Well, Lescroix had been in worse straits. He’d had cases where he’d had to attack grieving mothers and widowed wives and even bewildered children. He’d just have to feel his way along, like a musician sensing the audience’s reaction and adjusting his playing carefully. He could—
Lescroix realized suddenly that Cabot was staring at him. The man’s eyes were like cold ball bearings. Lescroix actually shivered — that had never before happened in court — and he struggled to maintain eye contact. It was a moment. Yet Lescroix was glad for the challenge. Something in that look of Cabot’s made this whole thing personal, made it far easier to do what he was about to do. Their eyes locked, the electricity sparking between them. Then a door clicked open and everyone stood as the clerk entered.
“Oyez, oyez, oyez, criminal court for the county of Hamilton, First District, is now in session. The right honorable Jennings P. Martell presiding, all ye with business before this court come forward and be heard.”
Pilsett, wearing a goofy brown suit, was led cautiously out of the lockup. He sat down next to his lawyer. The defendant grinned stupidly until Lescroix told him to stop. He flicked his earlobe several times with an unshackled finger.
When Lescroix looked back to Cabot the metallic eyes had shifted from the lawyer and were drilling into the back of the man who’d killed his wife with a $4.99 Sears Craftsman claw hammer.
The prosecutor presented the forensic evidence first and Lescroix spent a half hour chipping away at the testimony of the lab technicians and the cops — though the crime-scene work had been surprisingly well handled for such a small police department. A minor victory for the prosecution, Lescroix conceded to himself.
Then the state called Charles Cabot.
The widower straightened his tie, hugged the woman beside him and walked to the stand.
Guided by the prosecutor’s pedestrian questions, the man gave an unemotional account of what he’d seen on June third. Monosyllables of grief. A few tears, Lescroix rated the performance uncompelling, though the man’s broken words certainly held the jury’s attention. But he’d expected this; we love tragedies as much as romance and nearly as much as sex.
“No further questions, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said and glanced dismissively at Lescroix.
The lawyer rose slowly, unbuttoned his jacket, ran his hand through his hair, mussing it ever so slightly. He paced slowly in front of the witness. When he spoke he spoke to the jury. “I’m so very sorry for your misfortune, Mr. Cabot.”
The witness nodded, though his eyes were wary.
Lescroix continued, “The death of a young woman is a terrible thing. Just terrible. Inexcusable.”
“Yes, well. Thank you.”
The jury’s collective eyes scanned Lescroix’s troubled face. He glanced at the witness stand. Cabot didn’t know what to say. He’d been expecting an attack. He was uneasy. The eyes were no longer steely hard. They were cautious. Good. People detest wary truth-tellers far more than self-assured liars.
Lescroix turned back to the twelve men and women in his audience.
He smiled. No one smiled back.
That was all right. This was just the overture.
He walked to the table and picked up a folder. Strode back to the jury box. “Mr. Cabot, what do you do for a living?”
The question caught him off guard. He looked around the courtroom. “Well, I own a company. It manufactures housings for computers and related equipment.”
“Do you make a lot of money at it?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled. But you’ll bring this back to earth sometime soon, Mr. Lescroix?”
“You bet I will, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Cabot, please answer.”
“We had sales of eight million last year.”
“Your salary was what?”
“I took home about two hundred thousand.”
“And your wife, was she employed by the company too?”
“Part-time. As a director on the board. And she did some consulting work.”
“I see. And how much did she make?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Toss an estimate our way, Mr. Cabot.”
“Well, in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand.”
“Really? Interesting.”
Flipping slowly through the folder, while the jury wondered what could be interesting about this piece of news.
Lescroix looked up. “How was your company originally financed?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” the gray-faced prosecutor said. His young assistant nodded vigorously, as if every bob of his head was a legal citation supporting his boss.
The judge asked, “Going anywhere real, Mr. Lescroix, or’re we being treated to one of your famous fishing trips?”
Perfect. Lescroix turned to the jury, eyes upraised slightly; the judge didn’t notice. See what I’ve got to deal with? he asked tacitly. He was rewarded with a single conspiratorial smile from a juror.
And then, God bless me, another.
“I’m going someplace very real, Your Honor. Even if there are people present who won’t be very happy where that might be.”
This raised a few murmurs.
The judge grunted. “We’ll see. Overruled. Go ahead, Mr. Cabot.”
“If I recall, the financing was very complicated.”
“Then let’s make it easy. Your wife’s father is a wealthy businessman, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean by wealthy.” Cabot swallowed.
“Net worth of twelve million’d fall somewhere in that definition, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose, somewhere.”
Several jurors joined Lescroix in chuckling.
“Didn’t your father-in-law stake you to your company?”
“I paid back every penny—”
“Mr. Cabot,” Lescroix asked patiently, “did your father-in-law stake you to your company or did he not?”
A pause. Then a sullen “Yes.”
“How much of the company did your wife own?”
