A Conflict of Interest (36 page)

“How long will it last?” I ask her.

“We’ve told the judge we estimate the guilt/innocence phase will take a month, so—”

“So you figure a week?” I say with a smile.

“Give or take, yes,” she says, returning the smile. “And then the sentencing phase will be only a day or two, at most.”

“Okay. If you really think it’s necessary, I’ll be there.”

“I really think it’s necessary.” This is followed by a pregnant pause, which tells me there’s more to come. “I’m also going to need you to testify.”

“About what?”

“Ohlig’s defense isn’t a state secret. He’s going to claim that your mother took her own life. I’d like for you to tell the jurors you knew her better than anyone, and she didn’t commit suicide.”

Of course, I already knew this, and I wish that he would mount another defense—any other defense—but, as they say, you have to play the cards you’re dealt.

“Okay,” I say, “I’ll tell the jurors I knew her better than anyone else and I don’t believe she committed suicide.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” I think I’ve said this without equivocation, but Robertson looks like she’s not sure I’m up to the task. “What’s the problem?” I finally ask.

“No problem—assuming you’re telling the truth. But Clint Broden told me that you initially believed it was suicide.”

“I would have figured you’d be experienced enough to know better than to believe what a defense counsel says.”

She doesn’t smile, but instead looks at me even more closely. I imagine it’s the same look I’ve given many a witness whom I believed was lying to me.

“You ever see Broden do a cross?”

“Once. In law school. They played a tape of his cross of Senator Carmichael.”

“Ah, the ‘this is not the Senate, it’s a place of justice and honor’ speech,” she says, quoting Broden’s most famous line from the examination.

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve been up against Broden a few times. He’s the only lawyer I know who is actually better than his reputation. He’s the best cross-examiner I’ve ever seen, hands down.”

“Is this supposed to make me a more confident witness?”

“No. It’s supposed to make you a less cocky one. I’ve seen Broden get the truth out of hardened criminals, guys who have beaten polygraphs. You don’t strike me as a guy who’s that experienced a liar, so don’t try to start now.”

“You’d be surprised,” I say.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just trying to be funny.”

When I return home, Elizabeth is cooking dinner. It smells like she’s making chili, or at least something with cumin in it.

“Are you going to be the star witness for the prosecution?” she asks as I approach her in the kitchen.

“Looks that way. The ADA wants me to attend the entire trial, which means I’m going to have to be in Florida for a week, maybe two. On the bright side, at least I’m not going to have to miss work.”

Thankfully, Elizabeth has not seen the need to rub salt in my wounds by complaining about my unemployment. Based on the head hunter discussions I’ve had, it will likely be a while before I land a job, and when I do, I won’t earn anywhere near the kind of money I was raking in at Cromwell Altman. On the other hand, most of the firms
that would hire someone like me aren’t going to demand 2,500 hours of work every year. For Elizabeth, that is more than a fair trade-off.

“You know, the trial probably won’t start until Charlotte’s done with school,” I say. “Maybe you’ll want to come down with me.”

She gives me a soft smile, one that suggests she thinks I’m trying too hard. “Let’s see what happens,” she says.

By now the worst of it has seemingly passed. Elizabeth and I are getting along well, even enjoying each other’s company. I have not only been permitted re-entry into our bed, but Elizabeth has also been trying to make good on her New Year’s resolution, concluding that some of our marital discord was due to a lack of physical intimacy. Howard, our marriage therapist, strongly endorsed the sentiment, and so Elizabeth and I have made love more in the last month than we did in the entire past year.

I welcome Elizabeth’s efforts and am trying my best to reciprocate, but I find myself reflecting regularly upon whether I’d thought about Abby that day, and then realizing that the question supplies the answer. And, of course, it’s difficult to be intimate with Elizabeth, a woman I’ve made love to for the past fifteen years, without comparing it to the one time I was with Abby, no matter how often I tell myself that no lover of longstanding could win such a competition.

