Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (22 page)

"No, of course not."

Spinning away, Jones faced the jury from across the
room and exclaimed, "You think your fiancee is seeing another man,
and you don't try to find out if it's true or if it's just your own
imagination and your own—insecurities?" He wheeled back to the
witness. "Why is that, Mr. Atkinson? Surely, someone with your
means could afford to investigate?"

"It's not difficult to know when someone you're with
is thinking about someone else."

"That must not have been a very pleasant experience.
Must have made you jealous."

"You're right. It was not pleasant."

Jones's voice sank to a whisper. "Not pleasant at
all. And now you have a chance to get even, don't you?"

Amused, Atkinson replied, "By telling the truth?"

Drawing himself up, Jones asked sharply, "The truth
is, you don't know if she was seeing anyone or not, do you?"

"No, I suppose I don't. Not in the sense that you
mean."

"And the truth is, even if she was seeing anyone, you
don't know who that someone was, do you?"

"No, but—"

"The truth is, Mr. Atkinson, the only thing you know
for sure is that—as you were telling Mr. Antonelli just minutes
ago—you were in love with a woman who wasn't in love with you. A
woman," he added, lowering his forehead, "who broke off your
engagement. Isn't that correct, Mr. Atkinson?"

"I told her it was better if we didn't see each other
for a while," he explained.

"And she told you," Jones countered quickly, "that it
was better if you didn't see each other at all. Isn't that
right?"

"Re-direct?" Judge Holloway asked me, as Jones
settled into his chair with a smug look.

"Mr. Atkinson, would you happen to recall the funeral
of Nancy Goodwin?" I stole a glance at Kristin Maxfield, sitting
expressionless in the back of the courtroom.

"Yes, I remember Kristin saying she felt an
obligation to go. I think everyone in her office went."

"Yes, of course," I said sympathetically. "You were
still living together then?"

"Yes."

"You weren't invited to go with her?"

"No."

"Do you remember what time she returned?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't. It was sometime early the
next morning."

"Do you mean by that a little after midnight?" I
asked casually, as if I were certain of the time.

"No, Mr. Antonelli, I mean sometime after the sun was
already up. I remember I had already showered and dressed when I
heard her car come up the drive."

"How did she explain staying out all night?"

He made a wry face. "I don't think it occurred to her
that she needed to explain anything."

A contemptuous wave of his hand was Jones's only
response when asked if he wanted to cross-examine the witness
again. Conrad Atkinson left the stand and, with everyone watching,
hesitated before he pushed open the door to the hall. Slowly, he
turned his head and searched the faces in the last row until he
found the one he was looking for. Kristin Maxfield refused to look
back, and the door swung shut behind him. For a brief, tantalizing
moment, everyone watching had the feeling that they knew more about
these two strangers than they did about most of their friends.

"Mr. Antonelli?" Judge Holloway prodded. "Are you
ready to call your next witness?"

There is a certain formality by which we mark off the
important intervals of our lives. Births, marriages—death
itself—each have their ceremonies, the rituals by which we try to
make more lasting the memory of the things we do not want to forget
because they change forever the way we are. The law follows forms
of its own. I had no more witnesses I wanted to call, and there was
only one allowable way to announce that I had finished putting on
the case against the defendant.

"Your Honor," I said, with all the gravity I could
summon, "the prosecution rests."

There was no acknowledgment beyond a rapid, barely
noticeable nod, as the judge directed her attention to the other
side. "Mr. Jones? Is the defense ready to proceed?"

Jones never seemed to lead with the same part of his
body. Sometimes his head popped up, sometimes his hand shot into
the air, and sometimes, as now, one shoulder seemed to clear the
way as he clumsily extricated himself from his chair.

"Well, your Honor," he drawled. "It's getting a
little late and, with the court's permission, I would just as soon
begin tomorrow morning." He paused and looked around the packed
courtroom. "I'm going to put Marshall Goodwin on the stand," he
announced, as if he had just accepted a dare, "and his testimony is
certainly going to take a lot longer than the time we have left
today." After he had given everyone a chance to take in the
significance of what he had just said, he added, "And there is a
matter for the court, your Honor."

It was nearly four o'clock. With the usual
admonitions against discussing the case, Holloway sent the jury
home. In front of their twelve vacant chairs and a courtroom still
jammed with spectators and reporters, Jones moved to have the case
against his client thrown out. There is a formula for this as well,
repeated in every criminal trial in which I have ever been
involved. This was the first time I had not recited it myself.

"Your Honor, the defense moves for a judgment of
acquittal on the ground and for the reason that, based on the
evidence provided by the prosecution, no rational trier of fact
could possibly find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt."

In plain English, this means a jury would have to be
crazy to convict. Every defense lawyer makes this same motion at
the end of the prosecution's case. It has to be made. It is the
only way to preserve for appeal the possibility that the case
against the defendant was not legally sufficient. There are even
times when you actually believe it. Jones seemed to believe it
now.

"No one can be convicted on the testimony of a
coconspirator alone, your Honor!" he cried. "The testimony of
Travis Quentin by itself has no weight whatsoever. Even if he had
never committed another crime in his life—even if he was not a
savage assassin who kills for the pure fun of it but had never
before been in trouble with the law, his testimony could not be
used to convict the defendant. There has to be independent proof
that the crime in question occurred and that the defendant
committed that crime. And what the State has provided beyond the
testimony of Travis Quentin has been nothing more than a long
exercise in futility. They haven't produced a single witness to
verify what Quentin did. Not one. There is no evidence. There is no
case. There is nothing to take to the jury."

