Double Tap

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

In the morning Max Rufus is back on the stand. The judge reminds him that he is already under oath, and Rufus takes his seat.

I offer him a greeting: “Good morning.”

He smiles and nods but doesn’t say anything.

Today Rufus is fitted out in a charcoal pinstriped suit, starched white linen shirt with French cuffs, and gold cuff links. He’s wearing a blue tie with tiny gold stars covering it to pick up the accents.

He leans back in the witness chair and crosses one leg over the other, his right ankle resting on his left knee. His elbows are on the armrests of the chair, the fingers of his hands steepled together just under his chin, the fingertips drumming together nervously.

I stand at the podium looking at him for several seconds as the last few coughs are muffled and people in the audience settle in their seats. Then I start.

“Mr. Rufus, let me ask you. . Yesterday you indicated that Mr. Ruiz headed up the security detail assigned to provide executive protection to Madelyn Chapman.”

“That’s correct.”

“Can you tell the jury why Ms. Chapman or, for that matter, other personnel at Isotenics found it necessary to retain executive security to protect Ms. Chapman?”

He looks at me, a puzzled expression. “I don’t recall if there was a specific incident that prompted it,” he says. “She had a high public profile because of the company and her responsibilities. It’s not uncommon for people in her position to utilize personal security.”

“Do you know whether prior to or during the time that your company provided executive protection to Ms. Chapman she received any threats, either verbal or written? Threats regarding her personal safety, I mean.”

“Oh, the usual crank letters, I suppose. Many of the people who we provide protection for receive any number of strange pieces of mail. With regard to Ms. Chapman, as I recall, there were no what you would call credible threats.” He smiles at me.

It’s obvious that the witness has gone over this with Templeton in order to prevent us from pumping up the poison pen mail into evidence of a risk from some other quarter.

“Yesterday I believe that you testified that you received a phone call from Madelyn Chapman at one point and that during that phone call she demanded that the executive protection detail assigned to her be terminated and that she-and I believe these are the words that you used-’specifically requested that Mr. Ruiz be removed from the detail immediately.’ Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“And I believe you went on to testify that when you asked her why she wanted this done, she told you, and I quote”-I look down at my notes-”’She said that Mr. Ruiz had become too familiar and that he made inappropriate advances toward her.’ Is that accurate?”

“Well, words to that effect. I can’t recall exactly how she said it, but that’s the gist of it.”

“Is that a fact?”

He looks at me but doesn’t respond.

“Isn’t it true, Mr. Rufus, that part of the reason Ms. Chapman called you that day is not because she was angry with Mr. Ruiz but rather she was angry with your firm?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it a fact that Madelyn Chapman called you to complain not about Mr. Ruiz but about the fact that your company had screwed up and placed a security video camera in her office without her knowledge?”

“Well, she. . It’s true. She did mention that.”

“Isn’t it a fact that Madelyn Chapman screamed at you over the phone, not because of anything that Mr. Ruiz had done, but because she had been compromised by the installation of a security camera in her own office when she was out of town traveling, and that no one had taken the time to tell her about it, so that when she came back, she was surprised to find herself on film?”

“Your Honor, I’m going to object to this.” Templeton is sitting on his box on the chair and raising a hand. “The court refused to allow me to get into that videotape. And now Mr. Madriani-”

“I’m not talking about the contents of the videotape, Your Honor. I’m talking about the existence of a camera the size of a pencil eraser installed in the victim’s office without her knowledge.”

“The witness can answer the question,” says Gilcrest.

“It was a mistake. We blew it,” says Rufus.

“That doesn’t answer my question. Did she or did she not yell at you over the phone because of the installation of that camera in her office without her knowledge?”

“She. . she. . she was angry. I will concede that she was upset. I apologized. I told her that if I had known that no one had checked with her beforehand, the camera would never have been installed.”

“So she was operating on the good-faith belief that she had privacy in her own office, when in fact she did not?”

Rufus uncrosses his legs. He offers a dozen expressions on the stand, none of them happy. “It’s true she didn’t know it was there. And she was upset about it, but she also demanded that the security detail be terminated and that Mr. Ruiz be removed.”

“Well, let me ask you a question, Mr. Rufus: If you had hired a company to provide security at your place of business and they came in and installed a camera in your office without your knowledge, and that camera caught you doing something in what you thought was a moment of privacy, would you not be moved in anger-I say in rage-to remove that firm and all of its employees from your presence?”

