Invasion of Privacy (34 page)

"They fought the dogs and killed the cats," Paul said, yawning. "Ralph’s alibi boils down to his dad saying he slept through the shooting. Doesn’t cut it, if you ask me."

"The big smile, the rats, the monster trucks ..." she said.

"He’s a fine young American," Paul said.

"Thanks for all the ammo," Nina said. "Maybe I can use Ralph to raise a glimmer of doubt about Terry’s murder at least."

"How many glimmers does it take to add up to a flaming reasonable doubt?" Paul asked.

"Only the jury knows."

"Well, I’ll let you get back to your labors, unless there’s something I can do to help. There are a few other tidbits about other witnesses you’ll want to read over tonight."

"Okay." Paul lingered for a moment, as if he had more to say. She noted it, then chose to pretend she hadn’t. She kept her nose to the table.

"Bye," she said lightly.

"Wish you could come along." She didn’t react. Shuffling his feet for the briefest moment more, he left.

Nina pulled out her yellow pad and started writing down case citations.

"I’ve read your cases," Milne said after lunch. "I’m going to allow the shackles, though I will admonish the jury to disregard them."

Nina felt the flush of anger coming back up her neck. She said, "Your Honor—"

"Let’s get the pool of jurors in here," Milne said to Kimura.

Put on a happy face, Nina told herself. As the rather resentful-looking people filed in to take up almost all the seats behind her, Nina tried to connect with each of them, adding to her silent hail-fellows an expression of buoyant confidence. "Kurt," she whispered. "Remember what we talked about. Sit up straight and keep your face impassive."

She glanced at Collier. He smiled slightly at the incoming jurors, a practiced smile that gave away nothing. However, she could see from the way he was stroking his tie that he, too, was nervous. She had gotten to know his moods and his moves.

Milne’s brusque demeanor underwent its own transformation, to bland and agreeable. They were all acting for the benefit of the prospective jurors, trying to make a good first impression. From now on, what the jurors thought was the only thing that counted.

The laborious process of selecting the jury began. They broke off at five, and were back at it at nine on Tuesday. All week long prospective jurors had a final opportunity to speak, answering sometimes lengthy questions with lengthy replies. After this, those who were chosen would have to play dumb to the end, at which time the punch line belonged to them.

By Friday night, when the whole process was over, she wasn’t satisfied. She told Paul, as they waited in her office for the pizza man, that there were too many middle-aged women, and that she thought they would tend to support the prosecution.

She thumbed through the piles of paper on her desk and said in a voice that let the fatigue leak through, "I’ll be here until midnight. The trial has hardly started, and I’m already in sleep-deprivation mode."

She wanted some emotional support. But Paul’s blond eyebrows were drawn close together, and his face had a peevish look she hadn’t seen before. She didn’t let herself consider too closely that, after a long, wearing day, Paul might be waiting for a gesture of warmth from her too.

"No problemo," Paul said shortly. "Turn those ladies to your side. Make them feel sorry for him. Use that boyish charm he seems to have for you women. Make him the victim. Make them feel motherly toward him."

"Very good," she said, tapping her pen against her lip and nodding. "I like that. He is a victim."

Her tone seemed to anger Paul.

"That’s how you feel about him, isn’t it? Motherly? You better step up to save him, because he is one sorry S.O.B.," he said, with a hardness she did not like.

"Believe me, I don’t feel like his mother. Maybe you’d like that?"

"You’ve convinced yourself he’s innocent, haven’t you? You actually believe it."

"He didn’t kill Terry London, Paul."

"You’re sure? How are you so sure? Are you keeping something from me? And how about Tamara Sweet? Are you sure he didn’t kill her?"

"I have to believe—I think Terry London killed her, or someone else. Not Kurt."

"I’ve seen many criminals in my time," Paul said, standing up, leaning over the desk, his lips curled into a sneer. "And the women hanging off them. They’re expert manipulators. This guy’s doing fine with the ladies already. He’s got you jumping through hoops, doesn’t he?" He straightened up and kicked at the desk angrily.

"Get off it, Paul. Am I not supposed to have warm feelings toward anyone but you?"

"He’s using you," Paul said savagely. "And I’m getting tired of it. Because of him, your reputation around here is in the dumper. Hallowell’s half convinced that you engineered the escape and the whole town sees you as just another fool in love, soap opera trash. Meanwhile, you’re bankrupting yourself. I know Riesner hasn’t turned over that retainer to you. Sandy says she sends him a letter a week."

