Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller

by Clifford Irving

  "They wouldn't have missed it in any case."

  "She might not have realized that," Rick speculated.

  Right, Warren thought, if you bought the premise of that scenario. The other murders came to mind: Sharon Ott, Dink, possibly Bobbie Ronzini, and the unknown chef's assistant Altschuler had mentioned. If she had set up any of those killings and stepped away unindicted, she would think all homicide cops were morons.

  "Of course, there's one more possibility," Warren said. "An entirely different set of facts."

  "Yeah, the poker story is a fucking fairy tale. Clyde never picked up the poker and swung at her with it. She shot him, then put the poker in his hand to fix the prints. And then she laid it down on the carpet in what she figured was the most visible spot, so the schmucky cops wouldn't miss it. And made up that cockamamie story."

  "You've got it," Warren said.

  "You think that sweet little pussycat from Odem did such a heinous thing?"

  "Anything's possible, however unlikely. But I'm not about to ask her."

  "Bob Altschuler is. If we figured it out, he'll figure it out. He'll have some sort of expert on moving objects, whatever that science is called. A fucking physicist! Or maybe Glenn Davis of the Astros — come to think of it, that's more Bob's style. You sure you want to put this black widow up on the witness stand?"

  "What have we got without her? If the jury believes her, she walks. And why shouldn't they believe her? Who has the state got to contradict her? There are no surprise witnesses in this case. Altschuler's only prosecuting because he's pissed off about what he thinks she got away with in the past. He's hoping for a miracle. We're here to make sure there is no miracle." Warren thought a bit. "But I'll have to woodshed her on the duty to retreat."

  "You told me Scoot said not to worry about the duty to retreat."

  "He ain't trying this case," Warren said.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Johnnie Faye Boudreau arrived at Warren's office at five o'clock in the afternoon. She left her Mercedes in the concrete parking area out in front, next to Warren's BMW and Rick's Saab and Bernadette's Plymouth two-door. When she swept in, wearing a Guatemalan silk blouse and tight white Dior slacks, all swiveling hips and ear-to-ear smile, she cried, "How're y'all? How's my team? Are we gonna win, or are we gonna kick ass?"

  Warren introduced her to Bernadette, who was typing a fresh set of Rick's notes. After about ten minutes, when Warren began to review her story about the tussle with Clyde and the poker, Johnnie Faye's smiles faded. She wriggled in her chair. She kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. Her eyes grew flat and cold. She began picking under a fingernail, then glanced up from under dark penciled brows with a definitely theatrical frown.

  "Could I talk to you gentlemen alone for a minute?"

  "Bernie," Rick said, "go see if you can find an extra six-pack and some potato chips."

  A ten-dollar bill appeared in his hand. Bernadette left the cottage.

  Johnnie Faye let out a soprano-sized sigh. "Okay, guys, what's she doing here?"

  "She's Rick's secretary," Warren said.

  "I know that. I've seen her in his office. I don't like it. I trust y'all. Not her."

  Warren explained that client confidentiality extended to lawyers' secretaries and clerks. A lawyer would be disbarred for breaking his oath; a secretary would not only be fired and never work again in the legal profession but might face criminal charges. And be horsewhipped. And they needed the notes they had taken in previous sessions. Bernadette would type them up beautifully.

  "Listen, I've been around a lot longer than you. I don't trust them."

  "Legal secretaries?"

  "No, you dumb shit. Don't you know what I'm talking about?"

  Rick coughed gently. "Ms. Loo has been with me for three years. Her great-granddaddy was a coolie came over from Foo-chow, or one of them Chink cities, with a contract to lay railroad ties for the Southern Pacific. Bernadette graduated U of H. She may look like Charlie Chan's sister but she can't read or write or speak Chink. She drinks Bud and Miller Lite. She is a trustworthy one hunnert percent Murkin."

  It was hard to say if Johnnie Faye realized he was mocking her. Her eyes darted all over the room. She rocketed into a tirade.

