Homicide (81 page)

The prosecutor recounts Robert Frazier’s attempt to use his second girlfriend as an alibi in the murder of his first, as well as the detectives’ subsequent interrogation of Nee-Cee Henson, in which she admitted that Frazier had left her dinner party early and then failed to return until morning. Henson signed a written statement to that effect and then gave similar testimony to the grand jury; now, with Frazier looking at the possibility of life
without parole, she is backing up, telling Doan that she remembers the dinner party more clearly now. Frazier, she says, left for only a few moments early in the evening and then stayed with her until morning.

The woman began backing away from her testimony weeks ago, when she first signed a written statement for a private investigator employed by Polansky. Her behavior does not surprise Doan, who has learned that she has repeatedly visited Frazier at the city jail. Now he asks Gordy to call her to the stand as a hostile witness. To the prosecutor, Sharon Henson is valuable precisely because her testimony will not be credible.

“It would be an injustice for this jury to be deprived of seeing her and hearing from her,” says Doan, “and it would put the state in an impossible position to actually call her as its own witness.”

“Mr. Polansky?” asks Gordy.

“Your honor, would it be possible to respond … to respond to Mr. Doan’s argument after the break so I can have an opportunity to absorb this?”

“Denied.”

“Can I have a minute to look at this?” he says, scanning a copy of the state’s motion.

“You may,” says Gordy, the very picture of bored irritation. “While Mr. Polansky is looking at that, I will note for the record this issue has been anticipated in this trial, according to conversations between counsel and the court, since the beginning of this trial.”

Polansky takes a few more minutes, then attempts a response, arguing that Miss Henson’s current version of events doesn’t differ dramatically from her earlier testimony. It doesn’t seem, Polansky argues, that the statements are so inconsistent as to justify calling her as a court’s witness.

“Do you intend to call her as a witness in the defense case?”

“Well, I don’t know,” says Polansky. “I can’t make that commitment at this point, your honor.”

“Because if you were, these questions would be moot.”

“I agree,” says the defense attorney. “I think the likelihood is I will not call her.”

Gordy then announces his decision: Although she is lying to save her man, Sharon Henson will testify against him. The woman takes the stand after the lunch break and begins an ordeal that lasts well over an hour. If a man’s freedom wasn’t at issue, if a family wasn’t seated in the gallery, praying for vengeance, Henson’s performance in service of her boyfriend might count as comedy. Black velvet evening dress, pillbox hat, fur wrap—her appearance alone makes it difficult to take her testimony
seriously. Conscious of her big moment in this drama, she takes the oath and crosses her legs in the witness box as if to mimic the femme fatales of every Grade B film noir. Even the jury begins to giggle.

“How old are you, ma’am?” asks Doan.

“Twenty-five.”

“Do you know an individual by the name of Robert Frazier?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you see that individual in the courtroom today?”

“Yes.”

“Point him out, please.”

The woman points to the defense table, then, for just a moment, smiles softly at the defendant. Frazier looks back impassively.

Doan establishes Sharon Henson’s relationship with Frazier for the jury’s benefit, then takes her back to the night of her party and the murder. In her statements to Garvey and the grand jury, Henson acknowledged that she had been drinking and using drugs, but she had unequivocally stated that Frazier had left the party late that evening and not returned until morning. Now, she is remembering something altogether different.

“Do you still consider yourself Mr. Frazier’s girlfriend today?” asks Doan.

“Do I really have to answer that?”

“Yes,” says Gordy. “Answer the question.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And during the time that Mr. Frazier has been incarcerated you have visited him at the jail, have you not?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Now, how many times have you visited him there?”

“Three times.”

Doan heaps it on, asking Henson to list the Valentine’s Day gifts she received from Frazier before the murder. Then he turns abruptly to the issue of the .38 revolver that Frazier had given her to hold after the killing, the weapon that Frazier had taken back from her four days before Garvey and Kincaid showed up to interview her.

“And when he asked you for the weapon,” says Doan, his voice even, “did he tell you why he wanted it?”

“Yes, he did.”

“What did he say, ma’am?”

