‘And that’s why this is different. Before, I was always sure they’d done it, and it didn’t bother me if they went to jail. They belonged in jail – most of them.’
‘And this time he doesn’t. So that means you’re on the right side, aren’t you?’
‘Maybe I’m on the side that’s right, but it’s not the right side for me. Maybe I don’t know how to do this.’
‘Sandra, you should see the look I’m giving you.’
‘I kind of can. My pupils are dilating.’
‘You’re a good lawyer. You care. And you’re very thorough at what you do. There’s no reason to think you’re going to do anything but a wonderful job. Now shut up and go back to bed.’
‘Thanks, Ang. You know what?’
‘What?’
‘I think I’m ready.’
THIRTY-FOUR
My mother called the morning the trial started, to remind me to dress nicely and not do anything embarrassing, because ‘everybody’s going to be watching on TruTV.’ She didn’t offer encouragement or reassurance. I thought that might help explain why I’d moved three thousand miles away.
Angie drove me to the courthouse an hour before the trial was to start. Evan had offered to do it, and seemed a bit miffed at my refusal, but it was important to show up on time, and Evan’s driving didn’t necessarily guarantee that. Patrick had threatened to ‘have a car sent round’ the day before, but I gave him a quick look that dissuaded him.
The Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center is not a gorgeous, stylish, trendy building, as one might expect in a city so devoted to image. It is, rather, a fairly nondescript tower with the usual offices and hallways where attorneys make deals and try to avoid courtrooms whenever possible.
Even today, as Angie (who had been warned to wear something conservative – in fact, my exact words were to ‘dress like Lois Lane’) and I entered the building, the throng of reporters behind us was asking if I expected the case to go to trial at all. And sure enough, when I approached the courtroom door, Bertram Cates, the assistant district attorney assigned to the prosecution, approached.
Cates was a tall, thin man whose neck was designed to be adorned by a bow tie. He had not disappointed today, although the traditional country bumpkin red was shunned in favor of something in teal, to offset Cates’ dark black suit. If he’d been wearing suspenders, he could’ve stepped directly into 1925.
‘Ms Moss,’ Cates said as we closed the gap between us. ‘I can offer you Man Two, and keep your client away from the needle.’
‘Manslaughter, second degree?’ I chuckled. ‘For a man who didn’t kill his wife? I don’t think so, Mr Cates. But thanks for letting me know exactly how uncertain of your case you clearly are.’
‘This should be a pleasure,’ he said, and I could tell he considered tipping his hat, despite the fact he wasn’t wearing one. He nodded his head instead.
‘Where’s Patrick?’ Angie asked as Cates entered the courtroom. She looked around the lobby. ‘I don’t see him.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘Patrick’s just waiting for the right time to make …’
A noticeable squeal was heard from the direction of the front doors, and Patrick McNabb, looking for all the world like a man playing a falsely accused defendant, walked into the lobby. Women, held back by police and velvet ropes, shouted to him. Some wanted to sleep with him. Others, chiefly those carrying signs that included the word ‘PIOUS,’ seemed to have convicted him before the trial began. The two opinions converged in the center of the room, and created a sound like a cheetah attacking a lioness in heat.
‘… an entrance,’ I finished.
Patrick waved grimly to his admirers and ignored the detractors, staring intently at me as he approached. The metal detectors at the entrances slowed down the process of gathering this morning, but Patrick had managed to conserve enough time to answer a few questions from the reporters as he trudged through the lobby to Courtroom #4.
‘… to be completely exonerated by the time this trial is over,’ he was saying when he reached earshot. I frowned severely at him, and he actually stopped, thanked the reporters, and moved on.
‘I told you the answer to every question was “no comment,”’ I said when he was near enough I didn’t have to shout. ‘You give no interviews, you make no predictions, you offer absolutely no evidence. Which part of that was hard to understand?’
‘They’re just trying to do their job.’
‘So am I,’ I reminded him, and turned to open the courtroom door.
