A Fool for a Client (19 page)

She half turned and smiled uneasily.

“I
’
ve got an exam tomorrow.
I
’
ll take a raincheck.”

She realized, too late, that an intelligent man would wonder why she went to a nightclub on the eve of an exam.
Fortunately for her, Murphy was not an intelligent man.

“How about dinner tomorrow?
We can make a celebration of it.”

“That
’
s assuming I pass.”

“Sure you will...a smart girl like you.”

“Anyway I hate restaurants.
It
’
s like being in a goldfish bowl...no privacy.”

“Who
’
s talking about a restaurant?
I was thinking about my house.
If the weather stays like this we could eat by the pool.”

“Can you cook?”

“Do you like Chinese?”

She opened her eyes wide and ran her tongue along her lips.

“I love it.”

“Great!
I
’
ll send out to the Chinese takeaway.”

“Fine.”

She opened the door.

“I
’
ll pick you up at seven.
What number?”

“I
’
ll meet you down here.
The doorman suffers from an acute case of paranoia.”

She stepped out with one foot.

“Good night then,” said Murphy.

She leaned over, kissed him chastely on the cheek and stepped out, slamming the door with moderate force behind her.
Murphy licked his lips with anticipation as he watched her shapely derriere disappear into the building.
With the tantalizing pangs of lust still stirring in his loins, he gunned the engine and drove off.
Ten seconds later Justine emerged from the building and walked on to another some eighty yards down the road.

The rapping of the gavel and the staccato intonation of the bailiff announced to the interested and the curious that the third day of the trial of The People of the State of
New York
versus Justine Levy was about to begin.

That same delicate quiet, that same hushed aura of expectation, again settled over the courtroom, as it had on the first days of the trial.
Things were moving along remarkably swiftly, far more swiftly than the prosecutor had expected from a trial of this sort.
Abrams knew that this was because of Justine
’
s non-adversarial approach.
If she had been represented by a lawyer, like Rick Parker, or if she had chosen to act like a typical
pro se
lawyer, these past two days could easily have turned into two weeks.

When everyone was seated, the judge went through the usual litany of inquiries as to whether the principals were present, before turning over the floor to a confident-looking Daniel Abrams.

“My first witness today,” the prosecutor began in a subdued tone that seemed to be holding something back, “is Professor Samuel Ostrovsky.”

Samuel Ostrovsky, or Sam as he was known to his friends, was a man of contrasts.
His head carried mane of brown hair, but the beard at the tip of his chin was almost black.
He was a relatively short man, but his presence was so commanding that he exuded a look of effortless professional competence accented by a pair of rimless spectacles that had “ivory tower academia” written all over them.
When he spoke it was with a pronounced Slavic accent, but he punctuated his speech with American idiom in a way that was too natural and random to be an affectation.

“State your name for the record,” Abrams began.

“Samuel Levitch Ostrovsky,” he replied.

“And what is your occupation?”

“I am a Professor of Toxicology at
Saint Joseph
’
s Hospital.”

The next fifty minutes were taken up with a series of questions and answers designed to establish Ostrovsky
’
s credentials as an expert witness.
It was clear that Ostrovsky was to be a vitally important witness to the prosecution
’
s case.
His testimony was characterized by an economy of words that lacked the pompous affectations which intrude into the testimony of many professional witnesses.
For example, he didn
’
t say “Yes sir, that is correct,” where a simple “yes” would do.
When asked to explain something he gave a brief, straightforward explanation.

He was, in fact, experienced in courtroom testimony, although by no means a “professional witness” in the dishonourable sense of the word.
This meant that he was resilient to the standard lines of attack used by defence lawyers.
He was too self-confident and court-wise to be shaken by a probing cross-examination and he was too well-paid for his non-legal work for defence lawyers to be able to get away with the suggestion that he needed the legal work and might therefore be tempted to make sure that his conclusions were favourable to the side that called him.

“Professor could you tell us please where you were on the night of September the seventh of last year?”

“In
Saint Joseph
’
s Hospital.”

“Could you be more specific, Professor?”

“I was in the Toxicology lab during most of the night in question.”

“Could you tell us about the events of the evening?”

“Could
you
be more specific?” asked Ostrovsky mockingly.

“Did you, on that evening, receive anything from Brian Colt?” asked Abrams trying to conceal his irritation as he struggled to pry the facts out of Ostrovsky.
He fought to keep his voice flat.
But it was hard.
Ostrovsky made a point of being uncooperative with the side that called him in order to give more weight to his testimony.
But Abrams was getting excited about the prospect of using his best witness yet to tighten the noose around Justine
’
s neck, at least in the figurative sense.

“Yes.”

Ostrovsky wasn
’
t phased by the smoke that seemed to emanate from the prosecutor
’
s nostrils.

“Could you point him out?” asked Abrams.

