorously protested the introduction of the photographs—knowing too well how starkly they brought reality of the shooting to the jury—Judge Raleigh ruled the photos into evidence.

  Under Fuhrman’s questioning, Dr. Edwards demonstrated, with the aid of the charts, that the three bullets entered the body on practically a straight course, which would be possible only by shooting at nearly a point-blank range.

  If Ivy Lorents had stood at the top of the steps—the risers in the steps each being six inches high—the course of the bullets entering Arthea Simpson’s body would have taken a downward angle, from the additional foot in height. This was predicated on two points. First: the two women were within an inch of each other in height, and secondly, that Ivy, when using the gun, would have held it straight out, at arms length, while firing.

  “Now, Dr. Edwards,” asked Fuhrman, “you have testified that of the three wounds in Arthea Simpson’s body, one entered from the rear right shoulder, a second from the front in the chest cavity, and the third from the front into the heart, rupturing it, which caused death. Now is it possible that Arthea Simpson was shot first in the heart, then in the chest, and finally in the shoulder?”

  “It is not possible,” Edwards firmly replied.

  “Will you please explain?” Fuhrman requested.

  “The wound in the heart caused instantaneous death; when it was inflicted, the victim fell.”

  “How then, Doctor, do you account for the other two wounds?”

  “Arthea Simpson was standing, facing the window, with her back to the room. The first shot hit her in the shoulder, swinging her around to face her assailant; the second shot entered her chest, but it, too, was not fatal; at the third shot, she fell forward—away from the window—in the position recorded in the photographs.”

  Fuhrman glanced at Willard, who nodded confirmation. The assistant turned Edwards over to March for cross-examination.

  March rose from the defense table unhurriedly. The plan of the prosecution was to prove that Ivy had possessed the opportunity to recognize Arthea Simpson, when she had turned around, after being hit in the shoulder. If this could be proved, then the two following shots fired by Ivy were with intent, and it was deliberate murder.

  Also, March had been caught squarely in the horns of a dilemma. If he were to bring out proof of Ivy’s nearsightedness, he could reasonably demonstrate that at thirty feet, in a dark room, she would not have been able to recognize Arthea Simpson. But, in so doing, he would only strengthen the prosecution’s contention that Ivy could not have shot and hit Arthea at the distance of thirty feet, and had deliberately confronted her from five feet. And at that distance, Ivy could easily have recognized Arthea. But March had scored a point on the subject of odds, and he did not care to jeopardize what advantage he had gained.

  “You are to be congratulated on your art work, Doctor,” March stated pleasantly. “Did you draw them yourself?”

  “I had them prepared,” Edwards replied stiffly.

  “Accurately?”

  “They’re accurate,” Edwards told him.

  March stared at the drawing which represented Ivy standing at the top of the steps. The illustration was mounted on an easel so that it could be seen by the jury, and March drew a finger tentatively along a line extending from Ivy’s hand, at the shoulder, sloping downward to a wound in Arthea Simp
son’s shoulder. He turned back to Edwards. “Am I to assume that if Ivy Lorents had stood at the foot of the two steps, the projection line would still have been downward?”

  “Of course not,” Edwards snapped.

  “Please explain that to me, I don’t understand.” He wanted to impress it on the jury.

  “She would’ve been standing level with the deceased, and the line would have been straight.”

  “Oh? Like this one… where you pretend she’s only five feet away?”

  “I object!” Willard protested.

  “To the use of my word ‘pretend’? After all, these aren’t photographs, they are—in the strict sense of the word—pretensions.”

  “Strike the word ‘pretend,’” ordered Judge Raleigh.

  “Why didn’t you draw one showing her at the foot of the stairs?” asked March.

  “Because in her statement, she swore that she was standing at the top of the stairs,” retorted Edwards.

  “But you’ve just heard Dr. Bruce Cook testify that he gave Ivy Lorents tranquilizing pills… She might not have been sure of what she said.”

  “I object!” Both Willard and Fuhrman were on their feet. “Sustained.” Raleigh gaveled. “You know the boundaries of cross-examination, Mr. March. Please stay within them.”

  March nodded politely as he turned back to Edwards. “But if Ivy Lorents had stood at the foot of the steps, the course of the projection would have been straight?”

  “Yes…” agreed Edwards reluctantly.

  “Or… let us suppose that Ivy Lorents didn’t hold her hand at shoulder level to fire, but held it at her waist. Then for all practical purposes the course of the bullet would still have been straight?”

  “Yes… but…”

  March interrupted him. “Does it make you angry to have a pet theory questioned, Doctor?”

  “No!” Edwards’ face flushed. “But an untrained person can’t shoot accurately from the waist… or hip!”