Evan was already waiting at the defense table, which shocked both Angie and me – he must’ve left his house at four in the morning. Angie sat in the front row of the gallery as Patrick and I took our seats at the counsel’s table. Noting the capacity crowd, I was glad I’d reserved a place for Angie to sit. I’d barely gotten my files onto the defense table when the bailiff entered and announced the judge.
I had studied up on the Honorable Walter Franklin, and learned that he was a fastidious man, to the point of obsession. He would not allow anything out of place in his courtroom. He was also a militant anti-smoking activist, which didn’t really matter in court – the building was considered smoke-free, as was much of Los Angeles itself. And above all, he cherished speedy, efficient trials. He was exactly the wrong man for this case.
‘Be seated,’ he grumbled, already in a sour mood, and we hadn’t even started. This was not a good sign.
The bailiff read the case number and the charges, which were murder in the first degree, aggravated assault and battery, obstructing a criminal investigation (they love that one), and attempted murder. The logic here is that if you committed murder, you must also have attempted murder. As logic goes, it’s not bad.
Patrick McNabb, through his attorney (me), pleaded not guilty to all charges. That was the easy part.
Next came jury selection. Having studied the jury pool ahead of time, I knew the candidates I definitely wanted to include, the ones I’d prostitute myself to avoid, and the vast majority, who were acceptable but not necessarily desirable.
There wasn’t much argument from Cates on the jury. He used one of his challenges for a woman wearing a ‘Free Arthur Kirkland!’ T-shirt (I couldn’t blame him for that) and another for a man who said he thought television actors really did deserve more of a break in life because they brought so much joy to so many ‘regular people.’ Hard to argue with that one, either.
I objected to a potential juror who admitted to having seen a photo of Patsy with the arrow sticking out of her chest in a tabloid newspaper (outside the police files, there was no such photo; it had been concocted in the tabloid’s computer system). I sought to strike one potential juror who said she owned all of Patsy’s recordings and ‘considered her part of the family.’ And I was equally unfond of a would-be juror whose brother-in-law was a Los Angeles police officer, because cops, much like prosecutors, always think everyone’s guilty.
Once the panel was in place, Franklin called for the prosecutor to make his opening statement to the jury.
Bertram T. Cates, looking very much like a scarecrow in an expensive suit, stood to deliver his opening, and it was a doozy. By the time Cates was finished, I was ready to convict Patrick. He hadn’t just murdered his wife, he’d probably stolen all her possessions, alienated her family and, in Cates’ estimation, caused the last three earthquakes to hit the greater Los Angeles area.
I took notes during Cates’ remarks, making sure to remind myself later which areas were most important to refute – like the whole ‘not-killing-Patsy’ thing. I’d definitely have to mention that.
Franklin looked ominously down at me from the bench and said, ‘Ms Moss, before you begin, there is the matter of your client’s flight to Mexico.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. In front of the jury? ‘Your Honor,’ I asked, ‘may I approach the bench?’ Franklin waved me up.
‘Judge, if you wanted to discuss this, wouldn’t it have been more appropr
iate before the jury was present? This is going to prejudice them against my client.’
Franklin stared down through half-glasses. ‘I’ll decide what is and is not appropriate for my court, Ms Moss. Step back, please.’
I walked back to the defense table and tried to compose myself. ‘The incident to which you’re referring, Your Honor, was only a matter of a drive that took a few hours in the course of one day, and was undertaken to try to discover some evidence pertinent to our case. My client never tried to escape his responsibilities here.’
‘Ms Moss, you are new to this court, and so I will accept that explanation, but I warn you that any further indiscretion on your client’s part will result in the forfeiture of his bail bond and my citing you personally for contempt.’
‘Yes, Your Honor.’
‘Now, please present your opening statement.’
Yeah, and now that you’ve set me back ten yards, let me just walk up here and kick it straight through the uprights. OK, Judge?
Typically, I like to walk to the jury box and talk directly to the panel, and this case was no exception. I began my statement by smiling warmly, something I was quite good at, and explaining to the jury exactly who I was, and how I expected they would be concerned with how the testimony in this case would sometimes be contradictory.
