The 13th Juror

38

It was the battle of the anchors, each channel outdoing the other trying to bring out dirt on Dr. Ken Lightner, alleged lover of Jennifer Witt. They weren't having a lot of luck.

Even though it was date night, Hardy called and told Frannie he was sorry but he wasn't coming home. She could find out why by watching the television. He had a lot of catching up to do.

After he left the Hall of Justice he went back to the office and watched some television himself. A few of Freeman's associate red-hots hung around in the conference room trying to figure out how to salvage something from this disaster. Nobody had any good ideas, although all agreed it was a bitch when your client lied to you, or seriously withheld information from you.

Freeman himself, after an hour-long argument with Jennifer during which she had continued to deny any affair with Lightner, in spite of the fact that they had stayed in the same room in Costa Rica for a week, had said he was going out to dinner alone at the French restaurant below his apartment. He was going to drink a good bottle of wine and then he was going to drink another one.

Once Terrell's testimony opened the dike, the flood swept over Freeman. On redirect, Powell revealed the details of Jennifer's extradition – how they had found her. Then he had called Lightner and gotten it confirmed. Everything, that is, but the affair itself, which Lightner strongly denied.

The jury, however, would draw its own conclusions about that from the facts. They would probably be the same as those drawn by Hardy, Freeman and every other soul in the courtroom – which was that your heterosexual male was not likely to go and stay in a hotel room on a beach in Costa Rica with a world class beauty like Jennifer Witt for a week and not have the physical creep in from time to time. Or to assume that this relationship might not be a preexisting condition from who knew how far back.

After she had broken out of jail, Terrell had played one of his famous hunches. He had figured Jennifer would have to contact someone, and from his earlier investigations he tagged Lightner as the most likely, indeed the only possible, person. Jennifer had no close friends and was estranged from her natural family – there really had been no other choice.

And because it was a capital murder case, because Powell, the candidate, was so strongly in his camp, because Jennifer's escape had infuriated the judiciary, Terrell had somehow squeezed enough juice to get a warrant on the phone company's list of Lightner's outgoing calls.

The outgoing calls to Costa Rica were good enough. Terrell was going to question Lightner in person when – lo and behold – the doctor had gone off to Costa Rica for a week, a much-needed vacation. Terrell had followed him down, laying low, getting enough to come back and start the extradition proceedings.

Hardy would have bet a lot that the money for all this had come from Dean Powell's campaign fund. There was no way that the San Francisco Police Department would pay the freight to fly an officer down to Costa Rica to investigate some alleged hanky-panky.

Hardy realized that he had for too long let himself be diverted by Freeman's theatrics and boundless confidence. This case was far from won – in fact, it might now be lost. It was one thing that Lightner had gone down to Costa Rica, although that was bad enough. But Terrell's testimony that she and Lightner had shared a room! The fact that there had been another man in the picture all along – and who knew for how long? – would work against Jennifer with the jury. Now in their eyes she also had a personal motive for killing Larry – it had not just been the money. She was cheating, too!

Hardy understood what the jury would feel – Jennifer was a woman who did what she wanted, took what she wanted and the world be damned. She would seem exactly the kind of person one would expect to do what she had been accused of.

He knew now that whether or not Freeman chose to address this Costa Rica business in the defense's case-in-chief, they were going to need to distract the jury by presenting their other dudes – someone else who might have had a plausible motive and an opportunity to have killed Larry Witt and the means to have done it. Hardy had his briefcase open, the files on his desk. Forcing himself – he had to start somewhere – he looked up the number of Jody Bachman, the Los Angeles-based attorney for the Yerba Buena Medical Group.

Since it was eight-thirty, after hours, he wasn't surprised to get one of those automated answering devices that asked if you knew your quarry's last name or extension. Dutifully, he punched in the first four letters – B. A. C. H.

The phone rang once.

"Jody Bachman." A youngish voice, not exactly squeaky but enthusiastic peppy.

"Mr. Bachman, my name is Dismas Hardy. I'm an attorney in San Francisco and left a message for you several weeks ago. I'm following up." Tardily, he added to himself.

