The Privilege, page 15
“I know it’s difficult, having to give testimony in front of all these people. Just take your time. Tell us in your own words what happened next.”
Clutching the arms of the witness chair like a shipwrecked survivor, he took a deep breath.
“I check every office every hour or so. He was there - Mr. Fairweather - when I opened the door to look around, like I said before. I came back, about an hour later. The lights were still on. I did not see the need to open the door again, but then - I can’t explain it - I just decided I ought to take a closer look. I opened the door, and there he was, slumped over his desk, the statue on the floor, blood all over it.”
Eleanor McFarland nodded slowly, sympathizing with what he had had the misfortune to discover. Her eyes stayed fixed on him as she tried to keep him on track. She wanted him to concentrate on every detail of what he had seen.
“Was there anything else - the body, the statue, the blood everywhere - anything else you noticed?”
There was something. I could tell it from the tone of her voice.
“Boe.”
“I’m sorry….Boe? The name of the defendant. What do you mean?”
“The name - his name - written on the datebook on the chancellor’s desk. it was written in for that night.”
This was even better than I had hoped, too good not to use right at the beginning of my cross-examination.
“You say you noticed that the defendant’s name was written in the chancellor’s datebook, and the datebook was laying there, open, right next to the chancellor’s dead body - Is that what you testified?”
Melvin Hoskins scratched his neck. He was certain I was trying to trick him into saying something and had no idea what it might be.
“It isn’t a trick question, Mr. Hoskins. I swear it isn’t. The chancellor had a datebook, and the defendant’s name was written in it - Is that true?”
“Yes,” he sputtered.
“Do you remember on what line? You said it was ‘written in for that night.’ Was it for any particular time, as best you could tell?”
“No, it wasn’t written like that; it wasn’t written straight across, but like this,” he said, as he held up his finger and drew it downward. “Through the lines.”
“I see. So he wrote a name, the defendant’s name, not the way you would for an actual appointment you had with someone, but to remind yourself that you had something you needed, or wanted, to do concerning that person - Would you agree?”
“I guess,” he shrugged.
“When you checked the chancellor’s office - the prosecution did not ask, but can we assume that eleven o’clock was not the first time you checked his office that evening?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Because you check every hour, from the time you start at - what time?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Was Chancellor Fairweather in his office the first time you checked that evening?”
“No, and he was not there at ten o’clock either.”
“Which means he must have come to his office sometime after that, but before eleven - correct?”
“That’s right.”
I had started pacing, slowly, back and forth in front of the witness stand, listening intently to each answer, looking up only to ask the next question.
“When you first saw him, at eleven o’clock, he wasn’t there with the defendant, Alan Boe, was he?” I asked as casually as if I had been asking about the weather.
“No. Boe - I mean Professor Boe - wasn’t there.”
“Yes, because the chancellor was there, working alone in his office, late at night - correct?”
There was no reply, just dead silence. I stopped pacing and looked straight at him, a knowing smile on my face. And in that moment, Melvin Hoskins knew he was in trouble.
“You liked Lucas Fairweather, didn’t you, Mr. Hoskins? I understand he treated you very well, even paid you out of his own pocked for the help you sometimes gave him. That’s true, isn’t it? - You liked him. He was good to you, probably treated you a lot better than some of those other people who worked in the administration building, the kind who like to look down on anyone who doesn’t have a college degree. You liked him, and you didn’t want to be part of anything that might be damaging to his reputation. Isn’t that correct?”
Eleanor McFarland was on her feet, objecting.
“If there is a question in all this, your Honor, I haven’t heard it.”
Any other judge would have told me to ask a question; Michelle Longstreet had to give the appearance of being thoughtful. Pursing her lips, she tapped her fingers methodically on the bench.
“I’m afraid I have to agree, Mr. Antonelli. Perhaps you could -”
“The chancellor was not alone when you checked his office at eleven, was he, Mr. Hoskins?” I asked, with such sudden force that he started answering before I had finished.
“No, he wasn’t alone, he was with -”
“A woman, a young woman, and they weren’t exactly engaged in conversation, were they, Mr. Hoskins?” I asked, with all the righteous anger I could invent. “What were they doing, Mr. Hoskins? What did you see when you suddenly opened the door?”
His eyes had gone wide with wonder at what he thought I knew.
“He had her up on the desk. He was - the chancellor was - fucking the hell out of her! That’s what I saw, and that’s why I shut the door and got out of there and didn’t go back until an hour later!”
His words, the sound of his voice, were drowned out as the courtroom exploded in a sea of noise. Longstreet sat there, gavel in hand, too stunned to remember what she was supposed to do with it.
That evening I had dinner with Tangerine in the city. I had to see Boe in jail later on, and there was not time to go home to Sausalito. We went to one of the places on Fisherman’s Wharf were the tourists go. There was less chance of running into anyone we knew, or anyone who might recognize us. With a view across the bay, it was as good a place as any to put the trial, and everything connected with it, into perspective. Tangerine could hardly wait until we sat down to ask the question she had been dying to ask from the moment Melvin Hoskins left the stand.
