BUM DEAL: Jake Lassiter Legal Thrillers

by Paul Levine

  I pointed toward the defense table. Calvert was in whispered conversation with Solomon, but at the mention of his name, he swung toward the witness stand and stared at Ann Cavendish with those deep, dark eyes. She had difficulty even looking in that direction.

  For several seconds, she neither moved her head nor answered.

  “Ms. Cavendish,” I said.

  Finally, she glanced at Calvert. “Yes, I know him. That is, I knew him. In Boston.”

  As I had promised Pepe Suarez, it took about twenty minutes to tell the tale. Midwestern upbringing. Moved to Chicago, then Boston in early 2005. Worked as a medical sales rep, pitching hip- and knee-replacement gear to hospitals and orthopedic-surgery groups. Called on the defendant, who asked her out. First date, no problem, second date, no problem. Third date, she went to his apartment.

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  “We had some wine. Red, I believe.”

  “Then what?”

  “He played the piano. Something classical. He’s very good. I was impressed. I’d never met anyone quite like him. Accomplished in so many fields.”

  “What happened next?”

  “We sat on the sofa and…”

  “Yes?”

  Her face took on a pinkish tone. “We made out. Kissed. He groped me a little bit, not offensively or anything. I pushed his hand away, and he stopped. We kissed some more, and he put one hand on my neck, just brushing the skin. But then he squeezed my neck with one hand. It wasn’t so much painful as frightening. With the other hand, he gripped both my wrists so I couldn’t move. He’s incredibly strong. There was nothing I could do. Nothing!”

  She stopped. Her eyes welled, and then tears flowed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” the judge said. “Would you like a brief recess, Ms. Cavendish?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir. I’d like to get this over with.”

  I took her through the rest of it quickly. She had passed out. When she came to, she was in his bed, naked, and he was inside her. She tried to fight him off then but couldn’t. After he ejaculated, letting out a roar, he let her up. She gathered her clothes and fled into the night. The next day, her neck was bruised. She wore a turtleneck to work. Calvert called her, but she wouldn’t answer. She spotted his car outside her apartment. She lived in fear of him, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat.

  No, she didn’t go to the hospital. Didn’t call the police. Didn’t even tell her friends.

  “All the clichés are true,” she said. “I was so ashamed. I blamed myself.”

  She fell into a deep depression. Missed work, bungled sales reports. She was fired and moved to Atlanta, vowing never to return to Boston.

  “Thank you, Ms. Cavendish. On behalf of the state of Florida, thank you.”

  The jurors’ eyes were all fixed on the witness, who had been both credible and an object of pathos. Our bleeding had been stopped, Ann Cavendish our tourniquet. And suddenly, our theory of the vicious sociopath hiding in surgeon’s scrubs did not seem so far-fetched.

  “Your witness,” I said to Solomon and Lord.

  Ann Cavendish exhaled a sigh, apparently grateful her ordeal was over, perhaps not realizing that it was just beginning.

  -63-

  Shock and Awe

  Victoria Lord smiled at Ann Cavendish. If she smiled at me like that, I’d check for bruises. As Victoria approached the lectern, it occurred to me that the two women had something in common. They’d both slept with Calvert. But the similarities ended there. Victoria considered Calvert brilliant and, more important, innocent. Ann feared Calvert as a scheming rapist.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Cavendish,” Victoria said.

  The witness nodded her hello.

  “Or should I say Ms. Smith?”

  Ann Cavendish’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

  “You have been known as Jane Smith, have you not?”

  “Yes… I… was… I was born with that name. I lawfully changed it.”

  My witness was rattled already. Her face seemed frozen, a stroke victim. We’d gone over this. I’d prepared her. A routine records search in Atlanta would have turned up the name change. No big deal.

  “Why did you change your name?”

  “To make sure your client couldn’t find me.”

  “Is that true? Were you hiding from him? Or from creditors?”

  Again, Ann Cavendish started to answer. His lips moved, but no words came out. Her eyes were not so much deer-in-the-headlights as deer-smashed-through-the-windshield.

