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

by Clifford Irving

  Altschuler pointed a thick finger at Warren. "The defense attorney makes light of the venom that spewed from Johnnie Faye Boudreau's mouth at the Hacienda restaurant just prior to the murder. I don't make light of it — I think it shows us a predisposition to violence. Please remember that Dr. Ott also said to his stepdaughter, speaking of the defendant, 'I'm frightened of her.' In her testimony, Johnnie Faye Boudreau didn't refer to that, and her counsel didn't ask her about it. Think about that! Why was Dr. Ott frightened? Why didn't Johnnie Faye Boudreau care to explain that to us?

  "The defense also makes light of the fact that no more than a few weeks prior to the actual murder, Johnnie Faye Boudreau practiced at a pistol range with the murder weapon. All sorts of fun-loving people do that. Even the judge does it. Surely you see past that double-talk! Other people may practice with their pistols, and even this judge may practice, but the judge and those other people do not murder someone immediately afterward! Johnnie Faye Boudreau used a false name, just in case any inquiry was made. And indeed an inquiry was made, but unfortunately for Johnnie Faye Boudreau, Mr. Morse remembered her. She is indeed memorable."

  He raised a finger and said, with solemn import, "And she is a very good shot."

  Altschuler grew angry again. Warren was fascinated. Go for it, Bob. Do her in.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do you believe that she put a bullet into Dr. Ott just a few inches from his heart, and didn't mean to kill him? Do you believe she just meant to wound him, teach him a lesson? 'Naughty Clyde! I'll put a tiny little bullet in your lung, so you'll behave.' And do you believe that she didn't know all along that the pistol was in her handbag? After she'd practiced with that illegal weapon twice on a pistol range, do you believe she didn't know to release her finger from the trigger if she didn't want to fire more than one shot? Do you believe Dr. Ott 'moved slightly,' as Johnnie Faye Boudreau claims, and that's why the other bullet hit him between the eyes? Are we here to have the wool pulled over our eyes by a murderess?"

  Altschuler gripped his head with both hands as if it might explode, as if all he had said was so beyond comprehension that belief in it might render him insane.

  Then he became terribly calm.

  "The state does not have to prove motive. The state is only required to prove that she caused the death of Clyde Ott intentionally or knowingly. But still, let's think about motive. The defense makes light of the question of who wanted to get married and who shied away from it. I don't. I think — based on the testimony of the stepchildren, Mrs. Lorna Gerard and Mr. Kenneth Underhill — that Johnnie Faye Boudreau wanted to marry Clyde Ott and was in the process of bullying him into it. But then he backed down in front of his stepchildren, and as time passed his resolve hardened. That infuriated Johnnie Faye Boudreau. She may have given him an ultimatum that night at the Hacienda restaurant, and again he said no. So they went back to his house. She took him upstairs to bed, to see if a little sex would sway him. He was drunk. What exactly happened then, we'll never know. The only person who can tell us the truth is dead. What we do know is that they both went downstairs, where she shot him between the eyes while he was standing still."

  Again Warren almost nodded. Despite the histrionics, Altschuler was a thinking man. He had figured it all out.

  The prosecutor said, "You have to use your common sense, folks. You have to decide, based on the many self-serving contradictions in Johnnie Faye Boudreau's testimony, whether you can trust her word. Did Dr. Ott threaten to kill her with a poker? Of course not!" Altschuler trumpeted. "The whole poker story was fabricated! She put his fingerprints on it when he was dead! Only she didn't realize she had to put palm prints on it too!"

  His forehead had begun to sparkle with sweat. "And now let's talk about the duty to retreat." He paused for a few moments, giving the jurors time to consolidate, anticipate. "Johnnie Faye Boudreau claims Dr. Ott had struck her several times before the night of May 7. When he was drunk, she says, he was capable of violence. Yet when she got to the house that night, she went inside. She could have left, but she didn't. She didn't have to go upstairs with him, but she did. He was drunk. Wasn't she frightened?" Altschuler threw his hands into the air. "No, of course she wasn't frightened! Why should she be frightened? She had a gun in her handbag!"

  He smiled knowledgeably. He raised one finger.