  Slopes were no fucking good. The Japs were taking over our banking industry, buying up all the stocks in the Fortune 500 and half of the high-priced real estate, while Toyota was killing Ford and Chevy. The Chinks were all commies, sent over like a fifth column. The Vietnamese were the worst — she made the speech Warren had already heard about the Texas shrimpers who'd been driven out of the business, and the 7-Elevens that looked like whole families of slanteyes camped there. They had their own Mafia here. Drugs? They invented them. We tried to save their ass over in 'Nam, had a hundred thousand boys killed or their privates blown off or turned into addicts like Garrett, and did those smug dirtballs show any gratitude? "You think I'm exaggerating," she said, "but most people don't have the guts to say how they really feel except maybe when the Japs buy up another TV station. Well, I do. Send 'em all back where they came from, before it's too late. If I had my way—"

  Her face was scarlet, her breasts rising and falling under the Guatemalan silk. She was out of breath. Warren and Rick looked at each other.

  "Anyway," Johnnie Faye finished, in a quieter tone, "in case you didn't get my drift, what I'm trying to say is, I don't trust them."

  "We got your drift," Rick said.

  "So when your little friend comes back, I'd appreciate it if you told her we don't need her. Nothing personal, of course."

  A few minutes later, when Bernadette popped open the screen door and set a cold six-pack of Bud down on the desk, Rick said, "We're finished, my dear. You can go home. Or," he added, with hardly a change of expression, "go over to the Bamboo Garden or Fu's and get a good meal. My treat."

  "God, you know I can't abide that stuff," Bernadette said, gathering up her things.

  "I forgot," Rick said.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  The lawyers went back to work on Johnnie Faye: the layout of Clyde's living room, the poker, her knowledge of how the .22 worked. In an hour the telephone rang. It was Charm. She was sorry to bother Warren, but she was in the neighborhood — could she come over for a few minutes? Could they talk?

  Her voice startled him, and for a moment he didn't answer.

  "Is this a bad time for you, Warren?"

  "Hang on a minute—" He put a palm over the mouthpiece and spoke to Rick, who said, "Okay with me, we've wrapped it up for today. I'll catch an early plane and tell my horses a bedtime story."

  "I'd like to meet your wife," Johnnie Faye said sweetly. "Mind if I stay? Just to say hello and how's tricks."

  "His wife doesn't take on tricks anymore," Rick said.

  "You think you're some kind of stand-up comic," Johnnie Faye snarled, "but the man's in pain. That kind of talk is uncalled for."

  "I apologize," Rick said to Warren, and dared to wink.

  But in some way Warren was glad that Johnnie Faye would be there when Charm arrived. He didn't want to guess at what she wanted, and yet the possibilities ballooned in his mind. A divorce… or getting back together. No doubt it was neither of those. Probably something utterly trivial.

  Rick banged out the door, and Johnnie Faye excused herself to the rest room to fix her makeup and brush her hair. Warren ran the tape back to the beginning and busied himself watching the spools fly, the one diminishing, the other augmenting. Like future and past.

  Johnnie Faye came back looking clear-eyed. Warren said, "We have a few minutes. Let's go through this business with the gun once more."

  "I've got it."

  "Run it by me. Use different words this time. On cross the prosecutor will peck at you, and if you keep using the same phrases by rote, it makes a bad impression on the jury. Focus on the truth, but see it from different angles. Literally, see yourself from different angles of the living room. Can you do that?"

  One of the t
roubling questions was: did she reflexively shoot Clyde, or did she shoot him because she meant to kill him? And the lead-in to that was: did she cock the action on the pistol, or, not being really familiar with it, did she just pull the trigger and discharge the weapon? So far she had given several answers. She had cocked the action, she had not cocked the action; she had meant to shoot at him but not kill him. Often she said, "It went so fast. I don't really remember it too well."

  Warren had decided not to ask her any of that on direct examination. Let Altschuler do it. Let him sound as though he were bullying her or going off on what lawyers called a fishing expedition.