“If I remember, there were some complicated formulas—”
“More complexity?” Lescroix sighed. “Let’s make it simple, why don’t we. Just tell us what percentage of the company your wife owned.”
Another hesitation. “Forty-nine.”
“And you?”
“Forty-nine.”
“And who owns the other two percent?”
“That would be her father.”
“And on her death, who gets her shares?”
A moment’s hesitation. “If we’d had any children—”
“Do you have children?”
“No.”
“I see. Then let’s hear what will in fact happen to your wife’s shares.”
“I guess I’ll receive them. I hadn’t thought about it.”
Play ’em right. Just like an orchestra conductor. Light hand on the baton. Don’t add, “So you’re the one who’s profited from your wife’s death.” Or: “So then you’d be in control of the company.” They’re dim, but even the dimmest are beginning to see where we’re headed.
Cabot took a sip of water, spilled some on his jacket and brushed the drops away.
“Mr. Cabot, let’s think back to June, all right? You hired Jerry Pilsett to do some work for you on the second, the day before your wife died, correct?”
Not before she was murdered. Always keep it neutral.
“Yes.”
“And you’d hired him several times before, right?”
“Yes.”
“Starting when?”
“I don’t know, maybe six months ago.”
“How long have you known that Jerry lived in Hamilton?”
“I guess five, six years.”
“So even though you’ve known him for six years, you never hired him before last spring?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Even though you had plenty of opportunities to.”
“No. But I was going to say—�
�
“Now June second was what day of the week, Mr. Cabot?”
After a glance at the judge, Cabot said, “I don’t remember.”
“It was a Friday.”
“If you say so,” the witness replied churlishly.
“I don’t say so, Mr. Cabot. My Hallmark calendar does.” And he held up a pocket calendar emblazoned with a photo of fuzzy puppies.
A wheeze of laughter from several members of the jury.
“And what time of day was he supposed to do the work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Early?”
“Not real early.”
“‘Not real early,’” Lescroix repeated slowly. Then snapped, “Wasn’t it in fact late afternoon and evening?”
“Maybe it was.”
Frowning, pacing. “Isn’t it odd that you hired somebody to do yard work on a Friday night?”
“It wasn’t night. It was dusk and—”
“Please answer the question.”
“It didn’t occur to me there was anything odd about it.”
“I see. Could you tell us exactly what you hired him to do?”
A surly glance from Cabot. Then: “He mowed the lawn and took away some rotten firewood.”
“Rotten?”
“Well, termite infested.”
“Was it all termite infested?”
Cabot looked at the prosecutor, whose milky face shone with concern, and then at the D.A.’s young assistant, who would probably have been concerned too if he hadn’t been so confused at the moment. Jerry Pilsett merely flicked his earlobe and stared morosely at the floor.
“Go ahead,” the judge prompted. “Answer the question.”
“I don’t know. I saw termite holes. I have a wood-framed house and I didn’t want to take the chance they’d get into the house.”
“So you saw some evidence of termites but the pile of wood wasn’t completely rotten, was it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not.” Cabot gave an uneasy laugh.
“So there was some — maybe a lot — of good wood there.”
“Maybe. What difference—?”
“But for some reason you wanted Jerry Pilsett to haul the entire pile away. And to do so on this particular Friday night.”
“Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“To get to the truth,” Lescroix spat out. “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Now, tell us, sir, was the pile of wood covered with anything?”
A slight frown. He’d only be wondering why Lescroix was focusing on this fact but the result was a wonderfully suspicious expression.
“Yes. By an old tarp.”
“And was the tarp stacked to the ground?”
“Yes, it was.”
“And you’d put the tarp over the wood yourself?”
“Yes.”
“When?” Lescroix demanded.
“I don’t remember.”
“No? Could it have been just a few days before you hired Jerry?”
“No…. Well, maybe.”
“Did Jerry say anything about the tarp?”
“I don’t recall.”
Lescroix said patiently, “Didn’t Jerry say to you that the stakes were pounded into the ground too hard to pull out and that he’d have to loosen them somehow to uncover the wood?”
Cabot looked up at the judge, uneasy. He swallowed again, seemed to think about taking a sip of water but didn’t. Maybe his hands were shaking too badly. “Do I have to answer these questions?”
“Yes, you do,” the judge said solemnly.
“Maybe.”
“And did you tell him there were some tools in the garage he could use if he needed them?”
Another weighty pause. Cabot sought the answer in the murky plaster heaven above them. “I might have.”
“Ah.” Lescroix’s face lit up. Easily half the jury was with him now, floating along with the music, wondering where the tune was going. “Could you tell our friends on the jury how many tools you have in your garage, sir?”
“For Christ’s sake, I don’t know.”
A sacrilege in front of the jury. Deliciously bad form.
“Let me be more specific,” Lescroix said helpfully. “How many hammers do you own?”
“Hammers?” He glanced at the murder weapon, a claw hammer, sitting, brown with his wife’s stale blood, on the prosecution’s table. The jury looked at it too.