  “Did you understand the question?” Victoria pressed her.

  “Objection,” I sang out, trying to buy time for my jittery witness. “Counsel is badgering the witness.”

  The judge looked at me over his spectacles. “Mr. Lassiter, there’s no such objection known to the rules of evidence.”

  “I know that, Your Honor. But I’ve seen it on Law & Order, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.”

  “Denied. The witness may answer.”

  Still, Ann Cavendish, aka Jane Smith, didn’t say a word. Victoria shot me a sideways glance with just a hint of a smile. She could risk that, as all the jurors’ eyes were fixed on my mute and paralyzed witness. I’d taught Victoria to cross-examine my way. Shock and awe. Sure, the book on cross-examination says to tread carefully and deliberately. Feign friendliness. Lead the witness down the path. Pin the witness down to one story. Set a trap and lower the boom.

  Maybe I’m just impatient, but I like to score with the first punch. I played football in the days when you could horse-collar the runner, head-slap an offensive lineman, and clothesline the receiver who dared to run a slant. I liked to do all that, starting with a late and vicious hit on whatever speed demon chose to return the opening kickoff.

  Yeah, I get the irony. I’m a guy who might have had his bell rung too many times, and here I’m singing about the joy of smashing an opponent’s helmet with my padded forearm. Life is like that. We hold beliefs and take actions that are self-defeating.

  Finally, the witness said, “I didn’t have to hide from creditors. I declared bankruptcy. Lawfully.”

  “Lawfully. Just as you changed your name?” There was just a hint of sarcasm in Victoria’s voice. Perhaps she picked that up from Solomon. I try to avoid it, often unsuccessfully.

  “Yes, in the courts.”

  “When did you declare bankruptcy?”

  “Eleven or twelve years ago.”

  “Hmm. Strange.” Victoria pretended to be puzzled. “Where did you file your bankruptcy?”

  “In court.”

  “Of course, but where?”

  Victoria plucked a blue-backed legal document from her file. It could have been the bankruptcy petition or just a prop. The lawyer’s trick of making the witness worry about what you’re holding. I’ve done it with grocery lists.

  “I think it might have been Chicago,” the witness said.

  Victoria wrinkled her lovely brow. “But weren’t you living in Boston then? Isn’t that when you dated Dr. Calvert, summer of 2005?”

  Ann Cavendish’s eyes darted to me for help. I had none. If you were scoring the fight at home, Victoria was ahead on points. The witness had not admitted anything of substance, but she seemed unnerved by the geography of her life. Chicago, Boston, Atlanta. When and where? This should be so simple. What was the problem?

  “Yes, 2005, that’s when he raped me. In Boston. That’s where…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Let’s talk about Boston,” Victoria said in an ominous tone. “You stated that Dr. Calvert had a condominium.”

  “Yes, a two bedroom, two bath. Stainless-steel appliances in the kitchen.”

  Victoria cocked her head and studied the witness. Yeah, it was an odd answer, though I couldn’t quite say why.

  “Where was Dr. Calvert’s condo located?”

  “In Allston. On Beacon.” She fired off the answers quickly. “A redbrick building. Ten or twelve stories. His cond
o was on the top floor. Beautiful kitchen with stainless-steel appliances.”

  Repeating herself like a deranged android on Westworld.

  Victoria smiled placidly at the witness but didn’t ask a question.

  She didn’t have to. Ann Cavendish was now a motormouth. “The condo was very close to St. Elizabeth’s, where Dr. Calvert was on staff. I suppose that’s why he bought there. For the convenience.”

  And those stainless-steel appliances, I thought.

  Victoria let the witness squirm in the silence for a few seconds. “Very good, Ms. Cavendish. A-plus answering questions I haven’t asked.”

  I could have objected. Victoria was commenting on the witness’s answer, but any objection would just have drawn attention to what was becoming obvious. Ann Cavendish was spitting out answers as if she had memorized them. Back in the war room, she had been relaxed and confident and credible. Now, under Victoria’s attack, she was unraveling.

