No Way to Treat a First Lady (21 page)

"Not another war hero."

"Green Berets. I only heard him talk about it once. It was late, we were all stuffed into this little plane. It had been a long day. And he talked about what he did in the war. It was... kinda out there. If I'd been the Viet Cong, I wouldn't have wanted to have Damon with his knife crawling into my hootch in the middle of the night."

"Wonderful. We have a hostile Green Beret on our hands. But why is he hostile? We've got three days to find out. I can put my people on it, but it would be helpful if you could give us some direction."

"It's funny."

"What, possibly, could be funny?"

"I'm on trial for assassination. And Damon
was
an assassin. I mean, that was his job. They had a name for it, even. Wet work. He and Ken used to joke about how it was perfect training for politics. But I don't know why he'd be testifying. Sorry."

"Well, when you're not glued to the TV listening to people talk about how you should run for president, try to come up with something."

"Are we feeling hostile?"

"We
are feeling that
everyone
is being
way
too
overconfident.
Who is Dr. Mark Klatz? Did he advise you which spot on Ken's head to aim for with the spittoon?"

"He's my gynecologist."

"Jesus. And why would your gynecologist be testifying against you?"

"It's just none of their damn business."

"What is 'none of their damn business'?...
Be-th?"

Deputy Attorney General Clintick put Dr. J. Mark Klatz on the stand first. To Boyce this meant that he was the government's weakest witness. Damon Blowwell she'd scheduled third. That meant his testimony was the most devastating. He had six investigators poring over Damon Blowwell's military records, tax records, credit records, school records. With any luck, it would turn out that he massacred innocent civilians and was an alcoholic wife beater. Beth still swore she had no idea what he had against her.

The deputy AG spent an hour going over Dr. Klatz's impeccable credentials. Boyce already knew how impeccable they were.

He was low-key, in his early sixties, with glasses. His first name was Julius, apparently in honor of the eponymous Roman emperor whose birth gave us the term
C-section.
He had headed up the OB-GYN department at Mount Sinai Hospital. He'd advised the United Nations committee that was trying to get African countries of fundamentalist Islamic bent to outlaw the practice of cutting off the clitorises of young girls to discourage them from having sex. He wrote newspaper op-ed articles deploring this barbaric form of chastity enforcement. In short—and he was that, too, which somehow enhanced his professional aura—he was the sort of person you would want peering between your legs, going, "Hmm..."

Dr. Klatz was manifestly unhappy at being present. He looked as if he would gladly perform a clitoridectomy on the deputy attorney general, without anesthesia.

"When did the defendant first come under your care, Doctor?"

"April of 1983."

"Why did she come under your care?"

"She was recommended."

"Why was she recommended?"

"She had experienced a second miscarriage the previous month. Her physician referred her to me."

"What was your evaluation of her, medically?"

"That's none of your business," the doctor said. "It's none of anyone's business."

Judge Dutch instructed the doctor gently to answer.

Dr. Klatz shook his head. "With all respect to you and the court, you can find me in contempt and put me in jail, but I will not answer that question."

Judge Dutch drummed his fingers and contemplated the dreariness—for everyone concerned—of having the doctor dragged off in handcuffs. He waved up the lawyers.

One of the television networks had hired a lip-reader to decipher what the judge said during the sidebars. They couldn't broadcast a direct translation, of course. But their correspondent certainly seemed to have an uncanny knack for predicting just how Judge Dutch would rule.

The correspondent told his viewers, "My guess is that he will
not
force the issue and will let the prosecution proceed along a parallel line of questioning."

"Dr. Klatz," the prosecution continued, "did you prescribe a regimen of birth control pills for Mrs. MacMann?"

Dr. Klatz looked at Beth. What was the use? They had the prescriptions.

"Yes. You already know that."

"Has Mrs. MacMann remained your patient since April 1983?"

"Yes."

"And has she continued to take birth control pills under your prescription since that time?"

"I have prescribed them. Whether she took them, I can't say."

The deputy AG asked the court to enter into evidence a thick stack of paper, prescriptions dating back two decades and continuing until recently.

"Tell me the
good
news," Boyce said to his associate who monitored the media.

