Hardy 04 - 13th Juror, The

by John Lescroart

  Powell was coming across as considerably more sincere than he had four months ago — perhaps he'd gotten some coaching. The hand gestures didn't seem as rehearsed. He moved a step closer to his own personal knot of reporters. "Look," he lowered his voice, speaking from the heart, "I'm in favor of the death penalty. And we've got special circumstances here that, if proven, warrant the death penalty — hell, that cry out for it. Show me a little remorse, an admission of guilt, even a cry for mercy, the District Attorney can be responsive to that. Defendants aren't numbers to me — they're people, living and breathing human beings. This trial isn't part of my campaign to Get Tough, California." He leaned a leg casually over the corner of the table on the prosecution side of the courtroom. "This is a gamble by the defendant — she thought she could commit murder for money and get away with it. She was wrong. Terribly wrong. I am not bloodthirsty, but if she is found guilty, we're going to ask for the extreme penalty. That's justice, and she'll have brought it on herself."

  Freeman had his own group. "This is, unfortunately, all too typical of the ways things get done. The very fact that all you folks are here shows how out of line it is already. Nobody's talking about the weight of evidence, which is light — fatally light. It never would have gotten this far except it's likely to keep some names in the newspaper more than they would be otherwise. I doubt it will even get to trial after I file my motion to dismiss."

  "You don't think it'll get to trial?" This was from a woman with a microphone.

  Freeman shook his head. "I doubt it."

  Another hand, another microphone. "But the grand jury indicted her."

  Freeman smiled. "The grand jury tends to indict whomever the District Attorney asks it to."

  "But she escaped from jail, didn't she? She ran away?"

  "She's resourceful and she's innocent, and she doesn't trust a system that's already gotten it this wrong. I think in her place I would've broken out, too, if I could have figured out how to do it."

  Powell was standing now, a hand in a pocket, smiling his smile. Freeman, serious and indignant at the system's injustice, was warming up for when the judge came in. Everybody had an agenda.

  Hardy walked back up the middle aisle and out into the hallway. They still had twenty minutes.

  * * * * *

  Looking through some papers, his briefcase beside him, Ken Lightner was sitting on the wooden bench in the hall across from Department 22. Hardy sat next to him. "I want to apologize to you. It seems you were right."

  Lightner put the papers down. "About what? Not that I wouldn't take just about anything right now."

  "About Jennifer's mother, her father beating her."

  The psychiatrist nodded, shuffling his papers. This, obviously, was old news to him.

  "You're disappointed?"

  "I thought you might have found something a little closer to home, something with Jennifer herself."

  Hardy shook his head. "Jennifer isn't giving anything away. Especially after this escape fiasco. Freeman's pulling out his hair, what he's got left."

  "I'm pulling out mine, too. She's made me stop talking about it, which given where she is tends to limit our conversations. How are we not supposed to talk about it?"

  "What, exactly?"

  "The truth. Larry beating her. Abusing her. Her defense. What she's going through. To say nothing of all this madness over the last months. How is she supposed to deal with all that?" Lightner pushed his hair back with his fingers.

  "You've seen her, then?"

  "I've seen her. I try to visit her almost every day."

  "That must cut some hell into your practice."

  Hardy hadn't meant to be accusatory, but Lightner's back went right up. "I take care of my patients, Mr. Hardy. I care about them. I try to be there for them when they need me. As I assume you do with your clients."

  Hardy took the rebuke. Lightner had a point. Sometimes you didn't punch the clock. "You want to accept a second apology in five mintes? That didn't come out the way it was supposed to."

  Lightner shrugged it off. "It's all right. I'm under a good deal of stress myself. I don't mean to snap back at everybody but I don't know what to do about this, about Jennifer. Her irrational guilts, her self-destructiveness… it's making me question my own judgment, whether I can do her any good."

  "What do you think would help her?"

  "I don't know right now. I don't know. The problem is I can't get her to talk about, even acknowledge, her real problem."

