If You Really Loved Me (56 page)

"Call Dillard Veal!"

Dillard Veal, the consummate insurance man, took the stand. It was Veal who gave Fred McLean a crash course in life insurance and underwriting. He was a short, dapper man who laughed easily.

Testifying in a gentlemanly Southern drawl, Veal explained why he had occasion to review David Brown's insurance history. It was his company, Liberty Life, that paid off on a policy that had not even been accepted. Linda had applied on February 21, 1985. Only one premium had been paid—the one that accompanied her application: $113.34. "A tentative agreement was made with Mr. Brown to settle his claim for fifty thousand dollars. On my next visit to Orange County, that was not acceptable. I was referred to his lawyer, Mr. Phillips, and we agreed to a payment of seventy-three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars."

David's application for insurance with Liberty Life, like all his other applications, had been perused closely by underwriters. He listed hypertension and colitis under health concerns. When he sought payment on Linda's policy, Dillard Veal had researched any other policies extant and applied for and found Linda
had four
policies, all issued' within the thirteen months prior to her death. David had none.

She had not mentioned the other three on her application to Liberty. "That would have mattered to Liberty," Veal explained. "You wouldn't want someone to be overinsured —far beyond their expected needs. We get suspicious the higher it gets." He pointed out that a housewife with limited training and education would probably not be approved to buy a million-dollar insurance policy. "She would be over-insured."

On each of the policies the Browns applied for, David's occupation was listed as either "computer expert" or "computer specialist"; Linda was listed as a "housewife." On the Liberty Life application, she had added, "Help husband in his work."

The defense position was that Linda Brown had been a "key man" in Data Recovery, and that her death would have been expected to cripple the company. Obviously, it had not. Data Recovery had continued without a ripple when Linda died.

The jury now knew that David Brown had collected $843,626.68 on claims he submitted after Linda died.

Robinson entered into evidence a certified copy of a marriage license—issued to David A, Brown and Patricia Bailey.

After eleven days, the prosecution was winding down.

At 11:22
A.M
. on the last day of May 1990, the prosecution rested its case. It was Thursday, and Judge McCartin's courtroom was always "dark" on Fridays. The bulk of David Brown's defense would wait for three more days.

46

T
here had been a few hints of the direction that the defense would go. Pohlson and Schwartzberg had lost their best witness. Dan Coston, who now had David's $40,000 emerald-cut diamond ring, would not, of course, testify that David had been enticed and entrapped into murder-for-hire plots by Irv Cully and Richard Steinhart. And he most assuredly would not be allowed to testify that David had promised him a million dollars to lie on the stand. The double-agent snitch's name would never be mentioned in this courtroom.

The loss had been rough on the defense case. David
wanted
to testify, but it would be against Pohlson's good judgment. David had no ability at all to see himself as others saw him. He had viewed the September 22 arrest interview and felt he had handled himself very well. He could not
see
that he had completely changed his story from beginning to end. He could not
see
that the sexual details about his dead wife were in bad taste and inappropriate. If David got on the stand, he would have to face cross-examination from Robinson, and Pohlson knew that Robinson would skewer his client.

It had been obvious for some time that David Brown was not happy with the way his case was going. He whispered continually to Pohlson or tugged at his sleeve. No one could hear his words, but his expression was petulant.

If they would just let him tell it, he could straighten everything out.

Pamela French, the Garden Grove policewoman who had accompanied Cinnamon to the hospital the morning of Linda's murder, was the first defense witness. She had heard Cinnamon Brown's second confession as she sat with her in the hospital room. Officer French did not agree with Robinson that Cinnamon's statements had sounded "preprogrammed."

On Monday morning, June 4, the defense case went into high gear. Before the jury was brought in, Richard Schwartzberg argued against the inclusion of "special circumstances" in his client's charges. He insisted there had been no proof that the motive for Linda's murder was for insurance. Robinson argued that insurance can be "incidental" and need not be the primary reason for murder for special circumstances to attach.

"Why would David Brown not have waited to kill Linda then," Schwartzberg asked, "until the last policy took effect?" It was an important area for the defense. Special circumstances would undoubtedly bring a sentence of life without possibility of parole.

The television cameras were back. Barney Morris and Dave Lopez would have today's testimony on the five-o'clock news in Los Angeles.