Beth had gone back to Rosedale for a long bath and, Boyce suspected, good cry.

"The women," the associate said nervously, "are furious. The message they're sending is 'Hands off her body,' 'None of your business,' echoing Klatz's line. The head of the National Organization for Women used the term
vast male conspiracy.
The National Association of Former First Ladies issued a guarded statement standing by her."

"Now the bad news."

"The word
liar
was used twenty-three times during the evening news cycle. CBS used the term
credibility problem.
ABC is teasing tonight's
Nightline
show with the line 'Can we believe her?' Tomorrow's New
York Post
has a story quoting—indirectly—the archbishop of New York saying that if she and the President had had a kid, maybe all this wouldn't have happened."

Boyce groaned and went off to get Vlonko's report.

Vlonko was staring at his computer screen, scowling.

"We got problems with two, four, and eight. Maybe big-time problems."

"Two is the Catholic with four kids?"

"Five fucking kids. And the sister with the Down's baby."

"What about four and eight?" Juror number four taught Sunday school and just loved kids, according to her questionnaire. Juror eight was liable to feel betrayed at hearing that a defendant who'd told the court how desperate she was to have a baby had been popping birth control pills like breath mints for two decades. On weekends, she volunteered at an adoption agency.

"I would say, Boyce, not so fucking good," said Vlonko. "Lips very tight all day. Hardly moving. Hands on laps. This is hostile posture."

The drawback to being a trial attorney was that you couldn't, after a bad day, stun yourself into insensibility with a good stiff drink. The lovely clink of ice, the little cat's feet padding up to the cortex, the furry body rubbing up and down against it like a scratching post.

Not tonight. Tonight would be a long night, spent closely reading articles from medical journals and psychiatric journals about birth control pills as a hormone management tool and on the long-term post-traumatic effects of miscarriage.

Boyce's cross of Klatz elicited a nearly unbroken string of yeses from the eager-to-help doctor, but it felt like bailing a leaking boat with a too small bucket. He'd have kept Dr. Klatz on the stand longer if he could, just to bathe the jury in his amiable, nonjudgmental, pro-Beth aura.

The prosecution had given Lonetta Sue Scutt a good scrubbing and put her in a dress that managed to cover most of her tattoos. Her hair had been dyed so dark that it had a granular quality, like a wig made from shoe polish and fishing line. For someone who lived in the desert, she had suspiciously pale skin, and decades of two packs a day had cured her vocal cords to sandpaper. She listed her profession as "homemaker" and "exotic dancer."

Aware that her witness did not present the image of Mother Teresa, Clintick kept her direct examination brief.

Had she been in the employ of Governor and Mrs. MacMann? Oh yeah. Had she observed stress in the marriage? Ohh yeah. Had she heard Mrs. MacMann express her intention to—she was quoting here from a statement she had made to the FBI—cut off the governor's penis? Uh-huh. Is that a yes, Ms. Scutt? Oh yeah. And was she fired shortly after overhearing this? Uh-huh, and she threatened me to keep quiet or the state troopers would take care of me. Thank you. Your witness.

Boyce was courtly. He showed Lonetta Sue Scutt no less respect than he would have the Queen of England. Ms. Scutt, are you currently taking any medication? I take a few pills, uh-huh. You have a prescription for OxyContin? That's a powerful painkiller, is it not? Yeah, and I got a powerful pain. What was the cause of the pain, Ms. Scutt? There was this accident. What kind of accident? I got some battery acid powder up my—in the sinuses? Really? How does battery acid powder get into the sinuses, Ms. Scutt? It was an accident, like.

Boyce admitted into evidence the emergency room report from the Morongo Basin Hospital. Lonetta had snorted the battery acid powder. Her cocaine dealer had given it to her. She had paid him for her previous purchase with sex. Along with the sex was included a nasty dose of sexually transmitted disease. The dealer paid her back by substituting granulated battery acid powder for cocaine in her next purchase. It was a miracle she hadn't died.

"Irrelevant!" DAG Clintick cried.

Boyce fired back that she should be ashamed to have called such a witness in the first place. The photo of a foggy-glassed Judge Dutch angrily pointing his finger at them made the cover of
Time.

