Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller (27 page)

Dennis waited a few moments. “Didn’t you say that to me, Deputy?”

Queenie was not an actress, not a professional expert witness who had testified at a dozen trials. She groaned softly. But everyone heard it.

“Yes, I may have, but—”

“No buts or may haves, Deputy. You know better.”

“I was only trying—”

“Did you say those words, or didn’t you say them?”

“I said it,” she replied quietly.

After Ray Bond had tried to rehabilitate his witness and then rested his case on behalf of the People, Judge Florian gazed coolly at the defense table.

“The defense may call its first witness.”

There were only three witnesses on Dennis’s list. The first was a medical examiner from Grand Junction who would testify to the slim possibility that the victims had died from other than injections of potassium chloride. The second was an Aspen pharmacist who would further discuss the possibility of Nitrostat retaining its form—not crumbling to powder—at extremely high altitudes.

I don’t need them, he thought. I’ve made my point.

The third potential witness was Bibsy Henderson. Valium or no, he believed she would make a good witness under direct examination. He was less positive that she would stand up to the thundering dose of cross-examination likely from Ray Bond, even if Dennis was there with a barrage of objections to keep the prosecutor reined in.

In his office, with Scott present, he had coached his mother-in-law. Don’t do this, he had said, and don’t do that. Bond will try to show such-and-such by asking you this question. Be careful not to answer in this fashion.
This
is your answer, Bibsy. He had done exactly what Ray Bond had done with Queenie O’Hare.

Once again, he remembered what had happened in New York with his client Lindeman.

At the defense table he cupped his hand and whispered to Scott Henderson, “I want to rest my case. I don’t think I can improve Bibsy’s position. Do you agree?”

“It’s your show,” Scott whispered back.

“You’re representing yourself.
You
can call Bibsy if it’ll help you.”

Scott said, “I don’t mind people thinking I’m stupid, but I sure don’t want to give them any proof. Let it be, Dennis.”

Resting his hand firmly on Bibsy’s shoulder, Dennis rose to face the jury. “Neither Mr. Henderson nor I feel the need to put on any witnesses.” He turned to the judge. “Your Honor, Mrs. Henderson rests.”

Scott rose. “I rest on the evidence, Your Honor.”

In Colorado the judge delivers his charge to the jury before final argument. Judge Florian explained that by their oath they had sworn to uphold the law of the state. That law, if they found the defendants had committed an act of assisted suicide with any premeditation, required a verdict of guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree.

Ray Bond spoke first for the People. He would have one further chance to rebut the defense’s final argument. As compensation for bearing the burden of proof, the state was always Bonded the last word.

Dennis counted on that.

Keeping his anger in check, Bond focused on the evidence that proved the defendants had been at the crime scene. He spoke of the fingerprints, the silver pillbox, and of Beatrice Henderson’s skills as a registered nurse. He came to Bibsy’s statements to Deputy Sheriff O’Hare on the drive from Springhill to Aspen.

“Despite the clever manipulation of the witness by the defense attorney,” Bond said, “there is no doubt that the defendant, Mrs. Henderson, was confessing to a heinous crime—a double murder by injection. I beg you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to use your common sense. What did Beatrice Henderson mean by the phrase ‘what we did up there at Pearl Pass?’ Did she want God to forgive her for littering in a wilderness area? Does she mean that perhaps she and her husband had shot and wounded an endangered species? No, she meant that she had committed the gravest sin of all. She needed God’s forgiveness because she had murdered two elderly people—for reasons we may never know—by administering a deadly injection of potassium chloride. And she said
we.
Common sense, ladies and gentlemen, leads you to the one correct conclusion. The law of Colorado that you are sworn to uphold tells you unequivocally that Beatrice and Scott Henderson did not have the right to play at being God and snuff out two human lives, as surely they did.” He pointed a rigid finger at Bibsy. “She was there! We know that! She was a nurse, and she had access to the drugs. Doctors have testified that she knew how to inject them.
And
—
she
—
confessed
/”

Ray Bond pounded the table with each of the last three words. “I’ll bet she’d like to bite off her tongue for saying what she said to Deputy O’Hare—but it’s too late! You
must
find her and her husband guilty.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dennis said, “the defense did not present witnesses. We didn’t have to. Because the prosecution’s case is not merely flawed. It’s not merely incomplete. It is tainted.”