Elizabeth tastes whatever is in the pan and puts the wooden spoon back in the pot. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s sit down,” she says, and starts to move toward the dining room. Despite the fact that I believe everything is on the right track, I’m shaken by her need to tell me anything of such import that it requires sitting.

My concern increases with each moment Elizabeth doesn’t seem to know the right way to begin.

After a few moments of this silence, Elizabeth begins to look as if she’s going to cry, and my inner alarm grows to the point where I can feel tears well behind my own eyes. When I look more closely, however, I see that I’ve misread her. I can’t explain how, and I’m not a believer in clairvoyance, but I know what she’s about to tell me.

“I’m pregnant,” she says, smiling, but in a cautious way.

Another baby was once a constant topic of conversation, but it hasn’t been raised by either of us in a very long time. More than that, the very idea of Elizabeth becoming pregnant seems impossible. We were taking proper precautions, although I know that’s never foolproof.

“That’s … amazing,” I finally say. “I’m so happy.”

“Are you sure? I know it’s not something we planned, and I know that the timing could hardly be worse.”

She’s right, on both scores. And truth be told, panic is the actual emotion I’m feeling, rather than happiness. I’m ashamed that my first thought is that it feels like I’ve re-enlisted in the army right before I was up for a discharge. And then a different sensation begins to take hold, as if this unplanned event is a sign that things are going to get better. I know from first-hand experience that children make marriage harder, not easier, but I can’t help but see the possibility of another child being an opportunity for me to start anew. I don’t have to stay with Elizabeth just because we’re going to have a baby, but I can choose to do so. And I can be a better father, not just to this new life, but to Charlotte as well.

Is that even possible? Can you make yourself a better husband? A better person?

And then I realize that I’ve made myself a worse one—a distant father; an unfaithful husband; a liar—by the choices I’ve made. It seems only fair that different choices could make me a better person.

What if Batman went to therapy? He could stop being Batman, couldn’t he?

“I’m very happy,” I tell her, and pull Elizabeth into my arms. At that moment, feeling her exhale, I realize that, for the first time in quite a while, I’m optimistic about the future.

M
ichael Ohlig’s trial for my mother’s murder begins the second week of July.

Felony trials in Palm Beach County take place in the criminal court complex, which, without irony, is located on Gun Club Road. The building is one of those architecturally anonymous concrete structures that could pass for a suburban mall if only there were a movie theater attached to it.

A murder trial of a multi-millionaire is a relatively rare phenomenon, even in Palm Beach, and the gallery is filled to capacity, which is about a hundred spectators. The counsel tables and the jury box are empty, however, which I’ve always found a little eerie, like a riderless horse at a funeral.

As the prosecutor Morgan Robertson requested, I’m in attendance from the start, dutifully sitting in the gallery’s first row, right behind the prosecution’s table. Pamela Ohlig sits just across from me, behind the defense’s table, but she never looks in my direction, not once, the surest sign she knows I’m here.

Clint Broden and Ohlig enter the courtroom together. Broden extends his hand and a warm smile, but Ohlig can’t even force himself to put on that much of a show. He looks right at me, however, unflappable as always, his glare telling me he’s not the least bit intimidated by my presence.

Ohlig is wearing what looks to be the exact same blue suit, light blue shirt, and dark blue tie that he wore on the opening day of our trial, but Broden apparently doesn’t impose the same prohibitions with respect to client jewelry as I do—Ohlig’s wearing his Patek Philippe, and I’d already noticed that Pamela looks more like she’s attending the Oscars than her husband’s murder trial. Of course, Broden is more flamboyantly dressed than either of them—dark, double-breasted suit with purple pinstripes, a pink shirt with contrasting
white collar, a bright red tie, a diamond Rolex, and a gold pinky ring.

The judge’s name is Hector Rodriguez, but to look at him you’d never guess he’s Hispanic. He’s lighter featured than most of my father’s side of the family, and he has blue eyes. Robertson told me that he was head of the Florida Commission on the Death Penalty, and a former Republican nominee for State Attorney General before being appointed to the bench, neither of which bodes well for Ohlig.