"My guess," the lip-reader-assisted network correspondent told his viewers while the judge was wagging his finger and threatening to fine both Boyce and Sandy, "is that Judge Umin may be so
fed up
at this point that he's prepared to sanction both the defense
and
prosecution."

"Ms. Scutt," Boyce continued, "did you telephone the
National Perspirer
and try to sell your story to them for the sum of one million dollars?"

"Why not? Everyone else connected to it is making a fortune."

Lonetta was refreshingly candid.

"Two final questions, Ms. Scutt. Did you tell the
Perspirer
that while serving lunch to Mrs. MacMann and her friend Mrs. Hackersmith, you heard Mrs. MacMann say she was going to cut off the governor's penis?"

"That's what she said."

"And would this be the same gubernatorial organ that you—that you had had in your physical possession before serving lunch to Mrs. MacMann and her friend?"

"Objection!"

Sidebar.

"I will rephrase the question, Ms. Scutt. Were you orally acquainted with the governor?"

"I don't have to answer that. Do I, Judge?"

Before Judge Dutch could answer, Boyce said softly, "I won't keep Ms. Scutt any longer, Your Honor. No further questions. I would like to recall Mrs. MacMann."

Beth took the stand. "Mrs. MacMann, did you threaten in Ms. Scutt's presence to cut off the governor's penis?"

"No, that's inaccurate. I told Mrs. Hackersmith that I was going to cut off his balls."

It took some gaveling to quiet the court.

"Your Honor," Beth said, "I apologize for the language. I could have used a more general anatomical term, but I wanted to quote what I said verbatim."

Judge Dutch, whose glasses were now opaque with vapor, merely grunted. Boyce continued.

"Did you dismiss Ms. Scutt because she overheard you discussing your... surgical fantasies vis-à-vis the governor?"

"No," said Beth, looking directly at her accuser. "Ms. Scutt knows very well why she was dismissed."

"Objection."

"Withdrawn, Your Honor. No further questions."

The mood that night in Boyce's war room was somewhat improved. Until Beth said to him quietly, "About what Damon might say? There was this conversation I had at one point with Ken...."

Damon Jubal Early Blowwell looked as if he might still be in the military and not some K Street political consultant. He was in his mid-fifties, wore his hair trimmed to within a centimeter of his skull, and kept his jaw in a permanent jut. He had suspicious brown eyes, the tight lips of someone anticipating disrespect, and the physique to do something about it. When he smiled, his whole face seemed to suck inward at the center in a fierce pucker that made him look not entirely human. His normal expression was a scowl.

He answered with "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" and bit off the ends of sentences like tobacco plugs. When the clerk swore him in, Blowwell stood rigidly erect and added one last word to his answer: "So help me
God."
Vlonko told Boyce afterward that when Blowwell took the stand, all nine male jurors sat up in their seats.

Boyce had gone back over every public utterance Blowwell had made following the President's death. He had never come right out and accused Beth of murder, but for someone who had been such a faithful family retainer, his coolness toward her had been conspicuously glacial.

Blowwell had gone to work for Ken MacMann the moment that Ken announced he was running for president. He'd been a hard-partying political hack in Alabama. Getting his fellow Vietnam veteran elected president had restored a sense of purpose to his life. He quit drinking and became a born-again Christian. When a former Green Beret with two Bronze Stars finds his way back to the path of righteousness, it's prudent to get out of his way. The citation for his medals was classified. Boyce's Pentagon moles had found out that they were for assassinating eight high-level Viet Cong cadres.

Blowwell had become wealthy since leaving the White House. He now had clients all over the world. But President MacMann's death had been hard on him. Boyce's investigators had found out that he had increased visits to Alcoholics Anonymous to five a week—up from one a week when he worked at the White House. Boyce hoped he would not have to mention that in court, especially since jurors four, seven, and fourteen had relatives who attended AA. He also hoped he wouldn't have to insinuate that Damon's war experiences had left him with, as they say, "issues." Jurors one, three, six, and fifteen had friends or relatives die or be wounded in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Boyce really didn't want to have to blow his nose all over a military man's ribbons.