Star (46 page)

“Did you have a fight with him the night he died?”

“Just the one on the beach I told you about. But that time I hit him back. Hard. I think his ear was bleeding when I went back to the house, but I didn’t give a damn. I hated him, Spencer. He was an evil man, and I think he really would have killed me.”

“Did anyone see him bleeding? Or see you hit him?”

“A neighbor, I think. He was walking his dog on the beach. And he told the police he had seen me attack Ernie with a stick. But I didn’t, I had a piece of driftwood in one hand, and I hit him with the other one.” Spencer nodded and made a note, listening to her as a guard walked by the window.

“And then what?”

“I went back to the house, and when he came in he hit me.”

“Did it leave a mark?”

She shook her head. “No, not this time. Most of the time he was careful about that. He didn’t want to put me out of work. If I were out of work he and his friends might have lost money.”

“Who were they? Do you know?” But she only shook her head. “Then what happened?” He was building the story, carefully. He wanted accurate details when he called an attorney to defend her. He wanted the best there was and it worried him that he had never handled a criminal case before. She needed a lot better than that. And he was going to get her the best.

Crystal sighed and blew her nose on the clean white handkerchief he offered, and she looked up at him gratefully, and took a deep breath as she closed her eyes and tried to remember. “I don’t know … I walked around in the house … we argued for a long time. I broke a lamp.”

“How?”

“I threw it at him.”

“Did it hit him?”

“No,” she smiled ruefully through her tears, “it missed.” And then the smile faded. “And then he told me he was expecting someone and he wanted me to go back to the house in Beverly Hills.”

“Did he say who?”

She shook her head. “He never did.”

“Did anyone see you leave? … a neighbor? A servant?”

“There was no one there. We were alone.”

“What time did you go?”

“About eight o’clock. I had to be at work the next day. I’d had the day off. But I wanted to get to bed. He said he would spend the night in Malibu. And then … I never heard from him again. I thought everything was okay. I left for work at five, the driver took me as usual.” She choked on the words then. “And the police came to the set at nine … they said … they said he was dead. He had been found with five gunshot wounds in his head, and they thought he had died around midnight.”

“Did they find the gun?”

She nodded again, looking frightened. “Yes … it was washed up on the beach. Someone had tried to get rid of it, but they hadn’t thrown it far enough, I guess … and there were a woman’s footprints on the beach … and Spencer …” She began to sob. “I swear I didn’t kill him.”

He squeezed her hands in his own. “Had you ever seen the gun before?”

She nodded. “It was Ernie’s. I saw it in his desk a couple of times, but I think eventually he was afraid I’d use it, and I never saw it after that, until … until the police showed it to me yesterday morning.”

“Isn’t there anyone else you know of who could have had it in for him?”

“I don’t know … I don’t know …” She had certainly had ample provocation over the past year, but Spencer knew that didn’t mean she had killed him. And with the kind of connections he suspected Salvatore had, it could have been anyone. Someone he’d burned in a deal, a woman he had dumped, a man he had cheated at cards, an underling who hated him, or even his bosses. But Spencer also knew that whoever it was, if they were part of any underworld, it would all be carefully covered up, and the real killer would never be discovered. They had left Crystal to take the rap. And the noose fitted around her neck to perfection.

Her voice was a whisper in the ugly room. “What do you think will happen?”

He hated to answer her question. If they didn’t get her off, she could get life, or worse. He didn’t even want to think about it. All he knew was that he couldn’t let that happen. “I won’t lie to you. It’s going to be a tough case. You had the opportunity and the motive, and no alibi. That’s a stinking combination. And too many people knew about your troubles with him, hell, anyone would have hated the man. I only wish someone had seen you leave that night, or arrive at the house in Beverly Hills. Are you sure no one did?”

“I don’t think so. I can’t imagine who.”

“Well, give it some thought. And we’re going to need a hell of a good investigator on this case.” He had already decided to pay for all of it. He knew she didn’t have a dime. Salvatore had kept everything from her.

