Defense, page 29
It was, in a way, more devastating than if the same testimony had been given by the inhabitants of a convent; a whore knew about things no nun could imagine. It was a knowledge that gave them a perverse kind of credibility.
Sitting quietly next to me, Rifkin listened to it all. Dignified, serious, completely interested in everything that was said, he never changed his expression, never once displayed anything that suggested any sense of embarrassment. During a break he turned to me and remarked: “It’s strange, don’t you think, how terribly serious everyone gets when it comes to the sexual relations? They are just about the most comical aspect of human existence imaginable.”
I just shook my head. I had seen him as a judge, studying the briefs on a motion he was going to hear in the afternoon while he listened to the testimony being given that morning in a trial. Now, as I looked at him while he heard himself described as some kind of sexual predator, I began to believe that though it could cost him the rest of his life, he was probably no more interested in this trial than in any of the thousands of trials over which he had presided.
I asked very few questions of the first two. I was waiting for the third, Linda Hall, thirty-two years old, with dirty blond hair and eyes the color of dust.
I began with an old trick. “Have you discussed the testimony you gave here today with anyone before you gave it?”
I asked the question, the first question, looking as severe as I could. I asked it the way a prosecutor—the normal humorless, pinched-faced prosecutor—would ask it. I asked it as if it was an accusation and she answered it the way she always answered an accusation: She denied it.
“No.”
“Not with anyone?”
“No, not with anyone,” she sneered.
I raised my eyebrows and smiled. “Not even with Ms. Gilliland-O’Rourke?” I asked as gently, as softly, as sympathetically as I knew how.
“Yeah, I talked to her about it,” she said indifferently.
“As a matter of fact, you not only ‘talked to her about it,’ you went over all of it, question by question, didn’t you?”
I was almost certain I was right, but it was still a guess. Gilliland-O’Rourke wasn’t going to take a chance on the testimony of anyone, especially someone like this.
She was still looking at me. Then, for just an instant, she started to look away.
“Don’t look at Ms. Gilliland-O’Rourke. She can prepare you, she can tell you what to say, but she can’t get up here and testify for you.”
Gilliland-O’Rourke was out of her chair. “Your honor,” she shouted in a way that managed to sound both demanding and imploring at the same time.
I waved my hand in the general direction of the bench, forestalling anything the judge might have to say. “Sorry,” I said with calculated insincerity. “Now,” I went on, “you didn’t talk about your testimony with anyone, but you went over it word for word with Ms. Gilliland-O’Rourke, correct?”
I gave her half a second to think about it and then, before she had an answer, I gave her another question.
“You also discussed your testimony with two other witnesses, didn’t you? You discussed it,” I asked, naming the two witnesses who had preceded her, “with Melissa Armstrong and Mary Santoro, didn’t you?”
She started to deny it, and then, suddenly, her whole demeanor changed. She flashed a sullen smile and sank against the hard leather back of the witness chair.
“I might have said something about it,” she shrugged.
I nodded. “‘Might have said something.’ Who paid for your dress?” My eyes were fixed on hers. “It’s quite nice. Did you pick it out?”
“No, I don’t know who picked it out.”
“Is this the first time you’ve worn it?”
“Yeah. First time.”
“Probably not the kind of thing you normally wear.”
“No. Probably not,” she said with a smirk.
“I’ll bet what you normally wear is—what shall we say—more interesting?”
She was looking right at me. Her eyes followed me wherever I went. “Some people might think so.” She said it the way she would have begun any of the thousands of short conversations by which she had negotiated the sale of herself.
I stopped and let my eyes linger on hers. “Do you think I’d think so?” I asked slowly.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And if I wanted to find out, is that something that could be arranged? Is that something we could work out, you and me, later on, after all this is over?”
Again, Gilliland-O’Rourke was on her feet. But it was too late.
“You never know,” Linda Hall replied, the smile on her lips now all-knowing and defiant.
I stared at her a moment longer. “I think we all know,” I said finally, turning toward the jury on my way back to the counsel table, “I think we all know everything we need to know, about you, and about who you really are.”
xxiv
I was in serious trouble. The prosecution had finished its case and I had failed to create anything close to a reasonable doubt. The gun store owner could not remember the face of Leopold Rifkin, and the state’s last three witnesses, if they were victims of anything, were the victims of their own depravity. That was all I had been able to show, and it was not enough. If the twelve men and women who sat on this jury heard nothing else, they would have to convict.
Though he padded around his house in a threadbare cardigan and slippers that were ready to fall apart, when Leopold went out into the world he dressed with the impeccable taste of someone who has all the money in the world and nothing else to spend it on. It was his only vanity, and he indulged himself in it as if it were the only vice he had ever known. The suits that hung in his closet served as numberless reminders that he seldom wore the same one twice.
