Double Tap (31 page)

Without knowing exactly what Ellis would say in front of the jury, I had to steer clear. But I am convinced that any question regarding Ruiz’s background would have gone off in my face. The fact that Templeton would set this trap causes me to think that Emiliano’s repeated assurances that none of this is relevant are wrong.

On cross, all I could do with Ellis was to get the witness to acknowledge that the original military kit containing the murder weapon also included a “laser-light–aiming module,” the missing laser sight. The witness went so far as to admit that if this sight had been mounted on the pistol the evening of the murder, it would have made targeting easier. The question is, for whom?

There is something Ruiz is not telling us. While his skill with a handgun is clear, the details of what he did in the Army, besides range training, is a looming mystery that now has my stomach producing acid around the clock.

Efforts to plumb this with subpoenas served on the personnel office at Fort Bragg as well as the Pentagon have netted nothing beyond copies of the records already in our files, the ones with a seven-year hole in them. Phone calls by Herman along with a three-day trip to North Carolina turned up nothing. When Herman told them what he was looking for, he was even denied admission onto the base at Fort Bragg. With the publicity surrounding the trial, and with the political heat turned up under the IFS program, the screws have been tightened by the brass at the Pentagon, so that any information bearing on our case is now verboten.

As I’m sitting in my chair, weighing all of this, I feel a vibration on my belt. A second later the familiar chime on my cell phone rings. I take it out of the holster and check the incoming number. It’s Harry’s home phone. I flip open the phone and hit the talk button.

“Hello.”

“Where the hell are you? I called your house, there’s no answer.”

“Sarah is off for the weekend with some friends. I’m at the office.”

“Guess what. I’ve got some news for you. Remember the name you were looking for?” asks Harry.

“What name?”

“The day we were going over the evidence. You wanted to know the name of the person who called Chapman’s house from the restaurant the evening she was killed—who it was who called the cops.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll never guess.”

“Keep me in suspense,” I say.

“Maxwell Rufus. As in Karr, Rufus and Associates. Ruiz’s employer,” says Harry. “And there’s more.”

To pick up the slack, Harry hired another investigator, one of the larger firms downtown. Their report came by fax to his house late last night.

“They must work all hours,” he says. “I found it on the floor in front of the machine in my study when I got up this morning. And the thing ran out of paper, so there may be more. Karr, Rufus is in trouble. According to the information in the report, the firm is facing serious financial problems, a settlement in a class-action death case that could push them into bankruptcy.”

Rufus is one of Templeton’s witnesses who is probably nearing the on-deck circle. We are guessing that he is likely to be up on the stand Monday or Tuesday.

“Are you sure of the information?”

“The report has an awful lot of detail, including a court-case number. It was filed in Texas eighteen months ago. They’re on the brink,” says Harry.

According to the information, five years ago, while expanding their empire into the state of Texas, Karr, Rufus swallowed up a poorly operated competitor in Houston. Two years into the deal, one of their uniformed security guards apparently started stalking a female employee of one of the large accounting agencies in a high-rise in Houston’s tony financial district. Karr, Rufus had the contract to provide security in the building.

To makes things worse, the guard in question, who was armed under the terms of the contract, had a prior felony conviction for assault and domestic violence in another state, something Karr, Rufus claimed they didn’t know anything about.

“The problem is,” says Harry, “according to the FBI, which did a routine criminal background check on the man when he was hired—part of the normal background check required by the state for licensing of security guards—Karr, Rufus was notified in writing of the guy’s felony conviction almost a year earlier. How it slipped through the cracks, nobody knows. The employee had lied to the company when he applied for the job, checking the box on the application that said
no prior criminal record
.

“It hit the fan on August eighteenth three years ago,” Harry goes on. “The guard walked into the accounting firm’s main office on the twenty-second floor armed with two semiautomatic nine-millimeter Glocks and started shooting employees. When the melee was over, seven people were dead, including the guard, who shot himself along with the woman who was the object of his affections. The civil complaint was for seventy-five million dollars and change,” says Harry. “Karr, Rufus settled out of court under terms of a confidential settlement. But they had to borrow money because the settlement was in excess of their insurance coverage. The firm’s headquarters in La Jolla was used as security on the note, which is due in ninety days. According to the information in the report, unless they can refinance the note—and so far they haven’t been able to—Karr, Rufus is insolvent. The bank will land on everything they have, including the building in La Jolla.

