The Advocate's Devil (25 page)

Finally, after three days of contentious selection, Judge Gambi was able to say, “We have a jury.”

Abe turned to Pullman with a look of resignation. “Now get me twelve good shadows so we can find out how bad it really is.”

As Pullman and Rendi left the courtroom in search of shadows, Abe and Justin hunkered down for the trial. It could be as short
as two or three days—if Campbell didn’t have to take the stand. Or it could go as long as two weeks if he did testify and
the state put on a rebuttal case. Nothing was ever predictable about a criminal trial, especially when a man like Joe Campbell
was the defendant.

Judge Gambi directed Prosecutor Cheryl Puccio to call her first witness. Joe Campbell, dressed in a blue blazer with gray
pants and a red tie, seemed to be in a different world. He didn’t even lift his head as Jennifer Dowling walked past him contemptuously.
He was deep in thought.

Abe looked at Campbell and wondered what could be going through his client’s mind. Campbell was still unfathomable to him,
as were most of his clients—innocent or guilty. No matter how many different types of defendants Abe had dealt with, he never
could think the way they did. Thank God. Abe recalled an accused stock swindler he’d once defended who spent the entire trial
immersed in red herrings and stock tables. He was acquitted
and
he made a killing in the market at the same time. For all Abe knew, Joe Campbell might be thinking about his next game—or
planning his next predatory adventure. In any event, Abe needed him to focus on events in the courtroom.

“Pay attention, please,” Abe insisted. “I need you to tell me when Jennifer is lying, even about the most minute details,
so that I can zero in on cross-examination.”

“Sure, sure,” Campbell said, quickly returning from whatever universe his head was in.

“I also need you to make eye contact with the jurors,” Abe added. “Jurors sometimes look for a defendant’s reaction to the
evidence.” He could see that he was getting nowhere with Campbell, so he decided to tell him an anecdote that Haskel used
to relate to his students. “Joe, please listen to this little story.”

“If you insist.”

“I insist.” At this point he’d do headstands if it meant Joe would pay attention to the proceedings. What next—a marching
band? Anyway, Abe tried on his best raconteur skills.

“A defendant was once on trial for murdering his wife. No corpse had been found, but the circumstantial evidence was convincing.
During his closing argument the defense lawyer told the jurors that they were in for a great surprise: when he counted to
ten, the allegedly dead wife would walk through the courtroom door. ‘One, two,’ the lawyer began. By ‘seven’ every juror had
his eyes riveted on the door. ‘Eight, nine, ten,’ the lawyer counted. The jurors waited expectantly, but the door remained
closed. The defense attorney smiled and explained to the jurors, ‘See, each of you turned your eyes to the door. You each
must have had a reasonable doubt about whether the wife was really dead. My little experiment,’ the lawyer declared victoriously,
‘proved that you had a reasonable doubt and you must, therefore, acquit the defendant.’ Despite this logic the jury convicted
the defendant. Afterward the disappointed defense lawyer asked one of the jurors how she could have voted for conviction after
the jurors had all looked at the door. ‘Yes,
we
all looked at the door,’ the juror explained, ‘but we noticed that the
defendant
didn’t.
He
knew nobody was walking through that door.’”

Abe placed an arm on Campbell’s shoulder. “Take that story to heart, Joe. You damn well better be looking at the door.”

This time, it seemed, Campbell had listened to Abe. He stared intently at the jurors as Jennifer Dowling began her testimony.

Cheryl Puccio was a first-rate courtroom performer. She was a handsome woman in her late thirties, not too glamorous or sexy,
and very credible to jurors. She wore gray tailored suits that made her look a bit masculine, without being threatening. Her
voice was soothing, if a bit monotonic. She spoke quickly, never smiling. Cheryl Puccio was all business, no nonsense. She
exuded sincerity. No one would choose her for a partner at a long formal dinner party, yet Abe knew that she was perfect for
the role in which she was cast—the champion for a young woman victimized by a predatory man.

“Please tell the jury your name.”

