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

by Clifford Irving

  "You're sure it's a .45, not some other caliber?"

  She looked at him oddly. "Yes."

  Get off it, Warren thought, or she might catch on. "Was the .22 that you carried in your handbag always loaded?"

  "Yes."

  "Safety in the On position?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you know it was in your handbag that evening you went with Dr. Ott to the Hacienda restaurant?"

  "Well, I knew, but I wasn't thinking about it."

  "Just yes or no," Warren cautioned.

  She frowned. "Yes."

  "Was Dr. Ott aware that you were carrying a gun that evening?"

  "I don't know."

  "Good," Warren said. "That's the right answer. Matter of fact, Altschuler probably wouldn't ask that, and if he did I'd object. You don't know what Clyde knew or didn't know, and make sure you don't get trapped into speculating. Okay — did you tell Dr. Ott you were carrying the gun that evening?"

  "No."

  "In the Hacienda restaurant, where you and Dr. Ott dined, you argued, didn't you?"

  "He argued."

  "Was he abusive to you?"

  "Yes."

  "And were you abusive to him?"

  "No, I just shut up and listened."

  "Was Dr. Ott drunk when you both reached his house that night, after dinner?"

  "Yes."

  "Were you drunk?"

  "Yes, but not as drunk as he was."

  "You had your Mercedes parked at his house, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  He considered what he could ask about the Mercedes. Is that your only car? Does anyone else drive it? Have you had any accidents with it lately? No, don't be a fool. Stay away. She was waiting. He could feel her mind ticking.

  "So when you got back from the Hacienda to his house, you could have gone home then, right away, in your car, to your apartment, if you wanted to?"

  "Well… yes, I suppose so."

  "But you didn't, did you?"

  "No. Wait," she said to Warren. "Can't I explain why I didn't go home?"

  "Not unless he asks you, and he won't. He won't ask any questions that begin with 'why.' And he won't ever ask you, 'How do you account for such-and-such,' because that's also a why question. But I'll ask you plenty of that on direct examination, and you can talk as much as you like — so you'll already have explained why you didn't go home right away. Okay, let's keep going. We'll skip forward a bit. Ms. Boudreau, later, after you came downstairs with Dr. Ott, where did you go?"

  "Into the hallway, what he called the vestibule."

  "The hallway by the front door?"

  "Yes."

  "Dr. Ott was drunk and abusive and threatening?"

  "Yes. All three."

  "Were you still drunk?"

  "Yes."

  "You could have gone directly out the front door, couldn't you?"

  "No."

  "He blocked your path?"

  "Yes."

  "You came down the stairs first, and he followed you, but still he managed to block your path out the door?"

  "Yes, he caught up with me in the vestibule."

  "Well," Warren said, "I didn't ask you that, but it's okay. That's a natural response. Now, Ms. Boudreau, how did you get from the vestibule into the living room?"

  "He shoved me in there."

  Warren stopped to make some notes.

  "All right," he said, "then you picked up the poker to defend yourself and he took it away from you. He cursed at you, threatened to kill you. Where were you standing, Ms. Boudreau?"

  "Behind the sofa."

  "And you already had your gun leveled at him?"

  "No."

  "When did you take the gun out of your handbag?"

  "When he raised the poker like he was going to hit me with it."

  "And he came running at you with the poker over his head?"

  "Yes."

  "And then you shot him?"

  "Yes."

  "He was running at you when you shot him?"

  "Yes."

  "He never hesitated at all? Never stopped?"

  "No."

  "You aimed at his head and pulled the trigger?"

  "No, I didn't aim at all. I was petrified."

  "You pulled the trigger three times, didn't you?"

  "No, just once."

  "But three bullets were fired, isn't that a fact?"

  "Yes."

  "You cocked the action when you took the gun out of your handbag, didn't you?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Did you know the sear had been filed down on this gun?"

  "I'm still not even sure what a sear is."

  "You've practiced with that pistol, haven't you?"

  "Once, five years ago, when I bought it. I don't even think I hit the target more than two or three times."

