Character Witness (14 page)

''
I think if you know where to buy it, you know how to use it.'' She went on to the next point of interest. ''We also don't know what grade of heroine he was using. It could have been contaminated. People are stupid. Can't tell from this what he knew and what he didn't, but I'm willing to bet he wasn't a real pro.''

''
Why?''

Marlene Wong opened the file and laid it flat on the desk. It was apparent she didn't want them to focus on the typed form on the left, but the autopsy photos so neatly tacked to the right side of the manila folder.

Kathleen looked at Lionel Booker for the first time, and saw death as she'd never seen it before. Fascinated and curious, Kathleen was astounded to find she was neither revolted nor sympathetic. Were these the emotions of a lawyer? But she was a woman with a history of compassion: empathy for her father's disillusionment, for her mother's disappointment, for her fiancé's limitations. Funny, she'd thought she'd only left Banning behind, now she realized she'd left part of herself there. She wondered if she should try to find it again.

''
I'm sorry, Doctor Wong,'' Kathleen said quietly, her personal epiphany put away for her to consider later and alone - if ever. ''I don't know what I'm looking for in these pictures.''

Old eyes still sharp, Gerry had flipped the photos from full body to close ups of Lionel Booker's head, torso, legs and finally arms. He was the one who answered.

''
Here, Kathleen. Look here.'' A long thin finger pointed to the mid-point of Lionel Booker's arm. She followed the instruction and shook her head again. ''Clear, my girl. His skin is unblemished. There are no tracks, Kathleen, no bruises. Indeed, Mr. Booker may not have known what he was doing. Lionel Booker was not a junkie. If there was a drug of choice, it wasn't injected heroine.''

''
Still sharp, Gerry. So it could be his first try.'' Marlene Wong added her two cents. ''There are a few things that bother me.'' She flipped back to the picture that showed the left quadrant of Lionel's unclothed body. ''There is no note of a fresh needle mark, but see here? It looks like a something on the neck.'' She made a little circular motion to draw attention to it. ''This picture isn't great because the good doctor didn't turn the head fully, a fact which I would call sloppy if it were anyone but Doctor G. But the really strange thing is, if you look with a glass, there seems to be a slight tear in the skin. There's also a contusion on the back of his right thigh and one on the back of his right arm near his elbow. I thought that was weird, considering how nice the man was found on the toilette.''

''
Like he'd fallen,'' Kathleen muttered.

''
No,'' Marlene said thoughtfully.

''
Then what?''

''
Like he struggled.''

CHAPTER SIX

Kathleen had pirated Gerry's slightly larger office to depose Sarah Booker, but it was still uncomfortably crowded. The stenographer had settled in an upright chair in the corner, her machine at the ready on a portable stand. Tony Maglio was sitting in one of the bucket chairs purloined from the reception area. Kathleen was behind Gerry's desk and Sarah Booker was across from her. There was approximately ten square feet of floor space that wasn't being tapped upon by a set of feet. And, in the free space, Becky flitted about refilling coffee cups or water glasses. She looked pale, terrified as a young bride worried she'd blow her first dinner with the in-laws. The audience was too big, the activity more than she'd seen in all her years at O'Doul & Associates and she wanted everything to be right. The air-conditioning was working well and on full force. Perhaps that was what kept everyone from getting hot under the collar given Sarah Booker's victim-by-nature pose.

''
Sarah.'' Kathleen crossed out number sixty-three on her list of questions and went on to number sixty-four. ''Did your husband spend time away from home?''

Sarah slid her eyes toward Tony. Kathleen followed suit. Tony, unfortunately, wasn't quite on top of things. His eyes were crossing. The expression 'pulling teeth' took on a whole knew meaning as Sarah looked down again and shook her head.

''
Mr. Maglio?'' Kathleen looked for a little help with a raised brow. She had long since overcome her awe of him. It went out the door the first time he snoozed off. He cleared his throat and pushed back his coat, letting his hand rest on his hip.

''
You'll have to speak for the record, Sarah.'' Tony fell short of giving her a nudge on the shoulder. He'd said the same thing forty-three times. This, Kathleen decided, must be legal hell: Sarah sitting with her hands in her lap, her gray sweater hanging over her thin shoulders, her dishwater blond hair falling from a middle part to hide her face and that woeful expression on her face. The court reporter's fingers were at the perpetual ready only to be stretched for seconds by one word answers, Tony playing imaginary cat's cradle with his fingers and. . .