“My name is Jennifer Dowling,” the witness said firmly as she fiddled with the bottom of her dark business suit. Abe was pleased
to notice how similarly Campbell and Dowling had dressed for their courtroom confrontation.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I work in advertising for a Manhattan firm.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Abe studied Joe’s reaction to Jennifer. Did he project pity? Anger? Contempt? The amazing thing
to Abe was that Joe’s emotion was zero. It was hard to imagine that there had ever been anything between them. Jennifer, he
noticed, seemed to be expending a lot of energy avoiding the defense side of the courtroom. If the jury picked up on this,
how would they interpret it?

“When did you first meet the defendant, Joseph Campbell?”

“I met him on March 10, near the office building where I work.”

“Was it a chance meeting?”

“Yes.”

Abe heaved an inaudible sigh of relief at Jennifer’s answer. He had been fairly certain that neither Cheryl Puccio nor Jennifer
Dowling was aware of Justin’s theory about how Campbell had come to meet Jennifer.

Cheryl Puccio took Jennifer uneventfully through the first meeting and then the subsequent dinner at Stellina’s in Water town.
At the mention of Stellina’s, the juror from Watertown whispered something to the woman on the adjoining seat.

“No talking to other jurors until all the testimony is complete,” Judge Gambi admonished.

Everyone in the law business knew that jurors disregarded this ritualistic warning. But rituals were essential to the survival
of all institutions—even trials.

Now Puccio was taking Jennifer to the Charles Hotel. This would be the next crucial test. Would Jennifer tell the truth about
her original desire to have sex with Campbell? Or would she fudge? Abe hoped she would fudge. Most date rape victims did,
he knew, because they feared that if they told the whole truth—including the fact that they had originally consented to sexual
foreplay or more—the jury would conclude that they’d been asking for it.

In one of their strategy planning sessions, Abe had shown a videotape of the cross-examination of Patricia Bowman, the complaining
witness in the William Kennedy Smith case. At one point Bowman denied that she had even had any sexual interest in Smith.
When she said she couldn’t remember how her panty hose ended up in her car, Abe had stopped the videotape.

“That’s when the case ended,” he’d said. “After that the jury stopped listening to Patricia Bowman, because they stopped believing
her.” Turning to the Campbell case, Abe had continued, “We’ve got to look for a point like that in Jennifer Dowling’s story.
If we can catch her in a lie—even an insignificant lie—the jury will stop listening to the rest of her story, even if it’s
true.”

“Why would a woman who has really been raped ever lie about what went on before?” Justin had asked.

“Because they believe that if they were to tell the truth about welcoming the man’s advances up to a certain point and then
saying no, some of the jurors would refuse to convict, even if they believed her testimony.”

Rendi had been angry over this. “Some people just can’t seem to get it through their thick skulls that rape isn’t a crime
of morality. It’s a crime against a woman’s right to choose whom she will or won’t have sex with.”

“
We
know that, Rendi,” Abe had replied. “Not all jurors believe it.”

To Abe’s surprise and chagrin, Jennifer Dowling told the truth about who had initiated the sex. Possibly, Abe calculated,
Puccio had shown her the same Patricia Bowman videotape.

Jennifer told the jury the details: that she had wanted to have sex with Campbell, that she went into the bathroom to put
in her diaphragm, that she returned wearing only her unbuttoned shirt, that she had initiated the discussion about sex with
Campbell, and that she had reached for his genitals.

While Jennifer went through her catalog of consent, Joe gently nodded his head in agreement. Abe noted that Campbell had positioned
himself so that he seemed to be directing all his silent commentary toward the jury—specifically the assertive Ms. Scuba Diver.

Now Puccio was up to the critical point in the testimony.

“So you were willing to have sex with Joseph Campbell as you both lay in bed. Did something then happen that caused you to
change your mind?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Mr. Campbell whispered something in my ear.”

“What was it that he whispered?”

“At first I wasn’t certain. Then he whispered it again, this time a bit more loudly and more clearly.”

“Are you now sure you know what he said?”

“Yes, I am positive. He made it crystal clear.”

“Please tell the jury exactly what he said.”

As Jennifer began to answer, Abe turned to watch Campbell’s reaction to what Jennifer would say. This would be the first time
he would hear the words Joe had allegedly spoken. He wondered what words could have so quickly changed Jennifer from a willing
sex partner into an unconsenting rape victim.