Wearing a perfectly tailored, gray, double-breasted suit, the pant cuffs falling precisely across the tops of black wingtip shoes, a pair of gold cufflinks exposed below the sleeves of his coat, and a white shirt and black-and-maroon regimental tie, Leopold stood motionless, his right arm held high, and took the oath.
As soon as he sat down on the witness chair, he turned to the jury. With the same slight nod of his small head, and the pleasant, polite smile with which he had welcomed jurors into his courtroom for years, Leopold Rifkin said: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” Then he turned and looked directly at me. “You may begin.”
For an instant I wondered if he had forgotten he was there as a witness in his own defense. “Yes, your honor,” I said without thinking.
Rifkin smiled. “I believe the judge sits up there,” he said, pointing to the bench. I could feel the jury begin to relax.
I asked very few questions, and Leopold gave very long answers. I asked him to describe his relationship with Denise Morel. He spoke for nearly forty-five minutes, as if he were summarizing the evidence in a case that had gone on for months. Every eye in that crowded courtroom was on him, and jurors who might have had trouble keeping their minds on a thirty-second television commercial followed every word.
He left nothing out, not the sexual relationship that began that night she came into his bedroom and told him about her child, not the humiliation he felt when he realized she was using him for what she could get. He told them how she had come to him and without putting it into words let him know that unless he helped her husband, Johnny Morel, she would let the world know what they had done together. He told them how he had asked me to represent Johnny Morel. And he told them what happened at the trial, how Johnny Morel had been acquitted for the rape of a child, a crime that he was certain Johnny Morel had committed.
The direct examination of Leopold Rifkin ended with two questions.
“Have you ever purchased a gun either from the gun store in Medford or anywhere else?”
“No. I don’t own a gun. I have never owned a gun.”
“Did you kill Denise Morel?”
“No.”
Gilliland-O’Rourke wasted no time. “So, according to your testimony, despite what you yourself have described as the ‘humiliation’ Denise Morel caused you, the thought of murder never even entered your mind?”
Rifkin tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “To the contrary, the thought of murder was one of the first thoughts that came to me. If you’re referring to the time, many years ago, when she admitted she had stolen things from me that had great personal meaning, and then dared me to do something about it. On that occasion, yes, I assure you, the thought of murder most certainly did enter my mind.”
Gilliland-O’Rourke just stared at him. Presently she asked, “Then you admit that you intended to kill her?”
Rifkin stared back, incredulous. “No, of course not. I never had that intention.”
“But you just said it was the first thought that entered your mind.”
“No, I did not say it was the ‘first thought that entered’ my mind. I said that the thought of it entered my mind, years ago. But, as I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you, a thought concerning violence is not an act of violence. Yes, I had the thought, and I have to admit it was not the only improper thought that has ever entered my mind. If we never had such thoughts, there would be no great virtue, and no great need for self-control, would there?”
There was nothing to be gained from this line of inquiry, and she was smart enough to know it.
“Denise Morel came to see you the night of the murder, correct?”
“Yes. She came to my house.”
“And you let her in?”
“Yes.”
“And no one else was there?”
“That is correct.”
“And you took her into the study?”
“Yes.”
“And no one else was there when, as you claim, you went into the kitchen?”
“When I went into the kitchen no one else was there.”
“And you heard a shot?”
“Yes.”
“And you went immediately back into the study?”
“Yes.”
“And no one was there?” she asked, her head cocked at an angle, her eyebrows arched, the corners of her mouth pulled back like the rubber bands of a slingshot.
“Correct.”
“And Denise Morel was lying on the floor, dead?”
“Yes.”
“And a gun was lying right beside her?”
“Yes.”
“And the gun is registered in your name?”
“Yes.”
Triumph swept across her face. “‘Yes.’ It was your gun.”
“No.”
“You just admitted it was registered in your name.”
Rifkin leaned forward. “But not by me. Surely you remember the testimony of your own witness, the gentleman who owns the gun store? You showed him a document. It was identified as the registration form filled out and signed on the date the gun was purchased at his place of business in Medford. The registration was introduced into evidence. You introduced it into evidence, marked as state’s exhibit number thirty-seven, if I’m not mistaken. Therefore, the evidence is quite clear on this point. The gun is registered in my name. That is true. It was not purchased by me. Someone else,” he said, and then, after pausing for a moment, began to smile. “We all know that wonderful old phrase,” he went on, turning toward the jury, “‘party or parties unknown.’”
Not everyone on the jury was able to resist the temptation to smile back.
Gilliland-O’Rourke tried to conceal her growing irritation. “Would the clerk please hand the witness state’s exhibit number thirty-seven?”
Wearing the shapeless beige dress she wore most days, the clerk dutifully plodded over to a table on the side of the courtroom opposite the jury box and searched through the stack of exhibits. Finally, she found the one she was looking for and, with the speed of a civil servant coming back from lunch, made the endless journey to the witness stand. She handed Rifkin the registration form.
