“Do you also really think they killed Larry, or had him killed?”
“At least it’s a reason.”
“So is the abortion. Remember. We’ve been all through this, Dismas. Didn’t Jennifer’s brother hate Larry, too? And isn’t the union squabble with Simpson Crane just as good as your scam idea? Might he in fact have been killed over that?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea what Restoffer found there.”
“It doesn’t really matter, but obviously it was enough to keep him interested all throughout the primary investigation, wasn’t it?”
Freeman’s point was clear enough, though Hardy wasn’t in the mood to hear it. He knew that any event in life could support an almost infinite number of possibilities, even plausible scenarios to explain them if imagination were the only criterion. Trials would never end so long as attorneys were allowed to introduce another way something might have happened without regard to evidence. Which was why, overworked as they were, courts were intolerant of hearsay, fabrication, unsupported theories.
At a trial, somebody had to see it, smell it, touch it or taste it, then swear to it. Because, in real life, it had only happened one way. And the court’s job, perhaps more than justice, was making sure the story was righteous, in sync with the evidence.
Hardy sat on the floor picking up folders. “What am I going to do, David?”
“I wasn’t entirely kidding before,” Freeman told him. “First I’d let her mother get up, but then I’d call Jennifer . . . ”
“But you didn’t even do that!”
“That was a different situation. I had the luxury, or thought I did. You don’t. This is the last card. The jury has got to get a chance to know her, see who she is beyond—”
“Powell will eat her.”
“He well may. She may condemn herself. It’s a risk.” He brightened. “But then, life’s a risk, my boy. Besides, what’s your option?”
47
The kids weren’t awake yet—a miracle. It was just past six and Frannie was reading the morning paper, in the middle of the story. Even though charges weren’t being filed, the mother of the convicted killer had killed her husband and that was hot news. So Powell, in spite of Hardy’s efforts, had achieved his goals—not only was his name and picture again on the front page, the jury would get a glimpse of how the DiStephano/Witt women solved their problems—they killed their husbands.
“They make it sound almost biblical,” Frannie said, “like some curse through the generations.”
Hardy nodded wearily. In his life he had probably been more tired but he couldn’t remember when. He hadn’t gotten home last night until after midnight, hadn’t been able to get to sleep for at least an hour after that. “I just hope the jury doesn’t see it that way.”
Frannie put the paper down. Something in her husband’s voice . . . “Are you going to lose?”
“It’s a possibility.” The prince of understatement.
Frannie wrestled with the awful thought. “Can I do anything?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, help you in some way, any way . . . ” She reached across the table and took his hand. “I feel real bad about this, you know. Like I’ve deserted Jennifer. They convicted her. What am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to do? I just couldn’t keep on denying—”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Frannie. She’s one difficult woman. She drives people away.”
Frannie bit her lip, squeezed her hand. “What will happen? I mean, if you lose?”
“If Powell gets elected and stays on the case, her odds on appeal go way down. He’ll be the Attorney General and she’s his baby. I mean, even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, it would be hard for him, politically, to do anything but keep pushing.”
“This is just so wrong.”
Hardy covered Frannie’s hand. “It’s not over yet.”
He was going to have Nancy take the stand, then Jennifer.
A society reporter named Lucy Pratt was in the newsroom at the Los Angeles Times when Hardy called from Sutter Street an hour later. That early in the morning, the place was deserted and she was happy to talk to somebody about her work. A lot of people wanted to move on to hard news, but she loved being a society reporter. She loved people. She didn’t like violence, world problems, all that stuff. She told Hardy that sure, she knew who Margaret Morency was. In fact, just the last weekend they had run her picture. She and her fiancé had hosted a wine-and-cheese auction to benefit the San Marino library.
“For some reason,” Hardy said, “I thought she was this old woman. San Marino old money, you know?”
Ms. Pratt laughed over the line. “Old money doesn’t mean you’re old, at least not with Margaret. I don’t think she’s thirty yet. I could fax you her picture. She was one of the Rose Court in 1986, you know.”
Hardy thought a picture wouldn’t be necessary.
“The wedding’s going to be at the Huntington in December,” Lucy said. “The whole town’s talking about it.”
Hardy doubted whether the folks, say, in South Central, were as excited about the upcoming nuptials as Lucy was, but she seemed to be a nice kid so he listened. It seemed the polite question before he said good-bye so he asked it. “Who’s the fiancé?”
“It’s really a Cinderella story,” she said. “Jody’s from the west side, but down in the flats, not exactly Brentwood. But now . . ”
“Is that Jody Bachman, the lawyer?”
“That’s the lucky man. Do you know him?”
“Sure,” Hardy said. “All lawyers know each other. It’s like a big fraternity.”
Lucy laughed again. She sure had good manners, though he doubted she got the joke.
He left a message with Restoffer. Even with the cold he wanted time to think, so he walked across Market, a block out of his way, down 5th (you took your life in your hands on 6th), to the Hall. He rounded up Powell and they caught Villars alone in her chambers.