“Rufus won’t be able to make payroll,” says Harry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
his morning Larry Templeton positions himself to lay one more stone on top of the platform that is beginning to crush Emiliano Ruiz.

Gilcrest’s earlier ruling that the state may not use the security tape of Chapman and Ruiz on the couch in her office because of its prejudicial effect has forced Templeton to do the next best thing. He calls Karen Rogan to the stand.

Rogan is the only firsthand witness who saw any part of the events shown on the tape, even though from the film it appears that she was in the room only briefly.

Templeton has already had a chance to evaluate Rogan during Sims’s motion to quash the evidence that is still bottled up out at Isotenics. Rogan was not entirely cooperative during that outing, and Templeton knows it. He seems tentative in his approach with her.

“What is your position at Isotenics?”

“Personal assistant.”

He is looking down at the podium, checking to make sure he has all the items covered in his notes.

“To whom?” He looks up and realizes that the question isn’t clear to the witness. “For whom did you provide these services?”

“At the present time, for Mr. Havlitz,” she says.

“No. No. That’s not what I mean. Before that. Before Mr. Havlitz.”

“Who did I work for?”

“Yes.”

“Madelyn Chapman.”

“So you were Ms. Chapman’s personal assistant, is that correct?”

“Objection: leading the witness.” The objection is weak. The judge would probably overrule it, but he doesn’t get the chance.

Templeton rephrases the statement into a question before Gilcrest can rule. “What was your position in regards to Ms. Chapman?”

The game here is one of control. With the objection, Rogan’s eyes dart toward me. It doesn’t take a palm reader to anticipate that Rogan might not be comfortable testifying about the events in Chapman’s office that afternoon. I try to give her a signal: she has friends in court.

“I’m sorry, what was your question?” she says.

“Your position in regards to Ms. Chapman: What did you do for her?” Templeton has to work to get her attention back on himself. His task is to control her as best he can.

“Oh. Personal assistant,” she says.

“I take it that that was a position of trust?” Templeton is back to his notes.

“I don’t understand what you mean by
trust
,” she snaps at him a little, piercing green eyes from under the red hair.

When he looks up, Templeton seems flummoxed, flustered, suddenly overcome by a convulsion of awkward gestures.

“I didn’t mean that you betrayed any trust.” Seen from behind, standing on the stool, his arms waving, he looks like half of a conductor whose orchestra is out of tune. “What I meant . . . what I meant to say is, did you have ready access to her office, to the private space where Madelyn Chapman worked?”

“I suppose.”

Templeton’s misstep in his choice of words has made her wary.

“I mean . . .” Templeton glances over his shoulder at me. He would like to ease into the subject delicately, lead her by the hand into the tulips of the frolic on the couch, but he knows this isn’t going to happen.

“What I meant to say is, as Ms. Chapman’s personal assistant, did you have ready access to her office?”

“At times, yes.”

This isn’t the answer Templeton wants.

“What I mean is, did you have to knock before you entered her office?” Templeton wants to show that Rogan caught them in the full bloom of the act because nobody thought to lock the door.

“Sometimes I would knock. It would depend.”

Templeton, who has started out on the wrong foot, now ends up in a hole.

Templeton takes a couple of seconds at the podium to regroup. He drops “Mr. Cute” and gives up trying to be nice. He draws the witness up sharply, bringing her attention to the date in question. “Did you knock when you entered Madelyn Chapman’s office that afternoon, about one o’clock?” he says.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Was the door locked?”

“No.”

“So you were able to enter Ms. Chapman’s office?”

“Yes.”

“And as you entered, what did you see?”

“There was someone in the office with Ms. Chapman.”

“And can you tell the jury who this other person was who was in the office?

“It was Mr. Ruiz.”

“Do you mean the defendant, Emiliano Ruiz?”

“Yes.”

Templeton gets into his stride. It seems the key to this witness is a firm hand.

“And what was Mr. Ruiz doing as you entered the office?”

“He was seated on the couch next to Ms. Chapman.”