“That the police would be coming to talk to me, and he told them that I had the gun for him, but he didn’t ask me for it.”

“And?” asks Doan, looking up from his notes.

Sharon Henson glowers at the prosecutor before answering. “Not to give it to them,” she says, then glances apologetically toward her boyfriend.

“He told you that the police would be coming looking for it. He didn’t want you to give it to them?” asks Doan.

“I remember that, yeah.”

So far, so good. Doan pushes on to the night of the party. He has the woman recite the guest list and the menu, and when she claims poor memory, Doan reminds her that they spoke only ten days earlier in his office.

“At that time, did you tell me that you had ham and cheese, collard greens, corn on the cob, lobster and wine?”

“Yes,” she says, unperturbed.

Doan leads her into the events of the party: Frazier’s arrival, his departure to pick up the lobster, his wardrobe on the night of the party.

“What was Mr. Frazier wearing?”

“Beige.”

“Beige?”

“Beige,” she repeats.

“He had beige slacks on?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Beige shirt?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did he have a jacket that he was wearing?”

“Coat,” she says.

“What kind of coat?” asks Doan.

“Beige,” she says.

“Was he wearing anything else beige?”

The jury laughs. Henson glares at them.

“His hat?” asks Doan.

“It’s like a golf cap.”

“The kind with a brim around the front?” asks Doan.

“Snaps on it,” she says, nodding in agreement.

Suddenly, Larry Doan turns the corner on Sharon Henson. He brings out her statement to the detectives as well as her grand jury statement.

“When you spoke to police, didn’t you tell them he was wearing a black waist-length jacket?”

“I spoke to the police,” she says, the change in Doan’s voice making her wary.

“Ma’am, is the answer yes or no?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Do you remember telling the grand jury what he was wearing?”

“Objection, your honor,” says Polansky.

Gordy overrules him. “Yes or no?” says the judge.

“They might have asked me,” she says bitterly. “I don’t remember.”

And so it goes for half an hour, with Doan reading from the transcripts and Sharon Henson claiming to remember nothing.

“Isn’t it true, ma’am, that during the course of the party you had an argument with Mr. Frazier?”

“Yes.”

“And after the argument he left your apartment?”

“No.”

“He never left your apartment?”

“He left for about twenty minutes, yes.”

“And when he came back, what did he do?”

“He continued to mingle with the guests.”

“And he stayed the whole night. This is what you are telling the ladies and gentlemen of the jury?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“And you want them to believe that, right?”

Polansky is on his feet with the objection.

“Overruled,” says Gordy.

At which point Sharon Henson looks across the courtroom at Larry Doan and smiles sweetly. It’s as if she actually believes she’s destroying the state’s case; in fact, she is turning all of Paul Polansky’s lawyering to dust.

“Is that right, ma’am?” asks Doan. “You want them to believe that he stayed the whole night with you. Is that right?”

“Well he did.”

“Is your memory of the events of the twenty-second of February clearer today than it would have been on March seventeenth or March tenth of this year?”

“March? No. Yes.”

“Is it clearer today?” says Doan, showing his irritation.

“I mean, I have talked it over with the people that was at the party.”

Doan looks at the jury, giving them an honest-to-God double take. “Okay,” he says, shaking his head. “You talked to some people at the party, and that made your recollections clearer?”

“It made me see a few more things about that night that I didn’t see that night or whatever.”

“You mean like how long your boyfriend stayed at your apartment? You needed someone else to tell you how long your boyfriend stayed at your apartment?”

“Excuse me, sir,” hisses the woman. “I was under the influence of drugs and alcohol that night.”

“So how,” asks Doan, saying each word slowly, “do you remember it now?”

At the defense table, Polansky sits with his hand to his forehead, presumably thinking about the case that might have been. Subtle strategies have suddenly been rendered obsolete by simple vaudeville. The Newport cigarettes, the unchecked hairs and the ghost of Vincent Booker—all of that is out the window now that Doan is blowing holes in Sharon Henson for the courtroom’s amusement. At times, the jurors laugh so loudly that Gordy uses the gavel.

