The Law of Second Chances

60

For a moment at the outset of the trial Jack thought Langford Middleton was in cahoots with Spencer Taylor, because he was moving the case along so fast.

“Call your first witness,” the judge told Spencer before Jack had arrived back at his seat after finishing his opening statement.

“The state calls Angela Vincent.”

The bailiff left the room and came back less than a minute later with a beautiful blond woman dressed appropriately in a modest black dress. The clerk swore her in and she stepped up to the witness chair.

“Please state your name for the record,” Spencer Taylor began.

“Angela Vincent,” she replied.

“Ms. Vincent, did you know the deceased, Carl Robertson?”

“Yes.”

“And could you tell the jury the nature of your relationship?”

“I was Carl’s mistress for five years. He set me up in an apartment on Seventy-eighth Street and East End Avenue and he gave me ten thousand dollars a month. He came to visit every Tuesday and Thursday and sometimes on the weekend.”

Jack could tell from the detail in Angie’s answer and the directness with which she delivered it that she and Spencer had rehearsed her testimony thoroughly.

“Do you know where Carl lived?”

“In Washington, DC.”

“And he came to your place every Tuesday and Thursday without fail?”

“Yes.”

“How did he get there?”

“Carl had his own jet, so he flew here and then drove to the apartment in a car he kept at the airport.”

“And what kind of car was it?”

“A black Mercedes.”

“And where did Carl park when he came to see you on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

“He had a private spot reserved right in front of the building.”

“In what way was it reserved?”

“There was a sign that said ‘No Parking.’”

“And that sign was visible to the general public?”

“Yes.”

“And was the deceased dressed in any particular way when he came to see you?”

“Carl always arrived in a suit. He was very particular about how he looked.”

“What did you know about Carl before you began this relationship with him?”

“Well, I knew he was a very nice man. I went out with him on several occasions before I moved into the apartment.”

“Anything else?”

“I knew he was very wealthy.”

Jack could have raised an objection on the grounds that Carl’s wealth wasn’t directly relevant to the murder charge before the court, but Spencer was going to get that evidence in one way or another. Hell, the jury probably already knew that part. Objecting would only make Jack look like he was trying to keep something from them. He let it go.

On a related issue, though, Jack was ready to go to the mat. While the fact that Carl was wealthy was sufficient to establish robbery as a motive, it was not in itself evidence that the separate crime of robbery had occurred. The fight over that was about to start.

“Ms. Vincent,” Spencer continued, “you mentioned that Carl brought you ten thousand dollars a month. How did he bring it?”

“In cash-one-hundred-dollar bills bound together. He kept it in his left inside pocket.”

“And when did he usually bring this money?”

Jack was on his feet immediately.

“Objection, your honor. May we approach?”

“State the basis for your objection, Counsel.”

“The question is irrelevant, speculative, and prejudicial.”

“You may approach.”

Both Jack and Spencer walked over to the judge’s dais on the side opposite the jury for a sidebar discussion. The court reporter went with them so she could take down everything that was said.

“I’m not sure I understand your objection, Counsel, so clarify it for me,” the judge told Jack.

“Mr. Taylor asked when the deceased usually brought the money, your honor. This is not a contracts case. What the deceased customarily did is not an issue. It speculates as to whether he had the money with him that night. In that respect it is prejudicial because the jury could assume without any actual evidence that Mr. Robertson brought the money that night. I believe Mr. Taylor could ask the witness if she knew whether the deceased had the ten thousand dollars on him that night. Then I assume the prosecution could establish through other testimony that it was missing after the murder. Nothing else is relevant, your honor.”

“I’m not so sure, Counselor. I think it is relevant for the jury to hear that Mr. Robertson was wealthy and that he normally brought ten thousand dollars a month.”

“Relevant to what, Judge? Doesn’t he have to show my client knew about the money before it becomes relevant?”

The judge looked at Spencer Taylor. “Do you have anything to add, Mr. Taylor?”

