The Furthest City Light (12 page)

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Much stronger than my client?” I wouldn’t have asked the question if he’d been a smart aleck, but this cowboy was a straight shooter.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So even if he limped and couldn’t run anymore, he could still punch someone?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He could still slap someone?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Jeff said.

“On what grounds, Mr. Taylor?” the judge asked.

Jeff had to think about it. “Ms. Stein is asking the witness to speculate. There’s no foundation for the question.”

“Overruled. The witness may answer the question.”

“Thank you,” I said. I turned to the witness. “So Hal was capable of slapping someone if he wanted to?” I was leaning forward, my hands resting on the lectern.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And shoving someone?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Of slamming a door into someone?”

“He wouldn’t do that, ma’am.”

This was almost fun. “Well, if a neighbor saw Hal slam a car door on Emily’s foot, you wouldn’t say that was impossible, would you?”

“I’d say it wasn’t impossible, but I can’t imagine Hal doing such a thing.”

I pretended to think for a moment. “How about breaking someone’s jaw? Was he physically capable of that?”

For a moment, Jeff looked as if he was going to object again, but then decided not to.

“I don’t know, ma’am. Again, I can’t imagine him doing such a thing.”

“You knew, didn’t you, about a month and a half before Hal’s death, that his wife Emily suffered a broken jaw?”

“She told me she’d been in a car accident.”

I nodded. “I see. And you believed her?”

He nodded back. “Yes, ma’am, I did. I had no reason whatsoever to think she was lying.”

“Hal was much bigger than his wife, wasn’t he?”

The witness sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And he drank too much alcohol, didn’t he?”

“I think I already acknowledged that.”

“And would you also acknowledge that your friend Hal had been abusing his wife for years?”

Jeff jumped to his feet. “Objection! There’s absolutely no foundation. Ms. Stein has no basis for asking that kind of question.”

“Do you?” Judge Thomas asked. His face was carefully neutral.

Not really, I thought, but what I said was, “Your Honor, I believe I do. May we approach the bench?”

The judge nodded. Jeff and I hurried over to the judge’s bench and stood as close as we could. The judge leaned forward and whispered, “Well, Ms. Stein?”

“My client told me that Mr. Ferguson has also seen her with a black eye.”

“That’s it?” Jeff asked indignantly.

“Shh,” the judge cautioned. “That’s not exactly the same as knowing the deceased had been abusing his wife for years.”

Like a stubborn six-year-old, I held my ground. “It was enough to ask the question,” I said.

Judge Thomas shook his head. “You can ask about the black eye, but that’s all.”

After we returned to our places, I took a quick drink of water.

“Mr. Ferguson, when you visited Hal and Emily’s house a few years ago, didn’t you see Emily with a black eye?”

He could have easily denied it and I would have been stuck with his answer. But instead he said, “I think it was about four years ago.”

I was beginning to admire him. At that point, I might have sat down, but I didn’t think I had anything to lose by asking whether Emily had explained this injury as well. What could he say that would hurt me?

“Did you ask her about it?” I crossed my fingers. Again, he could have said no, or that he didn’t remember.

“She said she’d walked into the bathroom door in the middle of the night.”

Bingo.

“And you believed her?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, ma’am, I had no reason—”

“Oh please, Mr. Ferguson. If you’d arrested someone for domestic violence and his victim told you she’d run into a door, would you have believed her?”

“Objection!” Jeff yelled.

“I’ll withdraw the question,” I said. “Thank you for your candor, Mr. Ferguson. No further questions.”

“Not bad,” Donald whispered when I returned to the defense table.

“Thanks,” I said.

“He was the only one of Hal’s friends that I really liked,” Emily murmured.

“I can see why,” I said.

Jeff stood up and asked for a ten-minute recess in order to find his next witness. As soon as the jury was excused, he grabbed his trial notebook and left the room with Detective Moorehouse behind him.

I leaned over toward Donald. “They’re trying to decide whether to still put Hal’s mother on the stand. Jeff knows we won’t call her if he doesn’t.”

Donald nodded. He was wearing the new blue and red tie I’d bought him over the weekend. “What are you betting on?”

