Tell No Lies (46 page)

Sanders approached the witness box. "Mr. Hilliard, how long have you known Ms. Dodson?"

"About nine years."

"How would you describe your relationship?"

"We were friends."

"Good friends?"

"Yes."

"Did you confide in each other about things?"

"Certain things. Mainly job-related things."

"In all that time you knew her, nine years, did she ever talk to you about Maxine Shepard?"

Jack wanted to know what the document in Sanders' hand said. He tried to think back. Had she e-mailed him some rude comments about Maxine, saying that she wished she were dead, or that she wanted to kill her? He couldn't remember anything like that. In fact, he and Jenny hardly ever e-mailed each other. He now realized that they'd always wanted to hear each other's voice.
 

"Yes."

"What did she say about her?"

"I don't know. A lot, I'm sure. I can't remember everything."

"Was it your impression that she liked Ms. Shepard?"

"She wasn't Jenny's favorite client, if that's what you mean."

"How do you know that?"

"They just didn't click. Some people click, some don't."

"Like you and Ms. Dodson, you clicked?"

"Objection!" Jeff sprang up from his chair.
Finally
, Jack thought. The crowd began talking again; the hum of the circling bees grew louder.
 

"I withdraw the question, Your Honor." Smirking, he turned back to Jack. "Mr. Hilliard, let me ask you something. I'll get to the point. You cared for Ms. Dodson very much, didn't you?"

"Yes." His body told him to shut down or run away.

"You would do anything to protect her, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't do 'anything.'"

Sanders pretended to have received a positive answer. "Indeed, you've always been jealous of Mr. Turner and his relationship with Ms. Dodson, haven't you?"

"No."

"You don't like Mr. Turner, do you?"

"As we speak, no, I don't."

"You never liked him, did you, when he and Ms. Dodson dated and were living together?"

"I didn't have an opinion about him."

"She was your friend for nine years, and you had no opinion about the man she lived with?"

"I didn't think about him much."

"But you said yourself that you and your wife . . ." Sanders paused. "What's your wife's name, Mr. Hilliard?"

Jack thought his head was going to blow from the pressure building up inside it. Of course Sanders knew Claire's name. "Claire."

"You said yourself that you and your wife, Claire, never socialized with Ms. Dodson and Mr. Turner as couples, isn't that so?"

"That's correct."

"Why not?"

What was he going to say?
I only wanted to spend time with her alone. I didn't want to share the time with some other guy.
He suddenly remembered one of Jenny's complaints about Alex.
 

"They never socialized with anyone as a couple, that I know of."

"Let me go back to Maxine Shepard again. Were you aware that Ms. Shepard tried to have Ms. Dodson fired?"

Jack debated how to answer. Jenny had told him that Maxine complained about her, but never that she'd tried to have her fired. Only Mendelsohn had done that. "No."

"Ms. Dodson never mentioned that to you?"

"No."

"So she didn't confide everything to you, did she?"

"I didn't say she did."

"There were a lot of things you didn't know about Ms. Dodson, weren't there?"

You have no idea.

Jeff was on it. "Objection. I think we've gone a little bit beyond the scope of my direct."

"I disagree, Your Honor. It was Mr. McCarthy who first asked Mr. Hilliard if Ms. Dodson ever mentioned Maxine Shepard. He opened up the issue of what Ms. Dodson might have said."

"But it's all hearsay, Judge," said Jeff.

"I'm not trying to prove the truth of what she might have told him, just the fact of whether or not she confided her feelings about Ms. Shepard—what he knew."

"How is that relevant? Except to use the testimony as a way to suggest she didn't like her, and then it's hearsay, as I said." The muscles in Jeff's jaw tightened.

"I'll tie up the relevancy shortly, Judge," Sanders said, a little too confidently.

The judge raised his hand to halt their banter. "I'll allow it, but get to the point."

But Sanders seemed already to have made his point, and Jeff's objection had only helped drive it home. Sanders walked over to Jack and handed the paper to him.

"Objection!" Jeff slammed his palms on the table. "Excuse me, have I seen that?"