There was a longish pause. "I didn't call you back?"

Hardy had to smile. They ground down these guys so far in the corporate mills they had to look up to see down. "You might have," Hardy admitted. "I didn't get any message, that's all."

"I'm sorry. It's been crazy here. Maybe you know."

They schmoozed for a moment, non-billable lawyer talk about the rat race and working until all hours, then Hardy go to it, saying that Todd Crane recommended talking to Bachman about YBMG. "Sure, I represent them. If I can help you – but you said this was a murder trial."

Hardy explained.

"Witt? Witt? I can't say it rings any kind of bell, but I've been awake for four days running now and sometimes I don’t recognize my own name." He laughed weakly. "The glamour of the LBO."

"What's that?" said Hardy, the innocent.

"What? LBO? Leveraged buyout. Where have you been, Mr. Hardy? The wave of the past, or future, depending on your politics. Or your money."

"Same thing, aren't they?"

"Not exactly but that's often a good guess. So listen, about this Dr. Witt…"

"I'm pretty sure he called your offices last December. I don't know who he would have talked to."

"Probably me," Bachman admitted, "but I really don't remember. I'll have my secretary look it up and get back to you, how's that?"

"That'd be good. Thanks."

"Sure. No problem."

"It's the real you at last," Hardy said to his friend Abe Glitsky, who stood in the doorway to his apartment wearing a clown costume – big floppy feet, white pancake make-up, a cute little red nose. "Let me guess…"

Glitsky cut him off. "It's Jacob's birthday party." He turned back into the apartment, Hardy tagging behind. Flo came up, bussed him on the cheek and asked if he wanted some cake or ice cream. There were about fifteen ten-year-olds in the cramped kitchen, none of them meditating.

"Abe looks good."

Flo gave him a look. "You wait. You'll do it too."

Hardy thought that she was probably right. He couldn't, at this moment, though, imagine himself as a future reincarnation of Bozo the Clown, but he had to admit it was possible. "Is he going to be done soon?"

"Ten minutes," Flo said, "maybe a little more. He just does a little act."

"I'd love to see it."

She moved closer to him, a hand on his arm. "I think you'd cramp his style. You can wait in the boys' room."

All three of the Glitsky boys had the same bedroom, and it wasn't a big one. Jacob and Isaac shared the bunk bed, and OJ, now almost five, used a little daybed against the opposite wall. Hardy sat on it listening to the laughter from the kitchen a his friend the homicide inspector did his clown tricks. He took the opportunity to rest his head for just a second on the pillow.

"I hate to wake you but my kid needs to go to sleep."

Hardy looked at his watch. He had crashed for nearly an hour. Glitsky was back in normal clothes, holding out a cup of hot coffee. Hardy took it, sitting up, rubbing a crick in his neck with his free hand. "I had a dream about you in a clown suit," he said. "It was horrible."

Glitsky shook his head and turned around. Hardy followed him into the kitchen, sat down at the table with his coffee cup. Glitsky poured some boiling water into a cup and started fiddling with the chain at the end of his silver tea strainer. In the back rooms they could hear Flo finishing up with the boys, supervising the washing up, getting them into their pajamas, ready for the sack.

"But enough small talk," Hardy began. "What did you ever find out about the Romans?"

Over by the stove Glitsky dipped the strainer up and down in his cup and watched the steam rise. "I know they were after the Greeks but beyond that it gets a little fuzzy." He picked up his cup, holding the tea chain in his other hand, crossed to the table and sat. "Latin wasn't my thing or I'd probably know more."

Hardy drank coffee. "Cecil Roman, father of Melissa Roman, deceased patient of Larry Witt. Mr. Roman accused Witt of performing an abortion and killing his daughter."

The tea was by now as dark as Hardy's coffee and still Glitsky kept dipping the strainer. "Oh, those Romans. No. I haven't found out anything. I probably would have told you if I had." He finally took the strainer out and took a cautious sip. "You really going to need it?"

"I'd like to know if Roman, or his wife for that matter, has an alibi."