  "All right," Warren said, after he had made some more notes. "That's enough for today. How do you feel?"

  "Fine," Johnnie Faye said, her eyes sparkling.

  "Well, I'm bushed. Let's go through it again sometime next week. I'm starting my other trial on Wednesday, picking a jury. I'll call you."

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Through the parted blinds at the window Warren watched the Mercedes bump over the curb, turn up Montrose and vanish in the long shadows of early evening in the direction of the University of St. Thomas.

  He dropped into his swivel chair, tilted it back and swung his boots up on the desk. He locked his hands behind his head.

  Coincidence. It had to be coincidence.

  From his desk he took out the Quintana file and the manila envelope with the packet of photographs that the two homicide sergeants had given him. He stared at the photograph of Dan Ho Trunh's blue station wagon, at the cream-colored rip in the metal on the right side just ahead of the rear bumper. That rip, Mrs. Trunh swore, hadn't been there when her husband left the house on the morning of his death.

  All right. It could have happened anytime that day. Trunh could have sideswiped any number of cream-colored cars.

  But there was one cream-colored car with that shade of blue paint ground into its front left fender. The blue paint was garish, distinctive — probably hand-painted. And the nature of the owner of the cream-colored Mercedes was also distinctive. "Slopes are no fucking good… If I had my way…"

  He remembered Bob Altschuler casually telling him that unproved tale: "We think that on the spur of the moment she offed some Korean kid who worked in her club and gave her some back talk when she wouldn't give him a raise. You think I'm kidding? I know."

  It can't be, Warren thought. It made no sense. There was no connection. If Johnnie Faye Boudreau was a murderer in the past, she murdered out of clear motive. Sharon Ott, in order to make Clyde free. Dink, because he knew too much and was dangerous. Ronzini (if he was indeed dead), for the same reason. Clyde Ott, in self-defense — if she was telling the truth. If she's lying, then she had no reason other than ungovernable rage.

  If that's what had happened with Clyde, and with whoever had worked in her kitchen, why couldn't it have happened with Dan Ho Trunh?

  Because there's no connection. None except the blue spot on the car.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  He spent nearly all day Monday in his office, preparing an opening statement for Quintana, blocking out the witnesses in his trial notebook and worrying over a theory of defense. The test for such a theory was not legal relevance; it was persuasive relevance. There wasn't much. After the state had presented its case Hector would stand before the jury and tell his story: "I didn't do it." Wonderfully relevant, yet hardly persuasive.

  In the late afternoon Warren visited Hector to make sure he had the proper clothing and to tell him how to conduct himself in the courtroom. Hector was grave and courteous. Now and then he tried to make polite conversation about life in jail, but it was an effort. Warren left there feeling depressed. This man could not have done it. He's innocent. And I have no way of proving it.

  He went back to
the office and again put his boots up on the desk. He stared at a blank part of the white wall, forcing his brain to work as hard as it could. He tried to make simple connections. He flew through the alternatives, then began again, working his way through them more deliberately, coldly, in mental slow motion. Silently the first time; then aloud, his voice barely above a whisper vibrating in his throat, as if it came from elsewhere. He stood up to look at himself in a mirror. His eyes looked calmly back at him in the fading light. They were not the eyes of a lunatic.

  He sat down again at the desk, leaned his elbows on the comforting wood. Dusk fell. He stared at the HPD photograph. The second hand of his watch moved around and around the face, wearing away human time. If he hadn't made a glaring error of observation, if he hadn't thwarted logic in discarding the alternatives, if he dared to believe her car had collided with Dan Ho Trunh's Ford and there was some causal relationship between that event and his death — there still remained the questions of why and how.

  No connection, other than the rage she had shown in the office, and her nature, and Altschuler's accusation. And her brothers. But that was too farfetched.

