Powell was standing, hands in his pockets, trying to affect a casual posture. Hardy wasn't convinced and doubted anyone else was. "Your Honor, with the insurance, the pattern here—"
Villars held up her hand. "I asked you a simple yes or no question. Are you calling anybody to address any of the issues I just raised?"
"Your Honor, I—"
"Yes or no, damn it." She looked over to the court reporter. "Adrienne, strike that profanity." Then, back to Powell: "Yes or no, Mr. Powell."
A faraway rumble of thunder rolled through the room.
"Not to those specific issues. No, Your Honor."
"Are there any specific issues you'd like to preview for us that you can think of that would fall more or less into the category of evidence and not hearsay? Take your time."
Powell sat back down, leaning forward, his forearms on his thighs. "Lieutenant Batiste, who was the investigating officer for Ned Hollis' death, is scheduled to testify."
"Is this the same Lieutenant Batiste who did not see fit to arrest Mrs. Witt for murder nine years ago, presumably because there wasn't sufficient evidence to bring charges?"
Powell was combing his hair straight back with his hands. "We have several other witnesses, Your Honor."
"I'm sure you do, but are any of them going to say anything that might be remotely admissible? You know the law as well as I do, you tell me."
In the middle of his worst nightmare, Powell came up for the third time. "Your Honor, after much deliberation and at some expense, the District Attorney's office decided to exhume Ned Hollis and run scans for poisons. We found the atropine, which is not a recreational drug, in a lethal dose."
"Your Honor," Freeman broke in, "their own witness says Hollis experimented with drugs. He wanted to see if atropine could get him high, that's all."
Villars ignored Freeman's interruption, her eyes on the prosecutor. "As you know, Mr. Powell, the point is not whether you think it, which I believe you do, but whether you can prove it — beyond a reasonable doubt — that Ned Hollis was murdered. Now, what I see is an insurance policy that was used for its original purpose, to pay off the house. I see a recreational-drug user experimenting with a dangerous drug. And here you are waffling on your motive — if Mrs. Witt didn't kill her husband for the money, then she killed him because he was allegedly beating her. Do you have any reports from doctors documenting these beatings? Did she ever report them to the police?"
There was, finally, nothing Powell could say.
Nodding, Villars crossed her arms and walked around behind her desk and stood there a moment. Everyone waited. The rain beat against the window and the clicking of the court reporter's keys stopped. Villars leaned over her chair and picked up, then dropped, four or five stapled pages of legal brief.
She shook her head, taking in the assemblage. "I'm going to be taking a moment to consider this situation. I'd like you all to return here to chambers in fifteen minutes."
* * * * *
Back in her chambers, Villars told Freeman and Hardy that she was prepared to declare a mistrial on Ned Hollis if they wanted it. Of course, in that case, Jennifer could — and would — be retried for the Witt murders only.
Obviously, the jury had been prejudiced — they had heard that the DA, at least, thought that Jennifer had killed her first husband. Also obviously, the jury must have a poor impression of Powell, who was bringing charges that "no reasonable juror" could believe.
Freeman and Hardy wrestled about who got hurt more — the prosecution or the defense. In the end, though, it was Jennifer who made the decision — she did not want to sit in jail while they set a new trial date and started all over again.
* * * * *
They put it all on the record with Villars.
"Your Honor," Freeman said, "I believe the grounds for a mistrial wee caused by prosecutorial misconduct that has violated my client's due-process rights. I believe the case must be dismissed in its entirety and that all further prosecution is barred because Mrs. Witt has been placed once in jeopardy."
Villars hated this. "Nice try, Mr. Freeman. Are you asking for a mistrial or not? If you ask for it, the defendant can be retried. If you don't request it I am not granting it on my own motion."
Freeman, not really expecting to have it both ways, was satisfied nonetheless. But he kept a straight face. "In that case, Your Honor, although I believe the trial has been fatally tainted, we elect to proceed. I have explained the situation to Mrs. Witt, and she elects to go forward. Isn't that true, Jennifer?"
