Special Circumstances (34 page)

“Doctor,” she says sternly, “let me simplify this for you. If there’sa question I think you shouldn’t have to answer, I’ll tell you so. Fornow, unless I instruct you otherwise, I expect you to answer Mr.Gates’s questions. Are we clear on that?”
The kitten disappears.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she replies in a businesslike tone.
“Good.” Judge Chen nods to Skipper.
“Please continue, Mr. Gates.”
“Dr. Chandler, why did Mr. Holmes first come to see you?”
“He was having relationship problems.”
“What kind of relationship problems?”
I’d give everything I own to hear her say, “He was having troublekeeping his zipper zipped.”
“With his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were very angry.”
“Why were they angry with each other?”
“They were angry because Mr. Holmes was seeing another woman.”
“Oh dear,” Skipper says quietly.
“Do you know who the woman was?”
She exhales loudly.
“Diana Kennedy.”
“Doctor, was Mr. Holmes still seeing Ms. Kennedy at the time theywere murdered?”
“Objection. Move to strike the use of the term ‘murdered.”
” “Sustained.” The judge glares at Skipper.
“The jury will disregard the term ‘murdered.” Try it again, Mr.Gates.”
“Do you know if Mr. Holmes was seeing Ms. Kennedy on Decemberthirtieth of last year?”
“I don’t think so. He was pretty sure Mrs. Holmes was going to servehim with divorce papers. He broke up with Ms. Kennedy. He said hewas seeing somebody new toward the end of last year. He was veryuncomfortable talking about it.”
I lean over to Joel and whisper, “Know anything about this?”
He shakes his head.
Skipper’s thinking the same thing when he asks, “Did he mention thename of the woman?”
“No. It may have been Ms. Kennedy. It may have been somebody else.And, to be honest, he may have been making the whole thing up.Sometimes, you couldn’t tell with Mr. Holmes.”
Skipper nods understandingly.
“Doctor,” he says, “based upon your observations of Mr. Holmes in thefinal weeks of his life, did he appear distraught to you?”
“Objection. State of mind.”
“She was his therapist,” Skipper says.
“I’m asking for her professional observations.”
Judge Chen scowls.
“I’ll allow the witness to answer.”
“No,” she replies.
“He didn’t appear distraught. In fact, he appeared relaxed the lastfew times I saw him. I think he was relieved that he’d resolved hisissues with Mrs. Holmes.”
Oh, bullshit.
Skipper moves closer to Dr. Kathy.
“Did he appear emotionally disturbed?”
“Good heavens, no.”
“Depressed?”
“No.”
“Unhappy?”
“No.”
Enough.
“Objection. We can spend all afternoon trying to identify every rangeof emotion not exhibited by Mr. Holmes.”
“Sustained. Let’s move on, Mr. Gates.”
He doesn’t flinch.
“One final question. Did he appear at any time to you to besuicidal?”
“Absolutely not,” she purrs. She smiles demurely at the jury.
“No further questions.”
“Dr. Chandler,” I begin, “I’d like to ask you a few more questionsabout your credentials. You got your degree from Southwestern TexasCity College, right?”
“Yes.”
“Is that an accredited school?”
“It depends on what you mean by the term ‘accredited.”
” “I mean it in the conventional sense. You know—schools likeStanford, Cal, UCLA—they’re accredited. Was Southwestern Texas CityCollege accredited?”
“Not exactly.”
“And your doctorate in family counseling is from the same institution,right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Did you actually attend classes there?”
She pauses.
“Yes.”
“But most of the courses were offered by correspondence, weren’tthey?”
“Yes,” she acknowledges.
She probably could have gotten any title she wanted if she paid themenough money.
“And you got a master’s from the Great Pacific School ofBroadcasting?”
“Yes.”
“Not exactly Harvard and Yale, are they, Doctor?”
“Objection. Argumentative.”
“Sustained.”
I shift direction.
“Dr. Chandler, how long have you been a practicing therapist?”
“Seventeen years.”
“I see. And how many years have you been doing your radio show?”
“Fourteen years.”
“And you’ve got one of the toprated programs in your time slot, don’tyou?”
She smiles proudly.
“Yes, I do. It takes a lot of people to make the program a success.”
I interrupt her.
“I’m sure that’s true. I’ll bet your radio show takes up a lot of yourtime, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does. It’s a very demanding job.”
“How many hours are you on the air every day?”
“Three. From seven o’clock until ten.”
“You must have a very busy schedule.”
Skipper stands.
“Your Honor, I fail to see the relevance of all this.”
“Mr. Daley,” says Judge Chen, “get to the point.”
“I will, Your Honor.” I turn back to the good doctor.