  "So what have you been talking about every day?"

  Lightner's expression said he knew how it must sound under the circumstances. "We talk about her self-esteem, Mr. Hardy. How she's finally growing up, taking responsibility for herself. About her future."

  "Her future?"

  "I know, I know, we don't have to go into it." Lightner had put his papers down, was rubbing his hands together. He raised his eyes to Hardy. "But that's what she wants to talk about. How she's finally getting things straight. She says she knows she can probably get out of this altogether by blaming Larry but she's just not going to do it. It wasn't his fault."

  "Beating on her wasn't his fault? What about her saying she didn't do it, and a defense of battered woman syndrome would be an admission?"

  Lightner nodded. "Yes, I'm afraid so. Things like that are deeply ingrained." He stood up, taking his briefcase, asking where the men's room was, if he had time before Calendar came on.

  He had disappeared around the corner before Hardy realized that he had left a couple of his papers on the bench. Glancing down at Jennifer Witt's name, highlighted in yellow, Hardy picked them up.

  This first page was an initial patient's sign-in form from Lightner's practice, filled in four years before, giving an overview of medical history, previous physicians, allergies, surgical background and so on. Hardy thought a minute, folded the paper, and put it in his inside coat pocket.

  * * * * *

  Jennifer in her red jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg irons, was the first computer number, or "line," called.

  Something was up. Judge Oscar Thomasino wasn't interested in the computer printout on his desk before him — his eyes followed Jennifer as she limped from the bailiff's entrance on the judge's left until she got to the podium in the center of the courtroom where she stood flanked by her two personal bailiffs.

  Freeman was waiting for her, though there was a near-tangible air of friction between them. Jennifer glanced behind Freeman's back to where Hardy sat at the defense table. She nodded to him, her eyes grateful, or at least welcoming, though he couldn't say why that should be so — he hadn't seen her in a week.

  He also wasn't exactly sure why he'd come today — this was the second arraignment for Jennifer and she certainly wasn't going to change her plea. Maybe, he told Frannie lightly, he missed being in a courtroom. Now he wondered if there hadn't been a germ of truth there.

  This was supposed to be a more or less pro forma administrative procedure that would determine the date that Jennifer's trial would start or, more precisely, when it would relocate to its eventual Department. Once the presiding trial judge and the courtroom were assigned, which would be at another calendaring Monday like this one, the trial itself might not start for another six months to a year.

  But Thomasino started things off with a curve ball from the bench. Judges had different techniques to combat the routine. Hardy was beginning to understand that Thomasino like to start the day with a little drama before wading into the sea of paperwork. "Mr. Freeman, is your client all right?" He was taking her in — pale, thin, hair hacked off unevenly.

  Dean Powell, who had hardly been paying attention, stood up. "Your Honor, we will stipulate that Mrs. Witt may have been badly treated during her incarceration in Costa Rica, she—"

  Thomasino used his gavel. Everyone in the courtroom jumped. "The court addressed its remarks to Mr. Freeman," he said mildly. "If I remember, he could speak for himself last time we did this." His face was stern, but there was so
mething near-playful behind it. "Mr. Freeman?"

  With the door open it was Freeman's nature to stick his foot in. "Your Honor, my client has been badly beaten. She needs medical attention. She is so intimidated by what she's gone through that she's afraid to say anything. Certainly her civil rights have been violated. The People have given up this case by their handling of the entire extradition process."

  "Didn't this alleged beating take place in Costa Rica?"

  "They were our proceedings. It would not have happened if we hadn't—"

  Thomasino's spark of humor vanished. "It wouldn't have happened if your client had not broken out of our jail here and fled the country."

  "Nevertheless, Your Honor—"

  "Nevertheless, Mr. Freeman, I've got a full docket and I think the air conditioner's starting to act up. You mind if we get on with it?" Evidently Freeman did mind — his retort was on the way when Thomasino leaned out of his chair. "Give it a rest, David." Freeman, confidently, patted Jennifer's arm. She had no reaction.