While they argued in front of the bench, Jack quickly read the document: a letter from Maxine Shepard to Stan Goldberg, and copied to Newman's managing partner and to Rob Kollman and Steve Mendelsohn. In it, she rambled on about Jenny, how she was mishandling her cases and billing too much time, her bad attitude, her failure to return her phone calls, even an accusation that Jenny had tried to sabotage Maxine's attempts to reconcile with her stepchildren. There was so much negative information, it was readily apparent that the writer of the letter was, at the very least, exaggerating, and at the most, paranoid and delusional.
 

Jack was struck by the thought that Maxine must not have been too smart; her first mistake, if she wanted to get rid of Jenny, was sending the letter to Stan. Stan was a well-respected attorney, but he was not well liked by those who didn't really know him. He came across as gruff, barking orders at new associates he passed in the halls, more out of a desire to scare them than because he needed some work done. He'd made many a new female associate cry. It took years for them to understand that in order to gain his respect, they had to stand up to him; some never learned.

But Jenny had known right off the bat; she'd been at Newman only a few months when she told him to go fuck himself after he'd ordered her to get him a cup of coffee in the middle of their meeting with a client. Jack remembered her retelling him the story. She'd said it only because the client was on the phone in the corner of the conference room, not paying attention, and she'd blurted it under her breath, only partially intending Stan to hear. Her first thought was that she would be fired on the spot, but then she detected the start of a smile on Stan's face. Her boldness earned his immediate and lasting loyalty. He'd never give her up, despite the demands of some rich client.

Jack looked up just as Judge Lehman was saying he would allow Sanders to use the letter.

"You can question him about his knowledge of the letter, or to refresh his recollection, and that's it," the judge said to Sanders. "Otherwise, the document is hearsay."

Jeff returned to his seat, his body radiating his frustration. Sanders approached Jack.

"Mr. Hilliard, have you had a chance to look at this document?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell us what it is?"

"It appears to be a letter, written about one year ago, from Maxine Shepard to Stan Goldberg, with copies to some other attorneys at Newman."

"Who is Stan Goldberg?"

"He's the head of the bankruptcy department at Newman. To my knowledge, he was Jenny's direct boss."

"Can you summarize the letter for us?"

"Summarize it? It sounds like Maxine Shepard was trying to make a case for getting Jenny fired. Indeed, she suggests her dismissal at the end."

"Have you ever seen this letter before?"

Jack shook his head, suppressing the urge to mouth off. He wanted to point out that the letter wasn't addressed to him. He was also beginning to wonder if Maxine Shepard was even the true author of the letter. "No," he said.

"Ms. Dodson never showed it to you?"

"No." It wasn't addressed to her, either. He wondered if she even knew about it.

"Did she ever mention its existence to you?"

"No."

"Isn't it possible, Mr. Hilliard, that what you took to be a simple dislike of a client was actually much more?"

"No, it's not possible, not for Jenny Dodson."

Sanders walked around, trying to look as if he was thinking deeply about that answer. Jack knew he was just dramatizing. "Let's go back to the garage," Sanders said then.

Jack's stomach churned.

"You testified that you went with Ms. Dodson in her car to her house, is that correct?"

"That's correct."

"Did you stop anywhere on the way?"

"No."

"What time did you arrive there?"

"Around eight forty-five, I think. It takes only about ten minutes to get from downtown to her place, and we were in the garage only a few minutes before leaving."

"What did you do when you arrived at her house?"

Jack, Jeff, and Frank had discussed how they would deal with this line of questioning. They knew Sanders had a right to ask Jack about his time spent there, to try to find any cracks in Jack's story. But they had agreed to ask the judge to limit it as much as possible.

"We talked a bit and then ordered dinner."

"Ordered?"

"To be delivered."

"How long did it take the food to be delivered?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know what time it arrived?"

He thought of what Jenny had said to Alex:
It's nine thirty. I'm not usually at work this late
.
 

"I think it was a little after nine thirty."