  It started then, the noise in my skull. Slowly at first, a set of keys rattling inside the drum of a clothes dryer as it spun endless circles.

  I noticed the courtroom door swing open. State Attorney Pincher walked in and resumed the position he had staked out earlier. Standing by the door, arms crossed. In the event of fire, earthquake, or legal disaster, he would be the first one out.

  “And where did you live in summer 2005, Ms. Cavendish?” Victoria asked.

  “I rented a one-bedroom apartment in Chestnut Hill off Boylston.”

  “Is that in Chicago?”

  “No. No. Boylston is in Boston. I lived in Boston.”

  Again, Victoria looked puzzled. But I knew she was as confused as a safecracker who’s got the combination in her vest pocket. She looked down at the blue-backed legal document she’d been holding and said, “In July 2005, still known as Jane W. Smith, you filed for bankruptcy in Chicago, swearing you were a resident of Cook County, Illinois, and that you were an actress, then unemployed, with substantial credit card debt. You are that Jane W. Smith, correct?”

  Another long pause. Easy question, I thought. The jurors doubtless thought the same.

  “Yes, but there may be a time mix-up. Date mix-up. Chicago. Boston. Here. There. It happens. When I met Dr. Calvert, I was a sales rep for surgical prostheses. Mostly hip for partial or total arthroplasty. Some cemented, some cementless. Cobalt chromium and titanium cobalt components. Knee prostheses, too.”

  The words were pouring out now. She seemed to believe that if she kept talking, she could halt the mortar barrage of damning questions. Inside my head, the dryer with the rattling keys had been replaced. Now, a Boeing 777 had fired up its giant engines, a discordant whine that quickly became a mechanical roar.

  “You are an actress, are you not, Ms. Cavendish?”

  “Part-time, yes. It’s difficult to make a living at it.”

  “You have appeared in featured roles in regional theater, correct?”

  “A few.”

  “A production of The Belle of Amherst in Macon, Georgia, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and unfortunately, it was an oncoming train. Solomon and Lord had apparently done more research into my witness’s past than I had. But then, that was George Barrios’s job. He was good, but aging. The same could be said of me. This was George’s last case. Could it be mine, too?

  “How many actors in that play?” Victoria asked. I could barely hear her over the jetliner inside my brain.

  For the first time, Ann Cavendish smiled, albeit ruefully. “Just one. Me.”

  “You played the poet Emily Dickinson, and you had to memorize and recite several of her lengthy poems.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “As well as all the rest of her dialogue?”

  “It’s a very talky play. That’s all there is.”

  “And you also portrayed her sister, her brother, her father, her mentor, and others?”

  “Fourteen characters in all,” Ann Cavendish said.

  “Wow, I could never do that,” Victoria said, all friendly now.

  Oh, you’re good, Victoria. If you weren’t whupping my ass, I’d take a moment to feel proud.

  “It’s one of the challenges of the stage,” Ann Cavendish said.

  “A courtroom is a little like a stage, a trial a little like a play, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.”

  “And ‘all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.’ Would you agree?”

  There was no more fear in Ann Cavendish’s eyes. “That’s from As You Like It,” she said. “At a summer-stock production in Asheville, I played Rosalind.”

  “The spirited and clever young woman who disguises herself as a man. Shakespeare knew something about characters wearing masks, didn’t he, Ms. Cavendish?”

  The witness’s head dropped just a bit, and she said softly, “I guess all of us wear masks, some more than others.”

  “Back to my earlier question,” Victoria said. “Do you know the biggest difference between a play and a courtroom?”

  “This is real,” Ann Cavendish said.

  Victoria nodded agreeably. “Yes, there’s that. But also, onstage, if someone asks you a question, you know the answer. Everything is scripted, correct?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “If you tell a lie, it’s only because the playwright instructed you to.”

  “I never thought of it that way, but yes.”

  “You don’t have to answer truthfully, except to be true to the script. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But here, what’s the first thing you did when you walked in the courtroom today?”