“Yes, your honor. Mr. Tobin’s argument is ridiculous. That’s like saying the prosecution has to show in every case that the defendant knew beforehand how much money was in the victim’s pocket in order to prove a robbery occurred.” It was a good argument, and it made sense to the judge.

“I agree, Mr. Taylor. I think the question is admissible. However, sometime during your case you’re going to have to establish that something of value in excess of five hundred dollars was actually stolen from the deceased in order to establish that a felony occurred.”

It was exactly the ruling that Jack wanted at this stage of the proceedings. “You may answer the question,” the judge told Angie.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat it?” Angie asked Spencer.

“Certainly. When did the deceased usually bring this ten thousand dollars?”

“The first Tuesday of the month.”

Spencer Taylor had gotten everything he needed from Angie. He had learned through trial and error over the years only to ask the questions that needed to be asked.

“No further questions.”

The judge looked at Jack. “Cross-examination?”

“Yes, your honor, thank you.”

Angie was stunning, and she had been direct and honest in her testimony. The jury obviously liked her, and Jack wanted to be very careful not to appear to be the bad guy with her.

“Ms. Vincent, you testified that the deceased usually brought the ten thousand dollars on the first Tuesday of the month, correct?”

“Yes.”

“But he didn’t always bring it on the first Tuesday, is that accurate?” Jack wasn’t fishing. He already knew the answer from the police reports in Benny’s file.

“Yes.”

“So some months he brought it on the second Tuesday or the third Tuesday or even the fourth Tuesday, is that accurate?”

“I don’t believe I ever had to wait until the fourth week.”

“So you were always paid by the end of the third week?”

“Yes.”

“And within those first three weeks sometimes you were paid on the Tuesday and sometimes on the Thursday, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And is it accurate that you do not know for a fact whether the deceased had your money, the ten thousand dollars, on him the night he was murdered?”

“That’s accurate. I do not know whether he had the money on him or not.”

“No further questions, your honor.”

“Redirect, Mr. Taylor?”

“No, your honor.” Spencer still felt he had won this round and that Jack had essentially scored a meaningless point.

“Call your next witness, Counselor,” the judge told Spencer. The express train was rolling again.

As expected, Spencer called Paul Frazier and then David Cook, the eyewitnesses who lived in Angie’s building. He painstakingly took them, one at a time, through the night of the murder, their visit to the police station, their assistance in helping the police artist come up with a composite sketch, and their ultimate selection of Benny in the lineup-all setting the stage for the dramatic courtroom identification.

“Is the man you saw the night of the murder leaning over the deceased in the courtroom today?”

Each man when he was on the stand answered yes.

“Would you point him out for the jury?” Both men had pointed directly at Benny, who remained stoically upright and facing directly ahead each time.

Jack had the same cross-examination questions for both men and received almost identical answers.

“How much time elapsed between your hearing the shot and going to the window?”

“I couldn’t say for sure,” Paul replied. “We were watching television. I don’t know what the show was-something makes me want to say it was NYPD Blue but again I can’t say for sure. We didn’t rush because frankly we didn’t know it was a gun that went off. I’d estimate it was about ten to twenty seconds.”

David’s estimate was “about a half a minute or so.”

“When you saw this individual you have identified as the defendant leaning over the deceased, did you see him take anything?”

Both men had the same answer: “No.”

“How far away were you when you first saw the defendant?”

They both said close to thirty feet.

“And he came toward you and then he saw you looking at him and took off, is that accurate?”

Again they agreed.

“How far away was he right before he took off?”

Paul’s estimate was five feet and David’s six to eight feet.

“At any time while you were observing the accused on that night, did you see him with a gun?”

Neither said they had.

“Were both his hands visible?”

Paul was definite that they were. David said, “I think so, but I couldn’t say for certain.”

When Jack finished his cross-examination of David Cook it was four o’clock in the afternoon. The judge noticed that the jury was tired and decided to recess for the day.