  "But wait. You're probably recalling, as I am, that Johnnie Faye Boudreau said she left her handbag on the sofa downstairs, which is what led to her later being placed in that position where, she claims, she couldn't retreat. Folks, you've seen the diagram of the Ott residence. You know where the living room sofa was in relation to the route from the front door to the staircase. It was sixty-five feet out of the way. Now I ask you — particularly the ladies — does a woman walk into a house that's not her own, and go upstairs with a man to his bedroom, and first march sixty-five feet out of her way to leave her handbag on the sofa in the downstairs living room? Think about what's in that handbag! Never mind her pistol — I'm talking about her makeup, her keys, her private and precious little things! No! She takes the handbag with her!"

  He waited a full five seconds.

  "And if she does that, ladies and gentlemen, when she goes downstairs again, trying to flee a man who's yelling at her and threatening her, why doesn't she just go out the front door and drive home?"

  Altschuler went up to full throttle: "Even if you buy her fictitious story about the poker, she didn't retreat! She was egging him on!" With a harsh thrust of his hand, the prosecutor indicated Johnnie Faye, who sat immobile and without expression. "There sits a true monster! A woman without honor and without scruples! Deceitful! Cunning! Wicked! Manipulative! She's a cold-blooded killer, and I ask you, on behalf of the State of Texas and in the name of justice, to find her guilty of murder. Not murder by reason of self-defense — willful murder."

  Warren wanted to applaud. Amen, he thought. Don't say any more, Bob. You've got her every way. Just sit down.

  And Bob Altschuler did.

  Judge Bingham nodded at the bailiff, and the bailiff nodded at the jury. Obediently the jurors rose and followed the bailiff through the back door of the courtroom to the jury room.

  Shrugging his shoulders under his blue suit, Rick looked at Warren with bleak eyes. Warren turned toward Johnnie Faye, whose face was icy. She was staring at Bob Altschuler, thumping into his seat and sipping a glass of water a few feet away at the prosecution's table.

  "That son of a bitch," she murmured. "I'd like to put one between his eyes." She focused finally on Warren. "Well, counselor, good buddy, what do we do now?"

  "We wait," he said coolly.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  The charged hum of conversation gave the air-conditioned courtroom the feel of an airline terminal. The media and the spectators, the lawyers and the witnesses, had all paid for their tickets with one form of currency or another. They would all wait. At 1:30 P.M. the bailiff left the courtroom to buy sandwiches and soft drinks and coffee for the jurors.

  "What about lunch for us?" Johnnie Faye asked Warren.

  "I'm not hungry. You can go to the cafeteria in the basement if you like. Don't leave the courthouse."

  "What does it mean if the jury takes a long time?"

  "There's no rule for it."

  "And when they come back in, if they look me in the eye, that's good, isn't it?"

  "No rule for that either. They may look you in the eye and send you to prison for life. They may come in with their heads bowed because they're ashamed they reached a verdict of not guilty."

  "And fuck you too," Johnnie Faye said. "What if they find me guilty? Do they let me go home and get my things in order?"

  "You should have done that already," Warren said. "They'll cuff you and take you away."

  Her lip trembled. "And what about an appeal?"

  "You can hire a lawyer to do that for you."

  "Will you do it? You know the facts."

  Bizarre. She knows how I loathe her, but
she depends on me. Somewhere inside this monster is a child. An evil, macabre child, but no less a child.

  "Yes, I know the facts. And that's why I won't do it. But plenty of other lawyers will. There'll always be somebody hungry enough, or someone you can con."

  He got up and walked through the back door of the courtroom to a telephone reserved for lawyers and reporters. The door to the jury room was about ten feet away. He could hear the jurors' voices raised in argument but he couldn't make out the words. Maria Hahn came up to him and squeezed his arm. "What do you think, honey?" she asked quietly.

  "I can't tell. Can you?"

  "I told you — you can never predict."

  "Bob was good," Warren said.

  "He always is. Want to come into my office for a quickie? My door double-locks."

  "And then the jury would reach a verdict just about the same time as you and I were reaching something else. I'll take a rain check. Tonight."

  "Tonight," Maria said, laughing.