The hotter he got, the cooler she felt. It had struck her that she had to sacrifice Paul, get him out of the case. He was too sharp. He was going to figure it out sooner or later. He had to go, and this was the perfect way to make it happen.

She stood up, facing him across her desk. "Keep your voice down. This is my case, and don’t you forget it. I make the decisions. By the way, who’s being motherly here today? I don’t get to toddle two steps without you hovering over me in case I might bump my knee. In between bouts with the jealous-gorilla lover routine, you treat me like a child."

Paul flushed darkly at her counterattack. The veins stood out on his throat, and his eyes bulged slightly. He was tired and spoiling for a fight anyway. He was locked in battle now, and he had forgotten everything else.

She folded her arms, glowering at him.

"Well, make your plans now. After he’s convicted, you’ll be wanting to hijack a helicopter and break him out of the prison yard. You want to go down with your lover, show him you’re loyal wife material for when they let you both out of the pen in twenty years."

"As opposed to being your submissive little play-mate, with never a serious thought in my head?"

"Beats pretending to be a man," Paul said loudly, "in sleazy high heels."

"Dammit, Paul, I’ve got more on my mind than sex, unlike some others in this room."

"I had more to offer than that," Paul said. "I’m going. Back to Carmel. You obviously don’t need me." He stomped out to the outer office.

For some time now the clacking had stopped, and Nina suddenly realized Sandy had been listening, because as Paul threw open the outer door, she heard her say to him, "Get some attitude surgery before you come back."

"Who said I’d be back?" The door slammed behind him, and the thin walls of her office shook.

Sandy came into Nina’s office, hands on hips. "Late for the party, as usual," she said. "Nothing left but cleanup."

"Sandy, I want to ask you something."

Sandy came over to Nina’s desk. "Shoot," she said.

Nina pushed dark blue heels out from under her desk with her stockinged toe. "Is there anything wrong with these shoes that you can see?"

"Well, they’re a little high for my taste," said Sandy, shifting her weight from one tennis shoe to the other.

"No, I mean, are they too dressy for court? It’s not like they’re black patent or something. I paid eighty bucks for these shoes.’’ Nina slipped them on her feet and immediately felt sleazy. "Trust a man to make you feel insecure right down to your most cherished accessory," she said.

Okay, she had played a dirty trick on Paul, and now she felt—

"Very sleazy," Sandy announced. "And I’m not talking about shoes."

She was giving Nina that inscrutable stare that always unnerved her. Nina remembered a short phone conversation with Andrea the day before. Had Sandy been listening?

"You can always go on the stage, if you get disbarred," Sandy went on, and Nina realized she knew about Matt. She understood what Nina had just done.

"If you keep eavesdropping on me, you’ll get yourself into trouble. Just so you know," she said, "that makes you an accessory." Nina’s mind swirled with the ethical and criminal implications, around and around, complexity upon complexity....

"Fancy words like that don’t mean anything to me," Sandy said. "Somebody has to try to sort this out, and you got elected. People are depending on you. Somebody has to keep you going. That’s me. It’s simple. So let’s get on with it."

Her words were as pure and bracing as icebergs cutting through a frigid sea. Nina actually jerked in her chair as the doubt and confusion abruptly gave way. "Damn, Sandy," she said.

Sandy said, "You don’t have any choice but to be brave. That’s good, because fear bored a hole into you, and this could heal it up." She winked.

A knock came on the outer door and a voice said, "Pizza man."

"They better not have forgotten the extra cheese," Sandy said.

35

ON THE FOLLOWING MONDAY MORNING, MILNE FINALLY said, "we now have a jury of twelve with five alternates."

The jurors, including nine women, a critical mass that meant women would run the deliberations, sighed and shifted in their seats, with Mrs. Bourgogne, stately and stern, solidly in control of the front row middle position. One of those highly paid jury experts should do a study of how often the front row middle seat occupier became jury foreperson. Mrs. Bourgogne had a sharp, impatient eye, the kind of eye that went in after the room cleaning was finished and spotted the tissue still under the bed and the cobweb not swept from the ceiling corner.

Maybe she would think Jerry Kettrick’s eye wasn’t equally sharp.