“The court will reconvene at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. The jurors will follow Mr. Jennings, the bailiff, who will lead you out and show you where to meet tomorrow so you can avoid the crowds in front of the courthouse. Remember my admonitions to you. Do not talk to anyone, including family members, about this case. Do not read the newspaper or watch the news on television. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

After the judge left the courtroom, Jack approached the court reporter and asked her to transcribe his cross-examination of all three witnesses, as well as the sidebar discussion and the judge’s ruling. “I’ll need it by tomorrow,” he told her.

Jack went directly to Mike McDermott’s office to prepare for the next day’s proceedings. First he called the company that had shipped Dr. Wong’s exhibits from San Francisco and made sure they would deliver them to Langford Middleton’s courtroom before nine o’clock the next morning. A little after six, he called Charlie.

“How’s it going?” he asked, dreading the response.

“Nothing yet,” Charlie replied. “I’m still wading through crap. How’s the trial going?”

“Fast. Do you think you’ll have anything by tomorrow night?”

“No, absolutely not. It would be more than a miracle if I did.”

“Okay, I understand. Go ahead and book a flight for Sunday night. We won’t plan on using you until Monday.”

“What if he finishes up tomorrow?”

“I’ll do something. I’ve got a motion for acquittal to argue. Maybe Henry will have something for me by then.”

About half an hour later Henry called to give Jack a blow-by-blow of his meeting with Valentine Busby, starting with the shooting. He told Jack that Leonard Woods was dead, that he had been killed the morning after Carl’s murder by a hit-and-run driver, and that Valentine Busby was certain he had been murdered, although the local police had not ruled it a homicide. It was a lot of information for Jack to synthesize after a long day of trial. Henry wasn’t finished yet.

“There’s more. Leonard and Carl definitely knew each other. Carl actually visited once. Valentine says that they were working on something, but he doesn’t know what. Leonard was a professor of microbiology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.”

“So that call Carl got at Angie’s apartment was from Leonard, which explains the word Gainesville on the message pad. But what was the breakthrough? What were they working on?”

“I haven’t a clue, Jack. Valentine says there is a guy up in Wisconsin, another professor named Milton Jeffries, who probably knows. I called his number but it’s been disconnected. I’ve got his address, so Valentine and I are flying up there tomorrow. It’s the soonest we could get a flight. Valentine’s a little out there, but he’s not a bad guy. He really wants to find out who killed Leonard.”

“All right, keep me posted. I’m starting to get more than a little paranoid, especially after all this new information you’ve given me. From now on, let’s keep the substance of our phone conversations to a minimum. We’ll talk about when you’re coming and things like that, but no specifics, got it?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think you can be back here by Friday? I may not have a witness to put on if the prosecutor rests tomorrow.”

“I don’t know. I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will, Henry. Call me tomorrow at the same time.”

“Will do. Good luck in court. I wish I had some answers for you.”

“Maybe something will still come up tomorrow.”

“We can only hope,” Henry replied.

Jack’s mind was churning. There was clearly a connection between Carl and Leonard’s murders, but he had no idea what that connection was or whether it was helpful to his case or not. He would just have to wait until he heard from Henry again and hope that it wasn’t too late.

Jack worked for another hour before calling Molly.

“I know it’s late. Do you want to meet for a drink?”

“Sure. I’ll be at our ‘regular joint’ in fifteen minutes,” she answered. He could hear the smile in her voice.

She was waiting for him when he got to Colin’s Place. This time she had discarded the bulky sweater for a tight-fitting turtleneck and jeans. She looked fabulous and gave him a big kiss before he sat down.

“How’s the trial going?”

“As good as can be expected. I got everything I thought I could get out of the prosecution’s witnesses today.”

That was the extent of their conversation about the trial. This brief moment late in the day was Jack’s opportunity to unwind. Molly seemed to understand. She kept things light, talking about the latest celebrity sightings and even sports. She was a Yankees fan.

Jack stayed about an hour and had a couple of beers. He could have talked to Molly all night and then gone home with her, but he had to go. Tomorrow was a huge day.

“Molly, you know how much I’d love to spend the night with you.”

“I know, Jack. You just do your work for now and we’ll take a little vacation afterwards.”

He kissed her good night and left while he still had the fortitude to do so.