“That he’ll call her.”

I was right, but the Louise Watkins who took the stand and answered all of Jeff’s questions was not the elegant ice queen Donald and I had visited in March. In the two months since we’d seen her, she’d either taken a few acting lessons or Jeff had prepped her well. The witness who was testifying now might have been Louise’s much nicer sister, a sad slightly befuddled woman, not the kind of person you’d want to press very hard on cross-examination. As soon as she was sworn in, she asked if she could have a drink of water. Her hands even shook a little as she sipped from her glass. Jeff kept it short and sweet: her son was a good peaceful loving man; he wasn’t happy with his wife but took his marriage vows seriously; he treated Emily with respect and never harmed her in any way; he was the best son in the world and she missed him every day. Jeff thanked her and sat down.

Then it was my turn. I didn’t realize until it was almost too late that Jeff had set me up. As I approached the podium, I decided that if she was old and pleasant, I’d be kind and solicitous.

“Mrs. Watkins,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you a couple of questions as well. I hope they won’t upset you too much.”

“It’s all right.” She clutched her glass. “It’s your job. I understand.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Watkins. First of all, you testified on direct that your son was unhappy with his wife.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s what he told me.”

“And you think he drank because he was unhappy with his wife?”

“Yes, but he didn’t drink that much.”

This was my chance to discredit her in a kind gentle way. “So you don’t think your son was an alcoholic?”

“Oh, not at all. Just the occasional beer or glass of wine at supper.”

“I see. Didn’t he also drink because of his disability?”

“Oh no, he’d accepted that.”

So far, so good. “Sometimes, though,” I continued, “because he was so unhappy with his wife, he’d lose his temper with her?”

She sat up a little straighter and I could see the real Louise struggling to stay hidden. “Well, anyone can lose their temper. Haven’t you ever lost yours?”

“Mrs. Watkins, I know this must be difficult, but I need you to answer my question. Sometimes, because your son was so unhappy with his wife, he’d lose his temper with her. Is that correct?”

“Oh I suppose so. Once in a while.”

“Thank you. The last Christmas you spent together, Emily had a black eye. Is that correct?”

The witness looked down at her lap for a moment, then up again. “There was one Christmas when she had a black eye, but I’m thinking now that it was three or four years ago. I’m sorry, but my memory isn’t so good anymore.”

Yeah, right. “Has it declined since you spoke with me two months ago?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you remember speaking with me and my investigator in March?”

“Of course I do.”

“And do you remember telling us that Emily had a black eye the last Christmas you spent together, not three or four years ago?”

“No, I remember you asking me whether Emily had a black eye the last Christmas we spent together, and I said I wasn’t sure. Since then, I’ve thought about it and I think perhaps you were trying to put words in my mouth.”

Well at least I didn’t have to be so kind anymore. “And since then, you’ve also met with the prosecutor, haven’t you?”

“We’ve spoken a few times.”

“And of course you informed him that you’d talked with me and my investigator?”

“I’m not sure. I may have mentioned it.”

“And of course you told him what you’d said to us.”

“I’m not sure if I did or not.”

“That’s a very tricky memory you have, Mrs. Watkins. No further questions.”

I stared at her for a moment as if I hoped she might change her mind and tell the truth, then turned my back to her and walked away.

“You were lucky to get out alive,” Donald whispered when I returned to the defense table. “What a bitch.”

“She lost her son,” Emily murmured.

The last three witnesses’ testimony pertained to the insurance policy. Jeff was enjoying himself now, asking way too many questions, as if he’d never heard this information before and couldn’t quite believe it. On cross, I did the best I could, implying that Emily had been concerned about her husband’s health—he wouldn’t stop drinking—and therefore it made perfect sense to buy an insurance policy on his life, that the timing was unfortunate but meant nothing. I sat down feeling as if I were the only guest left at a party where everyone else had long since gone home and the hosts were snoring in their bedroom.