  He called his office to pick up the messages. Charm spoke briefly, asking him to call back. A lawyer had checked in with a referral for a case, and one man had called directly from the jail, begging to see him as soon as possible about a drug bust.

  So he would be working again. I should feel a lot better about it than I do, Warren decided.

  He went through the courtroom and outside into the corridor to use the public telephone, which was more private, and called Charm at Channel 26.

  "Warren!" — almost breathlessly, as if he had surprised her by returning the call. "How did it go? Are you done?"

  He told her the jury was out and it had gone as well as could be expected.

  "I have to talk fast," she said. "Just listen to me a minute. I didn't say everything I had to say the other day at lunch. I felt so awful, I was so tongue-tied. Can we meet to talk again?"

  He tried to think that through.

  "Don't cut me out of your life, Warren. Please."

  He saw some TV cameramen moving rapidly outside the door to the courtroom. "I have to go. The jury may be coming in. All right. When?"

  "Whenever you can make it. Tonight?"

  "Not tonight. Lunch tomorrow, if that suits you."

  She would be in Bingham's courtroom at noon. Before he could make other arrangements, she hung up. Warren hurried back to the courtroom and pushed open the swinging door. The TV cameramen were taping Bob Altschuler.

  When they were finished, Altschuler grasped Warren's elbow and moved him firmly to an empty back bench. Altschuler's snapping dark eyes were flecked with pink and the lines seemed more deeply engraved from his nose to the corners of his mouth. Close up, Warren could see that his striped shirt was damp with sweat.

  "Your client is guilty as sin," Altschuler said. "She hired Dink to kill Sharon Underhill. She hired a guy named Ronzini to kill Dink. We think a corpse that washed up on Galveston Island last month is what's left of Ronzini. And she got Clyde Ott drunk and shot him in cold blood. You know that, for Christ's sake, don't you?"

  Warren thought for a moment or two. "Off" the record?"

  "Whatever you say. Whatever you like."

  "I know it."

  "Well, you didn't have any choice," Altschuler said, sighing. "I just wish you hadn't done such a fucking good job of defending her."

  "You were pretty good too. I think you've nailed her."

  Altschuler extended his big hand. Warren suddenly wondered, Why have I always believed I was better than he is? He thinks he's a righteous man helping to keep order in the universe — he sends guilty people to prison for as long as the law allows. I think I'm righteous because I keep them out for as long as the law allows. He's usually right, I'm usually wrong.

  He took Bob Altschuler's hand and shook it.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  At four o'clock the jury still had not reached a verdict. Judge Bingham sent a message through the bailiff: if they wished to continue deliberating, he would remain in the courtroom until 8 P.M. After that they would be escorted to a hotel where they would have dinner and spend the night. Then they would resume at 9 a.m. the following morning. Or, if they wished, they could quit at 6 P.M. and be taken at that time to dinner and the hotel.

  A cryptic note came back from the jury foreman: "We will continue deliberating, your honor."

  At half past four Warren conferred in whispers with Rick, then took the elevator up to the seventh floor and the 299th. Judge Parker's courtroom was empty except for the judge and Nancy Goodpaster, huddled at the bench, working on the court calendar. Goodpaster smiled quickly at Warren and mouthed a hello.

  The judge was suntanned and looked as if she had gained a few pounds. "Well, if it ain't my friend Mr. Blackburn."

  "How are you, Judge?"

  "Just fine. And you, counselor?"

  "Just fine."

  "Jury still out in Boudreau?"

  He nodded. "But the smart money says they'll reach a decision before eight o'clock this evening. Tomorrow morning at the latest. I've got my witness ready for Quintana. When can we do it?"

  "Tomorrow and the next day are pretty free — anyway, I can bump a few people around. Thursday on, my docket's full. So you get going by tomorrow after lunch or I dismiss the jury and we pick a new one in September. That's it."

  A new jury in September would cancel out all his advantage, and he would have to keep Jim Dandy on ice for at least a month. Warren looked gloomily into the judge's unfathomable eyes. Just then the telephone rang on the bailiff's desk.

  Nancy Goodpaster walked over, picked it up and listened for a moment. "Yes," she said, "I'll tell him." She hung up and turned to Warren. "Your partner wants you in the 342nd. The Boudreau jury's coming in."

