Shadow of A Doubt

by William J. Coughlin

  The Harwell trial was just over the horizon now and I began to resent the intrusion of the routine tasks I had to do for my growing stock of other clients. I tended to think of trips to the courthouse, insurance claims, and the other mundane duties of a practicing lawyer as annoying interference with my work on the big case. I’m sure my other clients didn’t see it quite that way.

  The Harwell trial was becoming almost an obsession, a troubling obsession. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would be jolted awake by the vivid realization of what was at stake.

  Lawyers try to stay objective about clients. Emotions can fatally flaw judgment. A lawyer tries to see things as they really are. “Try” is the operative word, at least where Angel Harwell was concerned.

  She remained an enigma, but if we lost the case I didn’t doubt that she would kill herself. I had seen that icy resolve in those strange eyes. That put another chip in the game, a chip I wasn’t so sure I could handle.

  I wasn’t sure Angel was innocent. I wasn’t sure she was guilty. But I was sure that I didn’t want to consider the consequences of a loss.

  When I wasn’t thinking about Angel, I was thinking about myself. My own situation wasn’t all that different. A matter of life or death too, but in a different way. If I won, I’d be on top again, something that became more important to me as each day went by. I liked having money again. But what I really liked was the respect. I had almost forgotten the tangy feel of that.

  I was a lawyer. That probably meant more to me than it should. If I lost the Harwell case, that would be taken away forever. I was sure about that.

  *

  SIDNEY Sherman had called before he came up. He said he didn’t want to make the trip and find out I wasn’t in. He tried to hide it but I could tell he was excited about something.

  He made it up to Pickeral Point in less than an hour. “Charley, you got money now,” he said as he entered my office “When are you going to get yourself a secretary?”

  “I got one. She only works in the mornings.”

  Sidney sat down and grinned. “Only the mornings? Big deal. If you look like a success, you are a success. People don’t trust a lawyer who looks like he’s about to go on welfare. If you look like a bum, you are a bum.”

  “Who said that?”

  “My mother. A very wise woman. Speaking of cheap, how come you’re not using a shadow jury on this case? Belleman and Swartz use a shadow jury on each and every trial. They’re big guns, Charley. They represent some very big corporations. They should know what they’re doing.”

  “But they don’t, Sidney, that’s why they set up a play jury and go through a play trial. Most of the Belleman Swartz lawyers can’t find the courthouse, let alone try a real jury case. Shadow juries are for amateurs.”

  “Hey, these guys make more money than professional athletes. I wouldn’t call that amateur.”

  “I do. If you put in some wunderkind from Harvard to try a big case, somebody whose sole contact with trials is watching reruns of Perry Mason, you do need play juries and play judges. And the client needs real prayer.”

  Sidney shook his head. “They must think it works, Charley?”

  “You can’t duplicate a jury. One set of twelve doesn’t mean that another set will see things the same way. Sidney, you’ve worked with Morgan and Maguire. They’re as good on the witness stand as it’s possible to get. Give them one tiny opening and they rip your guts out. Tell me, Sidney, where are you going to get an actor who can match Morgan or Maguire?”

  “You might have a point,” he said, although his tone indicated I hadn’t really convinced him. He patted his very expensive briefcase. “Anyway, after much intrigue and packets of money I have for you the Harwell divorce file, intact, as promised. That attorney down in Florida is really angry at the survivors. God knows why. Anyway, one of his staff wasn’t so picky and was a bit more greedy.”

  He opened the case and extracted a thick file.

  “Have you read it, Sidney?”

  He grinned. “Of course. I wasn’t going to pay out that kind of dough unless I knew we were getting the real thing.”

  Sidney extracted a leather packet. “This was to be his new will. He was scheduled to sign it when the divorce papers were served. They weren’t and he didn’t.”

  “What does it say?”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “Probably not, but go ahead.”

  “Harrison Harwell was going to leave almost everything to a trust to take care of Angel, but only if she accepted medical treatment. And that was to be decided by trustees he selected. If she didn’t do what they said, the corpus of the trust was to be paid over to a named charity.”

  “Cruel. She’d be a prisoner for life.”

  Sidney nodded, then reached into the briefcase and came up with a stack of papers. “I got the divorce pleadings, the ones they were going to file. It’s standard language. They base the divorce on that old standby, irreconcilable differences. There are no details given.”

  “What about the prenuptial agreement?”

  “We got that.” He smiled as he extracted the envelope and handed it to me. “It’s all signed and legally correct. The happy Harwells entered into it a day before they were married. Romantic, eh? I took the liberty of having a Florida lawyer take a peek at the thing. He says it would have been enforceable. Florida says the terms of those things are binding in the event of a divorce.”

  “I’ll read it,” I said, “but give me a quick sketch of what’s in it.”

  He nodded. “If that divorce had been filed and had gone through, Robin Harwell would have received a mere one hundred thousand dollars. In other words, in relation to what Harwell had, peanuts.”

  “She agreed to that?”

  “Yeah, ten years ago, before they got married. I suppose she would have agreed to anything to set the hook. Women can be like that.”

  “What about death?”