Jay Newell was the first witness for the
defense.

Of course. Pohlson would try to show through Newell how many times Cinnamon and Patti had lied to him. Newell was a calm and experienced witness. He was friendly and responsive, but he could not be tripped up. The girls had already testified to their lies; the jury could count them.

There were no deals. There were no threats. Newell had only given them a layman's explanation of perjury before both Cinnamon and Patti testified in the preliminary hearing. Newell acknowledged that he had believed either David or Patti was the shooter when he first talked to Cinnamon at Ventura in August of 1988. He just didn't know which one. On October 29, he returned Cinnamon's call and she admitted that
she
was the shooter.

Robinson cross-examined his own investigator. Not surprisingly, they had no disagreements.

"Have you ever heard me say one word—or
have you
said one word about a deal?" "No."

"We purposely avoided that?" "Yes."

Dr. Seawright Anderson testified to his examination of Cinnamon Brown five years before, to her confession to him in his first consultation, and to her complete loss of memory in the second. Anderson had never talked to David Brown or to Patti Bailey Brown. It was difficult now for Pohlson to undermine Cinnamon's and Patti's testimony. They had told the truth, and Dr. Anderson was testifying to a distant, flawed reality.

David Brown would not testify; his witnesses became, instead, a flying buttress of defense attorneys. First, Alex Forgette, Cinnamon's attorney. Forgette testified that he did, indeed, tell David Brown that he represented Cinnamon, and only Cinnamon. David had not demurred when Forgette warned him that he would go after anyone—even Brown—to protect Cinnamon. The defendant had continued to retain Forgette. "Mr. Brown kept paying me and he cooperated in every way."

"Call Joel Baruch!"

Those who remembered the last courtroom meeting between Robinson and Baruch tensed. For those who did not, it was rapidly apparent that Baruch and Robinson were full-blown adversaries.

Pohlson wanted to show that David Brown had good reason to believe he was being railroaded, sacrificed on the altar of the ambitions of the DA's office. Baruch was quite willing to oblige. He explained that he was David Brown's attorney from about October 1, 1988, until after the preliminary hearing—held to determine if there was enough evidence to hold Brown over for trial. The preliminary hearing had taken from December 19 through January.

Since this procedure had taken place
before
the murdertor-hire schemes between the defendant and Richard Steinhart, it was essential that Baruch did not name either the prosecutor
or
the investigator then working on the case. Would Baruch protect their anonymity?

Asked what he had told his client about "the prosecutor," Joel Baruch answered, "I conveyed to him that the prosecutor did not like me and that he was going to go after Mr. Brown a little bit harder. . . ."

"Did you convey this to 'the investigator'?" "Yes."

"And what was his response?"

"The investigator would stop at nothing to get his point across. He didn't pay attention to rules. There
are
rules."

Baruch appeared to be a cold, almost supercilious, man. Any resentment he had for Robinson had scarcely diminished. The feeling was mutual, and apparent to even those who didn't know the history.

"How long was the preliminary hearing?" Pohlson asked.

"A month or two. It wasn't continuous."

"What was the tenor or tone of the interaction between the prosecutor and yourself?"

"It was chaotic." Baruch half-smiled. "It invaded the preliminary hearing."

Richard Schwartzberg read from transcripts of that hearing and inadvertently spoke Jeoff Robinson's name aloud. Now, the jury knew who "the prosecutor" was who was meant to die. It was the prosecutor who was trying this case. Jeoff Robinson.

There was a sudden, almost panicky, sidebar conference. The jury was fascinated. They were told nothing more. Baruch remained on the stand.

Yes, Baruch recalled, answering Pohlson, there had been a recusal hearing and there were confrontations in the hallway. No, Mr. Baruch did not care for "the prosecutor."

Finally, Robinson rose to cross-examine the man who had once called him a "buffoon." "Do you have any bias to help out Mr. Brown?"

"No."

"You were paid three hundred thousand dollars to represent Mr. Brown?"

"No."

"How much?"

"Prior to February 1989?"

"The total amount." Robinson dug in.

"About two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—but we refunded some of the money."

"How
much?"

Pohlson objected.

"Sustained."

"In the preliminary hearing, you told Mr. Brown that he'd get nailed," Robinson continued, "because "the prosecutor' didn't like you, didn't you?"