His face flushed and dank with perspiration, Richard
Lee Jones looked up at the bench. "This court has no choice but to
grant this motion and enter a judgment of acquittal," he told
her.

Irma Holloway's lips were pressed together, drawing
the skin over her sharp cheekbones and lending her an expression of
impartial severity. When Jones finished and she looked at me, her
eyes, cold and aloof, shielded whatever was going on in her mind. I
thought I might lose.

"Your Honor," I began, clearing my throat, "Mr. Jones
is right. No one can he convicted on the uncorroborated testimony
of a co-conspirator. The testimony of Travis Quentin, however, has
been corroborated, not just once but in several important
particulars. Quentin testified he was paid ten thousand dollars in
hundred-dollar bills. The manager of the bank where the defendant
had his account testified that Mr. Goodwin withdrew that precise
amount in hundred-dollar bills just days before Quentin received
it. Now," I went on quickly, "the defendant may be able to show
that the money was used for an entirely different purpose, an
innocent purpose, and that all this was just an unfortunate
coincidence. But the question now is whether the State's evidence,
if uncontradicted, is sufficient to take to the jury. The State
believes it is."

In quick, abrupt movements, Holloway checked to see
if either of us had anything more to add."The State has met its
burden to put on a prima facie case," she announced. "Motion
denied. We begin again in the morning." She rose from her place on
the bench, gazed for a moment at the faceless courtroom crowd, and
then turned toward the door behind her and vanished from view.

Chapter Fifteen

As I stood across the street from my office, waiting
for the light to change, three shirtless men, chiding one another
for falling behind, shoveled molten black asphalt into a pothole a
few feet from the curb. July had given way to August, and even in
the late afternoon the sidewalk burned with the reflected glare of
the sun.

Inside the air-conditioned building, the perspiration
began to cool on my face, leaving a thin, dry film on my skin.
Helen looked at me and then glanced toward the open door to my
office.

"I didn't know what else to do with her," she
whispered, "so I put her in there."

I dropped the overstuffed case file on her neat desk
and headed for the men's room. "If she asks, tell her I'll be back
in a few minutes."

Cupping my hands under the basin faucet, I threw cold
water on my face and slapped it against the back of my neck. I
unfastened my trousers, rearranged the tails of my shirt, combed my
wet hair, and tightened my tie. After adjusting my suit coat, I
moved the heels of my hands over my eyes and past my temples,
trying to draw away the fatigue on my face.

In the shadows of the lowered blinds, her eyes
followed me as I entered the office and walked over to sit in the
chair behind my desk. I looked at her steadily and said nothing.
With my elbows on the arms of the chair, I crossed one leg over the
other, pressed my fingertips together, and began to rock slowly
back and forth.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"Should I be?"

"I could understand it, if you were." She pulled the
hem of her skirt slightly higher as she shifted in the chair.
Stretching her arm, locked straight, across the back corner of the
chair, she tilted her head in the same direction.

"Your testimony didn't hurt," I remarked with a
shrug, as if nothing she could do would make any difference, one
way or the other.

"It didn't help," she insisted. She had a look I had
seen before, the look on the face of the first girl you fell in
love with when she told you she couldn't see you anymore, the look
that told you she was not trying to hurt you but did not mind too
much if she did.

"It didn't help either one of us," I replied
pointedly.

She looked along the length of her arm until her eyes
came to rest on her hand, where she spent a moment inspecting her
nails. "Do you think I didn't consider that?" She moved her hand to
the arm of the chair. "You knew it wasn't as simple as that," she
remarked, searching my eyes. "You knew I couldn't just turn on
him."

"Perhaps I just assumed that under oath you'd tell
the truth."

"I told you I'd tell you the truth, and I did. You
never said anything about having me tell it at trial."

I sat perfectly still. "That's the kind of
distinction only a lawyer would make."

"That's the kind of distinction you and I
understand."

"It won't be a distinction anyone will care very much
about in a perjury trial."

"You think he's going to be convicted, don't you?"
she asked. There was a touch of uncertainty in her voice, a
hesitancy that seemed to point to something beyond what might
happen to her husband.

Raising my eyes, I said confidently, "I don't have
any doubt about it."

"You surprised me when you just let my answers go
like that. Why didn't you ask me about what I'd said to you here,
in this office, when we talked before?"

"Maybe because I understood that you weren't going to
tell the truth about anything so long as you thought there was
still a chance that Marshall might get off."

"I told you I couldn't just turn on him."

I stood up. "Well, now that you've explained
yourself," I said, rather impatiently, "perhaps you'll excuse me. I
still have a great deal of work to do."

She tried to conceal her surprise. "I thought you
might want to talk about what comes next," she said.

"There isn't anything to talk about," I assured her,
as I walked around the desk and helped her out of the chair. "You
were there. The defense begins its case tomorrow. I've finished
with mine."

In the outer office, Helen was putting the case file
in order, as she always did. Opening the door to the hallway, I
walked Kristin Maxfield to the elevator. "Tell me one thing," I
said to her, as the elevator door opened. It was empty, and Kristin
stepped inside. "Did you have anything to do with the death of his
wife?"

She swore that she had not. "And until the trial,"
she added, her eyes fixed on mine, "I didn't think Marshall had
either. I thought the envelope I gave to Quentin held papers about
the drug case."