  Thomasino was back at his printout writing himself a note. "I assume, given the… interruptions to this point, that everybody's ready to proceed. Is that the case, Mr. Powell?"

  "It is, Your Honor."

  "Mr. Freeman?"

  Freeman had another problem here. Normally in a potential death-penalty case the defense would delay and delay and then try to delay some more. But he had discussed this with Jennifer and, as usual, she hadn't agreed with his decision or strategy.

  Powell wanted the trial to begin quickly, and to conclude before the election in November. As a matter of principle, Freeman hated to agree to anything the prosecution wanted, but Jennifer had tied his hands. She was in jail and she wasn't getting out until she was found not guilty. Not unreasonably from her viewpoint, she wanted the trial to begin as soon as possible.

  Freeman had told her it wasn't at all certain that she would be cleared. She was up for three counts of capital murder, and he knew that the DA would not frivolously charge anything that serious. He also knew that her case, as presented by the prosecution, would feature the kind of motive and presumed callousness that persuaded juries to convict — murder for insurance money.

  He wanted Hardy to have time to find "some other dudes." He wanted time to think, to plot, to devise. He wanted time for something else to happen, for Powell to be elected and a new prosecutor, without Powell's agenda, to be appointed.

  "Mr. Freeman?" Thomasino reported. "Are you ready to proceed?"

  Freeman had no choice. "We are, Your Honor."

  Thomasino looked surprised and he was. He had never seen a capital case actually ready to be set for trial at the first setting date. "All right then." And the trial was calendared for Monday, August 13, in Department 25.

  * * * * *

  "It's you I'm trusting on this, you know, not him."

  Before leaving the building after the hearing, Hardy had decided to go on up and share a few impressions with Jennifer. He also had a list of questions written on a legal pad in his briefcase. Now they sat, knee to knee, in the tiny interview room by the guard's station. Jennifer was expressing her displeasure with David Freeman.

  "He's a slob and he doesn't believe anything about me — not even that they raped me down there."

  Hardy pulled his chair back. He wasn't sure how their knees had gotten so close and he didn't want to be misinterpreted. "That's the thing about the pros in this law business, Jennifer, and it's why David's so good. It's not personal. If you getting raped would help your case in any way, he'd jump on it with both feet. But, unfortunately, it doesn't. I mean, it happened because you escaped."

  "If I can get off I'm going to go back down there, find that guard and kill him. I swear to God."

  Instinctively, Hardy looked up at the bare yellow walls, fairly secure in the knowledge that this room wasn't tapped. He hoped. Leaning forward, he unconsciously lowered his voice. "It would be a good idea to keep the death threats to a minimum for the next few months, okay?"

  She smiled. "It's what you call a figure of speech."

  "I know. But sometimes the sense of humor thing around here gets a little fuzzy."

  "I'll watch it." Jennifer stared a minute through the glass to the empty guard station. "I like your wife."

  Hardy nodded, somehow wishing this hadn't come up, knowing that it had to. Maybe, in fact, it was another reason why he'd felt the needed another visit, to reassure himself that the connection between Jennifer and Frannie was unimportant. "She said you had a nice talk."

  Jennifer shrugged. "We did. It was. Just mostly girl stuff but I haven't talked to anybody like I was a normal person in so long…"

  "I thought Dr. Lightner talked to you every day here."

  He saw her processing his knowledge of that information. It wasn't clear what she made of it. "Well, sure… Ken."

  "I mean, doesn't he talk to you like a normal person?"

  Out of any context, she smiled. Hardy thought he'd like to videotape an interview with her and analyze when these random smiles appeared, but he was almost afraid of what he'd find. "Ken doesn't count," she said. "Besides, I don't think anybody's normal for him. Normal doesn't have any meaning. It's one of those psychological buzzwords."

  Hardy had already heard enough jargon to know what she was saying, but she had left open an avenue for questions. "What about down in Costa Rica? Didn't you meet anybody down there?"