Glitsky nodded. "The case falling apart?"

Hardy told him about the events of the afternoon, the allegation about Lightner, how it would be helpful if they had at least one other person who might have had some good motive and opportunity to kill Dr. Witt.

"It sounds like this guy Lightner kind of sticks up. He was sleeping with the lady and he could have-"

"They both deny they were lovers."

Glitsky gave him the eye. "I'm sure."

Hardy shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. The jury's going to believe it."

"So there's a motive for him."

"Except he was working that morning. At his office. With secretary in attendance. Terrell already checked it out."

Glitsky slurped some tea, his eyes out of focus somewhere behind Hardy. "I'm not sure I understand why I want to help you point the finger away from a murder suspect who looks to me like she's guilty. You want to explain that part to me again? I'm a cop, remember? I'm on the other side."

"I could say to serve the ends of justice but I sense you'd gag or something."

"Or something."

"Okay, I won't say that. How about we're such good friends and I'd do the same thing for you?"

"Nope. No good."

Hardy got up for more coffee. At the counter he turned back around. "I've got it – you might get the collar on the real killer."

"Except we think she's already on trial."

"Well, what about if it isn't her? Look, Abe, the Romans hated Larry Witt. All I'm asking you to do is find out if they were in Tahiti or some place on December 28 so I can cross them off."

"That's all, huh? Find out what somebody was doing on a certain day ten months ago? You saw them, didn't you? Why didn't you ask them?"

"I think it was that the opportunity never came up."

"So I go find out, right? Piece of cake. Speaking of which, cut me a little of that, would you?"

The remains of Jacob's birthday cake, pretty well destroyed, were on the drain, and Hardy scooped some of it onto a paper plate and brought it back to the table. "See what a friend I am?"

Glitsky rubbed a finger through the frosting, popped it into his mouth. "Absurd," he said.

Hardy shrugged. "But so much of life is."

Freeman did not have two bottles of wine at his French restaurant. Instead, after the first one, he decided he had to take another crack at Jennifer, get to the bottom of this affair issue.

But he didn't make it upstairs to the jail. Ken Lightner was coming down the wide steps at the front of the Hall of Justice when Freeman arrived. Not given to hesitation in any event, Freeman jumped out of the cab, bumping his head on the door and calling, "Dr. Lightner, wait a minute, would you?"

Fumbling for some money, Freeman threw a mixed handful of coins and bills through the cab's front window. Lightner had come down the steps. "Mr. Freeman, I'm sorry, but it's late and I'm very tired. Whatever this is, it's going to have to wait."

"It's not going to have to do anything of the kind, sir. I need the truth from you and I need it now."

Lightner gestured back toward the building. "I told the truth in there this afternoon."

"And tomorrow, if I choose, I get to cross-examine you about that, about what you said. Would you rather we get to it then? What have you been doing in there? Visiting my client?"

"Visiting my patient, Mr. Freeman. My patient."

"And your lover?"

This time Lightner's response was measured. "I've denied that under oath. You're going to have to accept that."

"I don't accept it," Freeman said. "I don't believe it, and that makes you my best suspect."

"Me? Are you joking?"

Freeman jabbed a finger. "Yeah, you. No, I'm not joking. If you were having an affair with Jennifer, you've got at least as good a motive as she does to have killed her husband." Of course he didn't really believe that, but he had to try. "So I'll look forward to talking to you tomorrow on the stand, and if you think you're tired now…" Freeman headed for the wide doorway.

"Now just a minute…"

Freeman turned. "It's going to take a sight more than a minute, Doctor. You got the time or not? If not, I've got better things to do."

They were ten feet apart, Freeman flat on his feet like a fighter. Lightner scratched at his beard. "All right," he said. "But not here."

"I know a place," Freeman said, already moving, leading the way across Bryant, through the doors and down the steps to the underground labyrinth leading to Lou the Greek's. This time of night the place was nearly empty. Lou was wiping up, the TV was dark. Two regulars quietly nursed beers and shots at the bar and a couple were wrapped around each other in a side booth. Freeman took Lightner to the back, to another booth. When Lou started toward them, Freeman waved him away.