He reminded the jury that Dr. Shepard, the state’s witness, had not been certain that Beatrice Henderson would have been capable of administering the lethal injection. He reminded the jury that the pharmacist Margaret Easter had explained that nitroglycerin pills have a longer intact life at a high, dry, cold altitude than at sea level. “Mrs. Henderson lives above 9,000 feet. Even if those were her pills in the pillbox, logic tells us that they could have been the pills of an old prescription—indeed, could have been the pills that were in the box when she lost it three years ago in Glenwood Springs, as she described to Deputy O’Hare.”

Dennis glanced over toward the prosecutorial table, and then looked back at the jurors with a steady gaze.

“And now we come to that part of Mr. Bond’s case that’s embarrassing. I can’t think of a more polite word than that. On last November thirtieth, in a Jeep driving from Springhill to Aspen, Deputy O’Hare talked to Mrs. Henderson. In English, and in a language we’re told is called Springling and is rumored to be spoken only up there in the boondocks of Gunnison County.” Dennis shrugged. “Never mind that, by her own admission in my presence, Ms. O’Hare is ‘a lousy note-taker’ and that Sheriff Gamble, her boss, has often been displeased with her notes. Put that aside for a moment—if you can.

“Deputy O’Hare typed that statement from her notes. Mr. Bond referred to it as a ‘confession.’ Deputy O’Hare’s copy of it is in evidence—you can have it right in front of you in the jury room, if you wish. You can see the yellow markings on it that she was told to make
by Mr. Bond.
You can see which parts of it
Mr. Bond
instructed her to repeat when she was his witness yesterday. But do they include any of the exculpatory parts? No, they don’t. Because the exculpatory parts don’t fit into Mr. Bond’s scheme of things. I wonder, when Deputy O’Hare put that statement into computer memory, if she knew that one day she would be told
by Mr. Bond
to repeat only certain parts of it under oath before a jury. And I wonder why he did that. Or am I being naive? Is it so simple that we don’t have to wonder?”

Again Dennis turned and looked directly at Ray Bond. And the jurors’ heads turned with him. Bond’s lips were compressed, his face swollen with anger.

Dennis said, “The words ‘the People’ have a proud ring to them. But this case against two innocent, elderly, lifelong residents of the western slope does not. You, who represent the real People, deserve better. There is no evidence the Hendersons committed this crime, let alone that the prosecutor has proved guilt beyond the standard of reasonable doubt. The people of Colorado should not be associated with such a prosecution.”

He sat down.

The judge peered down at Scott Henderson. “Sir, do you have anything to add?”

“Your Honor, I believe Mr. Conway has said it all. Except I should add that I did not confess or ever imply that my dear wife confessed to what she didn’t do. We are not guilty.”

With a pleasant air and in his most polite tone, Dennis said, “Your Honor, I think Mr. Bond may want to rebut. To have the last word.” For a moment the judge looked annoyed at such impertinence masquerading as kindness. But there was nothing he could do without seeming churlish. He said, “Mr. Bond?”

Ray Bond flew to his feet. Like a maddened rhino he charged straight for the jury box, instantly invading that precious territory so that two of the women jurors in the front row leaned back into their chairs as if seeking shelter. Ray Bond saw none of that. He saw only that he had been insulted and demeaned in a courtroom where he had always ruled.

He stopped short, his muscular chest heaving, and he waved a bundle of papers in the air.

“This is a copy of Deputy O’Hare’s statement!” he shouted. “The original is in evidence, and she testified under oath to its truth! I don’t need this statement to win this case, and you don’t need it to see that these people are guilty! I’m sick and tired of having this statement attacked by the defense attorney’s low tactics! I don’t
care
about her statement! I’ll show you just how much I need it to win this case! …” Ray Bond tore the papers in half—and tore them yet again—and then crumpled the torn pages and flung them to the floor at his feet, and stomped on them with his elephant-hide boots.

The waiting period was always agonizing. Dennis and the Hendersons and their coterie stayed in the courtroom.