  “The agreement says that’s to be covered by will or operation of law. The Florida guy says that’s a little unusual down there. Usually, who gets what if someone cools is spelled out. But not this time.”

  Sidney took out some more papers from the briefcase. “To give you some idea of what all this means, I had accountants do a rough estimate of what’s in Harwell’s estate.”

  “So?”

  “Without burdening you with details, it is a lot less than it was, but with the real estate and everything, it comes to just over twenty million. We got a copy of the existing will. When everything shakes out, my people estimate that the widow will get a clean eight million, the daughter the rest. In case you didn’t do well in arithmetic, Charley, eight million is one hell of a lot more than one hundred thousand.”

  “So?”

  “Ain’t it fortunate for mom that daddy died.”

  “Are you still trying to tell me the widow did it?”

  He shrugged. “Also, daddy’s death was a big financial break for the kid.”

  “She has the money her mother left in trust.”

  One eyebrow went quickly up. “It isn’t much, Charley, at least not the way these people live. If you’re used to butlers and maids, twenty thousand is lunch money.”

  “That’s it, twenty thousand a year?”

  He nodded. “I thought I told you. I guess I didn’t.”

  He sighed and sat back, then spoke. “Let me state the obvious, Charley. If papa had lived and everything had gone through — the will, the divorce — little Angel would have been in one hell of a financial mess. Twenty large won’t buy much of a lifestyle in these times. She’d get only what daddy would give her while he was alive, and nothing after his death unless she checked into a convenient nut house. Now, in comparison, she is sitting very pretty indeed. In other words, pal, if the prosecutor ever gets his claws on all this, he could use it to burn the fanny off your lovely little Angel. It’s what we in the trade call a motive.”

  “Only if she knew, and she probably didn’t. Is there
any indication anyone else knows about the proposed will?”

  Sidney shook his head. “They might know about the divorce, but you have to steal the file to find the will.”

  You worry too much, Sidney. The prosecutor up here doesn’t have the smarts to dig up something like this.”

  “Charley, you aren’t back on the sauce, are you? What about Morgan and Maguire? Jesus, they could find Jimmy Hoffa if they put their minds to it. How come you don’t think they would go after this?”

  “Because they think they have a perfect case.”

  “Maybe they do.”

  *

  “THE issue is simple enough,” I said. “The cops kept at Angel Harwell for hours, taking statement after statement until she finally told them something they would settle for. They didn’t use a real rubber hose, but it amounted to the same thing. She had just found her father’s bloody body. She was in shock, anyone would have been. Plus, she has a history of being emotionally fragile.”

  “I trust they informed her of her legal rights?” Dr. Henry Foreman had driven up for lunch and a conference with me. He was Detroit’s leading forensic psychiatrist, an expert who seemed to be a witness in every major civil or criminal trial where mental capacity was an issue. He had become well known and usually ended up doing more television than Johnny Carson.

  “They gave Angel her rights. The usual mechanical words, yes. But their actions —”

  “She knew she could call a halt to the questioning any time?” He buttered a roll.

  “Whose side are you going to be on here?”

  “Yours, but that doesn’t answer the question.” Dr. Foreman was a proven dynamite witness, a tall, dignified man with friendly eyes and a firm professional manner. Juries loved him. “I read Bob Williams’s report and I reviewed the psychological profile done on Miss Harwell. She isn’t exactly retarded, is she?”

  “No, but — ”

  He held up the roll as if signaling for silence. “So, you have a young woman with extraordinary intelligence who is informed repeatedly that she doesn’t have to answer any more questions, and yet she does, over and over again for hours.” He bit the roll, chewed for a moment as if judging its quality, then continued. “The basic question is, why would she do such a thing, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Those friendly eyes regarded me for a moment. “Anyone that smart would have asked for a lawyer, at the very least. After the first round of questions, an intelligent person would have pointed out that everything had been answered once and politely refused to continue.”

  “Maybe I should consider getting a different expert witness?”

  He smiled, ignoring the question. “So, why didn’t she choose to exercise any of her legal options? A normal person, with even average intelligence, would have done so. The answer, Mr. Sloan, was that she was so intimidated, so frightened, so paralyzed mentally, that she couldn’t think straight. In other words, she was incapable of resisting, and finally fabricated the answer they repeatedly suggested by their questions. The popular term for that is brainwashing.”

  “Maybe I’ll stick with you after all.”

  He nodded. “That would be wise. You do understand that I have to interview Miss Harwell before I testify.” He finished the roll and washed it down with coffee. “I can testify without making a one-on-one examination, but that’s frowned upon by my fellow psychiatrists. Also, having seen her will take away an obvious line of attack upon me by the other side.”

  “That will be no problem. Angel is scheduled to come up here two days before the hearing.”

  “Good. I can see her at her convenience. It won’t take long. An hour at the most. Also, I’d like to see the tape of this so-called confession. I’ve read the transcript, but I think I can punch up my testimony a bit if I refer to the tape itself. Make points about certain mannerisms, manner of speech, reactions or the lack of them, that sort of thing.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “I understand I’m to testify at the Walker hearing, but will you need me at the trial itself?”