‘After all,’ I informed the five men and seven women (gratefully noting to myself that six of the seven women couldn’t take their eyes off Patrick), ‘the prosecution isn’t here because they think they arrested the wrong man. Mr Cates truly believes Patrick McNabb shot an arrow into his wife and killed her. His witnesses, testifying under oath, will believe that everything they say is the absolute truth. No one is trying to trick you.
‘The problem is, I believe that Patrick McNabb did not fire that arrow. I believe he did not kill Esmerelda DeNunzio. And I believe just as strongly as Mr Cates that everything I say, and everything said by the witnesses I call, will be true.’
I leaned on the railing of the box to create a feeling of intimacy with the jury. ‘So, how are you to decide? How should you weigh the truth of Mr Cates’ witnesses against the truth of my witnesses? If they say contradictory things, how can both be true?
‘That, members of the jury, is where we reach the concept of reasonable doubt. If anything that anyone says in this courtroom, no matter who, makes you doubt that Patrick McNabb killed Ms DeNunzio, and your doubt is based on the evidence, then you must acquit Mr McNabb. That’s how the court system works in this country, and you’ve heard it a thousand times: innocent until proven guilty. If the prosecution makes you think Patrick McNabb is guilty, but doesn’t prove it, you can’t convict him. If the defense makes you doubt he’s guilty, you can’t convict him. The burden to prove guilt is on the prosecution. The burden on the defense is not to prove innocence, but to assume innocence unless Mr Cates proves the defendant guilty. It’s not going to be easy.’
I turned away from the jury box and walked toward the defense table, but stopped in front of the bench. There, I turned back to deliver the terrific closing I’d prepared.
At that moment, a woman of no more than twenty-five, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, leapt from her seat in the gallery and ran toward Patrick. The PIOUS crowd began to cheer, which alerted the police and the bailiff, who ran after her.
‘Patsy’s blood is on your hands!’ the PIOUS member screamed as she approached me, and she pulled what appeared to be a condom – filled with some dark liquid – out of her pocket. She threw the balloon-like object at Patrick, but missed.
Instead, she hit me directly in the chest, and the condom exploded, sending red liquid all over my white blouse and suit jacket. The police grabbed the woman by the arms as I hurried to the table to assess the damage.
‘Those aren’t my hands,’ I told her.
The PIOUS member’s eyes widened as she saw what she’d accomplished, and suddenly, she was just a young girl again. ‘Omigod,’ she said. ‘I am so sorry.’
I shook my head and looked at the cops. ‘I’m not going to press charges,’ I told them. ‘But I might bill PIOUS for the dry cleaning bills.’
‘She’s still being charged,’ Judge Franklin said. ‘We set up a perimeter, and she broke through it. Besides, she made a mess in my courtroom, and I will not tolerate that.’
‘Can I get you some club soda for that?’ the dangerous assailant asked, pointing at my chest. ‘It’s just water with red food coloring.’
The police led the woman away, and I looked at Angie, whose face indicated she wouldn’t have been as kind as me. ‘Well, there goes impressing my mother on TruTV,’ I muttered.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Angie whispered back. ‘I put one of your other suits in the bag, just in case.’
‘You think of everything.’
‘Nah. I hated what you had on.’
THIRTY-FIVE
Detective Lieutenant K.C. Trench fit right into Walter Franklin’s courtroom – he was the neatest cop I’d ever seen. He sat on the witness stand, perfectly erect, attentive, responding to the prosecutor with impeccable diction. He wore cufflinks. I’d never met a policeman who wore cufflinks.
‘I arrived at the scene approximately thirty-five minutes after the emergency call, and thirty minutes after the uniformed officers arrived,’ he told Cates in response to a question.
‘Was Ms DeNunzio’s body still on the floor?’ Cates asked.
‘No. It had been removed by the EMS workers, but video and still photographs had been taken, the outline was there, and physical evidence remained in the room.’