"Would the delivery person be able to testify that you were there?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I didn't go to the door. Jenny did." Jack had a hunch that Alex hadn't told Sanders about his visit to Jenny's that night; indeed, Jack hadn't told Jeff or Frank. Although it was risky, he wanted to control the timing of the information coming to light. He considered bringing up Alex now, but thought better of it. Not yet. He lay in wait, ready to pounce.

Sanders was quiet for a minute, letting the jury absorb Jack's inability to produce a corroborating witness. "And then what did you do?"

His answer was a harmless lie: "We ate the food."

"And then what?"

"We talked some more." Simultaneously spoken with Jeff's "Objection."

Everyone turned in Jeff's direction. "May I approach, Your Honor?" he asked calmly. When Sanders and Jeff reached the bench, Jeff said, "Your Honor, I understand where he's heading. He wants to see if there's any point at which Ms. Dodson might not have been with Mr. Hilliard. But can't he just ask the questions directly? After all, it is cross-examination. He's allowed to lead." He paused, glancing at Jack. "I don't think it's necessary to make him testify about every little interaction between the two of them."

The judge looked at Sanders, raised his eyebrows, and waited for a response.

Sanders cocked his head to the side and shrugged. "I think what he did that night goes to his character." He glanced at Jack with a smirk.
 

Jack looked down at his lap, fidgeted in his chair. He finally poured some water to prevent himself from butting in, but he couldn't get much down when he tried to swallow.

"I don't think his character is at issue, Your Honor," Jeff said. "I sure didn't make it an issue on my direct."

The judge looked at Jack, who looked back at him. "I tend to agree with Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Sanders," said the judge, turning back to the battling attorneys. "It leans to the inflammatory side, and I'm not sure it serves much of a purpose, from an evidentiary standpoint." He was quiet for a moment and then added, "Why don't you ask him specifically what you need to know? We'll see how that goes."

Sanders nodded in resignation, but he didn't look too upset. He probably thought he'd still find a way to have some fun with Jack. "Mr. Hilliard, were you awake the entire night?"

"No."

Sanders smiled. "You fell asleep?"

"Yes."

"Then how are you sure she was there with you the entire time?"

How
was
he sure? He wasn't really, was he? He struggled to reconcile what he thought he knew with what could have happened. No, he was sure. He knew she'd been with him the whole time. He hadn't slept much that night, but when he had, it was with her in his arms. But then he also remembered waking up surprised to find her on top of him. He remembered her scent, how she'd smelled of the cold, November night. How could he be sure?
 

"I didn't sleep much—only in very short intervals. And she was with me. She was asleep, too."
 

"How do you know that?"

"She fell asleep first." He needed to be clearer so that the jurors knew she was there, even when both of them were asleep. "I held her," he whispered.

"Could you speak up, please? I couldn't hear you."

Jack turned and looked directly at the jury. "I held her," he said, louder this time.

Sanders didn't like that; he rushed past it. "What time was it, the first time you fell asleep?"

Jack looked away from the jury, back to Sanders, but his mind was in Jenny's bedroom, on her bed, staring at the sheers while he waited for her to fall asleep.
These voices must be my soul
. He'd forgotten the music playing in the background, but now it came back to him clearly. He had trouble concentrating on Sanders' question. "I don't know for sure. Around eleven."
 

Sanders frowned. "The food arrived a little after nine thirty, you ate it and were asleep by eleven?" His voice conveyed his disbelief. It sounded crazy even to Jack.

"Yes," he answered emphatically.

"Do you make it a habit to rendezvous at the homes of women friends and then just go to sleep when you get there?"

Jeff jumped to his feet, but before the word even had time to leave his lips, Judge Lehman's voice bellowed from above them all: "You're out of line, Mr. Sanders! Get up here!"

"I withdraw the question," Sanders said on his way to the bench, but his face made it clear that he just hadn't been able to resist.

The judge pointed his finger over the bench at Sanders; he lowered his voice but his anger was palpable. "Mr. Sanders, I'm going to say this only one time. You've just crossed that thin line you've been straddling. Do it again and I'll hold you in contempt."