Kurt sat to Nina’s left, in the shackles, at least wearing his suit. He had hardly spoken to her. His face had a gray cast to it, and his eyes showed hollow from weight loss. Again she remembered what she was doing to him. He didn’t have to go through this. He could be back at his piano, playing Bach, while she spent the next year preparing a defense for her jailbird brother. As the remaining members of the jury pool walked out, she squeezed his hand and whispered, "It’s a good jury. We’ll do fine."

The audience filled the seats, whispering as the people who had not been selected filed out. Barbet Cain of the Mirror was there, and a couple of other reporters. The Sweets sat quietly at the end of a row, Jonathan Sweet parked in his wheelchair in the aisle beside his wife. Doreen Ordway had dressed up, in a pale yellow miniskirted suit, her streaked hair glamorous in a French braid. Michael Ordway wore his usual jeans, his dark tanned face looking out of place.

The police witnesses had been excused and would be back the next morning, except for Frank Fontaine, the criminologist, who would be up first, and who was probably out in the hall reading his notes for the fiftieth time.

No relatives or friends showed up for Terry, unless you included the Kettricks, who seemed to be enjoying Jerry’s privileged position as an eyewitness. Her parents were dead, and Nina hadn’t been able to find anyone who knew her well. Even her associates in the film business could tell little about her. She had faxed her proposals and correspondence from Tahoe, and stayed shadowy as a person.

Kurt’s parents were also dead, but his sister, Becky, had come from Idaho for the duration of the trial. Becky was ten years older than Kurt and had already married and moved to Boise when Tam disappeared. She had heard occasionally from Kurt, and was trying to show support for him, but his years away had attenuated their relationship.

The courthouse cronies had claimed their places in the back, three women and a very old man who tended to fall asleep and snore.

And that was it. No hordes of curiosity seekers, no aisles full of aggrieved family members.

And of course, no Paul. He had called Sandy to say he couldn’t get up there. But she wasn’t going to think about Paul’s withdrawal from her and the case. Sandy was sitting up there at the counsel table with her and Kurt, dressed in black flats and a khaki skirt and a large, ill-fitting black jacket. Nina needed her to keep track of the volumes of paperwork that might be needed for reference at any moment. She would take notes and keep the files straight. Back at the office, Wish would take phone calls and keep the office going.

Collier stood up and moved around the table to the podium that had been set up in front of the jury box. Laying his papers gently down, he then walked to the side of the podium and began speaking. He looked at home in his old gray flannel suit, easy, like he had a story to tell his pals on a park bench.

"This is a homicide case. A woman named Terry London was shot with a Remington rifle at her home studio at about eleven forty-five P.M. on March thirtieth of this year. I’m here to present those facts to you in the clearest, simplest way I can.

"The facts you hear will slowly come together into a story about a man—this man here, Kurt Scott, defendant. You’ll learn that Mr. Scott has a way with women, a way that has led to at least two deaths. You’ll hear how this man seduced a young girl named Tamara Sweet twelve years ago, and carried on a clandestine affair with her. Then, on a mountain trail, he shot her twice and buried her body. You’ll hear how he then, a few months ago, used the same gun to shoot and kill his ex-wife, to cover up the previous crime."

The jury listened with interest as Collier, hardly ever walking back to glance at his notes, detailed in a simple, logical way what he expected to prove. He was at his best, perfectly prepared, workmanlike, showing the jury—by not overstating anything and by not indulging in emotion—that they could trust him and follow him. There were no surprises for Nina in what he said; California had developed an extensive pretrial procedure designed to ensure surprises would be kept to a minimum at trial.

Still, as he summarized the testimony he expected to present, Nina was shocked at how strong the prosecution case sounded. She objected when she should, took notes, watched Mrs. Bourgogne and the other jurors, got to know their expressions, and tried to keep her confidence up.

Collier finished at four-fifteen, and Judge Milne adjourned for the day. Kurt was led away.

Nina and Sandy drove back to the office in a long line of traffic. Once they were inside, Nina pushed aside the phone messages and paperwork, looking for a clean legal pad. "Sandy, you type up the notes of the day, and then go home."

"What are you going to do?" Sandy said from the doorway.

"I’m going to water the plants and think."

"If you go eat dinner, then come back, the typed notes will be finished, and you can think better." Sandy booted up the computer. Nina came out in her flat shoes, brushing her hair.