Jennifer looked up. "Yes."
They all trooped back into the courtroom, where Villars announced to the jury that she had decided to grant defense counsel's 1118 motion regarding the murder of Ned Hollis — there wasn't enough evidence as a matter of law to convict Jennifer Witt of killing her first husband. They would be moving on to the next phase of the trial on Monday, but until then, Villars added, why didn't the jury go home early and get a weekend of rest?
* * * * *
Hardy shucked himself out of his wet raincoat, tossed it to the other end of the seat and at the edge of the banquette at Lou's. Freeman slid in opposite him.
It was not yet four o'clock, a dark early afternoon. At the bar Lou was playing a quiet game of liar's dice with one of the regulars; his wife watched a soap opera on the television up in the corner. They were the only other people in the place.
Coffee arrived and Hardy curled his fingers around the mug to warm them. Freeman took his time, adding two spoonfuls of sugar, pouring some cream. He stirred, sipped, added more cream, stirred again.
"Diz, I've got something to tell you and you're not going to like it."
* * * * *
Hardy was trying to keep his hands from shaking. "How long have you known this?"
Freeman studied his own nails. "Longer than you'd like to know, Diz."
Hardy nodded. What could he do? Freeman had just told him that Jennifer had, in fact, killed her first husband, Ned. She'd shot him up with atropine. Just as the prosecution had contended. And Freeman had known all along.
"You know, you are a true son of a bitch," he said.
The older man nodded. "I can understand why you'd think so, but I didn't really think—"
"Fuck that, David. You didn't really think? Give me a break."
"Diz—"
"No. No, Diz anything. She told you?"
Freeman nodded.
"And you could go on with this? This incredible charade?"
"Of course."
The blood was pumping. "'Of course', even. I really love that. Not just 'sure, Diz', but 'of course'."
"She's a client. Of course she's guilty. We're supposed to get her off. And, I might add, we just did."
"We just did. Jesus. Give us a medal, would you."
"It bothers you, does it?"
Hardy lifted his tired eyes. "Bothers me? I think that's fair, David. More than fair, even just, if the word has any meaning for you." He took a long pull at his beer. "But as a matter of interest, since I'm punting out of this case, did she kill Larry, too? And Matt even? What else have you known all along?"
"No."
"No, what?"
"No, I don't think she killed Larry. Or Matt."
"You don't think so?"
"Diz, I said no."
"No, David, you said you didn't think so, which, I need hardly tell you, is fairly open to interpretation, as if you didn’t know."
Freeman was picking at the frayed wrist seams on his shirt. "You can't punt out. What do you mean? Quit? Now?"
Hardy gave him a long look. "I know you're not much into popular culture, David, but yes, punt means quit. I'm out of here. I'm off the case, okay? Dropping it. You think I could stick around and be part of this? I get a woman off when she murdered her husband? She admits it. Is that supposed to make me feel good? Why do you tell me now? You think the irony appeals to me, is that it?"
"No, I don't think that."
Hardy waited, his breath
ing labored.
Freeman picked some more at his shirt ends. "It was so complicated, Diz. And…" — he seemed, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words — "…and I valued you. I didn't want to lose you, and I know I would have."
Flattery. Bullshit. Hardy's nose was getting refined.
He sucked the rest of his beer. "Well, David, the hell with you. And the hell with her."
Rising, he slammed the bottle down on the table and headed for the door.
Freeman, forgetting his own drink, was up after him, out into the rain.
* * * * *
"I want you to just listen to her, I want you to hear it for yourself." Freeman had followed Hardy out to his car, had gotten himself into the passenger seat and now they sat, the rain pelting on the roof, the windows steamed, in the public lot across from the Hall.
Hardy shook his head in disbelief. "What's she going to say? What can she possibly say?"
32
I had not choice. He would have killed me, would have hunted me down and killed me. How long do you have to take that before you can do something?