“Just one. That one.”
“So,” Lescroix’s voice rose, “when you told Jerry to get a tool from the garage to loosen the stakes you’d pounded into the ground, you knew there was only one tool he could pick. That hammer right there?”
“No…. I mean, I don’t know what he used—”
“You didn’t know he used that hammer to loosen the stakes?”
“Well, I knew that. Yes. But… “The eyes grew dark. “Why’re you ac—?”
“Why am I what, sir?”
Cabot sat back.
Lescroix leaned toward the witness. “Accusing you? Is that what you were going to say? Why would I accuse you of anything?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.”
The judge muttered, “Okay, Mr. Lescroix. Let’s move along.”
“Of course, Your Honor. And therefore, as a result of directing him to use that hammer, his fingerprints are now on the murder weapon. Isn’t that the case?”
Cabot stared at the prosecutor’s disgusted face. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Sonata for witness and jury.
“Maybe it’s true. But—”
“Sir, let’s go on. On that day, the second of June, after Jerry Pilsett had mowed the lawn and loaded the wood into his pickup truck to be carted off, you asked him inside to pay him, right?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And you asked him into your living room. Right?”
“I don’t remember.”
Lescroix flipped through a number of sheets in the folder, as if they were chock full of crime scene data and witnesses transcripts. He stared at one page for a moment, as blank as the others. Then closed the folder.
“You don’t?”
Cabot too stared at the folder. “Well, I guess I did, yes.”
“You gave him a glass of water.”
“Maybe.”
“Did you or didn’t you?”
“Yes! I did.”
“And you showed him your latest possession, your new stereo. The one you later claimed he stole.”
“We were talking about music and I thought he might be interested in it.”
“I see.” Lescroix was frowning. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cabot, but help me out here. This seems odd. Here’s a man who’s been working for hours in the summer heat. He’s full of dirt, sweat, grass stains… and you ask him inside. Not into the entry hall, not into the kitchen, but into the living room.”
“I was just being civil.”
“Good of you. Only the result of this… this civility was to put his shoeprints on the carpet and his fingerprints on the stereo, a water glass, doorknobs and who knows what else?”
“What are you saying?” Cabot asked. His expression was even better than Lescroix could have hoped for. It was supposed to be shocked but it looked mean and sneaky. A Nixon look.
“Please answer, sir.”
“I suppose some footprints were there, and his fingerprints might be on some things. But that doesn’t—”
“Thank you. Now, Mr. Cabot, would you tell the jury whether or not you asked Jerry Pilsett to come back the following day.”
“What?”
“Did you ask Jerry to come back to your house the next day? That would be Saturday, June third.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Lescroix frowned dramatically. He opened the folder again, found another important blank sheet, and pretended to read. “You didn’t say to Jerry Pilsett, and I quote, ‘You did a good job, Jerry. Come back about five tomorrow and I’ll have some more work for
you’?”
“I didn’t say that. No.”
A breathless scoff. “You’re denying you said that?”
He hesitated, glanced at the prosecutor and offered a weak “Yes.”
“Mr. Cabot, His Honor will remind you that lying under oath is perjury and that’s a serious crime. Now answer the question. Did you or did you not ask Jerry Pilsett to come back to your house at five p.m. on Saturday, June third?”
“No, I didn’t. Really, I swear.” His voice was high from stress. Lescroix loved it when that happened since even the saintliest witness sounded like a liar. And qualifiers like “really” and “I swear” added to the cadence of deception.
You poor bastard.
Lescroix turning toward the jury, puffing air through cheeks. A few more sympathetic smiles. Some shaking heads too, revealing shared exasperation at a lying witness. The second movement of Lescroix’s performance seemed to have gone over well.
“All right,” the lawyer muttered skeptically. “Let’s go back to the events of June third, sir.”
Cabot put his hands in his lap. Purely a defensive gesture, again in response to the stress that he’d be feeling. Yet juries sometimes read another message in the pose: guilt. “You told the court that you came home about five p.m. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Where had you been?”
“The office.”
“On Saturday?”
Cabot managed a smile. “When you have your own business you frequently work on Saturdays. I do, at any rate.”
“You came back at five and found Jerry Pilsett standing in the doorway.”
“Yes, holding the hammer.”
“The bloody hammer.”
“Yes.”
“It was bloody, right?”
“Yes.”
Another examination of the infamous file, this time looking over a document with actual writing on it. “Hmm. Now the police found your car on the parking strip fifty feet from the door where you allegedly saw Jerry. Is that what you claimed?”
“It’s where the car was. It’s the truth.”
Lescroix forged on. “Why was the car that far away from the house?”
“I… well, when I was driving up to the house I panicked and drove over the curb. I was worried about my wife.”
“But you couldn’t see your wife, could you?”
A pause. “Well, no. But I could see the hammer, the blood.”
“Fifty feet away’s a pretty good distance. You could actually see the hammer in Jerry’s hand?”
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II Page 16