"My only concern, Mr. Freeman, is Jennifer." It hadn't been warm outside and Lou's wasn't any better, but Lightner had a sheen of sweat on his brow that he seemed unaware of.

"Well, good, Doctor, that gets us off on the right foot." Freeman knocked on the table, loud, calling out. "On second thought, Lou, bring us two cold ones, would you?" Back to Dr. Lightner, he crossed his hands in front of him. "I'm listening, Doctor."

Again the beard got scratched. "It's complicated. She thinks she's in love. With me. It's a common phenomenon, transference, reinforced by the situation she had at home."

"Transference? Where you sleep with her?"

Lightner shook his head. "Look, Mr. Freeman, I am not a therapist who sleeps with his patient. I don't really care if you believe that or not. That would really damage her. She doesn't need that, she didn't need that, even if she thinks she did…"

"And she thought she did?"

Lou came back with the beers, put them on the table, disappeared. Freeman put his hand around one and drew it to him, drinking, listening. Lightner sat there, reflecting, ignoring his bottle. "It was not an easy week," he said. "Down there, I mean. In Costa Rica…"

Freeman took another swig of beer. "So you didn't sleep with her. But why didn't you tell us about how she felt?"

Lightner was shaking his head side to side, as though lecturing a child. "That would have been rather stupid."

"Why?"

"Because it would announce to the jury that Jennifer wasn't in love with her husband, that she wanted out of the marriage. You think that would help her, help your case?"

Freeman shrugged. "It's out now, Doctor. How about that?"

"It came out. Nobody volunteered it. There's a difference." Lightner's voice was down to a near-whisper. "Listen, please, do you think if I thought it would help Jennifer that I wouldn't have lied? I'm human, I'm even at least a little in love with her." He shook his head. "It happens both ways in therapy. A professional recognizes it and controls it." He seemed to notice the beer for the first time and pulled it toward him. "Don't you see, she realizes that, it gives her the freedom to feel as she does and not be afraid I will take advantage of it. It's in part why she trusts me."

"But she stayed with you."

"She was scared, Mr. Freeman. She wanted to stay with me. I decided to allow it. It may have been bad judgment. As I said, I'm human too. Even though I am a shrink." He half-smiled.

Now Lightner took a drink. "That's all of it, Mr. Freeman, and you can believe me or not. I could not turn her out. We draw our own lines. I let her stay in the room with me. Platonically."

Freeman crossed his hands in front of him again. He sighed. It was not impossible. "I still say you could have told me this earlier."

"I didn’t want it to come out at all, don't you understand that? Nothing about it. I was afraid it would hurt Jennifer at this trial. It would seem to say that she had a strong motive – in addition to the money, or whatever else they're saying, to get rid of her husband. Wouldn't it? It would cast her in the role of a cheating wife."

"And now it has."

Finally, Lightner seemed to lose his patience. He slapped at the table. "Well, that was not me. I did not make that happen. And if you want to bring it up again tomorrow and hammer at me, if you think you'll be doing Jennifer any good, then so be it. I'll repeat what I've told you here and you can watch while the jury takes in the fact that Jennifer had a strong emotional reason to kill her husband, maybe even her child, maybe even on purpose… so that she could run away and start a new life with her shrink." He grimaced. "If you really think that's going to help her… well, you can't possibly. The best thing you can do for Jennifer, Mr. Freeman, is forget about her and me."

Sipping his beer, Freeman nodded. "It also lets you off."

Lightner shook his head again, as though regretting what he was about to say. "Mr. Freeman," he said, "I was in my office that morning and I can establish that. I'm afraid the jury is going to focus on Jennifer, on her supposed motive, or motives, on the fact that she didn't love her husband anymore, that she wanted out of a terrible marriage." Lightner drank off half his beer. "My God," he said, "you're the lawyer. Do you think I wanted this to happen? Do I have to draw you a picture?"

His eyes sad, dispirited, Freeman spun his empty bottle between his hands. "You just did," he said.