“What are you going to do now?” She looked at him with frightened eyes. She had to go back to her cell, and it terrified her. All the guards had stared at her, and several female inmates had shown considerable interest in
their little “movie star,” as they called her. Crystal Wyatt was big news in the L.A. jail, and Spencer wanted to get her out as soon as possible. But all his attempts to stand bail for her that afternoon were fruitless. He tried to get the charges reduced to manslaughter, but they called it murder one, and she would have to stay in jail until the trial. She just had to try her best to hold on, he told her, and then he went back to the hotel to make a dozen phone calls. He called two friends from law school, and was given the names of the best criminal lawyers in L.A. But most of them weren’t anxious for the case, it sounded open-and-shut to them, and more than one of them implied that a mobster and his babe were just a little too sleazy. He was furious by the time he hung up, and he stood staring around the room. The decision had been made for him, he wouldn’t have trusted her to any of them. He was going to take the case himself, he only prayed he would do her justice. They had everything at stake. Her life and their future.

And that night he called Elizabeth and the government office where he worked, and told them he was staying for the trial. His boss was less than pleased, and Elizabeth was furious. He remembered all too clearly the threats she’d made before he left, but none of that mattered now. Crystal’s life was on the line, and he was determined to defend it.

“And just exactly how long will that be, Spencer?” she had asked him when he told her he had become the attorney-of-record.

“I don’t know yet. She has a right to come to trial in thirty days, and the trial could take weeks. I think I’m here for at least two months, maybe longer.” He sighed and stretched out on the couch as they talked. It had been an endless day, and other than getting Crystal’s story from her, he had gotten nowhere.

But Elizabeth was furious over the length of time he was planning to stay in California. “I don’t imagine you’re planning to come home for Christmas.” It was only a month away, and as usual, they were supposed to go to Palm Beach with her parents.

“I didn’t think I was still welcome.”

“You aren’t, but what the hell do you think I’m going to tell my parents?” So that was it. Saving face was still desperately important, rather than saving the marriage. But they had no marriage to save and now he knew the truth about Crystal.

“I don’t think you’ll have to tell them anything. It’s going to be all over the papers for months.” Several reporters had flashed his picture when he left the jail, and he expected to see himself in the papers by the next morning.

“Terrific. And your job? I don’t suppose you’ve thought of that.” Her father had gotten him that too. It would seem as though he owed him everything, including his daughter.

“I told them I had to take a leave of absence, the government will still be there when I get back, and if they fire me, that’s the way it is. I’ll have to look for something when I get back, won’t I?” If he ever went back. But all of that would have to be sorted out later.

“You make it all sound very easy.”

“Well, it’s not. But I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation. The girl’s life is in jeopardy, Elizabeth. And I’m not going to turn my back on her.”

“I can see why,” she hesitated and he sighed, “she might kill you.”

“Good night, Elizabeth. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“Don’t. I’ll be at school, and I’m going skiing with friends next weekend. And then I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with my parents.”

“Give them my love.” He was only being half sarcastic but she wasn’t amused. He had gone too far, and she had almost decided not to let him come back, even if he wanted to when it was over.

“Go to hell.”

“Thank you.” At least there he might join Crystal.

He spent days working with her, checking out her story, grilling her and regrilling her, but it was always the same, and by the third day, he knew he believed her. He appeared at several hearings for her, and hired an investigator to check it all out, but it was just what she had said, no one had seen her come and go, and the only witness there was said she had hit him with a stick on the beach, and he even went so far as to say she seemed unmoved when she saw him bleeding. It wasn’t a pretty picture for her, none of it. And there was no getting away from the fact that she had had both opportunity and motive, and she couldn’t prove her whereabouts the night of the murder.

She grew thinner day by day, and whenever he saw her he thought her eyes looked larger. She seemed stunned by all that had happened, and on Christmas Day it broke his heart to leave her in jail, to share her slice of pressed turkey with the other inmates. They hadn’t dared say anything to each other yet about how they felt. But he held her hand before he left, and they both spoke volumes with their eyes. They didn’t need the words, they never had. They were at one with each other.