  Ann Cavendish looked toward me, then past me. I followed her gaze. Sitting in the front row of the gallery were Pepe Suarez and his goon, J. T. Wetherall. Was she looking at them? They were whispering to each other, an angry look scorching Suarez’s face.

  “I took an oath,” the witness said.

  “Not to recite someone else’s story but your own?”

  “Yes.”

  “The whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you honor your oath today?”

  Ann Cavendish didn’t answer. The business of swearing an oath always puzzled me. Honest people don’t need to put their hands on a Bible to tell the truth, and dishonest people could swear on their mothers’ lives and still tell whoppers.

  With her question still pending, Victoria asked another. “Do you know what the penalty for perjury is?” She spoke so softly and gently that the words did not seem to be a threat so much as a clergyman’s angst-ridden warning of damnation. Still, I couldn’t sit here like a potted plant.

  “Objection, argumentative,” I said in measured tones.

  “Sustained. Ms. Lord, let’s confine your questioning to probative matters.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Victoria said. “May I approach the witness?”

  “Do you wish to show her a document?”

  “No, sir. I just want to have a conversation with her. But not from behind a lectern. Just two women talking. I think the conversation might be extremely probative.”

  “Mr. Lassiter?” the judge said.

  I shrugged. “Converse away, Ms. Lord.”

  Victoria left her file on the lectern. She moved to the corner of the witness stand nearest the jury box. Jurors would have a view of the back of her head while Ann Cavendish had to look straight at them to answer the questions.

  With her elbow on the railing of the witness stand, her posture relaxed, Victoria spoke in a conversational tone. “Should we start over, Ms. Cavendish?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you like to recant anything you’ve said today?”

  The witness looked at me. What could I do? She’s the one who built a castle out of sand. There was no way I could stop the incoming tide.

  At last
she said, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Let me help you out.” Victoria had dropped her courtroom voice. Now she spoke in a tone you’d use to give advice to a troubled friend. Girlfriend to girlfriend. “You never lived in Boston, did you?”

  Tears welled in Ann Cavendish’s eyes. Real tears. Not stage tears.

  “No,” she whispered. “I never lived there.”

  “And you never dated Clark Calvert?”

  “I did not.” Sobbing now.

  “And therefore he never choked you?”

  “He never did.”

  “And obviously, he did not rape you?”

  “That’s correct. I’m sorry.”

  What the hell! What the hell, Jane Smith, Ann Cavendish, the Belle of Bullshit?

  My mind wandered. Years ago, I was offered a job coaching prep-school football in Vermont. Autumn leaves. Alumni picnics. Skinny rich kids tossing a ball. Why the hell didn’t I take the job?

  “Thank you, Ms. Cavendish.” Victoria spoke softly, compassionately. She had ripped my case to shreds, but oh so elegantly that I could not help but admire the work.

  I respect artistry, even when I’m the piece of stone being sculpted.

  “I must ask you one more question,” Victoria said. “If I don’t, Judge Gridley surely will.”

  Ann Cavendish nodded. Victoria had become her friend, guiding her through these alligator-infested waters.

  “How did you come to be in this courtroom today?”

  The witness looked at me, and a bolt of fear shot up my spine.

  I didn’t bribe you. Or if I did, I don’t remember. No. No. I didn’t. You were a name on a slip of paper. I was suckered.

  Don’t lie! Not now.

  Her head swiveled past me toward the gallery. Her eyes stopped at the first row where Pepe Suarez and J. T. Wetherall squirmed in their seats, or so it seemed to me.

  “That man,” Ann Cavendish said. “The large man with the bad teeth.”

  J. T. Wetherall. Dirty cop turned bagman.

  “He came to see me at a rehearsal in Atlanta,” she continued. “Said he was a private investigator. He had all these facts about Dr. Calvert. Where he lived in Boston, where he worked, the bad things he’d done. He told me Calvert had killed his wife. I’d be doing a public service. All I had to do was be an actress in court. And he paid me thirty thousand dollars in cash.”