‘Physical evidence like what, Lieutenant?’
‘There was a good deal of blood,’ Trench told him without so much as a twitch.
‘Was Mr McNabb present when you arrived?’ Cates asked, looking at the jury to see if the mention of blood had gotten the reaction he’d hoped for – it had.
‘Yes.’ This was not the first time Trench had testified in court. He knew how to keep his answers short and to-the-point.
‘Describe his appearance.’
‘He is approximately six feet tall, dark hair, and green eyes …’
‘In what kind of state was he that night, Lieutenant?’ Cates was obviously struggling to remain patient with his somber witness.
‘He was covered in a good deal of blood from his shoulders to his feet,’ Trench said, never taking his eyes off Cates.
A couple of the jurors cringed.
‘His hands were covered in blood?’
‘Being between his shoulders and his feet, yes, they were.’ Trench didn’t at all mind expressing his impatience with his questioner.
Cates chose to ignore the tone of his witness’ response. ‘What did he say when you questioned him?’
‘He said he had been in the bedroom, and discovered the victim on the dining room floor when he came out,’ Trench reported, without referring to notes.
‘Were there fingerprints found on the murder weapon?’
‘Yes,’ Trench said. ‘The arrow had Mr McNabb’s fingerprints and one other person’s.’
‘Whose would those be?’
‘Ms DeNunzio’s. Apparently she had tried to pull the arrow out before she died.’ A woman in a PIOUS T-shirt in the last row made a grimacing sound and put her head down in her hands.
‘Were there any other fingerprints found in the room besides Mr McNabb’s and Ms DeNunzio’s?’
‘No,’ Trench answered.
‘No further questions.’ Cates sat down at his table and consulted with his second chair.
‘Ms Moss?’ said the judge.
I rose and walked to Trench carrying a legal pad and pen, which were more to hold for comfort than for any legal purpose. I always found it easier to question a witness if I had something in my hands.
‘Lieutenant Trench, did Mr McNabb confess to the crime?’
‘No, he did not.’ Trench’s gaze, now that it was focused directly on me, was intimidating, even if he didn’t mean it to be
. But then, there was no indication he didn’t mean it to be.
‘Did he ever express any concern over his own well-being?’
‘No.’ Trench wasn’t going to give me anything I didn’t ask for specifically.
‘What did he say to you besides what you’ve already told us?’ Patrick had given me a very good recounting of the conversation.
‘He asked who could have done this, and wanted to know how we would find Ms DeNunzio’s killer.’
‘How would you describe his emotional state?’
‘It’s difficult to say,’ Trench said. ‘He is a professional actor.’
‘And you are a professional detective. What was your impression?’
‘He was distraught.’ Perfect.
‘As for the fingerprints found on the arrow, where on the arrow were they located?’
‘They were in more than one location,’ Trench answered.
I nodded to Evan, who walked to the bailiff. Evan produced an arrow from a leather case kept behind the bailiff’s station, and brought it to me.
‘Your Honor, with the court’s permission, I’d like to enter into evidence this arrow, which is the same make and model as the one used in the crime.’
‘Objection, Mr Cates?’ the judge asked.
‘None, Judge.’
Franklin nodded. I took the arrow from Evan and showed it to Trench. ‘Can you show me, on this arrow, where the fingerprints were found, Lieutenant?’
Trench took the arrow from my hands, and held it in his left hand. With his right, he indicated a spot on the shaft, less than halfway from the tip. ‘Here,’ he said, then moved his hand to a spot about three inches closer to the fletching (or feathers), away from the tip. ‘And here,’ Trench added.
‘So, on this part of the arrow, there were no fingerprints belonging to Mr McNabb?’ I indicated the far end, or nock, where an archer would hold an arrow before releasing it.
‘No.’
‘What color were the fingerprints in the spots you indicated, Lieutenant?’
‘Red,’ Trench said.
‘So, in your opinion, Mr McNabb had come in contact with the blood before touching the arrow?’
Inherit the Shoes Page 18