“Yes.
That young man sitting over there,” he said, pointing to Colt.

“Let the record show that Professor Ostrovsky identified Brian Colt who has already testified as a witness in this trial.”

“So ordered,” said the judge.

This apparently trivial little exercise was to establish something called “chain of custody” over the bottle.
This was one of the requirements that the United States Supreme Court laid down for the admissibility of physical evidence.
For example, in this case, in order to link the bottle to the crime, Abrams had to show an unbroken chain of control of the bottle from the moment Murphy brought it to the hospital claiming he had been poisoned at least until its contents were tested by Professor Ostrovsky, if not until it was brought into the courtroom.
He also had to show that the defence was given access to the bottle and its contents and given the chance to conduct their own tests.
He also had to be able to refute the claim that the bottle or its contents were somehow contaminated in transit before the defence was given the chance to examine it.

“Professor Ostrovsky,” could you describe what you received from Brian Colt?”

“It was a bottle of tequila, that is, a tequila bottle with a few drops left.”

Abrams now walked slowly up to Ostrovsky, giving emphasis to his forthcoming words by the heavy, deliberate pace.
 
The judge had been prepared to restrict the lawyers to standing at their respective tables.
But there had been no objection from Justine when Abrams had started walking about during his opening argument, and the judge had warned Justine that he would not take over routine defence for her.
Even now there was no objection.
So he allowed Abrams to proceed with his histrionics unimpeded.

“Is this the bottle that he gave you?”

The professor gave it a quick, cursory examination.

“Yes,” he confirmed, with the staccato click of a precision-made machine

“Did you mark it for identification before handing it over to the police?”

“Yes.”

Again the tone was perfunctory.

“In what manner?”

“I signed a label and stuck it on it.”

“Does it still bear that label?”

“Yes.”

“May it please The Court Your Honour I move that the bottle now be received in evidence as People
’
s Exhibit Two.”

Parker leaned over to Justine.

“You know you can still object,” he whispered.

At the second pre-trial hearing, Parker had tried to persuade Justine to object to the admission of the bottle on the grounds that Ostrovsky
’
s label could have been removed or copied and put on another bottle.
It was a trivial motion which had little chance of success.
But, in any event, Justine wouldn
’
t hear of it.

“The bottle and its contents are admitted as evidence without objection from the defence,” said the judge.

“Professor Ostrovsky, what did you do when Brian Colt gave you the bottle?”

“I subjected a small quantity of the liquid inside the bottle to various tests to determine its identity.”

He spent the next half hour describing the tests.
Several times Abrams tried to lead him.
But Ostrovsky resisted all such efforts and delivered his testimony in his own words.

“And did you reach any definite conclusion on a basis of these tests?”

“Yes,” replied Ostrovsky, like clockwork.

“What did you determine the contents of the bottle to be?” asked Abrams.

“A mixture of tequila and pyrethrum.”

“What
is
pyrethrum?”

“It
’
s a nerve poison, commonly used in insecticides.”

A gasp went through the courtroom.
In a rural community, no explanation of pyrethrum would have been necessary.
But in an urban area such as
New York City
, it took Ostrovsky
’
s explanation to alert the spectators to the fact that they had just heard something significant.

“Is it harmful to
human beings
if imbibed orally?”

In the spectator
’
s section a man sat forward keenly.
It was the man who had entered the country as “Dr Paul O
’
Brian”, but who was known in
Northern Ireland
as Declan McNutt.

“If imbibed in sufficient quantity,” Ostrovsky answered, with cold, professional neutrality.

“Can it be
fatal
to human beings?” Abrams pressed on relentlessly.

“If imbibed in sufficient quantity,” replied Ostrovsky with that same non-committal indifference.

“Were you able to determine the relative
concentration
of pyrethrum in the tequila?”

“Yes.”

“Professor, in terms of the tequila and pyrethrum together, what would have constituted a fatal dose of the mixture to an average-sized man?”

“A double,” Ostrovsky blurted out, apparently without thinking.

A burst of laughter rang out from the spectator
’
s section.
It was the first crack in the professor
’
s facade of scientific professionalism.
Or at least so it seemed to the spectators.
Rick Parker was not so sure.

“Two measures,” Ostrovsky corrected, hiding his embarrassment behind a smile, although he saw very little humour in the matter.

“Professor, in your opinion, would the strong taste of the tequila disguise the taste of the pyrethrum?”

“It
might
,” said Ostrovsky, piling on the cautiousness, to avoid leaving those hard but brittle spots that cross-examiners love to exploit.

“Now professor, what did you do when you reached your conclusion about the contents of the bottle?”

Parker noticed that Abrams was prefixing every question with the word “Professor” as if to imprint the title on the jurors minds and emphasize the professional expertise of his witness.
He would have objected to this manipulative practice.
But he knew that Justine had no intention of doing so, and he didn
’
t even bother to suggest it.