Right between the eyes. Rufus, sitting on the stand as if he has been poleaxed, is looking at me wide-eyed. He swallows hard. “I don’t know. I suppose.” It’s the only thing he can say. Nothing else would sound reasonable, and anyone who knew Chapman and the fits of imperious anger that could overtake her knows it.

“Let me ask you, isn’t it a fact that Ms. Chapman fired the head of security at Isotenics immediately after her conversation with you on the telephone that day?”

“I’m not sure of the details,” he says.

“Did she or did she not fire the man?”

“He was discharged.”

“And on that very day, is that not correct?”

“I believe so.”

“And was he not terminated because of his failure to notify Ms. Chapman of the existence of that camera in her office?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Would you like me to show you the declaration, signed under penalty of perjury, obtained from the gentleman in question?” This Herman was able to obtain because Chapman’s former head of security no longer works for the company. He is not covered by Sims’s motion to quash and the restraining order compelling us to stay clear of Isotenics and its employees.

“I’ll take your word for it,” says Rufus.

“I’m not the one testifying,” I tell him, “you are. Now, do you want me to repeat the question, or would you like to answer it?”

“I believe he was fired because of the camera.”

I take a deep breath, slow the pace a little, and cast an eye through my notes on the rostrum to make sure I’m not missing anything.

When I look up, Rufus is sweating, beads of perspiration running down his forehead. He mops it with a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket, then wipes his upper lip with the other side.

“Can you tell the jury why Ms. Chapman called you personally to complain about what had happened regarding the camera in her office?”

He looks puzzled, as if he’s trying to locate the hook in the question. “I don’t know. I suppose because I was the head of the firm.”

“Isn’t it true that you were a personal friend of Ms. Chapman’s?”

“I see what you mean. Yes, we were acquainted,” he says.

“Can you tell the jury how long you had known the victim?” I go from Chapman to victim for the implications it conjures.

“I don’t know. A few years.”

“A shade more than six, to be exact? Would that be about right?”

“I suppose. What difference does it make?”

“Did you know her well?”

“We were social acquaintances. We did business together.”

“Other than providing security services for Isotenics and executive protection for Ms. Chapman, did you have any other business relations with her?”

He shakes his head. “No. That was it.”

“Did you ever travel with Ms. Chapman personally?” I ask.

“I was wondering when that was going to come up,” he says. “Yes, we traveled together once. One time.”

“And when was that?”

“About three years ago. And the press engaged in a lot of gossip that wasn’t true,” he says.

“Where did the two of you go?”

“The two of us didn’t go anywhere,” he says. “The fact of the matter is that she was generous enough to allow me to hitch a ride on her company plane because it just so happened that she was vacationing in Italy at the same time that I had a security conference in Rome. When we landed in Italy, we went our separate ways. We ended up spending one day together relaxing just before returning home and the paparazzi with their cameras got ahold of it and made a huge deal out of it. She told me that they hounded her the entire time she was there. Wouldn’t leave her alone. ‘The billionaire software queen.”’

In the piles of documents in the box on the floor at Harry’s feet are old news articles and photographs we have been collecting, mostly items out of the local society section. Several of these show Chapman over the last several years attending galas and charity functions accompanied by a number of different male friends. Several of the photos show her on the arm of Rufus.

Their difference in age and economic and social status causes me to suspect that this was nothing more than a matter of convenience for Chapman. No doubt she would have considered Rufus a safe escort for a high-profile outing in terms of gossip and speculation. That all changed when she spent ten days in a guarded villa near the town of Lucca in Tuscany. With an international software mogul staying in the neighborhood, Roman reporters descended on the place. One of the photos taken with a 900mm lens from bushes on the hillside above the villa, a grainy shot, shows Chapman sunning herself on a chaise near the pool. Next to her, decked out in swim trunks and reading the newspaper, is an austere, dapper-looking gentleman later identified as Maxwell Rufus. The picture set tongues wagging in the local San Diego press, speculation that a match was in the making. Whether it was business or pleasure was never clear. What is certain is that if there was something bubbling, it never brewed. After that, the only times the two of them were ever seen together were in groups with other people-outings similar to the dinner party that Chapman never made the night she was murdered.

I slip copies of the grainy photograph from the Italian press from under a stack of papers on the podium and have the bailiff deliver one to the judge and one to Rufus on the stand. I hand another to Templeton at his table.