“Do you handle a full caseload?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t be comfortable giving advice over the radio if Ididn’t maintain a private practice.”
“I see. And how many patients do you see in a typical day?”
“Two or three.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what you consider a full practice? That’s ten or fifteenpatients a week. If each of them gets an hour of your time, that’sonly one or two days’ work.”
“As I said, Mr. Daley, my radio show takes a lot of time.”
“And you also write self-help books, don’t you, Doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Does that take much time?”
She smiles.
“Well, my publisher gives me a lot of help with those.”
“Somebody helps you write your self-help books?”
“Yes.”
She fails to see the irony.
“Is it fair to say that you spend a lot less time seeing patients thanmost of your colleagues?”
She sits up.
“Most of them don’t have a radio show.”
I look at Rosie. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. I’m havinga great time tweaking Dr. Kathy Chandler. Unfortunately, the jurydoesn’t seem to care.
“Doctor,” I say, “have you ever had a personal relationship with one ofyour patients?”
The facade disappears. Her eyes bore in on mine.
“No,” she says.
“That would be unethical.”
“Doctor,” I say, “isn’t it a fact that your license was suspendedseveral years ago because you had a sexual relationship with one ofyour patients?”
The claws come out. She answers slowly.
“It is true that my license was suspended. It is not true, however,that I had a sexual relationship with one of my patients. A very sadand lonely man made some wild accusations. They were never proven.”
“You arrived at a settlement with the patient, didn’t you. Dr.Chandler?”
“That’s confidential.”
I turn to Judge Chen.
“Tour Honor, I must ask you to instruct the witness to answer.”
Judge Chen nods.
“Answer the question, Dr. Chandler.”
She strokes her bangs.
“We settled the matter out of court.” She glares at me.
“Any other questions, Mr. Daley?”
“Your Honor,” I say, “would you please remind the witness that theattorneys are supposed to ask the questions?”
Judge Chen looks at Dr. Kathy.
“Mr. Daley is correct, Dr. Chandler.” She turns back to me.
“So, Mr. Daley, any other questions for Dr. Chandler?”
“Yes.” I look straight at Dr. Kathy.
“Isn’t it true that your ex-husband was one of your patients?”
Her tiny nose twitches.
“Yes,” she hisses.
“He was one of my patients.”
“So it wasn’t exactly true when you said you’ve never had a personalrelationship with a patient.”
She’s angry.
“He was no longer a patient when we began our personal relationship.”
Of course. I allow myself a brief smile.
“Just one more question, Doctor.” I look at the jury, then I turn backto her.
“Were you having an affair with Robert Holmes, Dr. Chandler?”
Skipper screams his objection before he can pull himself to his feet.
“Your Honor,” he says, “this is utterly irrelevant and insulting to Dr.Chandler.”
“Your Honor,” I say, “we believe Dr. Chandler was having a sexualrelationship with Mr. Holmes. It would clearly color her credibility.I would ask you to instruct her to answer.”
Judge Chen studies her bench book. She bites her lower lip.
“Dr. Chandler,” she says, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you torespond.”
“The answer is no. I was not having an affair with Mr. Holmes.”
I decide to go for broke.
“Dr. Chandler, we have evidence you and Mr. Holmes were having asexual relationship in a room at the Fairmont in December of last year.Do you deny it?”
“Objection. There’s no foundation for any of this.”
“Your Honor, we’re prepared to bring forth the private investigatorhired by Mrs. Holmes. It would save us an extraordinary amount oftime if Dr. Chandler simply answers my question.”
Judge Chen turns to Dr. Kathy.
“I’m going to ask you to answer, Dr. Chandler.”
Her eyes are on fire.
“No, Mr. Daley,” she says evenly.
“I wasn’t with Mr.
Holmes.”
“No further questions.”
“What was that all about?” Joel’s father is incredulous as we sit inthe consultation room during the afternoon recess.
“How does it help to attack Bob’s widow? How does it help to attackhis therapist? What were you thinking?”
“Rabbi,” I say, “they put those two witnesses on the stand todemonstrate that Bob was a happy guy who didn’t kill himself. They’reundercutting our suicide argument. And they’re doing a good job of it.That’s why we have to go after them. We have to show that Beth Holmesis lying to protect her husband’s reputation. And we have to show thatDr. Kathy Chandler is nothing more than a bubblegum-spewing radiojockey. That’s what this is all about. And if you don’t like the wayI’m trying the case, you can get Joel another lawyer.”
Mort interjects, “Everybody. Shut up. Right now. We don’t have timefor this.
We have to keep our eye on the ball here. Maybe it wasn’t the greatestcross in the history of the legal profession. But we have to keep atit. They put on witnesses for a purpose—to put together enough of acase to get a conviction.