“Is that your signature?”
“It is an excellent facsimile.”
“You heard the testimony of the handwriting expert? You heard him say it was your signature?”
“As I said, it is an excellent facsimile,” he said.
“So it’s your testimony that someone went to Medford, six weeks before the death of Denise Morel, and forged your name, for the sole purpose of setting you up for a murder you did not commit?”
Rifkin sighed. “I’m afraid that is the inescapable conclusion.”
With a look of disgust practiced so often that it might have seemed spontaneous on someone less theatrical, Gilliland-O’Rourke glanced one last time at the witness. Then, whirling away, she announced that she had reached the end of her cross-examination.
Bending forward, Sloper squinted his eyes toward the clock that hung above the door at the back of the courtroom. Turning toward the jury, he announced: “I’m going to let you go fifteen minutes early today.” He smiled and then added, “Time off for good behavior.”
* * *
The withering heat that had set tempers on edge for weeks was finally over. But as I walked briskly along the sidewalk on the way to my office I barely noticed the change. Just before Gilliland-O’Rourke had finished her cross-examination, one of the court clerks passed me a note that had been sent over by my secretary. Emma Gibbon was waiting for me. She had found Myrna Albright.
Bounding onto the elevator, I punched at the button, swearing softly each time it stopped and wondering if it would ever reach my floor.
“Where is she?” I demanded the moment I opened the door to my office. Emma was sitting in the chair facing my desk. As soon as she looked up, I knew that it was bad news. “Is she dead?” I asked before she could say a word.
Emma shook her head. “No, she’s not dead.”
“Then, what?” I asked, sitting down on the corner of the desk.
“She’s in California,” she explained, staring at me with her large, sympathetic eyes. “In the Alameda County jail. Or rather she was. We missed her by two days.”
“Two days?” I exclaimed.
“She had been using different names. She was very difficult to find.”
“No, it’s all right,” I said, patting her on the shoulder as I stood up and walked over to the window. “How long had she been in?”
Emma knew why it was important. “Just the last two months.”
“Which means she could have done it,” I said slowly, staring out at the mountain which seemed somehow to have moved farther away. I remembered something Myrna Albright’s mother had said, that “other business.” “What was she in for? Possession?”
“Yes,” Emma replied.
“Anything on Michelle?” I asked.
Emma rose from her chair and stood right next to me. “We’ll keep trying,” she promised.
“It’s unbelievable. She was here, in the courtroom. She listened to my opening statement, hearing me tell the jury that either she or Myrna Albright killed her mother. She came to my house, for Christ sake! And we still can’t find her!”
“I’m sorry,” Emma said.
“I didn’t mean you, Emma. You know that,” I told her.
After Emma left, I sat down at my desk and dialed the private number of Horace Woolner. “It turns out, Horace, that I’m going to need him after all.”
Sinking back into the chair, my arms folded loosely across my chest, I closed my eyes and in the silence wondered what was going to happen and whether, when it was all over, I would ever try another case again.
The next morning, Judge Sloper peered down at me through half-closed eyes and asked, “Mr. Antonelli, does the defense wish to call any additional witnesses?”
“Yes, your honor,” I replied as I got to my feet. But even as I called the name, I was not quite sure I was really going to go through with it. “The defense calls Carmen Mara.”
Gilliland-O’Rourke almost jumped out of her chair. “Your honor, may we approach?”
We huddled together at the side of the bench farthest from the jury box. “That name, Mara?” she asked, raising her eyes to mine. “It isn’t on the witness list. We have no idea who he is, what he’s going to testify to,” she said, talking faster and faster. “No time to prepare.”
Sloper, crouching forward to hear, raised his hand. “We’ll talk about this in chambers.”
He waited until we had both taken our seats. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he reported simply, “there is something I have to discuss with the lawyers. We’ll have a brief recess.”
* * *
Albert Sloper pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and held it between two rawboned fingers. “Do you mind?” he asked, looking only at Gilliland-O’Rourke.
She did, but knew better than to say so.
He lit it with a match, nodding toward her, a gesture that concluded the courtesy which invited and condoned the lie.
“When I was younger,” he said, shifting his eyes to mine, “I used to like to roll my own.”
I could almost feel her wince, and I was almost certain it was the only reason he had said it.
“My wife won’t let me smoke at home,” he added, after he had taken the first, long, self-indulgent drag. The distinction between wives and other women lay there for a moment, and then, like the smoke that began to curl toward the ceiling, vanished into the air.
“Now what seems to be the problem?” he asked, back to business. “Mr. Antonelli has a witness and he’s not on the list you were given. That about it?”
“Yes, your honor. The witness list supplied by Mr. Antonelli does not contain anyone by the name of Mara.”
Sloper looked at me. “Mr. Antonelli?”