“How did you know?”
I kept studying the menu, pretending that I did not understand.
“How did you know that Fairweather was not alone? How did you know he was with a woman?”
The waiter came over to our table and took our order. I watched him write it down. He was as nervous as Melvin Hoskins had been. I did not need to look around the restaurant, I could feel everyone stop what they were doing to look at Tangerine. There was something to be learned in the fact that, for opposite reasons, Tangerine made everyone around her stare exactly the same way Alan Boe had done. It was the literal meaning of ‘extraordinary.’
“How did you know?” she persisted.
“You know already. I told you last night at dinner.”
The blank expression suddenly dissolved. She started to laugh.
“The scuff marks on the desk!” she cried, leaning forward so no one else could hear. “High heels! Of course!” She looked at me a second way, a doubt that it could have been that easy. “But that was a guess. You couldn’t have known for sure what those scuff marks meant. And you certainly couldn’t have known that poor Mr. Hoskins walked in on them. So how…?”
I took a drink, the kind of wine they buy by the bottle and sell by the glass. It did not matter what it was. Looking across the table at her I would not have noticed if I had been drinking champagne.
“I knew that a woman had been there. She ran into Boe when she was running down the stairs. I knew about Fairweather and women. What better way to get to him, what better way to get to him that late at night? Remember who is behind all this; remember Redfield and what he is capable of doing. Fairweather did not go back to his office to work; he went there to meet that woman. What were the chances that Hoskins, a security guard, would find Fairweather sitting at his desk, alone?”
“But how did you know that Hoskins felt the kind of gratitude to Fairweather that would make him want to conceal what he had seen?”
“Because he had not told the police. There did not seem to be any other explanation. You’re right: I could not be absolutely certain about any of it. But then, when I watched him testify, the way he answered McFarland’s questions, how cautious he tried to be. Some of it was nerves, but there was something else. He was holding something back. I could have been wrong, I could have misread everything, but there are two rules in cross-examination.”
“Two rules?” she asked, her eyes bright with anticipation.
“The first is - and everyone knows this - never ask a question unless you know what the answer is going to be.”
“And the second?” It was all she could do not to laugh out loud.
“Ask it anyway. Just for the hell of it. See what happens. But be quick enough to make sure that everyone thinks you know what you are doing. Because that way, if the answer really hurts your case, the other side will start to worry that you know something they don’t.”
She looked at me hard and long. Her fingers grasped the edge of her glass. The smile that curled along her lips became a dare.
“Except that you don’t really believe that at all, do you? The ‘just for the hell of it’ part - that I know you believe. But the rest of it - that doesn’t apply. Your instinct is too good. You know when to take a chance. Look at the chance you took on me.”
“The chance? What chance - that you would laugh in my face when I told you to divorce your husband and marry me?”
“The chance that I may not be what you think I am; the chance that I might not always be able to stay completely sane.”
“Completely sane…? You’re one of the few really sane people I know.”
There was a strange vulnerability in the way she looked at me, a confession that because of how others saw her she thought herself a fraud, and that anyone who could see past her astonishing good looks would discover the fear and trembling of a woman without any other qualities, a woman who was not sufficiently sure of herself to be certain she might not one day shatter.
“Look around, what do you see?” I asked her.
“A restaurant, crowded with people.”
“And when we walked in - and even now, some of them - what were they all looking at? - You. And you know it, you’ve always known it, every time you walk into a room everything stops. That is what you’re missing, what you never get to see - You, walking into a room. Everyone else does, but you don’t get to. If you could, you might begin to understand that the way you look is more than the way you look.”
“The way you look is more than…?”
“It’s how I pick juries - How they look. It’s how you make a judgement about anyone: the look they have. You don’t do it from a photograph, from a picture; you do it when you see them yourself, when they’re in the same room, the same place, when they’re sitting in the jury box. You see it in their eyes, how they hold themselves, how they react, the way they move. Trust me: I’m never wrong. I didn’t fall in love with your photograph; I fell in love with you.”
“Would you love me if I were ugly?”
“Probably not,” I replied, briskly, suppressing a grin. “Why? Were you thinking of changing?”
“It would be worth being ugly, if I could be like Alan Boe. He’s really quite remarkable, isn’t he?”
Pushing back from the table, I bent my head to the side and gave her a long, searching glance.
“I don’t know that I could ever guess how remarkable, how unusual, he really is. You were there today, watching. What did you think? No, tell me this instead: After what you saw, after what he did, can you imagine him as a murderer, someone who would kill Lucas Fairweather?”
“No, not in a thousand years. Could you?”
“No, never. I’ve never seen anyone do what he did today. He took over the courtroom. He is a defendant in a murder trial. He’s supposed to just sit there and try to look interested. I was the one doing that. Longstreet did not know what to do with him; I’m not sure any other judge could have done any better. And it wasn’t because Boe had decided he was going to do this; I don’t think he thought about it at all. It is who he is, what he does. The jury - I’ve never seen anything like the way they reacted - would have declared him not guilty on the spot, if they had been given the chance. That is what has me, not so much worried, as confused.”