We’re here to get in the way of that. We can’t stop now because we’reafraid we’re going to hurt somebody’s feelings.”
Rosie holds up her hand.
“Could you please be quiet for a moment,” she says in a measuredtone.
“We aren’t going to be able to deliver a knockout punch on everywitness. We have to stay focused.”
Joel stands up.
“May I say something here? Seeing as how it’s my ass on the line, I’dappreciate it if you’d keep your petty squabbles to yourselves. If youguys fuck up, I’m going to jail. So I don’t want to hear anything elseabout who’s doing a good job or a bad job on crossexam. I don’t wantto hear you argue about strategy. I’m not interested in blaminganybody. We’ve just wasted prep time so you all could yell at eachother. Now, I don’t want to see this again. Let’s get our headsscrewed back on and get back in there and do our jobs.”
Rabbi Friedman scowls. I look away. I hate it when the client isright.
CHAPTER 39
WE WERE WORKING ON A VERY BIG DEAL
“Of course everybody wanted the Russo deal to close. It was good forthe city.”
—the MAYOR OF san francisco. thursday, march 26.
Jack Frazier, the pride of Continental Capital Corporation, looks likehe’s ready for a board meeting when he takes the stand at three o’clockthe same afternoon. He’s wearing the standard investment-bankeruniform. His shirt is so heavily starched, it could walk across thecourtroom by itself.
Skipper is wearing a subdued gray pinstripe today, with huge gold cufflinks.
“Would you mind telling us why you were present at the Simpson andGates office on the night of December thirtieth?”
Frazier gazes past Skipper’s left shoulder.
“We were working on a very big deal. My company was going to purchasethe assets of a conglomerate called Russo International.” He explainsthe deal for a few minutes.
“The closing was scheduled for the following morning,” he says.
“Was the deal going to close on schedule?”
“As far as I knew, yes. All the papers had been signed. Everythingwas ready.”
Skipper clears his throat.
“Why didn’t it close?”
Frazier looks serious.
“With the tragic deaths of Mr. Holmes and Ms. Kennedy, there was noway we could proceed.”
“Did you see Mr. Holmes that night?”
“Yes.”
“Did he appear to be in a good mood?”
“Yes. He was looking forward to the closing.”
“Did you see any signs that he may have been distraught or stressedout?”
“Objection. State of mind.”
“Sustained.”
“I’ll rephrase. Did Mr. Holmes appear to you to be distraught thatevening?”
“No. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
I walk slowly toward Frazier.
“There were problems with the deal, weren’t there, Mr. Frazier?”
“There are always problems with big transactions.” He glances towardthe jury.
“Fair enough. But this deal had more than its share, didn’t it?”
“Not really.”
“Isn’t it true there was substantial doubt about whether your companywould approve this deal?”
“No. The deal was approved.” Frazier looks at his lawyer, MartinGlass, who’s in the gallery today.
“Isn’t it true your board of directors had an emergency meeting thatnight to discuss whether they should pull the plug?”
“It’s true that they met. It’s not true that they wanted to pull theplug.”
Right.
“Isn’t it true your board would have voted against the deal if youhadn’t been able to negotiate a forty-million-dollar reduction in thepurchase price at the last minute?”
“It’s true that I was able to negotiate a reduction in the purchaseprice. I have no idea whether the board would have approved the dealwithout the reduction. I wasn’t at the board meeting.”
I have no idea why he’s resisting. I’m just trying to show that Bobmay have been stressed out. Frazier seems to be trying to justify thedeal to his superiors at headquarters.
“Isn’t it true,” I ask, “that the seller in the transaction, Mr. VinceRusso, was undecided about whether he would close the deal? And isn’tit true that even though all the papers were signed, Mr. Russo toldeveryone he wouldn’t make up his mind until morning?”
Skipper pops up.
“Objection, Your Honor. Argumentative.”
They’re trying to avoid mention of Russo’s name.
“Your Honor,” I say, “Mr.
Russo was a key player in this transaction. Mr. Frazier has testifiedthat the deal was proceeding according to plan. However, the evidencewill suggest that Mr. Russo didn’t want to close.”
Judge Chen thinks for a moment, then says, “I’ll allow it.”
I glance at Bill McNulty. He’s frowning. He realizes this is asignificant ruling. It opens the door for me to blame everything onRusso.
I turn back to Frazier.
“Isn’t it true that Mr. Russo was waffling on whether he wouldproceed?”
Frazier looks toward Glass again.
“I firmly believe he intended to close the deal.”
I get right in front of him.
“What time did Mr. Russo leave that night?”