  Can I ask her? Cutely probe? Find out where she was that day, that evening? I have no reason to ask. But if she's innocent she won't know what I'm getting at and she'll tell me where she was — so I risk nothing. If she did it, she'll be evasive, maybe furious. I'll see it, I'll know the truth. And she'll see that I know. And that risks everything. I'll be finished as her lawyer and I won't have a nickel's worth of proof.

  He looked at his watch: it was nearly eight o'clock. He gathered up his things and locked the office and drove back to Ravendale to change for the party with Maria Hahn.

  A bearded man at least six-and-a-half feet tall clapped Warren on the shoulder, yelling above the din, "So, little buddy, how come you're improperly dressed for this patriotic occasion?"

  "Didn't know it was a costume party," Warren admitted.

  "What?"

  Warren yelled up, "I said, my sarong shrunk in the dryer!"

  The bearded giant guffawed, then headed for the swimming pool on the lawn behind the house. Warren followed, en route snatching a piña colada off the bar.

  It was his fourth since he and Maria Hahn had arrived at the Towering Texans' Fourth of July party, which was taking place in the home of a couple whose combined length stretched end to end, Warren had calculated, would be twelve feet five inches. The fifty large guests seemed to threaten the proportions of the house. Most of them had drifted to the back lawn and its limitless ceiling of starred July sky, where they could stretch their limbs and twirl their hips to the disco beat without fear of punching a hole in drywall.

  Many of the tall people carried their drinks into the pool. No need to change clothes since the announced theme of the fiesta — bannered across the patio in computerized script (the host was a programmer for Compaq, but could not have worked on their speller utility) — was SOUTH SEAS INDEPENDENSE.

  "Fuck," Maria exclaimed, when she and Warren arrived and saw that everyone was wearing thongs, muu-muus, feathers, and garlands of shells, "how come I forgot all about that?"

  "Denial," Warren said. "I know a lot about that."

  "We'll get sloshed," Maria proposed, "and then we can strip down to our whatevers and jump into the pool and no one will give a damn, least of all you and me."

  Warren reminded her that one of them still had to negotiate his car homeward over thirty minutes of freeway on a holiday night.

  Maria laughed. "Relax, counselor. I'll make sure you get back in one piece."

  Was that stodgy of him? To want to arrive at his bed alive? He didn't think so. Maria was an oddball, a quiet adventurer. Contemplating that thought, his mind lay open and unguarded for a moment, and an idea invaded him. He hesitated, but being a hair more drunk than he realized, he passed in a matter of moments from hesitation to determination. There was something he had to do. Not only could he do it tonight, he had to do it tonight: the necessity of it punished him like iodine on an open wound. Tomorrow might be too late. How had he missed it? Not grasped that urgency?

  The buzz in his head was wonderfully liberating, yet he knew that if he downed one more of the frosted rum drinks he would be inoperative. He roused the hard edge of his mind. Make the call, then go. He set the drink down on a patio table and turned back to the house. His watch said 11:25 P.M.

  There was a pink wall telephone in the bathroom. Sitting on the closed toilet seat, Warren punched out the number of Ecstasy, the club that Johnnie Faye claimed not to own. It rang five times before he heard the blare of sound and then the announced name of the club.

  "MCI operator. Person-to-person from Corpus Christi for Johnnie Faye Boudreau, ma'am."

  The five-second wait was shorter than he had predicted. She must have been in the back office.

  "Yes? Mama, is it you? What's wrong?"

  Warren broke the connection by jabbing the # button a few times and then depressing the wall hookup, hoping to simulate an operator cutoff.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Maria's wiggling feet and shapely calves dangled in the water of the pool; she was talking with two women in muu-muus. Warren caught her eye, and she excused herself to come flowing over to him. He had never really noticed how graceful she was. Other things were more obvious: that witchlike laugh, the barrage of scatology.

  "I'm having a fine time," he said, "but I have to go somewhere else. Take care of something. I should have told you about it before. And I might need some help."

  "Boy, you are mysterious," she exclaimed, as if she had suspected it before and now he had confirmed it.

  "I need a lookout. And a witness. No questions asked."

  "Just one, my weirdo friend, if you don't mind. You going to rob a bank?"