“He said these words.” Jennifer was speaking softly but clearly. “‘Give me as good a blow job as you gave Nick Armstrong at
your office. I hear you give world-class head in order to get ahead.’”

Jennifer began to weep softly. Several of the jurors were looking at her as she sobbed. Ms. Scuba Diver’s eyes were fixed
firmly on Campbell’s head, which was shaking gently back and forth. He must have been aware that the forewoman was observing
him as he squinted slightly and formed a silent
tsk
,
tsk
sound. The effect of these subtle movements by Campbell was to send a pained message of disappointment in Jennifer for finally
crossing the line from truth to falsehood.

At first Abe didn’t understand what Campbell was trying to do. Then it hit him: Campbell was
testifying
without taking the witness stand. He was having a running, silent, private conversation with Ms. Scuba Diver, the most important
and dangerous member of the jury. Campbell was trying to seduce her, but not physically. He was going for her mind. And from
the look on Ms. Scuba Diver’s face, Joe Campbell seemed to be scoring, as usual.

Puccio, who was busy comforting Jennifer, missed the entire scene, as did Judge Gambi. Jennifer stopped weeping, wiped her
eyes with a tissue, and continued with her testimony.

Puccio asked her to explain the significance of Campbell’s words.

Jennifer spoke haltingly as she disclosed the secret that had nearly destroyed her life. “Last year I performed oral sex on
the vice president of my company in an effort to obtain a promotion.”

As soon as she uttered these words, a collective gasp could be heard through the courtroom. It was as if the prim and proper
Jennifer Dowling had suddenly stripped naked in front of the jury. Courtroom observers and jurors turned to each other in
astonishment and began to converse.

“This is not a spectator sport,” Judge Gambi shouted, banging her gavel. “There will be no sounds from the audience, or the
press, and especially the jury. Continue, Ms. Puccio.”

Cheryl Puccio had known, of course, the answer Jennifer Dowling would give to her question. Still, she had no choice but to
ask it. If she didn’t, Abe would, and it was always better to blunt the impact of cross-examination by bringing out the worst
material first on direct examination. In any event, her answer was a crucial, if risky, building block to the state’s case.

After the audience quieted down, Puccio continued her direct examination.

“Are you proud of what you did?”

“No, I am mortified. It was stupid, immoral, and desperate. I really believed that it was the only way I could avoid losing
my job.”

“And did you lose your job anyway?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How come?”

“Because the man on whom I performed oral sex told his boss, the president, that I give ‘world-class head.’ The president
then asked me to perform oral sex on him, and I refused. So he fired me.”

Abe could have objected on hearsay grounds to Jennifer’s testimony about what the vice president allegedly told the president,
but he wanted the story to come out so that he could prove she had lied during the deposition in her harassment suit.

Puccio then asked Jennifer a question that made Abe’s heart skip a beat. “Do you know how Mr. Campbell learned about what
had happened between you and your bosses?” Abe waited for Jennifer to answer. He wondered whether they had somehow found out
about the computer printouts.

Fortunately Jennifer said, “I have no idea.”

At this point Campbell shrugged and raised his hands slightly, as if to signal both pity and triumph. Then he shook his head
again to make it clear that Jennifer Dowling was simply not telling the truth. This time Abe could see Ms. Scuba Diver respond
with her own modest gesture of disbelief. Abe hoped that Ms. Barrow was directing her disbelief at Jennifer Dowling rather
than at Joe Campbell.

Abe had been surprised by Puccio’s last question. She must have known that Jennifer’s answer would now give him a basis for
challenging her entire story. He began to compose his argument in his mind: “Of course Jennifer Dowling has ‘no idea’ how
Joe Campbell could have learned of her deep, dark, and shameful secret, because there is no corroboratory evidence that Joe
Campbell
did
know of it.” He’d been spared the ethical quandary of whether he could ask Jennifer the question on cross-examination because
Puccio had asked it on direct. Abe surmised that Puccio simply did not want to leave a loose thread hanging. Lawyers often
made the mistake, he mused, of believing that it was their job to tie up all loose ends—to create a neat, symmetrical little
bundle. However, life was full of loose ends, and lawyers often hurt their cases by being too fastidious and neat when it
didn’t serve their clients’ interests. Cheryl Puccio had asked one too many questions.