I ask Rufus: “Do you recognize this photograph?”

“Yes.” He barely glances it at, then dumps it contemptuously onto the railing along the side of the witness stand.

“Is that Ms. Chapman and yourself in the photograph?”

“Yes.” Rufus isn’t even looking at me now but glancing up at the ceiling instead.

“You say the press came to the wrong conclusions based on that photograph?”

“Yes.”

“That they engaged in a lot of wild speculation that wasn’t true?”

“Absolutely.”

“Your Honor, can I have People’s exhibit twenty-six up on the screen?” This is a copy of the frozen frame from the video taken by Rufus, the picture that Templeton left lingering up on the screen for the jury at the close of the state’s direct examination of Rufus. Harry has had this single frame prepared for mounting on the visualizer so that it leaves enough room for another shot to be placed right next to it-a kind of split screen.

Gilcrest points his gavel at Templeton’s computer wizard, and a second later one of the photographs taken by Rufus during his surveillance of my client pops up on the visualizer, the shot showing Ruiz watching Chapman on the street in La Jolla, where she is talking with friends.

“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Rufus, that people-that perhaps this jury-looking at the load of photographs that you took of Emiliano Ruiz during your so-called investigation of his activities could jump to similarly erroneous conclusions as the press did with you and the victim while you were vacationing in Italy?”

Suddenly Rufus realizes that I’m not headed where he thought I was going: implications of an affair between him and Chapman. Whether the jury will land there or not is up to them.

“I don’t think so,” he says.

“Your Honor, I ask that the photograph resting on the railing next to Mr. Rufus’s arm be marked defendant’s exhibit next in order and that it be introduced into evidence.”

“Any objection, Mr. Templeton?”

“No, Your Honor.”

I have the Italian newspaper photo put up on the visualizer for the jury to see; the other half of my split screen, a demonstration of how people can jump to the wrong conclusion by looking at pictures.

I turn back to the witness. “Did you bother to talk to Mr. Ruiz, to ask him what he was doing when he was watching Madelyn Chapman during the course of your investigation?”

“It wasn’t necessary. I had directed him to stay away from her.” The way Rufus says it makes him sound like a jealous suitor.

“I see. You were conducting an investigation to find out what he was doing, but it wasn’t necessary to talk to him about it? To find out what the real purpose of his activities was?”

“I knew what the purpose of his activities was. He was infatuated,” says Rufus.

“That’s pure speculation on your part. Your Honor, I move that the witness’s answer be stricken from the record and that the jury be instructed to disregard it.”

“So ordered,” says Gilcrest. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last statement and the witness will confine his testimony to what he knows. Do I make myself clear?” he asks.

Rufus nods.

Gilcrest verbally pulls Rufus up by the tie: “I want to hear an answer when I give a direction.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You may proceed.” The judge waves me on.

“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Rufus, that to this day you don’t have any idea what Mr. Ruiz was actually doing when you were photographing him watching Madelyn Chapman?”

“The pictures speak for themselves,” he says.

“I suppose they would have to since you can’t, even though you took them.”

“Objection,” says Templeton.

“The jury will disregard counsel’s comment,” says Gilcrest. The judge is having to earn his supper. “Confine yourself to questions, Mr. Madriani.”

“Sorry, Your Honor.”

“Is it not possible, Mr. Rufus, given your lack of verifiable information concerning the activities of Mr. Ruiz in those photographs and in that videotape, that the photographs you took are just as deceptive, just as erroneous, and just as misleading-”

“No,” he says.

“Let me finish.” He allows me to repeat the entire question while the jury considers his self-righteous stance.

“Is it not possible, sir, given your lack of verifiable information and your preconceived notions,” I add, “that your photographs and that video of Mr. Ruiz taken during what you call an investigation are just as deceptive, just as erroneous, and just as misleading as you claim that news photograph is of you and the victim in Italy?”

“No.”

“And how do you know that?”

He sits on the stand, silent, unable to come up with an answer that isn’t the product of conjecture and assumption. Rufus is a regimented soul. All that mattered to him was that Ruiz had violated his instructions to stay away from Madelyn Chapman. He never bothered to confront Ruiz and ask him what he was doing. In the end the police arrested Emiliano, seized the tape and the photographs, and used them to jump to conclusions.

“I have no further use for this witness.” I turn and leave him sitting on the stand.