“Seated?” Templeton’s voice goes up a full octave as he says it. If Templeton was uncertain how far the witness would go in corroborating the contents of the videotape, he now has his answer.

“Did you say
seated
?”

“Yes. As I said, next to Ms. Chapman.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Objection: asked and answered,” I say.

“Sustained.”

Templeton tries to get a word picture of them at least semi-reclining: “Where were they on the couch?”

“At the far end. As I recall, Mr. Ruiz was at the end of the couch nearest the far wall. And Madelyn—Ms. Chapman—was sitting close to him, nearest to me, as I walked in.”

The relative positions of Chapman and Ruiz as stated by her are consistent with the video, though
sitting
is not exactly how I would characterize most of the action on the tape.

“Let me ask you, when you walked into the office that afternoon, did Mr. Ruiz have his clothes on? Was he fully dressed?” Templeton asks.

“As I recall, to the best of my recollection, I think he was.”

“Was he or wasn’t he fully clothed?” says Templeton.

“There was a lot of movement. It all happened so quickly. It’s possible they were rearranging their clothing.”

“Rearranging?” says Templeton.

Rogan is bright. She gives him just enough so that Templeton can’t have the judge jump on her to demand a straight answer.

At the other end of our table, Harry is leaning back in his chair, one elbow on the armrest with his hand up in front of his mouth, trying to shield the smile.

“What . . . how . . . how do you define
rearranging
?” asks Templeton.

“You know, straightening them. Sort of pulling things together,” she says.

A few of the jurors are now smiling. Before Templeton’s eyes, Karen’s testimony is transforming a heated happening on the couch, replete with scenes of pink flesh on tape, into a roguish fling in the hay.

“Were they putting their clothes on?”

“No. My recollection is that they were dressed. But as I said, it happened so quickly. As I recall, it’s possible Mr. Ruiz may have been closing a button on his shirt and Ms. Chapman was straightening her skirt.”

From behind, Templeton looks dazed. He thinks about what he’s going to say next. “I’m sure this is very difficult for you . . .”

I suspect it’s harder on him.

“ . . . but I want you to think very clearly,” he says, “about the details of what you saw that day.”

She nods innocently from the witness box.

“You say that Mr. Ruiz”—he points back with a hand, not looking in the direction of Emiliano—“was closing a button on his shirt?”

“As I said, it happened very quickly.”

“I understand that. But I want you to be clear.” There is a menacing tone in Templeton’s voice as he says this, one notch from cautioning the witness about perjury.

“This movement that you saw: You said you saw movement when you came through the door?” says Templeton. “Where was this movement? Where did it take place?”

“On the couch.”

“So they were both on the couch?”

“Yes. I think that’s what I said. I was only there for an instant and then I left.”

“I understand. How long? No, strike that,” he says. Templeton seems flustered, not sure which way to go. He tries to go back and start over. “When you opened the door, did you actually enter the room?”

“Yes. I went in a few steps. At least, that’s how I remember it.”

“How far is a ‘few steps’?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t measure it.”

“Just an estimate.” says Templeton. “Two feet? Six feet?”

“Maybe three or four feet.”

“So you opened the door and you walked in, maybe three or four feet, and you were looking right at them, correct?”

“No. Actually, as I remember it, I was looking at some papers in my hand. So I didn’t look up right away. That’s why I was surprised.”

“Surprised by what?” Templeton thinks he has a hair of the donkey’s tail.

“By the rapid movement on the couch.” The hair breaks off. “That’s why I went into the office in the first place,” she says. “I had some letters for Madelyn—for Ms. Chapman—to sign.”

“How long were you there, inside the office?” says Templeton.

“Two, maybe three seconds. It was an awkward moment.”

“I’ll bet,” says Templeton.

“Objection.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard,” says the judge.

If Templeton was hoping for a broad-ranging narrative with color commentary from the witness of the action on the couch, the director’s cut of the videotape, he has come up empty.

“So while you were in the room for these two or three seconds, how close would you say Mr. Ruiz was to Ms. Chapman?”

“Oh, they were quite close.”

“How close?”

“They were up against one another.”

“Up against one another, their bodies touching?”

“Yes.”

“And what were they doing?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Were they touching one another with their hands?”

