Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (35 page)

"Andre Barbizon will testify that he did rather more
for Russell Gray than run his household. He will testify that he
was once the lover of Russell Gray and, over the course of time,
the lover of several of Mr. Gray's prominent friends as well."

She shot out of her chair. Judge West hit his gavel
once and then, with a baleful stare, waited until the last sound
died away.

"Ms. Gilliland-O'Rourke, did you wish to make an
objection?" he asked laconically.

"Mr. Antonelli's remarks are deliberately
inflammatory, your Honor."

He looked at me, waiting for my reply.

"It's what I expect the witness to testify," I
insisted, my eyes locked on Gilliland-O'Rourke.

"Go on, Mr. Antonelli," the judge instructed, as he
sank back in his chair.

I turned to the jury. "Andre Barbizon has had a
number of lovers, and Russell Gray knew about all of them. He used
that knowledge for his own advantage. When he needed money—and in
the last year or so of his life he needed a great deal of it—he
borrowed it from people who wanted to keep their private lives
private. He borrowed money, but everyone understood it would never
be repaid.

Finally, someone decided this had to stop. But there
was only one way to stop it, only one way to make sure he would
never be able to reveal the secrets he knew, secrets that would
have ruined the lives and destroyed the careers of more than one
well-known person in this city."

I had everything I needed. Barbizon's testimony would
convince the jury that there were powerful people who had every
reason to want Russell Gray dead. Alma Woolner's testimony would
convince them that she was incapable of murder. We were going to
win. I knew it. All Alma had to do was walk to the witness stand
and swear she did not kill Russell Gray.

Wearing a white high-collar dress with large black
buttons down the front, Alma sat on the witness chair and looked at
me with large, frightened eyes. I began with the only question that
really mattered.

"Mrs. Woolner, did you kill Russell Gray?"

She took a long time before she answered. "Yes," she
said finally, "I did."

Had she misunderstood the question? "No," I said
quickly, "I asked you if you killed Russell Gray."

"I didn't want to, but I did."

In ten words Alma had destroyed my defense.
Everything I had just said to the jury would be seen as the lie of
a lawyer who did not even know what his own client was going to
say. I was trapped. All I could do was keep asking her questions,
hoping she would say something that would give me a way out. If I
stopped now, Alma Woolner would be convicted of murder by her own
confession.

"Why don't you just tell the jury what happened?" I
suggested, trying to pretend that none of this was a surprise.

She became remarkably calm. Looking away from me, her
eyes came to rest on the jury. "I had been having an affair with
Russell Gray," she explained. "It had been going on for some
months. That night I wanted to see him alone, to tell him that it
was over. That's the reason I left and then came back. He got very
upset. He told me I'd change my mind after we'd gone to bed again.
He tried to force me, and that's when it happened. I told him to
leave me alone and I pointed the gun at him. He laughed at me. I
didn't mean to shoot him. It just seemed to go off. I was scared. I
didn't know what to do."

My mind was racing. She was telling the truth about
her affair, that much I was certain about. But if she had shot
Russell Gray in self-defense, why would she not have told me that
right away? It did not make sense. She was lying, and I did not
know why.

"Russell Gray was trying to force you to have sex
with him?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, her eyes downcast.

"But somehow you got away?"

"I managed to pull away. That's when I got the gun,"
she explained, looking again at the jury.

"Yes, the gun. Let's talk about that." I walked up to
the jury box. "It was your gun?" I asked, looking straight at
her.

She looked down. "Yes."

My hands behind me, I leaned against the jury box and
crossed one foot in front of the other.

"Where did you get the gun?"

"I bought it."

"Where did you buy it?"

"At a gun store."

"The gun that killed Russell Gray was not registered
to anyone. How do you explain that?"

For the first time, she looked at me, a puzzled
expression on her face. "I remember. I bought the gun when I was on
a trip to New York. A friend of mine helped me."

"I see. You happened to be in New York, and you just
happened to decide you wanted a gun?" I asked.

"It was my gun," she insisted, looking away. "I shot
Russell. I didn't mean to, but I did."

Three times I took her through her story, from the
moment she first arrived early in the evening until the moment she
supposedly shot Russell Gray late that night, and each time it was
always the same, the artificial account of someone who had
memorized the words because there was nothing real to remember. She
insisted she was the one who killed Russell Gray and she had not
meant to do it.

Meticulous and remorseless, Gilliland-O'Rourke made
her repeat it. "Is it your testimony that after you left Russell
Gray's house with the other board members, you came back
alone?"

"Yes."

"With a gun?"

"Yes."

"And is it your testimony that your hand was on the
gun when it was fired and Russell Gray was killed?"

"Yes, but I didn't mean—"

"Thank you," Gilliland-O'Rourke interjected. "That's
all I have, your Honor."

Alma sat down next to me. She started to say
something but changed her mind and stared down at her hands, lost
in thoughts of her own.

"You may call your next witness, Mr. Antonelli."

Gilliland-O'Rourke did not give me the chance.

"Your Honor," she said, "I'd like to request that we
recess until tomorrow morning. There are matters that need to be
discussed between counsel."

"Mr. Antonelli?"

For a different reason, I had been about to make the
same request. "No objection, your Honor."

The jury was sent home for the day, and I took Alma
into a small conference room down the hallway. Angrily, I demanded
to know why she had done it. "You didn't kill Russell Gray, not by
accident, not in self-defense. Why did you say you did?" We were
standing just inside the doorway. She had to bite her lip to stop
it from trembling. "You would have told me if it had happened that
way. You wouldn't have waited until now. You made up the whole
thing, didn't you? Why?"