''
No.'' Sarah's voice was flat as a pancake.

''
I'm sorry, I've forgotten the question,'' Kathleen looked at the reporter.

''
Did Lionel stay away from the home for long periods of time?''

The woman's mouth hadn't moved. Kathleen glared at Louise. She'd forgotten Louise who had been progressively banished further from the table where counsel and client sat. The reporter looked at Louise just to make sure she wasn't going to say anything else. When it was clear that there wouldn't be a duet, she intoned:

''
Did Lionel stay away. . .'' The reporter began.

Kathleen nodded politely. The woman stopped. They all looked at Sarah who looked back with deer eyes - the kind that were wide and scared and caught in the headlights Kathleen was shining on her.

''
Sarah?'' Kathleen prodded.

''
No. He was always home.'' This time her voice was almost defiant.

Louise snorted. She was ignored by everyone - except Sarah Booker. Slowly Sarah turned to look at Louise. The picture was stunning. Louise in her black satin jumpsuit, breasts pushing out the top, high heeled, sandaled feet pushing out the bottom, sat confidently at her end of the spectrum. Her nails were white. Louis Armstrong blew into a gold trumpet. Louise's own lips were outlined in pewter and colored in with plum. Tammy Faye didn't have a thing on her.

On the other end of the spectrum sat Sarah. The sweater she'd worn in court still hung over her shoulders despite the heat outside. Today it covered a denim dress, neatly pressed, too long and too big to bring to mind any prurient interest. She was Cinderella forgotten by her fairy godmother. Yet, on her unpainted face there was an expression of such courage she seemed as formidable as her counterpart.

''
Lionel was home every night because that's where he wanted to be. That's where he felt safe.'' The reporter typed like crazy, happy to have something to do. Sarah looked back at Kathleen, her piece said.

''
Was there something that made Lionel feel unsafe?'' The odd choice of words alerted Kathleen. The picture Sarah painted of her life with Lionel was crucial to Kathleen's argument and Sarah knew it. But whatever else was in Sarah's head was now tucked firmly away.

''
Nothing. There's nothing. He just liked the feeling of being at home,'' she hesitated. ''Lionel liked being away from everything loud - and vulgar.''

They all thought about that for a moment. Louise inspected the tip of her nail. The guise of indifference was well done, and because it was Louise, believable.

''
Did Mr. Booker ever verbally or physically abuse you, Sarah?'' Sixty-four was checked off.

Sarah rose to the occasion, defending her dead husband. ''No. Not Lionel. Whoever said that is a liar. Every word out of Lionel's mouth was truthful and loving toward me.''

''
No one has accused him of anything, but everybody thinks there was something wrong at the end of Mr. Booker's life.''

Kathleen put her hand to her head, winding her fingers through her hair. She looked at Sarah Booker and opened her mind. The belief that Sarah wanted to talk was a far cry from Kathleen knowing how to tap into that desire. Obviously her desire was fleeting.

''
I want to go home.''

Sarah pleaded with her attorney. She refolded her hands. Tony Maglio looked through her not knowing Sarah saw through him, too. Only by the grace of the estate was she represented by counsel at all. Sarah Booker was a woman alone. Finally she turned the full force of her frightened and anxious attention on Kathleen.

''
I want to go home.'' This time she appealed to Kathleen. ''I've told you everything there is to tell. Lionel was a good man. We were very happy. We loved each other. I know that you people can make things seem different. I know you're smart with words. If I could, I'd give you all the money just so you would go away and let Lionel rest. But I can't. It's not up to me.'' She hung her head and the curtain of hair fell again. She spoke from behind it.

''
He never did drugs. He loved the world. He was a spiritual man and we were so happy together. Now he's dead and nobody is interested in how that happened. You don't care about Lionel so just take what you want. Just don't take what was real and make it different just because of money. You can ask me things a hundred different ways, but I can't tell you that Lionel was ugly or mean or selfish. He wasn't. He wasn't.'' She raised her head, memories of Lionel giving her courage.