That's what they all say, right? That's what you're thinking? Well, if that's what they all say, maybe there's something to it.
The first year or so we both had jobs, we bought a house, we were going to be like our folks. He wasn't doing much coke yet. If he hit me one time in a fight, he'd be all sweet afterward and we'd make up.
I went home to my mom after the first bad time. You know what she told me? She told me she hoped he stopped but she'd better not tell Dad because he'd get all upset and what could he really do anyway? Except maybe go on over to Ned's and get himself in trouble. Either him or Ned, and either way it would be trouble so I'd be better off in the long run if I could just work it out with Ned and not involve my dad.
That's what wives did, Mom said. They worked it out and tried not to complain, and maybe if I was just a little nicer, maybe Ned wouldn't get so mad. If I wouldn't get so bitchy, you know.
So I did try but the thing was, I couldn't get any control over Ned when he was drinking and doing coke and all that other. He was just plain mean, and even worse after he lost the job with Bill Graham — he was like one of the chief roadies for a couple of years — and then they let him go — guess why? — and he had to go back to little clubs and just got meaner all the time. And of course in those music scenes there was all that coke.
Anyway, I had this girlfriend, Tara, down in LA, and I kind of ran away to stay with her. I made the mistake of calling Ned and telling him I was gone, I wasn't coming back but he shouldn't worry about me. Isn't that great? I didn't want him to worry about me. I just wanted it to be over.
But he didn't want it over. It was a mistake to have called. I never dreamed he'd come after me. Stupid. I know now. He came down and was so weirdly calm. He wasn't stoned or drunk. I think that's what scared me the most.
We let him in. I never thought he'd… well, he just walked up to Tara and didn't say a word and punched her in the stomach as hard as he could. Ned was a big man, you know, six feet, two hundred pounds. Then he stood over her and said he'd kill her if she ever hid me again or helped me or called the police.
And me, too. He'd kill me, too, if I called the police. I believed he would, too. I had no doubt at all. He grabbed me by the hair and the arm and we got to the car and drove back all night and he wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. Then we got home, he hit me because the car was dirty and he made me wash it.
It sounds strange, but during all this time we were trying to live normal lives. I mean, I was working with Harlan, I was his receptionist, thinking someday to be a hygienist — oh, you didn't know that? Yes, that's how that started. I didn't plan it, to be unfaithful. That wasn't who I thought I was. But everything with Ned was falling apart and Harlan was very nice to me. Gentle. So it was easy to keep the relationship hidden. It wasn't like I had to sneak out at night. I mean, we'd just close the doors at lunch.
And then, after we were together, he saw the… he saw what Ned had done and said I should report it, call the cops, do something. I kept telling him Ned hadn't done it. They were accidents, that's all.
Well, you saw Harlan. He thinks you do everything you're supposed to do and things somehow will work out. So finally, I think I'm in love with him — Harlan. I know he's fat now, but in those days he was just big. I've always had this weakness for big men.
Now I decide to wait until Ned isn't drunk or stoned and try to talk to him, tell him I'm unhappy and can't take him beating me anymore and I'm going to leave. I don't mention Harlan, of course. Thank God. I tell him there's no other man, nobody else. It's not that. It's just between him and me that we're not working out.
I kept thinking that if I don't run away, if I'm reasonable, his reaction is going to be different.
Which it was. He sits there in his chair for about an hour and then — real calm again, which should have been a warning — he says he's going to go out for a while and think about things.
By midnight he's not home and I finally fall asleep.
I wake up screaming, but there's a sock or something in my mouth and I can't breathe or make any noise and there's this awful awful pain down… down in me… and Ned's on top of me, holding me down.
The next day I can't move. My insides feel broken, ripped up, I still can't breathe, there's blood on the sheets and my hands are tied to the bed. I see that my closet is open and half the clothes are pulled out, cut into shreds, thrown around the room. On the floor I see the knife — it's a butter knife — he's used the dull end, poking it in me.