The trial had been set for January ninth, after very few continuances. He was certainly not suggesting any delays. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible for her. And the tack they had decided to take was self-defense. It was the only hope she had, and he was going to get as many women as possible on the jury.

He called Elizabeth in Palm Beach on Christmas Eve,
and she refused to talk to him. Priscilla Barclay was cool, and she said rather primly that she’d read about him in the papers. But it was useless to try to explain it. Even more so when he called his parents on Christmas morning.

“What the hell are you doing?” Judge Hill was blunt. “You’re not a criminal attorney. You’ll lose the case for that girl.” But it was precisely what he was afraid of.

“I couldn’t get anyone decent to take it on such short notice.”

“That’s hardly a reason to play games.”

“I’m not, Dad. And I’m doing my best.”

“Elizabeth can’t be pleased.”

“She isn’t.”

“I just don’t understand it.” His father shook his head in dismay as Spencer wished them a Merry Christmas. And more than once, he had wondered if this was the girl Spencer had mentioned when he came back from Korea. It was only a hunch, but something told him it was, and if that was the case, there was going to be trouble with the Barclays. He wondered if Spencer knew what he was doing. But once or twice, Spencer called him and he gave him what advice he could, off the record. He thought self-defense was the only hope they had, and even that was a slim one.

The jury selection took ten days, but in the end, Spencer got what he wanted. There were seven women and five men, all of whom would cringe at the stories of how Salvatore had abused her. And Spencer even went out and shopped for the clothes she would wear in the courtroom so she would look as she had years before when he met her, innocent and pure. She didn’t have to pretend to look frightened, she was terrified as she sat beside him at the defense table. The prosecution’s case was direct and blunt and brutal. They painted a picture of a girl who had
come to Hollywood to do anything she could to get ahead, including sleeping with a man twice her age, who obviously had less than gentlemanly connections. They didn’t try to hide what he was, instead they tried to use it. And the district attorney did it well. He pointed at Crystal across the courtroom. He made her look like a whore, collecting expensive clothes, a greedy life-style, furs, and diamond bracelets. She had done well living with the victim, they pointed out. And so had her career. Thanks to the man she’d murdered in cold blood, she was a minor star, and they listed all the pictures he’d gotten her into, making it sound as though she did nothing to deserve it. They painted a history of violence, a family feud that had left her brother dead and driven her from her home at seventeen, a job in a sleazy nightclub in San Francisco for several years, and then coming to Los Angeles to ensnare anyone she could to help her get ahead. And when he no longer served her purpose, wanting to be free of her contract with him, she killed him.

But Spencer had prepared well, and he hadn’t spared a dime in bringing people in to help defend her. Pearl talked of her innocence, her hard work, her good morals. Harry depicted her not like a singer in a sleazy bar, but as a sweet young angel. And Crystal cried as they testified, looking at them gratefully across the courtroom. And the investigator Spencer had hired had unearthed every headwaiter, every maid, every dresser in Hollywood, who had seen Crystal take abuse from Salvatore. There were implications of rape at the house in Malibu, a contract she had never understood, there were beatings and insults and abuse of almost every kind, and Spencer had even talked of her being raped as a child as she stared miserably down at her hands, remembering the scene in the barn with Tom Parker. She was a girl who had been broken again and again, and yet had always survived it, a
girl who worked hard, who did well, who never hurt anyone, until Ernie tried to rape her again, until he beat her, and threatened her, and in self-defense she had killed him. There was no point saying that she didn’t. He knew he would have lost the case if he tried, so he painted a monster for them instead. A monster who had tried to destroy this girl, with no family, no friends, no one in the world to defend her. And what he said made them hate Ernie for what he had done to her. She took the stand on her own behalf on the last day, and she looked so young and so innocent and so frightened in the plain gray dress she wore, that all of the jurors watched her raptly, and when Spencer finally rested his case, he prayed that he had won them over.