  Warren had never told her to make up facts and never made up any for her. That would have been not merely against the canons of legal ethics but against his own self-interest. You never knew what a defendant would blurt out if a prosecutor as good as Altschuler got her on the run in a mile-a-minute cross and demanded, "Did Mr. Blackburn tell you to say that, Ms. Boudreau?" Or what kind of statement she would make if a jury found her guilty. Warren remembered Virgil Freer's betrayal. Until now in the woodshedding, he had tried to convey his feelings about Johnnie Faye's answers by means of encouraging smiles or, when she went off-line, frowns. Let her pick up on it. Let her get comfortable with the most helpful vision of the truth.

  She hadn't answered him. He said again, "Can you do that?"

  "What happens if I fib a little?"

  "Beg your pardon?"

  "Look, you're my lawyer. It's all in confidence, right? So I'm asking you — what happens if I really don't remember something? Or what if I remember it in a way that might put my tit in a wringer, and so instead I get up there and tell it in a way that's good for me?"

  He considered for a moment. Not that he was in doubt about the basic answer. Only how to express it to her so that she got it and wouldn't forget it.

  "What could happen if you lie, Johnnie Faye, are two things. You could get away with it. Or if the prosecutor wears you down and gets you confused, or if there's a witness to contradict you or hard evidence that says otherwise, or you told someone else the truth and that person testifies to what we call your 'prior inconsistent statement' — you could get hurt. Mangled, probably." He paused with as much significance as he could muster. "And there's one thing more. If I put you on the witness stand I'm vouching for the probity of what you say. If I know you're going to lie, I can't put you up there. Those are the rules."

  "Funny game, counselor," Johnnie Faye said.

  Just then he heard the familiar sound of Charm's Mazda rolling into the little concrete parking area. A car door slammed, characteristically hard.

  "That's my wife," Warren said. "I'll be a few minutes. We'll finish up after she goes. Think about what I told you."

  He brushed potato chips from his lap, stood up and went to the fridge for a beer. After a minute, while he imagined her touching up her lipstick, Charm's quick footsteps approached the door. Sounds like she's wearing her Nikes. He shook his head, perplexed. I know so much about her.

  Charm, dressed in faded jeans and a Greenpeace T-shirt, also wore a certain quizzical expression, and her eyes shot darts at the woman seated by the desk. Warren introduced them.

  "I'm real proud to meet you," Johnnie Faye said. "Can't say I watch the news a lot, but when I do, you're right up there with that fella whose name I can never remember."

  Charm offered a tepid smile, turned back to Warren and said, "I thought—"

  "You told me just a few minutes. I start trial this week. If you want privacy, we can go outside."

  It had grown a little cooler, down to 85 degrees, moving on toward evening. As he guided her into the parking lot, Warren said, "We can sit in my car. I'll turn on the A/C."

  "I don't mind the heat as long as it's dry. I may even miss it when I go."

  "You're odd," Warren said.

  With Charm facing him, he leaned his buttocks against the hood of Johnnie Faye's cream-colored Mercedes. "So what can I do for you?"

  "I think we should start taking steps toward a divorce. I wanted to tell you face-to-face. It just didn't seem right to write a letter or say it on the telephone."

  Not trivial at all. Wrong again.

  "I've talked to a lawyer. Here in town," she added quickly. "His name's Arthur Franklin. He'll be in touch with you."

  Warren nodded grimly. "Don't know him," he muttered.

  "It'll be simple," Charm said. "No alimony. We sell the house and split the money down the middle. Unless you want to keep the place and move back in, in which case we get the bank to assess current value and you pay me half. Same with all our investments, such as they are. Is that fair?"

  "What about child support?"

  "What?"

  "Just joking."

  "I don't think it's so funny."

  "Oh, lighten up, Charm. It's all your idea, isn't it?"

  "I suppose it is."

  "Suppose?"

  "Don't be so lawyerly. This isn't as easy for me as you may think."

  "Not for me either," Warren said.

  "You're the one who makes jokes. You seem in a pretty good mood."

  What was happening with Charm seemed like a dream sequence in a movie, or one of the soap operas he'd watched on the office TV when the phone wasn't ringing and he was in the dumps these past few years. A good mood? The moment he allowed himself to think about the little balcony in San Miguel de Allende, the mood would flee like a burglar.

  "Are you going to remarry? Be a stepmother to this guy's three kids?"