I closed my eyes and pictured the bay in Zihuatanejo that Vickie and I had visited, one of the most peaceful places in Mexico. At sunset, when the temperature is perfect (about eighty degrees) the townspeople arrive with their families in tow and the adults all sit at the water’s edge in their bathing suits or underwear eating chicken and corn on the cob catching up on each other’s news, the teenage girls in bikinis laugh and toss their hair, the boys square off for a game of soccer, and the little kids run back and forth in the water shouting excitedly, until at some point everyone stops what they’re doing and their collective gaze turns toward the horizon to watch as the orange sun descends into the turquoise colored sea; and then, there’s a moment of silence suffused with the kind of happiness that money can’t buy because there’s nothing at that moment that anyone would wish to be different. I opened my eyes and sighed.

Finally, a few minutes before five, the prosecution rested. The judge glanced at the clock, and then decided to adjourn for the day. As the guard approached to escort Emily back to the jail, she asked if she could speak with me in private. I told Donald I’d catch up to him in the hall. We waited until everyone filed out of the courtroom.

“Okay,” I said, “what’s up?”

Emily took a deep breath and let it out. “Is there any way we can win the trial if I don’t testify?”

I felt my mouth drop open and my head begin to shake from side to side. “No.”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “Because I’d prefer not to. I’ve seen what you do on cross-examination and I can just imagine what the prosecutor will do to me. I’m too confused and I’m afraid I won’t do a very good job.”

My heart thudded in my chest and I felt dizzy, as if I’d drunk too many margaritas under a blazing sun. “You’d be committing suicide if you don’t testify.”

She smiled as if I were being much too melodramatic. “A trial,” she said in her dreamy sounding voice, “is such an odd way to get at the truth, don’t you think? It makes simple things sound terribly complex and complex things sound so simple. Innocence and guilt, for instance. Who isn’t both innocent and guilty?”

I wanted to shake her, but she’d had enough physical violence to last her a lifetime. “Emily, wake up! Now is the time. Open your goddamned cage—it isn’t locked—and fly away.”

In a small bewildered voice, she asked, “Where would I go?”

“Anywhere you want to.” I knew I sounded desperate, but I couldn’t help it. I gestured wildly around the room, at the judge’s bench, the court reporter’s empty chair, the rows of deserted seats, the soundproof windowless walls. “Anywhere is better than here.”

She stared at me, then blinked her eyes and said, “Yes, of course you’re right. Oh Rachel, I’m terribly sorry if I scared you.”

The next morning, I arrived at the Justice Center at a quarter to eight and found Donald sitting on one of the narrow wooden benches in the hall outside the courtroom. Since the doors to the courtroom were still locked, I sat down beside him to confer about our witness list.

Besides Dr. Midman, we planned to call Emily’s best friend, Alice Timmerman, seven medical doctors, the neighbor who’d seen Hal slam a car door on Emily’s foot, a Boulder County policeman who’d arrested Hal six years earlier for domestic violence, two felons willing to testify that Hal had used excessive force on them, and of course, Emily. Normally, I would have saved my client for last, but Donald and I both agreed we’d better put her on second, as soon as Dr. Midman finished testifying. After that, she’d be free to dissociate for the rest of the trial. Later, after we’d won, I could tell her the conditions were safe now, and like a political refugee hiding in some other country, she could finally return home.

It took almost forty minutes to figure out which witnesses were available that afternoon, and which ones we’d call on Wednesday and Thursday. None of the doctors could testify until Wednesday after lunch and some were asking not to be called until Thursday. The neighbor, who’d screamed at Donald after being subpoenaed, had the busiest schedule of all: bridge, golf, an art appreciation class and lunch with her daughter-in-law. She’d advised us she was only available between ten thirty and eleven fifteen tomorrow morning.

“Is she worth the hassle?” Donald asked. “She’s really pissed off at us.”

“I know,” I said, “but she’s a crucial witness, the only person who ever actually saw Hal hurting Emily. We have to put her on.”

He grunted. “Okay fine, I’ll phone her this afternoon. How much abuse do I have to listen to before I get to hang up?”

I reached over and began adjusting his tie. “We really need her.”

He grunted again. “So a lot.” He was trying to frown, but I could tell by the flash of pleasure in his eyes that he liked someone touching his clothes, attempting to spruce him up.