I grabbed her arm, ready to shake the truth out of
her if I had to. She pulled away, her eyes flashing. She stared at
me, biting even harder on her lip. Then I knew. There was only one
way it could have happened.

"Horace told you to do this, didn't he?"

Her eyes grew wider and she still would not
speak.

"Horace told you it was the only way to explain how
your fingerprints were on the gun, didn't he?"

She looked away and would not look back.

"You weren't even there when Russell Gray was killed,
were you? You left with everyone else, and you never came
back."

She would not answer. She did not have to.

Thirty minutes later, I sat in front of
Gilliland-O'Rourke's ornate writing table and listened to her make
an offer only a fool would turn down.

"Plead her to manslaughter. She'll do two years."

"You were charging her with murder."

Brushing a strand of hair away from her eye, she
reminded me of Alma Woolner's testimony. "She admitted it. No one
can prove it didn't happen the way she said it did. There was no
premeditation." She was talking like an overworked prosecutor,
anxious to deal out one case so she could get on with the next
one.

"It doesn't matter what she said in there," I said,
before she could remind me again. "She didn't do it. I have another
witness to call."

She assumed I meant Barbizon. "That would be a very
serious mistake," she warned. "Are you trying to threaten me?" I
asked as I stood up. "You really think you're in a position to do
that?"

Her hands folded on the table, she fixed me with a
murderous stare. "I've made you a plea offer," she said in a hard,
thin voice. "You have an obligation to take it to your client. Let
me know what she decides." Turning away, she picked up the
telephone as if she were late making a call.

Outside, on the courthouse steps, breathing in the
misty air, I heard the voice of Richard Lee Jones echoing in my
mind, describing the secret pleasure we feel when the powerful are
brought down. I had been so eager to believe that Russell Gray had
been killed to conceal a scandal that I had missed what had been
right in front of my eyes. I was certain now who had done it, and
the only thing I felt was pain and a growing sense of anger. All
that evening I sat in the book-lined library at home, plotting the
destruction of one of the few people I had ever really admired. In
the middle of the night, unable to sleep, I wandered aimlessly down
the creaking hallway and through the empty rooms, listening to the
hollow beat of the endless rain, and in the first somber light of
dawn, I stared out the window at winter's ruined landscape.

When it was time, I dressed and drove down to the
city. I had been lied to from the beginning, lied to by people I
thought I could trust, but even the worst news has a certain
cathartic effect. The feelings of anger and betrayal gradually
subsided until, when I entered the courthouse, all that was left
was the strange sense of relief that comes with the knowledge that
something has come to an end and nothing will ever be quite the
same again.

Two hundred people crammed the courtroom benches and
rose as a single body when Judge West appeared at the side door and
began his short journey to the bench. "Please be seated," he said,
as he settled into place. For a moment, the room was filled with a
muffled rumble and then, once again, total silence.

"Are there any matters to take up before we begin?"
he asked, glancing at me with an expectant look. "No, your Honor,"
I replied. He seemed surprised. Pursing his lips, he studied me
through eyes half hidden by dark lashes. "In that case," he said
finally, motioning toward the clerk, "bring in the jury, and we'll
get started."

She disappeared inside the jury room and emerged a
few moments later, all twelve jurors in tow. As they filed into the
box, one of them, a slight bespectacled man in his twenties,
stumbled on the step and sprawled against a first-row chair.
Embarrassed, he pulled himself to his feet and grinned sheepishly
at the judge.

"Are you all right?" Judge West asked, looking down
from the bench.

"I'm fine, thank you," the juror replied, as he
turned and found his assigned seat in the back.

The judge nodded affably, leaned forward, put his
elbows on the bench, and clasped his hands together. "Mr..
Antonelli, please call your next witness." "Your Honor," I
announced, clearing my throat, "the defense calls Horace
Woolner."

The prosecutor was on her feet. This was not the
witness she had expected.

"Ms. Gilliland-O'Rourke?" Judge West asked, waiting
to hear her objection.

She changed her mind. "Nothing, your Honor," she
said, sinking back down.

There was a noticeable stir among the crowd when
Horace entered the courtroom and made his way up the aisle. His
eyes stayed focused on a point ten feet ahead of him as he made his
way toward the wooden gate. Other than Alma, he was the only black
person in the room. I wondered how often before he had found
himself running a gauntlet of white resentment or sympathy.

Horace dominated the room. Every eye was on him. He
sat completely still and fixed me with a steady gaze. "You are the
husband of the defendant, Alma Woolner?" She was sitting right next
to me, staring at him, too frightened to move, but his eyes never
strayed from mine.

"Yes," he replied. His deep, sonorous voice seemed to
come from everywhere at once. Still in my chair, I asked,

"How did you first meet?" "We met in New York. A
mutual friend introduced us." Slowly, I pushed back from the table
and got to my feet.

"When you met," I asked, as I moved toward the jury
box, "she was a dancer with the New York City Ballet, wasn't
she?"

He sat there, immobile, his eyes following me
wherever I went.

"Yes," he answered.

"She had a very promising career ahead of her, didn't
she?"

"Everyone said so."

"When you first met, was that before or after you
were in the war?"

"After."

Folding my arms, I looked down at the floor. I would
have given anything to have been somewhere else. "You suffered a
serious injury in Vietnam, didn't you?"