Unlike Judge Sullivan who handled voir dire herself, Judge Rodriguez plays a supporting role during jury selection, allowing the lawyers to ask the questions. This allows Broden to immediately establish control of the courtroom.

He’s got a folksy manner, which I know to be a complete act, but it enables him to treat each juror like a guest in his home, so much so that I’m surprised he doesn’t offer any of them tea and cookies. The contrast with Robertson’s more businesslike demeanor is stark, and I’m immediately nervous that she’s in over her head.

The accepted wisdom at Cromwell Altman was that Assistant United States Attorneys are about twenty IQ points smarter than their counterparts at the DA’s office. Federal prosecutors get paid more than local ones and are more desirable in the private sector, which leads to the U.S. Attorney’s Office usually attracting the better candidates. I’ve tried not to let this preconceived prejudice color my views of Robertson, but so far it seems to be right on.

I’m sure both sides had their jury consultants hidden among the spectators, but it doesn’t take an advanced degree to know what each is looking for in a juror. Broden wants men, likely of any race, the older the better. Anyone who will identify with Ohlig and sympathize with his plight is a possible vote for acquittal. Even those who think that Ohlig’s guilty may still vote to acquit if they can understand why he would have done it.

Robertson tries to put as many older women on the jury as she can. Twelve of my mom would work out best for her. There’s some risk in that strategy, which I’m not sure she sees. First, statistically speaking, older women are usually the most cautious when it comes to convicting, likely the only group that takes the reasonable doubt instruction
to heart. The bigger problem is that those same statistics point out the rather sexist conclusion that in the jury room, like in the living room, women, especially older women, tend to follow the lead of men. Maybe it’s the same impulse that prevents them from exerting their will over the TV remote, but female jurors are known to defer to men who are adamant.

At the end of the selection process, the jury sworn to faithfully adjudicate Michael Ohlig’s fate can easily be split into equal parts of older men, older women, and jurors neither side could avoid. It’s a classic situation where no one is happy.

Neither opening statement contains any surprises. Robertson lists the evidence in a dry manner, but when it’s all out it sounds pretty compelling. She lays the cornerstones that the prosecution always tries to establish—means, motive, and opportunity—and tells the jury that witnesses will place Ohlig with my mother on the day of her death, not far from the place where she drowned. She also has some evidence that he drugged her, although she’s vague enough about this in her opening that I suspect she knows it’s not rock solid. As for motive, she’s going to argue that Ohlig killed my mother to prevent her from telling his wife about their affair, thereby avoiding a costly divorce.

Broden is a much more captivating speaker, making his points with a modulated voice and sweeping arm gestures, but the substance is pretty basic—no one except my mother could know the events that led to her death, and it’s unfair for Ohlig to have to prove what is unprovable; namely, that he did not commit murder.

After an hour or so, Broden pulls a stunt I’ve heard he’s done before, although I always thought it was apocryphal. He walks over to the prosecution table and asks Robertson if he can pour himself a cup of water from the pitcher in front of her. I notice that defense counsel table has no pitcher on it. This must be because Broden has removed it, as I’m positive that the courthouse cleaning people who are charged with placing the water pitchers have no agenda. The point, however, is to show the jury how much the prosecution controls in the process, right down to denying the defendant and his counsel a simple cup of water.

Before concluding his opening, Broden goes where I did not during the New York trial. He promises Ohlig will testify.

“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, you will hear from several witnesses who claim to have first-hand knowledge of certain
facts
”—and Broden air quotes the word—“and you will hear from certain people who claim to be experts”—this, too, earns an air quote—“but the only witness who really matters in this case is Michael Ohlig. He is going to take the stand and tell you he is innocent. I am confident that you will believe him.”

After court, I go back to the hotel. It’s closer to the courthouse than my parents’ home in Boynton, but that’s not why I decided to stay here. There are enough ghosts in the courtroom, and I figured there was no need to face even more after court.

The first thing I do is call home. Elizabeth sounds happy to hear from me, and that’s enough for my loneliness to lift.