Outside the courtroom, Rich Garvey fidgets as Henson’s time on the stand lengthens. Only when Doan emerges is the true scope of the victory made clear to him.

“What happened with Nee-Cee?” he asks the prosecutor as they walk down the third-floor corridor. “How’d she go over?”

Doan smiles as if he had a dorsal fin sticking through the back of his pinstripes. “I killed her. I destroyed her,” he tells the detective. “There’s blood all over the floor in there.”

“She was terrible?”

“She was a fucking joke. The jury was laughing at her,” says Doan, unable to conceal his delight. “I’m serious. I fucking murdered her.”

From here forward, it is a downhill ride. If Sharon Henson had held to the truth, if she had been willing to give the state what she gave them in March, she could have counted herself as nothing worse than one piece of the circumstantial puzzle. Instead, she chose to perjure herself and as a result, she exists in every juror’s mind as evidence of Robert Frazier’s desperation.

On Monday, the testimony begins again with Rich Garvey’s return to the stand and the blow-by-blow of the investigative steps that led to Frazier’s arrest. On the cross-examination, Polansky works hard to emphasize his client’s early cooperation in the probe, Frazier’s willingness to come downtown and be interviewed without a lawyer. At one particularly telling moment, Polansky asks about the wounds from both knife and gun, suggesting that the use of two weapons indicates that two suspects are involved.

“How many years have you been a police officer?” he asks Garvey.

“Thirteen.”

“And you’ve investigated many, many homicide cases either directly or—”

“That’s right,” says Garvey.

“Have you ever had a case where the victim died by a stab wound and gun wound and there was only one perpetrator?” asks Polansky.

“Yes,” says Garvey calmly.

“How many cases? What case? Name it.”

“We had indications in the case of Purnell Booker that there was one perpetrator.”

Take that, thinks Garvey. With one sweet little answer, the same jury that has been asked to worry about the mysterious Vincent Booker can now wonder about the fact that somewhere in this case another Booker exists as a victim. Polansky asks to approach the bench.

“I am not even sure what to do, whether to ask for a mistrial or not,” he tells Gordy.

The judge smiles, shaking his head. “You’re not going to do anything since you asked him.”

“I didn’t ask him,” Polansky protests.

“He answered your question,” says Gordy. “What is your request? What do you want me to do? Why did you come up here?”

“I don’t know,” says Polansky. “Now I’m wondering whether I should open the whole thing.”

“I’m not going to let him open up the whole can of worms based on that answer.”

“Thank you,” says Polansky, still a little dazed. “I am not … I have no requests then.”

Garvey’s second trip to the stand is a carefully crafted piece of work and a redemption of sorts for his performance on the first day of the trial, but it is almost beside the point. So, too, is the testimony of Robert Frazier, who takes the stand the following day to explain himself to the jury and declare that he had no reason or desire to kill Charlene Lucas. Frazier’s day in court has already been clouded by Sharon Henson; she has colored everything to which the jury is subsequently exposed. More than that, Henson’s testimony provided a stark contrast to the other essential testimony in the case: Romaine Jackson was young and frightened and reluctant when she identified Robert Frazier as the man she saw with Lena on the night of the murder; Sharon Henson was hard
and bitter and contemptuous when she took the same stand to deny her own words.

That is precisely the comparison that Doan makes in his closing argument to the jury. Rich Garvey, now permitted in the courtroom as an observer, watches several jurors nod in agreement as Doan paints a vivid picture of each woman—one is an innocent truth-teller, the other, a corrupt prevaricator. Once again he returns to Henson’s testimony about her boyfriend’s clothing. He gives special attention to one small piece of testimony, one tiny fragment gleaned from a week of legal argument. When Romaine Jackson testified, she was asked to describe the defendant’s hat. A cap, she says, a white cap.

“She’s got her hands up here and she says it has a snap on it,” recalls Doan, hands to his head. “Has a snap on it … And when did that become significant?”

Sharon Henson, he tells the jury. A day later, Sharon Henson is on the stand trying to help her boyfriend. Oh, says Doan, in imitation, he was wearing all beige. Beige trench coat. Beige slacks. Beige shoes. Probably beige underwear and a beige golf cap …