  "Photograph a car."

  Maria didn't cross-examine, seeming to prefer the poetry of the unknown to prosaic reality. That was fine with Warren. She was Dwight Bingham's court reporter.

  Down the darkened street from the party house he unlocked the door to the BMW. "You have your camera with you?" she asked.

  "No, I'll have to… oh, shit!" he howled. "Charm has the fucking camera!"

  Maria quickly touched his forearm with the tips of cool fingers. "Take it easy. I have a camera. And a flash. And film. Just stop off at my place and I'll get it, and then we'll go wherever you need to go, do whatever you have to do."

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Half an hour later, Maria had changed into thonged sandals and a loose cotton dress with a sash of multicolored Thai silk. She snapped open the back of her Pentax and slipped in a fresh roll of Kodacolor 200. It was twenty minutes past midnight. Warren headed west for the Richmond strip.

  She closed her eyes and was silent until they were nearly there. He thought that she was asleep.

  "Want to hear a joke?" Before he could reply, Maria said, "Why do politicians have one more brain cell than horses do?"

  Riddles were her favorites, he guessed. He said that he didn't know why.

  "So they won't shit on the street during parades."

  He laughed politely, then spotted the lights of Ecstasy. Outside the club, the glow from overhead street lamps cut the shadows of the night that lay upon the parking lot. Warren eased the BMW into a slot on the outer concrete edge, in darkness, not far from a fast-food chicken franchise. In the illuminated doorway of the club under flickering red neon script, silhouettes appeared: black figures scissored from tin. A hum of laughter followed by a salvo of music broke from the door into the night. Then the door squeezed pneumatically shut. The laughter and music ebbed away to silence.

  "This car you want to photograph—"

  "I see it."

  He had worried that the Mercedes would be parked too close to the front door of the club. But the car was in the second row, about six spaces from the front door. Johnnie Faye must have arrived late.

  "You want to tell me now what it's all about?" Maria asked.

  "I r
eally don't."

  She laughed. "What can I say? Okay. Anything I can do to help?"

  "Show me how this flash works, sit tight, and keep the motor running."

  "Jeez, this is like an old movie."

  Warren smiled automatically, but his heart clenched and suddenly picked up cadence. He remembered those old movies she referred to, where, in the getaway scene, something always went wrong.

  He knew where Johnnie Faye lived, although he had never visited her apartment. He could have gotten his photo there the next morning when surely she would be asleep. Not surely: probably. And the high-rise had a locked underground garage, so he would need an electronic clicker to get in or else gain access through the building. And there might be an attendant. Too risky. But tonight, he realized, was riskier. He would need more than the photograph, maybe even a chemical analysis. Be smart: hire a private investigator to do the job. He hesitated, impaled by a thin needle of intelligence.

  "I like you, Mr. Blackburn," Maria said.

  "How come?"

  "I'm trying to figure that out. I suppose it's mostly chemistry. Look" — taking the camera from his hands, she seated the flash in the sprocket — "you set it for distance here. When you push this button and the red light shows, all systems are go." She tested it and there was a fast bright glow. "Now you can click away. Just make sure the little red mother goes back on."

  "I've got it," he said, but his resolve was buckling.

  If I wait for another day or hire someone else to do it, the car's liable to be repainted by then. That was how things happened. You knew you had to do something but you put it off for what seemed such a good reason — and then, with no warning, opportunity slithered away, other cautions intervened: it was too late.

  Make a beginning. Do it now.

  "Maria, I may need you to verify what I'm going to do. Watch me."

  "My son yells that when he jumps off the diving board into the neighbor's pool."

  Warren walked through the warm night air toward Ecstasy. Nothing furtive, he decided. Do this fast.

  Maria saw it all. Saw Warren crouch and raise the Pentax as he reached the front of the light-colored Mercedes on the driver's side. Saw the thin little black man at the door of the club whose head swiveled toward Warren. Saw the man stare, then vanish. Heard the bass rock beat, then silence again.