''
I know he didn't kill himself. I know that for sure because . . .,'' Sarah's voice rang out like an evangelist. Suddenly realizing how curious they'd become, she back tracked. ''I know that because I know him. I don't know how the drugs got in him, but you'll never convince me that he was so sad he didn't want to live. He finally had a good life.'' She slumped back in her chair. ''Now it's gone and you are all picking at his corpse. That was my husband. I loved him. He loved me. There's nothing more. So please, can I go home now? Please? Please, I want to leave.''

Silence is a canvas and Sarah's last words were painted on it in big letters for all to see. Tony Maglio craned his neck so he wouldn't have to look at Sarah. Kathleen looked at her notes. Never in her whole life had she felt so guilty. She had scored one today. A big one and she felt terrible because Sarah Booker wasn't her opponent. Sarah was only a sad woman, a widow, a person afraid of her own shadow. It was easy to pick on someone like that.

''
Oh Lord,'' Louise finally muttered from her exile. ''Lionel wasn't a saint.'' The spell was broken. The court reporter typed and Becky slipped into the room staying only long enough to whisper in Kathleen's ear.

Though she listened, Kathleen watched Sarah Booker closely. The body language screamed martyr but there was something else inside her. When she glanced over her shoulder toward Louise, Sarah Booker began to shake and Kathleen understood. That something else inside Sarah was honest to goodness fear. The questions were how deep did it go and how real was it? Sarah's eyes snapped back to her lap and Kathleen turned a curious eye on Louise. There was, of course, one other question. Who was causing such fear?

''
Mrs. Booker,'' Kathleen said gently as she jotted a note to herself regarding Becky's information. ''Can you think of anything in Lionel's life, or yours, that would cause him to become despondent or to feel as if he would be doing anyone a favor if he took his own life? If there is one small thing it would help so much to wrap this up.''

Sarah shook her head. When she looked at Kathleen there was no fear but there was such a sense of such extreme weariness that Kathleen wondered if they shouldn't feed her before she left. Yet when she answered ''no'' there was closure. There would be nothing else from Sarah Booker, but Kathleen had to try one more thing. It was a question she asked the women in Banning who came to her, bruised and battered to find out what they could do to protect themselves from an 'unnamed person' who wanted to hurt them - an unnamed person who usually turned out to be their husband. In this case, that wasn't a possibility. There was, however, another person who Sarah Booker might fear. A person who wanted what she had in the worst way.

''
Sarah, is there anyone you're afraid of?''

Sarah Booker bolted upright, her narrow, fragile shoulders shaking under the heavy sweater. If it was possible, her face paled even more, the freckles across the bridge of her nose taking on a three dimensional look. Her eyes lowered, they slid left toward Louise. A sign. Kathleen watched closely for any sign of accusation. Those eyes slid right toward Tony Maglio and, finally, they looked fearfully at Kathleen herself.

''
I just want to be left alone.''

Kathleen stood up. The court reporter packed up her things, left a card on the desk and went away. The transcripts would be in Kathleen's hands the next day. It was hardly necessary. Kathleen would remember everything: the words, the nuances, the inflections. Sarah hurried out the door and Becky said good-bye to everyone in turn. Tony Maglio stuck out the hand that didn't hold his briefcase.

''
It's been a pleasure,'' he said.

Kathleen took it and shook it.

''
It's been interesting.''

''
Yeah,'' he hoisted the case and Kathleen wondered what could make it so heavy. ''It was pretty painless.''

''
For you maybe,'' Kathleen reminded him. It took him a minute to realize he was supposed to murmur some sort of empathetic statement on Sarah's behalf. He tried but it didn't come easily.

''
Well.'' He had a proposition to discuss. ''Look, Kathleen, this estate isn't worth the paper it's printed on. I'm only here as a favor to Booker's brother, you know. He liked the wife. He didn't know her well, but he has a lot of respect for the way she felt about his brother.'' He glanced over his shoulder. They were alone. He laid it out. ''Anyway, you've got a better shot at getting the bucks out of All Life. Everything in the estate is tied up with Sarah anyway. She was Lionel's beneficiary on the company paid policies, retirement, house, everything. She thinks she can just give it away and that will be that, but I'm here to tell you it would be a mess.'' Now he put the briefcase in front of him and held it with both hands. He lowered his head; she leaned into him to hear what he had to say.