“Confused? About what?” asked Tangerine, staring into the glass she held with both hands just below her mouth.
“About what James Michael Redfield has in mind. Fairweather’s murder, then this trial. Why Alan Boe? It can’t just be to expose what Fairweather really was; it has to be about Boe. But if he knows anything about Boe, he had to have known that, far from feeling punished, Boe seems almost delighted for the chance to experience what it is like to be put on trial.”
“That’s it! He wants the world to see what Alan Boe is like; he wants the world to see what someone like that can be!”
“But why? - For what reason arrange a murder just to provide what a courtroom full of spectators might find entertaining? It has to be more than that?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Redfield?”
“Why not? He seems to think he can arrange everything, control everyone, as he sees fit.” She sat straight up, her mouth drawn tight at the corners. “This trial won’t be the end of it. We’ve talked about this. Why not talk to him, ask him questions, put him on the defensive? Maybe he’ll make a mistake. You told me the privilege only covers what he has done in the past; it doesn’t cover anything he might tell you about what he intends to do next. And it doesn’t cover anything he tells you about the Fairweather murder, does it? You told him you weren’t his lawyer anymore.”
“Redfield won’t make that kind of mistake. But, you’re right. He’ll keep doing this unless I can figure out a way to stop him. He may have already made one mistake. The guard, Hoskins. The woman is the killer. She seduced Fairweather. That would not have been difficult. She tells him she can meet him later that night, after he gets back from dinner in the city at Albert Craven’s place. She has sex with him, and afterward, when he’s completely relaxed, she probably wanders around his office, examining the various things he keeps on the credenza behind the desk where he is sitting. She did not know - Redfield must not have known - that Hoskins stopped every hour or so to check on the chancellor’s office. Boe told the police that a woman had run past him on the stairs. Hoskins’ testimony proves the woman was there.”
We finished dinner, and for a few short minutes stood outside, listening in the cool California night to the water lapping against the pier. Tangerine leaned against me, her face pressed against my neck and I wondered at the fool I was not to go straight home with her.
“You better go, Joseph Antonelli. Serve your time in jail. My only worry is that once Alan Boe starts talking you might forget to leave.”
It was impossible, I thought to myself as we said goodbye, but she was almost right. Alan Boe - what he said and how he said it - was irresistible.
“Listen to this, Mr. Antonelli; I think you’ll find it interesting,” said Alan Boe, when I entered the small, square windowless conference room. He had somehow managed not just to be there before my arrival but to bring a book with him. “This was written in the l930’s:
‘From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same; the same dreary technological frenzy, the same unrestricted organization of the average man. At a time when the farthermost corner of the globe has been conquered by technology and opened to economic exploitation; when any incident whatever, regardless of where or when it occurs, can be communicated to the rest of the world at any desired speed; when the assassination of a king in France and a symphony concert in Tokyo can be ‘experienced’ simultaneously; when time has ceased to be anything other than velocity, instantaneousness, and simultaneity, and time as history has vanished from the lives of all peoples; when a boxer is regarded as a nation’s great man; when mass meetings attended by millions are looked on as triumph - then, yes, through all this turmoil the question still haunts us like a specter: What for? - Whither? And what then?’”
Closing the pocket size book, Boe nodded twice emphatically.
“And here we are, nearly a century later, and nothing has changed, except that the same tendencies have become more pronounced, to say nothing of the fact that no one now seems to think there is anything wrong. But perhaps it has always been like this: everyone, or almost everyone, busy with their everyday lives, worried about what is going to happen tomorrow or next week, or maybe, some of them, next year. History for most of us begins with ourselves, when we were born. Ancient history goes back as far, but seldom farther, than our grandparents’ lives. Greek, Roman, early Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance - a few short paragraphs in a college textbook, and that only for those who took a course on western civilization.”
Boe threw up his hands in mock despair.
“You see, I can’t help myself; I have this constant compulsion to tell anyone I can get to listen how much trouble we’re in. Yes, I know: you think it odd that I would concern myself with something other than the trouble I am in myself. But, remember, I’m not that important; what happens to me is hardly worthy of notice. And I’m not guilty; even if I am convicted I have nothing to regret. Consider how really fortunate I am: I get to know what it is like to be put on trial. Do you have any idea how valuable this experience is to me - To be put on trial like Socrates? It isn’t quite the same, of course. Socrates was accused of corrupting the young and not believing in the gods of Athens. I’m only accused of murder. By the way, that was the reason I asked the judge if there would be a time limit on what I said when I was a witness in my own defense. Socrates had a time limit. It probably would not have made a difference; although, you never know. Trials were different. The defendant was his own defense; he spoke directly to the charges, gave his testimony about why the accusation was not true.”