“As I said, when I looked up, there was a lot of movement. It seemed pretty obvious that they heard me open the door before I looked up and saw them.”

“So there was a lot of furtive movement?” says Templeton.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means,” says Rogan.

“Moving around as if they were trying to conceal what was happening?”

“Yes. I would say so. When I looked up, it appeared obvious that there was . . . I’m not sure how to put it.”

“Use your own words to describe it.” Templeton is desperate for anything now.

“Well, some physical attraction between them,” says Rogan.

“What do mean by
physical attraction
!”

“Well, it looked as if perhaps they might have been engaged in an embrace when I opened the door,” she says. “As I said, at that moment, when I came in, I wasn’t looking up. So I can’t be sure. But I got the sense that I might have interrupted a kiss.”

“A kiss,” he says. “That’s what you saw?”

“As I said, I didn’t actually see it.”

“Your Honor, may we approach?” Templeton’s had enough. He wants a conference at the side of the bench.

The judge waves us on. Harry and I both head up. Templeton scampers down from the stool and has to run to stay ahead us. Gilcrest hits the white-noise button on the bench.

“Your Honor, this is absurd. It’s ridiculous.” Templeton is sputtering before he gets to the stairs leading to the judge’s platform. “The witness’s testimony is utterly inconsistent with what’s on the tape. Your Honor, you saw the contents of the videotape. Does the witness’s testimony sound like an accurate description of what happened? No.”

“Your Honor, she’s testifying as to what she saw, her recollections,” I say. “Besides, it’s clear that Mr. Templeton would use the videotape to poison the mind of the jury, to create the impression that a fling on the couch constitutes evidence of a long-term affair—that the defendant was starstruck, infatuated with Madelyn Chapman—when there is no evidence of this at all.”

“He was.” Templeton says it with big eyes, his hands extended on his short arms. “There’s evidence he was stalking her.”

“Your interpretation,” I tell him.

“We’ll see what the jury thinks,” says Templeton.

“Gentlemen, enough.” Gilcrest wants to bring it back to arguments directed to the court.

“Your Honor, I demand the right to treat this witness as hostile and to use the videotape to impeach her. You saw the tape, Your Honor. She makes it sound as if they were holding hands,” says Templeton.

“That’s not what I heard,” I tell the judge. “She said she saw them rearranging their clothing. And that it was obvious that there was some physical attraction between the two of them.”

“That’s what I heard,” says Gilcrest.

“‘Physical attraction,”’ says Templeton. “Describing what’s on that tape as ‘some physical attraction’ is like calling hell a mild warming trend. Your Honor, that videotape has got to come in. Without it the jury has no sense of what was happening here. Certainly not from this witness.” For Templeton the pictures are worth a million words. He wants to show the sweat of passion on the couch so that the jury can get the full measure of motive on which to hang the ornaments of his evidence.

“I think they got the point,” says Gilcrest. “And you can certainly argue it to them on closing,” he tells Templeton.

“Argue what?” says Templeton.

“That there was evidence of physical attraction,” says the judge.

“Yeah, that and a kiss,” says Harry.

“Your Honor . . .” Templeton tries, but the judge waves us away from the bench. He has made his ruling: the tape will not come in. Given the choice between warm desire and superheated lust that will poison the jury against the defendant, Gilcrest figures that warm is good enough.

As we leave the bench, the white noise is still on. Harry leans down into Templeton’s ear with his hand cupped but loud enough for me to hear it. “If it makes you feel any better, Larry, we all know that wasn’t his hand she was holding.”

Having gotten the crap kicked out of us for a week, Harry can’t resist rubbing a little salt in the wound.

From my recollection of the security video in Chapman’s office, there was only a momentary glimpse of Karen Rogan in the fish-eye lens as she entered the room, then disappeared. Most of the action on the couch, where it occurred at speeds approaching that of light, was of Chapman and Ruiz pulling their clothes together.

Whether by instinct or intuition, given the understatement that is Rogan’s testimony, I can only assume that she is not buying into the argument that Ruiz killed her boss. Call it good taste, but with Chapman dead and her mother and sister in the courtroom, I suspect that Karen Rogan saw little to be gained by offering up the sordid details of an afternoon long ago.