  “That depends. If I can get the statement thrown out, that ends the need for psychiatric evidence. If not, I’ll have to attack the statement’s validity, this time in front of the jury. If that happens, I’d need you again. Any problem with that?”

  “No. Actually, August is a very slow month for me. I can easily work my schedule around. Tell me, will you be using any other psychiatrists?”

  “I’m planning on calling the one who did the testing, but no one else.”

  “No treating psychiatrists?”

  “So far I haven’t exactly been overwhelmed with cooperation from her treating sources. Even if I could get somebody here it might be dangerous. It could open the door to things I might not want known.”

  “How serious are you, Mr. Sloan, that the death was suicide?”

  “Very serious.”

  He nodded. “Suicide, as you probably know, is a great risk with patients who are seriously depressed. The treatment of depression is one of my main fields of expertise. Would you want me to go into that at the Walker hearing?”

  “No. The prosecution probably thinks I’m only going to raise suicide as a smoke screen. There’s no reason to alert them that it will be a main defense. I’m going to save that until the trial.”

  “You might want to use me in that capacity then.”

  We were served the main course. Dr. Foreman attacked his fish with gusto. “Tell me,” he said between bites, “what do you think of Miss Harwell’s chances?”

  “If we keep the statement out, pretty good.”

  “And if not?”

  “Not good.”

  “Is there any chance of a plea bargain?”

  “The prosecutor plans to ride the publicity to a higher political mountain.”

  He touched his lips with his napkin. “I know of course that a Walker hearing determines whether a defendant’s statement is voluntary or not. But I’ve always wondered about the name, Walker. A judge, I presume?”

  “No. A defendant. Lee Dell Walker had a record of robbery. He was arrested for killing a merchant in a robbery. He confessed. He didn’t want to leave witnesses. He was convicted by a jury.”

  “So?”

  “The Supreme Court said the issue of his statement had to be determined before trial. That’s how the hearing got its name.”

  “And Walker was retried and acquitted?”

  I shook my head. “No. A judge ruled the confession voluntary and another jury convicted him again.”

  “And he went to prison.”

  “No. The Supreme Court let him out again. The prosecutor gave up.”

  “So Mr. Walker was convicted twice of first-degree murder and was never punished?”

  I nodded.

  “Does it ever strike you, Mr. Sloan, that our legal machinery sometimes leaves a great deal to be desired?”

  “Walker didn’t think so.”

  Dr. Foreman seemed to mull that over for a moment, then he spoke. “Is there any gag order regarding this trial, as far as the lawyers and witnesses anyway?”

  “Not so far.”

  He smiled broadly. “Oh good. When I testified in the Roscommon murder trial last year I ended up on Good Morning America.”

  “Do you like that, Doctor? Being in the public spotlight?”

  Dr. Foreman sighed. “I see it as a public service. A way to carry the message of good mental health.” He took another bite. “Besides, it’s better than sex.”

  I thought he was kidding, but I wasn’t sure.

  *

  THE judge ruled on my motion. A technicality had freed my client.

  “You came close this time,” I said to my client. “You had better give some real thought to quitting the booze.”

  He shrugged. “I have a few now and then. It relaxes me. There’s no harm in that. I can handle it.”

  I put my papers and notes back in my briefcase. The arresting o
fficer sat a few chairs away, glaring at me, still angry.

  “You’re going to kill someone or yourself if you get shitfaced and then drive.” I snapped the briefcase closed and looked at my client.

  He was almost forty, a nice-looking man, a little beefy, the father of three with a good office job in a Port Huron manufacturing company. The problem was that he couldn’t handle the stuff.

  The cop got up, shot me one more dirty look, and then stomped out of the nearly empty courtroom.

  “You’re pretty good,” my client said. “I should have had you for those other cases.”

  He had been convicted twice of driving while impaired. His license had been suspended the second time for two months.

  “You were drunk. That cop knows it. And you know it,” I said. “The policeman made an error in the way he handled the breathalyzer results. It was a technical mistake. The judge had no choice. He had to dismiss the case. You won’t get that lucky again.”

  He snorted. “Luck had nothing to do with it. Hell, I got me an expensive lawyer and I walked.” He laughed. “It’s the American way, eh? Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “I don’t drink. I found out I couldn’t handle it.”

  “So that’s it. I should have known. You know the saying, there’s nothing worse than a reformed drunk.” He grinned but there was a nasty edge to his words.

  “I think you should take up horseback riding.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was my turn to smile. “Unless you change your ways, you won’t be driving a car for long.”

  I left the courtroom, looking smug, but I really wished I could have joined him for a drink in some nice air-conditioned bar, someplace quiet and far from the courts. Someplace where I wouldn’t have to think about Angel Harwell.

  Time was running out. Angel and Robin were scheduled to fly in. The Walker hearing was only two days away and there was so much still to do.

  A drink would have been just right.

  *

  LIKE flights of geese in the spring, the newspeople were honking back to Pickeral Point.

  Donna, my new part-time secretary, got a little round-eyed talking on the telephone to producers who dropped the names of Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, and some of her favorite talk-show hosts.