In that, he was fortunate, although she was less than delighted to see them.
“I hope you’ve got something prepared for today, Mr. Hardy,” she began. “I’m not entertaining any continuance motions. You still want to see me?”
Hardy said he did, and she turned her back on him, going back to the slingback chair where she had been reading the paper, having her morning coffee. But she didn’t settle. Instead, she lowered herself onto the outside of the chair and pointed a finger. “The time for a personal appeal is after the jury’s decision.”
Villars was referring to the orchestrated ballet that surrounded death-penalty cases in California. Even after the jury returned with a verdict of death, that was not the end of it. The defense filed an automatic motion to set aside the verdict while, at the same time, there was a motion for a new trial, on almost any grounds and without any prejudice—in other words, without a mistrial. In the jargon, the judge became the thirteenth juror.
In practice, such motions were seldom granted. If a judge, sitting as the thirteenth juror, did in fact overturn a verdict and a sentence after the time and expense of a jury trial, the DA—by exercising his right to challenge out of any courtroom—would make it hard for that person to find work. Still, Villars was tough, and Superior Court judges, it was true, could amass a great deal of power.
Hardy remained standing. Powell sat down, silent, listening. “I wanted to get a ruling on something,” he said, and told her what he had discovered that morning about Jody Bachman and Margaret Morency. She didn’t interrupt him. “So, Your Honor, I have a member of the YBMG Board who called off Restoffer’s investigation in Los Angeles, who is also engaged to the attorney for the Group. I think the jury should hear about this.”
Villars finally sat back. “How did this woman call off the police investigation?”
“She called Kelso, the supervisor. He passed it along to the chief.”
“Do you have proof of that?”
Hardy knew this was the tough sell. “
Ms. Morency both contributed to Kelso’s campaign and is on the YBMG Board. I know it was Kelso who called the chief after Restoffer interrogated Bachman.”
Villars spoke slowly now. “That’s not proof.”
“The standard is less in this phase, Your Honor. I’m trying to get the jury to lingering doubt.”
Villars waited for more.
Hardy gave it to her. “Your Honor, these at least are facts, not conjecture. Simpson Crane was killed with his own gun. Larry Witt was killed with his own gun. There is a connection, the Group—okay, it’s tenuous, but it’s there—between these men, and a line running through Jody Bachman, and a lot of money unaccounted for. Crane’s murder investigation is closed down. The fiancée of the Group’s attorney has access and leverage over Kelso. Let the jury see all this and maybe they’ll start to wonder about it. It’s not just my theory. It springs from the facts.”
Villars considered another moment. “But it’s a house of cards.”
“Your Honor . . . ” Hardy started.
“May I, Your Honor?” Villars nodded and Powell stood up. “I took a hard line with you here, yesterday, Mr. Hardy, but in spite of what you may believe, I am not anxious to see anyone condemned to death. So after we adjourned last night, do you know what I did? I called down to Los Angeles and spoke to the head of homicide, who referred me to the chief of police. The homicide department is quote positive, unquote, that Simpson Crane was assassinated by someone paid by Machinists’ Local 47 down there. It’s not a closed case, although this Inspector Restoffer isn’t on it anymore—it’s gone federal with RICO. There is—again I quote—no suspicion that he was killed by someone with the Yerba Buena Medical Group.”
“Still, they called Restoffer off.” Villars was following it all closely, even taking some notes.
Powell sighed. “Evidently the inspector was a little miffed at the federal intervention. When he thought he saw a way back in—it’s a high-profile case—he stepped on a few toes. He was called off because he was hassling people, because he wasn’t being a good cop.”
Standing up, not in her robes, the judge might have been a friendly grandmother. And her voice had no edge now. “Mr. Hardy, I’ve listened carefully to you, one last time. Now I’m talking to you and I hope you listen to me. All of what you say may be true as far as it goes. There may be all kinds of financial shenanigans going on down in Los Angeles, but it doesn’t concern this case. And where it might appear to intersect, it still falls under coincidence. Larry Witt just wasn’t involved in any of this, or if he was there’s no evidence of it.”
“He called Crane & Crane.”
“About this? Did he talk to Crane himself, or Bachman? And if so, about what? Is there any telling?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hardy, I really am. I can see you are trying your damndest, as you should, but I’m not going to admit unsubstantiated theories, and that’s what this is.”
She was moving him with her toward the door. “And now, please excuse me. I’ve got two hours of briefs I’ve got to wade through in”—she looked at her watch—“in forty-five minutes.”
48
Evidently, a lot of people in the courtroom had read the morning paper, or seen the news on television. When Hardy called Nancy to the stand, the reaction was audible.
She was sitting in the first gallery row, next to Dr. Lightner, directly behind Hardy and Jennifer, and she stood stiffly, the way a person would be expected to stand with taped and broken ribs. She still had the bandage over her nose, her eyes black and swollen.
Reporters were snapping photos as she inched painfully toward the center aisle. Villars was not having this—she had allowed cameras inside the courtroom up to this time, so long as their use was unobtrusive, but this action crossed her line.