"Uh, Sandy."

She turned and raised a bushy eyebrow. "Well?" she said.

"Any word from Paul?" Nina said. "I heard you running back to listen to the voicemail messages."

"No word. But Wish wants to know what you want him to do next."

"Oh. Nothing right now."

"Can I give him a few errands to run for the office, then, while you’re in court?"

"Sure. Say, Sandy, is Wish your only son?"

"The only one," Sandy said. "But I have three daughters."

"Where’s his father?"

"Long gone," Sandy said, with a glint in her eye that made Nina decide not to ask any more.

"It’s an incredible thing, having a child," Nina said. "If I’d had to plan to have a child, I don’t think I would have done it, but I’m glad every day he’s in my life. You know, I’m just going to go home. I can stop by the office early and run through my opening statement. I feel like helping Bob with his homework, talking to him a little about court today. He’s pretty anxious."

She stopped at the store to buy spaghetti fixings, made a big supper, spent time with Bob, had a long bath, and slept for nine hours. When the alarm went off at six, she was ready.

Court. Kurt beside her, impassive. A gray dress today, with a white collar. "Ms. Reilly, you may proceed," Milne said.

She started slowly and kept her words plain, using the phrase, "reasonable doubt" over and over again so it would be branded into the jurors’ brain circuits. "The prosecution will try to convince you that these are cold-blooded murders planned and executed by the defendant. The fact that the Remington rifle used in both murders was purchased by the defendant will be used as a support for that idea.

"But the testimony will show that Terry London had access to this rifle twelve years ago, when Tamara Sweet was killed. Jerry and Ralph Kettrick will both testify that Ms. London kept the rifle in her studio, and it was there not long before she was shot. The defendant is supposed to have shot her on his first visit to the studio where she worked. It won’t add up, ladies and gentlemen.

"We will show you that Kurt Scott is guilty of neither murder, and we will present evidence to indicate that Terry London was an unbalanced and violent person, who may herself have killed Tamara Sweet because she was in love with the defendant and he was dating Miss Sweet. We will show you that the defendant, far from being a cold-blooded killer, is a victim of Terry London as surely as Miss Sweet was.

"We will show you that every bit of the so-called evidence linking the defendant to these murders has an alternate, innocent explanation. We will show you that others had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill Ms. London. And we will show you that Mr. Kettrick’s so-called eyewitness identification is questionable, so questionable you should not accept it.

"As to the video made by Ms. London as she lay dying, there are two questions that we hope you will ask yourselves as you watch it. First, could anyone, even the most highly trained lip-reader, really know what she was saying? And second, did her vindictiveness toward the defendant extend so far that in her last words she may have thought only of him, and damned him, instead of the real killer?

"That may seem unlikely to you now, ladies and gentlemen, because you have not yet met Terry London through the testimony. But as you grow to understand her, and the sickness in her soul that made her want to destroy the defendant if he would not love her, which grew stronger rather than weaker with the passing of years, you will understand that Terry London, whatever her exact words, lied as she lay there dying.

"And I ask you to examine the evidence sharply and with the proper measure of skepticism. Don’t accept things at their face value. Look deep, and I am confident you will find doubt in your minds as to whether the scenario the prosecution would have you believe is true."

She wound her way through the points in the prosecution case she felt were weakest. Mrs. Bourgogne’s eyes never left her. What was she thinking?

Nina paused. She was about to begin the conclusion she had prepared, when someone coughed. Behind her, she heard the steel chain on Kurt’s feet clanking as he shifted his weight.

She put her notes down, came rapidly around from the podium, and held her hand toward Kurt. "You’ve probably been looking at Kurt Scott’s feet," she said, holding her hand out toward the shackles. "I know I would. Maybe you’ve been trying not to look. But I’d like to suggest that you think about these shackles. Look at this man. He is brought to you humble and degraded, in chains. He’s been made to look like some kind of savage—"

"Your Honor!" Collier said.

"Please remember, no matter what they’ve done to make him look bad—"

"Ms. Reilly," Milne boomed. "Step up here..."

"He’s an innocent man, until proven guilty. An innocent man!"

"Ms. Reilly! Step up here!"

She went. But she knew the jury had heard the conviction in her voice.

He was an innocent man. She ought to know.