“Is a quick verdict usually good?” Bibsy asked nervously.

“Usually,” Dennis said, more to relax her than out of conviction.

But quick it was: in just under two hours the bailiff presented a note to the judge that said the jury was ready to speak. The judge swiftly convened the trial. The jury was guided to their seats.

“Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”

The courtroom went suddenly silent as the sockless retired dermatologist, the jury foreman, cleared his throat and said, “We have, Your Honor.”

“How do you find defendant Beatrice Henderson?”

“Not guilty.”

A loud murmur of approval rose from the spectators’ benches, and Judge Florian rapped his gavel.

“Defendant Scott Henderson?”

“Not guilty.”

Dennis embraced his mother-in-law, who began to cry, and then Scott. A few of the jurors marched boldly up to the defense table, and the Bible educator from Basalt threw her arms around Bibsy Henderson and told her how terribly sorry they all were that she’d had to go through this ordeal.

Dennis found a few minutes time to pull the dermatologist foreman into a corner of the courtroom.

“I’d like to know what happened in the jury room. It’s perfectly proper for you to tell me, but you don’t have any obligation to do it.”

“I don’t mind telling you at all,” the doctor said. “I’d
love
to tell you. We took a vote as soon as we went into the jury room—twelve to none in favor of acquittal. That was that. That’s all there was to it. That prosecutor is an idiot! Did he really believe that tearing up that statement was going to make us forgive him for what he did? What an ass! You showed that to us, and I personally want to thank you.”

“Why did you take so long to come out of the jury room?”

“We didn’t want the judge to think we were being frivolous. And we didn’t want to be
too
insulting to the prosecutor and that poor deputy who admitted taking lousy notes and claimed these people spoke to each other in a local language. You know, I’ve lived in this valley for fifteen years, and I’ve heard that rumor about Springhill and that language, and so had some of the other jurors, but we all realize that’s pure snobbism on the part of so-called privileged people in Pitkin County—it’s like the Serbs and the Bosnians, or those New Guinea tribes who believe the people who live over the next hill speak worship the devil and have tails. Incredible stuff, in this day and age. So we just talked, and chatted, and a couple of us played gin rummy. When a respectable time had passed, we came out.”

Dennis took a deep breath. “Did you have any discussion about the case? What convinced you the Hendersons were innocent?”

“Are you kidding? That was never in doubt. Don’t quote me on this—but some of us felt that even if it was euthanasia, no law passed by some gang of redneck politicians was going to make us convict these two decent people of first-degree murder. No way! We looked at them, at the Hendersons, and we
knew
they hadn’t done anything illegal or criminal. You can see in their faces exactly who they are. They’re good people. They aren’t murderers. It was just ridiculous.”

“Thank you,” Dennis said. He could remember when he had felt that way too. He shook the doctor’s hand.

Scott came up to him. “I’m going to call Sophie to tell her. Do you want to speak to her?”

“Not now,” Dennis said. “Tell her I’ll be home later. In a while.”

He pulled away a little abruptly, noting the puzzled expression on Scott’s face. He hadn’t known he would do that, or say what he’d said; hadn’t known that he would want to be alone.

He walked swiftly across town through the cold evening, taking deep welcome breaths of air, straight to the bar at the Little Nell. He straddled a fabric-covered bar stool and ordered from the barman a Wild Turkey on the rocks. My God, he thought, I haven’t done anything like this in years. Not alone, anyway, and not on a bar stool. To hell with it. He downed the drink quickly and ordered another. The room was crowded and noisy; the apres-ski crowd was there, talking about the day’s runs and what they would do tomorrow and how fine the weather was and how lucky they were to be in Aspen. and at first didn’t see anyone he knew. That made
him
feel lucky.

Suddenly he noticed Oliver Cone and Mark Hapgood at the end of the bar, standing to one side, still wearing their jeans and worn parkas, and finishing what appeared to be straight shots of whisky.

They had come here, as Dennis had, straight from the courtroom.

The bourbon had made Dennis reckless. He walked over with slow, deliberate steps, but he was smiling.

“Gentlemen, can I buy you a drink? Shouldn’t we celebrate together? A victory for one citizen of Springhill is a victory for all, right?”