She rapped her gavel. “That’s enough pictures. All of you sit down. As of this moment I’m forbidding cameras in this courtroom. Anybody who’s got one can leave now. Bailiffs, make sure that they do.”
The bailiffs moved up to the rail. In the ensuing hubbub, as reporters either left with their own cameras or gave them to assistants to remove, Nancy DiStephano made it through the rail, stopping at the defense table. Jennifer reached over and the two women held hands briefly, wordlessly. Her mother straightened up and forced herself to the front of the courtroom to be sworn in.
Hardy assumed his position about ten feet in front of the witness box. “Mrs. DiStephano, what is your relationship to the defendant?”
“I’m her mother.”
Apparently not everyone had known what the earlier commotion surrounding this witness was about because this admission caused another ripple of sound across the back of the courtroom. Villars didn’t act so Hardy had to wait for it to subside.
“Mrs. DiStephano, may I call you Nancy?”
“Sure.”
Hardy reasoned that his best odds were to face it head-on. “For the jury’s benefit, Nancy, I wonder if you could tell us about your injuries.”
Powell jumped up. “Objection, Your Honor. Irrelevant.”
Amazingly, Villars asked for an argument before her ruling. “Mr. Hardy?”
“Your Honor, Mrs. Witt grew up in her mother’s home. The person she has become was formed there. The jury should be aware of this environment.”
Villars said she would allow the line of questioning. Hardy thanked her.
It seemed to him that he and the judge had—perhaps by osmosis—reached some accord. It might be the more relaxed rules governing admissibility in this phase of the trial, but he sensed it was something more.
Hardy approached the witness stand. “Nancy, you’ve recently been released from the hospital—is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Would you tell us the extent of your injuries?”
Nancy described the broken ribs, broken nose, the kidney damage that caused her to urinate blood, the bruises on her breasts, torso, thighs.
“And how did you sustain these injuries?”
“My husband beat me up.”
The courtroom was rapt, silent.
“Your husband, Phil DiStephano, the natural father of the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“And was this the first time he’d beaten you?”
Talking about it, Nancy was starting to withdraw, to hunch her shoulders, the way her daughter did. Or was it more the other way around? She shook her head and Villars leaned over, speaking quietly. “You’ll have to answer with words, please.”
“No,” Nancy said, “it wasn’t the first time.”
To give her a moment, Hardy stepped toward the jury box, turned to look at his client—Jennifer was frowning, not liking this. Hardy came back to Nancy. “Did your husband beat you often?”
The witness shook her head, then said, “Yes.”
“How long has it been since your daughter, the defendant, moved out of the house?”
“About ten years.”
“And before she moved out, did you suffer these beatings at the hands of her father?”
“Yes . . . it’s always been there. Phil would drink too much and get mad about something and hit me.”
“And did this ever happen in Jennifer’s sight?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever hit your daughter?”
She shook her head. “No. He threatened a couple of times but I wouldn’t let him. I got between them. He loved her.” Tears had begun to show on her cheeks. “He just lost control.”
“He just lost control,” Hardy repeated. Taking a few steps again toward the jury, he continued: “In your opinion, Nancy, did this pattern of your husband beating you have any obvious effect on Jennifer’s behavior?”
Nancy was toughing it out, letting the tears come. But, as Jennifer did, she spoke clearly through them. “We didn’t talk about it afterward.”
This wasn’t the answer to the question, but it moved toward it. “You didn’t talk about what?”
“They just happened and then they went away and e
verything went back to being the same.”
“You denied that this was happening? The family denied it?”
“Yes. We just pretended.”
“And Jennifer?”
“She got more and more quiet. And then she moved out.”
“You’d say she became withdrawn, moody, mistrustful?” This was leading her all over the meadow, but he was allowed to do it in this phase and it would, he hoped, go a long way to explain to the jury Jennifer’s apparent callousness in the face of the authority of the court.
“Yes.” Nancy looked over at her daughter. “She was such a sweet little girl. She was my baby girl . . . ”
Although she was maintaining her composure, Nancy’s emotion lay over her like a blanket—her face was blotching with tears. Villars leaned over again. “Mrs. DiStephano? Would you like to take a break?”
They were moving on.
“Nancy, did your daughter ever talk about how she felt about Matt?”
“Matt was her life.”
“Matt was her life.” He took in the jury, then went back to the witness. “She loved her son?”
“Completely. Oh, God, yes.”
“Did you ever see any sign at all that she ever mistreated him, abused him, anything like that?”
“No, nothing. If anything, I thought she was a little overprotective. Maybe spoiled him more than I would have. But I understood where that came from.”
“And where was that?”
“Well, what she’d seen. Her father and me. Larry was the same way, overprotective. They just didn’t want anything bad to happen to Matt.”
This was good. It put Larry and Jennifer on the same side. Back at the defense table, Jennifer was staring straight ahead, crying without a sound.
The 13th Juror Page 46
