No Way to Treat a First Lady (23 page)

Down came the gavel. Beth was led away.

"No!" he cried.

"Boyce? You okay?"

He filed motion after motion. "Loco motions," they were dubbed by
American Lawyer
magazine. He moved to dismiss on the grounds that Beth's Secret Service detail was spying on her and passing the information along to the prosecution. Judge Dutch tossed it in the judicial wastebasket. Boyce moved for a mistrial on the grounds that one of the jurors had just dozed off for five minutes during a stretch of stultifyingly dull testimony by an expert in acoustics. Into the wastebasket. He moved for a mistrial because the second cousin of juror fourteen signed a contract for a book titled
Second Cousin of Juror 14: My Story.
Wastebasket. Three for three.

Boyce dispatched his most unethical investigator—a former U.S. intelligence agent who had had to resign after being caught selling Stinger antiaircraft missiles to the Serbs—to Vietnam with a suitcase of hundred-dollar bills with which to bribe an entire hamlet of Mekong Delta peasants into suddenly recalling that Sergeant Damon Blowwell had wantonly massacred half its population one night—just for the heck of it. The scheme fizzled when the investigator got as far as Bangkok, where he exchanged the $100,000 for heroin and caught a flight for Amsterdam, where he exchanged the heroin for $500,000 of ecstasy, which he secreted in large wheels of Gouda bound for Atlanta. It would have been awkward for Boyce to pursue him through the courts, so he let it go, charging the $100,000 to one of his corporate clients as a week's worth of "photocopying and messenger services."

Judge Dutch dismissed each of Boyce's motions with mounting choler and vexation, at one point warning him icily that if he received one more of these appalling roadblocks, he would call down upon Boyce's head "the lesser angels of my nature."

Boyce's furious motion filing was to buy a few weeks for Beth to get over her morning sickness before the deputy AG got her on the stand for cross-examination. That was going to be bad enough without Beth having to be excused every five minutes to dash to the bathroom. As a rule, juries are not impressed if you have to throw up every time a difficult question is posed.

Judge Dutch was getting suspicious of Beth's frequent calls of nature. His clerk had told Boyce that the judge was considering having her medically examined. That was to be avoided at all costs. Meanwhile, Boyce put it out to the press that Beth had been temporarily inconvenienced by a nasty "tummy bug." In moments of daydreaming, he found himself calling his child by the nickname Tummybug.

"United States calls Elizabeth MacMann."

How subtle, Boyce thought, of Clintick to drop Beth's maiden middle name, Tyler, which Beth had always made such a point of using. It would start Beth's cross-exam on a note of annoyance.

He slid his legal pad across the defense table toward Beth.

She gave him a smile that said, "I'll be okay."

The television commentators went into their TV golf tournament whisper.

"Elizabeth MacMann is rising... walking around the defense table... walking now toward the witness box... climbing up into the witness box... Barbara, how would you describe her outfit?"

"It's a pantsuit, of course. Black. We know that much. We do not know
who
the designer is. It looks like a cross between Ann Taylor and Carolina Herrera...."

"Judge Umin now reminding Mrs. MacMann that she is still under oath."

"She's made a point, generally, of wearing clothes by American designers...."

"Sitting down, now..."

"You'll notice she is
not
wearing the pearl necklace that she wore when she took the stand previously."

"What do we read into that?"

"I'm not sure. It was given to her by her late husband. So you could read all sorts of things into it. Or not."

"Deputy Attorney General Sandra Clintick, approaching the witness stand. What's she wearing, Barbara?"

"We do have that information. Saks Fifth Avenue double-breasted jacket with skirt and off-white crepe de chine blouse—"

"I have to interrupt you—here we go."

"Mrs. MacMann," DAG Clintick began, "you testified earlier that there—I'm quoting from the transcript—may have been more than eight occasions when you violently attacked your husband. Is that correct?"

"No, it's not. I said I might have thrown something at him. I did not characterize it as a violent attack."

"You do not consider throwing objects at or striking people acts of violence?"

Boyce winced. It was a textbook instance of why a defendant should never take the stand.