I wake up again and he's there, untying me, he's straight again. Helps me get in the bath. I'm scared every second now. He's being calm and says he can make things disappear without a trace. I'll find out it's true, he says.
So I take a sick day — I couldn't have gone in anyway — and then it's the weekend and one of the nights Ned has scored some coke and he wants me to get high with him. We'll have fun, he says. It'll be like old times. What old times? I never used drugs.
Well, I can't do it. I'm so scared, I'm still hurting bad. Ned starts to get upset with me again — I've got to stop that. I can't take it any more, not right them, so I try to be nice, do what he wants, and he wants to have sex.
Can you believe this? I'm pleading with him, saying I hurt real bad, but he says so what, I'm his wife, get on your back. And I do. And I'm not sure at the moment I'm going to die.
But I don't. That was the worst, not dying. You know how many times I wished I had just died then? How many other times? I mean, truly die, not wake up, just be gone from all this? And believe me, once you feel that — like you really want to die — it's not too far to want someone else to be dead. Why does it have to be me?
I wake up sometime early and Ned is lying next to me, not moving. For a long time I watch him, thinking, hoping, he might be dead. I pinch him in the leg and there's no reaction, then he snores or snorts or something. But the idea stays, the germ of it.
A couple of days go by and I'm starting to heal and things look different, the way they do. No one really wants to believe there's no hope, do they? Even though, really, there isn't.
I'm back at work, I'm putting Harlan off with some excuse and suddenly I realize I haven't seen Boots — Boots was my cat — I haven't seen her in days. Sitting at the front desk at Harlan's, then, all of a sudden, I just know, the only way out, what I have to do.
Don't kid yourself, there wasn't any escape. Ned can make things disappear without a trace. He was proving it. I was next.
I arrange it so he thinks we're going to get high. I'm sorry I've been so difficult. I'll be a fun person the way I used to be…
This time it's easy. I give him the shot, take a long hot shower, drive out to the beach and bury the stuff, go to my parents' house for breakfast — just visiting, which I still did back then. When I get back home I call the police, tell them my husband's had an accident.
* * * * *
The
tiny airless interview room smelled of sweat and wet wool.
Freeman sat, legs crossed, in the chair that he had pushed back against the wall in the corner away from the door.
Hardy's mouth was dry, his back stiff. He had not moved a muscle in fifteen minutes. He found that he believed every word that she had said, and was struggling to keep his perspective. "You could probably have pled that as a Murder Two," he said, "which would take it out of capital."
Freeman said, "We got a dismissal. That takes it out of capital, too."
"I don't care what the law says." Jennifer brushed her hair away from her face. "I knew him. There was no other way."
"You should have tried calling the police. They could have done something." Hardy, arguing against himself now, realized how lame it sounded.
Jennifer allowed a one-note laugh. "No, they couldn't. Don't you understand? This had been going on for two years and they couldn't have done a damn thing even if they wanted to, even if they believed me."
"Why wouldn't they believe you?"
Because that's not how it really works. You should know better. You think the law's here to protect potential victims? Wrong. What the law does is punish people who've already broken the law. Until somebody's already hurt or killed, they've got no business—"
"But you were hurt. And Ned did break the law, he would have been punished—"
"Jesus, in your dreams." Jennifer looked to Freeman. "Is this guy for real? Does he live in the real world?"
"I live in the real world, Jennifer, and you can't—"
"Oh? Well listen, here's the real world. If I'm lucky, Ned gets no bail — impossible right there — and then gets a year, if that, for a first offense. Meanwhile I've got maybe a year to move, change my name and my life. Then, guess what? — Ned gets out of jail and comes and gets me, wherever I am, and I disappear just like Boots. My cat. Do I have to explain this? Do I have to draw you a picture. I'm the one whose life is ruined, if I stay alive."
Hardy 04 - 13th Juror, The Page 27