  Her eyes shifted to him, then away. "No. I didn't think it would be a good idea."

  "So what did you do?"

  Again the empty guard station seemed to grab her attention. She spoke into the window. "The first few days I just stayed in the hotel. Then I went to the beach, I read a few books."

  Hardy could probe this by asking her which ones but it wasn't his intention to interrogate her. Like her rape, anything that had happened to her in Costa Rica wasn't going to have much effect on what she'd done or didn't do last December.

  "Did I tell you I'd seen your mother?" he said.

  "You'd said you were going to. How was she?"

  "She wasn't good, Jennifer. Your father had beat her up." He didn't think she needed to hear any details. The vision of her mother's battered body was still coming back to him.

  Jennifer looked down at the table, a thumbnail to her mouth.

  "I understand this thing — this beating — it passes down through generations in families," he said.

  Her eyes came up, pained. "We've been through all this." And, she was saying, we're not going into it again. She became brisk, business-like, and bizarrely, almost cheerful. "Anything else? You said you had some questions."

  Hardy took his pad from his briefcase. Last night he had reviewed the notes from his visit to Jennifer's house, his questions.

  Yes, she had stayed in the house in the months between the murders and her arrest, except she hadn't been able to make herself go upstairs. She had gone into their bedroom once to get her clothes and some personal items, and the experience had been so upsetting she hadn't been able to make herself go back in.

  "So how did you do the inventory for Terrell?"

  "Well, that's why I messed it up," she said. "Nothing was gone from downstairs, they hadn't taken my jewelry. I didn't even think about the gun." She held up a hand. "I know. A big mistake."

  "She might at other times not be telling the truth, Hardy thought, but this, he decided, wasn't one of them.

  "Might there have been another gun?" Hardy asked.

  "What other gun? Where?"

  "I don't know. Anywhere. Maybe Matt had a gun? A toy?"

  She shook her head. "No. We wouldn't let him own one. It was something Larry and I agreed on. When he was an intern he said he saw too many accidents."

  "So no gun?"

  "No gun. Why do you ask that?"

  "Trick question. The dog that barked in the nighttime."

  This time she sighed. "This can make a girl tired, Mr. Hardy."

  "Just one more, a straight one. Okay?
"

  She nodded.

  "Crane & Crane?"

  Her face skewed up. "I don't know. Chess and checkers? Is this a quiz or something?"

  "It's a law firm. Have you ever heard of it?"

  "Why?"

  "You tell me first."

  She shook her head again. "It's not familiar, no. Now why?"

  Hardy was putting his notes away. "Larry might have called them about something."

  Jennifer gave it another minute. The female guards came back to their station. They passed a bag of Fritos back and forth.

  "I don't know what it could be," Jennifer said. "Just some more nothing."

  21

  Hardy was feeling better about his office — the dart board was in place, moved in and nailed up over the weekend. It was early afternoon and he was getting back into the groove, throwing some "20 Down," trying to hit all the numbers on the board in descending order, ending with a bull's-eye. In his glory days Hardy had often done it in under ten rounds — thirty darts — and his all-time record was twenty-four. Now he'd already thrown eight rounds and was hung up on "11," which was normally his easiest shot, his "in and out" number in a wide range of money games.

  Freeman entered without knocking. Hardy missed again.

  "This is not billable," Freeman said.

  "I'm thinking," Hardy replied. "Thinking counts."

  The older man closed the door, then walked over and sat on a corner of Hardy's desk. "I'm thinking, too. I'm thinking that we get a trial in two months so Dean Powell can get free ink in time to get elected, and I can't object because my client wont' let me."

  Hardy pegged another dart, finally hitting the "11." He held a last dart and threw it randomly — or thought it was random until it smacked into the middle of the "10." He was getting it back.

  "And then," Freeman was continuing, "I come in to check on the progress made by my hand-chosen ace investigator and he is throwing darts. Am I the only one that feels some pressure here? I think that's a fair question. Two months for a capital case. It's unheard of."