"I would not consider, for instance, throwing your shoe at your husband in a moment of domestic stress a quote violent attack. I would consider that pretty fairly standard husband maintenance."

There was laughter in the courtroom, though none, Vlonko pointed out later, came from the jury box.

"Would you consider throwing a heavy metal object at his skull a violent attack?"

"Objection. Conjecture."

Overruled.

"Yes," Beth said. "I certainly would. I'd consider it not only violent but unlawful and punishable at law."

"As First Lady, you spoke out against domestic violence."

"Yes, I did. On numerous occasions."

"Do you consider that hypocritical?"

"Objection."

Overruled.

"No, Ms. Clintick. I distinguish between marital spats and domestic violence."

"Even when these so-called marital spats result in contusions, lacerations, bruising, and stitches?"

"My husband was a six-foot-three former naval officer and outweighed me by more than seventy pounds, Ms. Clintick. He was perfectly capable of defending himself from the likes of me."

"Even at night, in the dark, while he slept?"

"Objection."

Sustained.

"You're asking hypothetical questions, Ms. Clintick," Beth said. "I'll answer directly: I did not hit my husband with that spittoon in the dark, as he slept."

"Was he awake when you hit him?"

"Objection. Asked and answered."

Overruled.

"I did not hit him."

"Did you throw the spittoon at him?"

"Objection, Your Honor. Asked and answered. Ms. Clintick's line of questioning constitutes harassment."

Overruled.

"I've answered that question, Ms. Clintick," Beth said tightly.

"Answer directly. Did you throw the spittoon at him?"

"I told the FBI agents that I did not."

DAG Clintick looked over toward the jury and apparently liked what she saw.

"Mrs. MacMann, as a college student, you played softball?"

Boyce knew this one was coming. The horror, the horror...

"I did."

"What position did you play on the team?"

"I was the pitcher."

"So your aim would be pretty good, wouldn't it?"

"With a softball, decades ago."

"You pitched four no-hitters in the season your senior year."

"The batters weren't that good. No disrespect to Smith College intended."

Clintick's alma mater, as it happened.

"In your testimony, after admitting that you had violently attacked your husband on numerous occasions, when you were asked why you did that, you replied that since your husband was dead, you were not going to say. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is."

"Whom are you trying to protect, Mrs. MacMann? Your dead husband or yourself?"

"Objection."

Overruled.

"I am trying, Ms. Clintick, to defend myself against a charge of murder. But I will not do that by dragging down a man to whom I was married for twenty-five years and"—Beth sighed somewhat—"who is considered by the country a hero."

"Did your husband cheat on you?"

"That's none of your business, Ms. Clintick."

"Your Honor?"

After a sidebar, Judge Dutch instructed Beth to answer the question.

"You would have to define 'cheat' for me."

"Did he sleep with other women while he was married to you?"

"I very much doubt that."

An explosion of laughter.

"Mrs. MacMann, were you aware that your husband engaged in sex with other women?"

U.S. marshals were poised to serve subpoenas on half a dozen of Beth's friends to whom she had confided her problems over the years. If they denied that Beth had told them about it all, they would open themselves up to charges of perjury. Beth knew this. She had nowhere to go.

"I prefer not to be aware of some things," Beth said.

"Is the name Amber Swenson familiar to you, Mrs. MacMann?"

"Yes."

"Rita Ferreira?"

"Yes."

"Violet Branson?"

"Yes."

"Jo Anne Casardo?"

"Yes."

"Tammy Royko?"

"Uh-hum."

"Is that a yes, Mrs. MacMann?"

"Yes."

"Cass Macklehose?"

"Yes."

"Serena Whitmore?"

"Yes."

"Objection. Your Honor, is the prosecution going to read the
entire
phone book?"

"With the court's indulgence, there are only twelve more names on this list."

Throughout the country, phones rang. The next day, the headline ALL THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN appeared in three hundred newspapers. DAG Clintick came under heavy fire from the women's groups. Lawsuits were threatened, none filed. Ms. Clintick's team had done their homework diligently.

As this honor roll was called, Boyce forced his features into a blank expression. Clintick moved in for the kill.