"I told him that it was a consideration—that our previous battles would make it hard on Mr. Brown."

"And you said 'the investigator' would stop at nothing to get Mr. Brown?"

"Yes ... I gave examples in this case. ... I definitely indicated my participation in the case could affect him. ... I told him this several times over a period of time, over the entire preliminary hearing."

Robinson was scathing. ". . . The investigator and the prosecutor are going after your client because they don't like
you?
That they lost some reason, some objectivity—that they'd convict him
just because they didn't like you?"

"No, I didn't say that."

Robinson read the decision of Judge Schwenk, who had found no merit in Joel Baruch's recusal motion against "the prosecutor." He now accused Baruch of trying "to buy the case in the press—of
trying
the case in the press."

"No! It was to try to stop an unethical prosecutor from steamrolling David Brown. . . . Some cases need to be tried in the press. You let your client go naked. Jurors read, and they need to know both sides. ... I wanted the press to know our position."

"Were you worried about what would follow after you told Mr. Brown [about 'the prosecutor']."

"No—"

"You didn't think the situation was serious?"

"Certainly serious for Mr. Brown."

"Why didn't you make a motion against the prosecutor
before
the preliminary hearing?"

"You know you can't do that. Some prosecutors play fair with the defense—some play a game."

". . . Did you think your client was going to do something bad?" Robinson moved carefully for Baruch's jugular, and McCartin sat alert, watching. "Why write checks for over twenty thousand dollars for his brother?"

"It was for rare coins."

"You think—"

"Exactly," Baruch cut in smoothly. "Mr. Brown was a coin collector ... he asked me to write a check for coins so I wrote a check for coins."

"The morning after two people were supposedly killed,
you
leave and go to Florida?"

"Yes ... for an anniversary with my—then wife."

"On the night before, were you in the jail in a heated conversation with Mr. Brown?"

Baruch glared at Robinson. The jury may have been lost. The intensity of the feud between these two attorneys was white-hot. Robinson seemed to believe that Baruch had some knowledge of the murder plots, and he had stopped just short of accusing him of that.

The jury was excused and McCartin roared at Robinson, "I love you, but our romance is ending. I'm getting upset, goddammit. Hear my voice change? I do things. Like kill attorneys. . . . You're pursuing crap. I don't know what the hell you're getting into. . . . Goddammit, let's get the show on the road!"

Pohlson soothed the waters. He let Joel Baruch explain that it was necessary for a defense attorney to establish a relationship of personal rapport with his client.

"You gave him instances of dealing with the prosecutor and the investigator?" Pohlson asked.

"Several."

"Were you concerned it would cause him to do something?"

"No," Baruch insisted. "I wouldn't have told him if I thought it would."

Surely the jurors realized now that Robinson and Newell were "the prosecutor" and "the investigator," but everyone pretended that Schwartzberg had not slipped. The code names continued.

It was Tuesday, June 5. The weather was bright and sunny, but the weather was always bright and sunny in Santa Ana. The fountain outside the courthouse had not been turned on for months because of the drought. But for some reason, this morning, it spouted and arced twenty feet in the air. The brides leaving their courthouse weddings laughed as they ran by.

The last witness for the defense was yet another attorney: Donald Rubright, who represented Patti Bailey. The defense obviously wanted to imply that Patti Bailey was offered a "deal" to testify against her husband—that she would be tried in juvenile court instead of adult court. The prosecution was just as determined to show that she had not.

It was a wash.

"Did the 'district attorney' tell you he didn't want Patti Bailey to testify thinking she had some kind of a deal?" Robinson asked Rubright.

"Yes."

"My advice," Rubright said to Gary Pohlson's similar question, "was for her to testify. I believed it would benefit her. There would be advantages."

"How many times did you see her?"

"Maybe seventy-five to a hundred times, counting phone conversations."

"Did she trust you?"

"Ultimately, yes."

David Brown's 1099 forms from 1981 through 1985 were offered and accepted as evidence.

Dr. Kim Hicks was supposed to have testified against Cinnamon. A stipulation was offered and accepted as to what her testimony would have been. Like Dr. Anderson, she would have testified as to Cinnamon's statements just after Linda's murder.

But Cinnamon herself had already told the jury about that in this courtroom.

The defense rested at eleven minutes after eleven. A good omen for David Brown, the inveterate Las Vegas gambler?