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  "All rise!" the bailiff called, and the jury filed in and took their seats. Johnnie Faye Boudreau stood between Rick and Warren at the defense table. Bob Altschuler stood at the prosecutor's table, slightly hunched, fingers tapping a light tattoo on the walnut. The jurors as they took their seats looked across at Johnnie Faye and met her questioning gaze. But there seemed to be no emotion in their eyes.

  Judge Bingham asked if they had reached a verdict, and the foreman, the man in the black windbreaker whom Johnnie Faye had insisted be on the jury, said yes, they had. He handed a slip of paper to the deputy clerk.

  "You may read the verdict," Judge Bingham said.

  The deputy clerk read aloud in a calm voice: "We the jury find the defendant, Johnnie Faye Boudreau, not guilty by reason of self-defense."

  The blood fled from Warren's face. Johnnie Faye let out a whoop. She threw her arms around Rick and hugged him. Then she wheeled with outstretched arms to hug Warren. But Warren was not there.

  He strode, almost ran, out of the courtroom. Reporters trotted after him, plucked at his sleeve, shouting questions. For a moment he was trapped, could not evade them without shoving them aside. The microphones were nearly in his teeth. A tumult of galvanic anger rocketed through him from head to toe. "The jury has spoken," he replied, "for better or for worse. Ms. Boudreau is free. That's all that matters. I have nothing more to say."

  But he couldn't get away. They were blocking him, clutching at his sleeve. "Mr. Blackburn, what do you mean 'for better or for worse'! Are you casting doubt on the justice of the verdict?"

  "The jury is always right," Warren said, quoting himself to his former client, "whether they're right or not."

  Amid the clamor and shrieks of disbelief, he brushed past the reporters and cameramen. To every other shouted question he murmured, "No comment." He headed for the stairwell.

  The door slammed behind him. Warren rested his forehead against the cool of the flaking drywall. His hands felt clammy, his stomach heaved and twisted. Altschuler knew the truth, and it didn't matter. You had no choice, Altschuler had said. But I did, Warren thought, and I made it. If I had real guts I would have grabbed those microphones and said, "She's free — free to lie, free to murder again, free to celebrate our complic
ity. If there's justice, it's only by accident. The system stinks. Ask a man named Hector Quintana, who may die for a murder he didn't commit: She did."

  He wanted to howl with frustration, and all he could manage was a pitiful groan to the four walls. But what could I have done that would have worked? Nothing. And what can I do now? Nothing yet. But so help me God, I'll find a way.

  Above Rick Levine's massive desk in the old Cotton Exchange Building was a blue neon sign that said LAWYER. In one corner of the room stood wooden replicas of a medieval rack and an iron maiden. ("To help you remember more accurately," Rick would say to his clients.) In another corner on the parquet floor was a red bubble gum machine. Digging into a jar of coins, Rick fed two nickels into the machine and offered Warren one of the pink-wrapped pieces of bubble gum that popped out.

  Warren shook his head. In front of him, on a corner of the desk, Bernadette Loo set down a mug of steaming fragrant black coffee.

  After the verdict, Rick had talked to several of the Boudreau jurors. "You know," he said now to Warren, "it never ceases to flabbergast me how people take on new personalities. The rest of their lives can be all fucked up, they may cheat on their taxes and their spouses, and be real couch potatoes and dorks, but when they get to be jurors, man, suddenly they're conscientious Americans and professors of logic. They respect the law, they want to do the right thing. Gives me faith in the system."

  "That makes one of us," Warren said impatiently. "So tell me what happened."

  "They took the first vote right after they got to the jury room. Eight not guilty, two guilty, and two couldn't make up their minds. Right after lunch it looked like they were going to hang up. The foreman — the guy in the black windbreaker who owns a TV appliance store, the one our client insisted on having — was the last holdout. He says, 'I hated her guts, I just didn't believe half of what she said.' But this other juror, the shriveled-up secretary with the oil company, really got on his case. She kept telling him, 'You can't convict a woman because you don't like her. I want to vote guilty too, because I have doubts that she's innocent, but they're on the emotional level. And the judge told us that the state has the burden of proof.' You figure that one out," Rick said to Warren.