"Is the name Babette Van Anka familiar to you?"

"Of course it is," Beth snapped.

"No further questions at this time, Your Honor. Reserve the right to recall the defendant at a future time."

"How bad?" Boyce asked Vlonko as they stared at the numbers on the screen.

"Fucking bad."

"Beth, honey?" They were lying together on top of the bed in Boyce's suite, staring at the ceiling, holding hands. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Can't we just not think of anything right now?"

"Now is not a good time for not thinking of anything."

"That's so Washington," Beth said. " 'Now is not the time for partisanship.' 'Now is not the time for politics as usual.' Please."

"I have to be your lawyer for a moment."

Beth sighed.

"The case," he said, "as you may be aware, is not... is, well, it's not..." He was so unused to giving his clients bad news that he was at a loss.

"We're going down," Beth said. "In flames."

"We're not going up. We're not really even going sideways. Eliminating those directions leaves down."

"I'm so sorry, Boyce. I screwed everything up. I'm
so
sorry."

"Now is not the time for self-recrimination."

"After I'm convicted—would that be the time?"

"Let's look at it from a purely tactical point of view. If it comes out that you're pregnant, and that's a question of when rather than if, the jury is going to feel very jerked around. You say on the stand that more than anything you wanted to have a baby. Then your OB/GYN says that you've been on the pill. Then you get pregnant in the middle of your murder trial. It's not an ideal situation."

"What
is
it with these hormones? All I can do is burst into tears."

"Now is not the time to burst into tears. Right now I need you sharp and hard. I need you pre-sorry, pre-pregnant. I need Lady Bethmac."

Beth wiped her tears defiantly. "All right. Screw sorry."

"That's my girl. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Okay. Whatever happens, just go with it."

"What are you talking about?"

"You didn't know anything about it. Understand?"

"Boyce, I need you to defend me, not get into trouble."

"Baby, trust me. I
am
defending you."

They were quiet awhile.

"I don't know what you have in mind. But one of us has to not be in prison to raise this child."

Boyce said nothing.

"Whatever it is, don't. I'm asking you."

The people you knew.

To get the people you knew took time. Boyce begged a day's recess under the pretext of needing time to locate a "vital" defense witness, an utterly irrelevant maid who had once done part-time cleaning for the MacManns.

Boyce used the cell phone listed to "B & B Seafood." It was his fishy phone, the one for very sensitive conversations.

He reached Felicio on
his
cell phone, which was listed under God knew whose name, probably someone dead and the less you knew about it the better. You never knew where Felicio was at any given moment. Boyce could hear Peruvian-sounding flute music in the background. On a previous call, he had heard explosions.

"I need you," Boyce said.
"Ahora."

The upside of knowing the people you knew was that they were grateful to you. Latino clients were grateful to the point of embarrassment. They named their children after you, offered to kill your enemies. Even inconsequential ones.

Twelve years before, Boyce had kept Felicio from spending the rest of his life in a U.S. federal prison for trying to steal one thousand pounds of C-4 explosive from a military base. The government claimed Felicio was planning to use it to blow up the local U.S. embassy, in retaliation for ending its support for Felicio's rebel group. Felicio's defense—admittedly bold—was that he was going to use it to blow up the infrastructure of the corrupt dictatorship.

Boyce took the case pro bono to show his contempt for the U.S. government's "war" on drugs that in the course of twenty years had put one-third of the black population in jail while reducing the availability of drugs by a factor of roughly zero. By the time he was finished, the jurors were ready to enlist in Felicio's rebel army and not only overthrow the corrupt dictator, but also storm the U.S. embassy. Every year since, Boyce had gotten a Christmas card from Felicio, who was now chief of security for a chain of Central and Latin American hotels.

Felicio was overcome with emotion at being asked for help by his old savior.
¡Cómo no, patrón!
He would be in Washington on the next flight. No—he would come by private plane! He would be there before dawn! Boyce said that dawn would be early enough. He gave Felicio a general idea of the area in which his assistance was being sought, so that he could bring along whatever specialists he needed.