  She tossed her head, her blond hair flaring into a temporary mane. "I don't want to discuss that, Warren. Give me a break."

  So she was in pain too. But over what? Over leaving him or over whatever was going on with her beau from New York?

  "I want to tell you a quick joke, Charm. Get your opinion on it. A woman told it to me." He repeated Maria Hahn's riddle as to why women have cunts. "So is that funny," he asked, "or insightful, or just downright sexist? What's your opinion, Charm? Analyze it."

  Her mouth had curved up briefly and uncertainly — then she had clicked the bare smile off like a camera shutter. "Is this some sort of a message to me?"

  He had no idea what she meant. Did she think he was commenting on her new relationship? Maybe he was. Otherwise, he wondered, why would I have thought of that?

  But he said, "I'm asking your opinion. You're an enlightened woman."

  "You're getting a little crazy, Warren, did you know that?"

  That may have been true.

  "Anything else you want to tell me?" he asked.

  "I don't think so. Not today. Are you eating well? You look thin."

  Old habits of caring died hard, he realized. "I work out," he said. "I've given up serious cooking for the time being, so I may have lost weight."

  "How's Oobie?"

  "Hip bothers her, but she's frisky."

  "I take it that's your client in the Ott case." Charm nodded toward the window of the cottage. "Formidable-looking lady."

  With his palms, Warren hoisted himself up to a sitting position on the hood of the car, boots dangling. The metal gave a bit under his weight.

  "You always sit on your clients' Mercedes?" Charm asked, curling her lip.

  She was implying a certain intimacy. He said nothing, just shrugged with nonchalance.

  "Well, I'm sure she won't mind," Charm said. "I can see she's a careless driver."

  Again there was an implication. But this time he bit. "What makes you say that, Charm?"

  "The bumper. And the fender." Charm's reporter's eye flicked toward the front of the car.

  He jumped down lightly from the hood and turned in the direction of her glance, where he saw that the bumper had separated from the grillwork. There was a small dent, with a nickel-sized spot of bright blue paint ground into the cream-colored paint of the fender. You could easily have missed it if you didn't look closely in good light.

  He kept staring at it, at first not knowing why. And then
, not instantly — more like mud oozing up from a fault in the earth, sluggishly assuming shape, primordial meaning — he remembered where he had first seen that combination of blue and cream. Strange coincidence. He had told Johnnie Faye he was working on another case that would go to trial before hers, but she had waved it aside, asked few questions about it. Clients needed to preserve the illusion that you were concentrated on them alone.

  But how many cars in Houston were painted that peculiarly bright shade of blue? And how many collisions could those blue cars have had with other cream-colored cars? The breath almost left Warren's body.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  After Charm had gone he walked back inside to where Johnnie Faye waited. I can't deal with this now, he thought. This is for later, when I'm alone. Be careful, and assume nothing. Johnnie Faye was drinking a beer and browsing through a three-month-old copy of the Law Journal. Warren apologized for the delay.

  "You look upset," Johnnie Faye said.

  "I am," he admitted. "But I don't want to talk about it." A canny idea picked at his mind. "I need to work more with you. Are you tired?"

  No, she said, she wasn't tired. Her eyes grew bright, as they always did when he focused on her. She treated it like a game, a play where she was the star. "Let's do some more cross-examination," Warren said. "You're on the witness stand, under oath. I'm Bob Altschuler. I'll start off with the murder weapon, but I may skip around to different topics, because that's what he'll do. You ready?"

  Johnnie Faye nodded.

  "Ms. Boudreau, you shot Dr. Ott with a .22-caliber pistol, is that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you always carry that .22 in your handbag?"

  "Yes, I needed it for protection."

  "No," Warren said, "don't justify. Just answer his question firmly and clearly. If you add an explanation it makes you sound defensive. And he can ask the judge to make you stop. Understand?"

  She nodded.

  "Ms. Boudreau, is that .22 the only pistol you own?"

  "No."

  He digested that and said carefully, "Describe the other pistol, please."

  "It's a .45. I keep it in my desk drawer at the club, under lock and key."