Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller (25 page)

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

She had resurrected his cock, he explained. He had thought all desire, all sense of pleasure, was dead.

"Are you telling me," she said, "that the cock leads the man?"

"No, but it's nice to have it along on the journey."

"Get out, you lawyer." She waved at him as he moved toward the door.

At home he studied the state's order of proof in
Quintana,
then his own witness list. The time with Maria faded from his mind. It had been a dream. He was back into the nightmare. And on the following morning, a hazy day with some thunderheads lurking on the horizon toward the Gulf of Mexico, and with the temperature registering 94 degrees on the thermometer outside the courthouse, he began the first trial.

The bailiff led Hector Quintana out of the holding cell.
On one of its azure-painted walls a prisoner had scrawled "The Blue Room of Doom," and in another handwriting someone had printed "Parker's Court of Western Justice." Judge Lou Parker refused to allow the graffiti to be scrubbed off.

Wearing the austere jet-black robes of absolute authority, her hair glittering more iron-gray than brown in the light of banked fluorescent tubes, Judge Parker peered down from the height of the judicial bench. She nodded in the direction of Nancy Goodpaster. "You may call your first witness, Madam Prosecutor."

"The state calls Khuong Nguyen."

A slightly built man in his fifties seated himself in the witness chair. He was dressed in a pale gray silk sport jacket, white shirt, Countess Mara black tie with red polka dots, and perfectly creased dark gray trousers. He could have been a Saigon banker or a professor of Oriental philosophy at Rice University. He identified himself, however, as the owner of the 7-Eleven near the corner of Westheimer and Kirby in River Oaks. He had contracted for the franchise last November upon arriving in Houston. When he took over the 7-Eleven, the defendant, Hector Quintana, had been employed for about three months by the previous owner as stock clerk and general handyman.

Goodpaster asked, "Did the previous owner make any recommendation to you regarding Mr. Quintana, sir?"

"Objection," Warren said. "Calls for hearsay."

"Sustained. Try rephrasing the question, Madam Prosecutor."

"Thank you, your honor. Mr. Nguyen, what was your feeling about the defendant after you'd spoken to the previous owner?"

"I still object," Warren said. "The answer will depend on hearsay, on a statement made out of court. The previous owner's not here to say yea or nay."

"Don't explain hearsay to me, Mr. Blackburn!" Judge Parker glared down, then shifted her gaze to Goodpaster. "Well?"

"Your honor," Goodpaster said, "it goes to Mr. Nguyen's state of mind at the time. We're not claiming any truth to what the other owner may have said. We're leading up to show motive."

Warren said stubbornly, "It's not relevant, it's prejudicial, and it's not admissible."

"I'll allow the witness to answer." Parker turned to the jury. "You're not to believe or disbelieve any remarks attributed to the previous owner. Just pay attention to the reaction of the witness at the time."

In a cultured voice with a slightly French accent, Mr. Nguyen said, "I was told that Hector Quintana was a good worker but, shall we say, not entirely reliable. That on several occasions, during working hours, he had perhaps been intoxicated."

Goodpaster asked, "And as a result of being told that, Mr. Nguyen, what did you do?"

"I was forced to let him go."

Warren jumped to his feet. "Your honor, I object to this entire line of questioning. What's it got to do directly with the crime? It's leading to an attempt to prejudice the jury. I ask that all of it be stricken and the jury instructed to disregard."

"Overruled," Judge Parker said, "and sit down, Mr. Blackburn. Objections don't carry any more weight if you make them standing up. I told you a long time ago not to play to the peanut gallery."

So that's how it was going to be. Warren had assumed the worst. The worst was happening.

Goodpaster resumed: "Did you give Mr. Quintana any severance pay?"

"A week's wages. One hundred and ten dollars, my records show."

"And did you have words with him?"

"He seemed upset, and I got the impression—"

"No," Goodpaster interrupted, "don't give us your impressions. Just tell us what you said to him and what he said to you."

Warren could see that the jury reacted favorably. Goodpaster was being tough on her own witnesses. A nice touch. She was good.

Mr. Nguyen, a subtle gentleman, appeared to be annoyed at the rebuke. He obviously preferred to convey impressions. He wrinkled his forehead and stroked his tie with a pointed fingernail.

"I said to him, 'I'm so sorry, but I must let you go,' and I gave him the money. And he said, 'That's not fair.' I believe I then repeated that I was sorry."

"And what did Mr. Quintana do?"

"He became angry and spoke in an intimidating manner. Then, just before he left, he cursed at me."

"You understood he was cursing at you?"

"It was very clear."

"Thank you, Mr. Nguyen. Pass the witness."

Warren conferred in whispers for a minute with Hector before he rose. This was the part some lawyers reveled in. Tear the witness a new asshole, they said. Warren's general idea was somewhat less brutal: plant a slim needle of doubt in the witness's credibility, and keep doing it with each witness until the accumulated effect created a painful suspicion in the jurors that something was awry, that the prosecution had somehow been carried away with the passion to prosecute for prosecution's sake. It was not altruism on Warren's part, it was a belief that at the outset of a trial jurors tended to identify with civilian witnesses; they could quickly form a resentment against a belligerent defense attorney.

On Hector's behalf, however, he decided to bare his claws at least halfway. He stepped forward into the well of the courtroom, at a midpoint between the counsel tables and the judge's bench.

"Mr. Nguyen, you mentioned that the previous owner told you Hector was a good worker, but he drank now and then on the job. No — a couple of times he'd been
perhaps
intoxicated,' that's what you said. Nevertheless, the previous owner thought enough of him as an employee not to fire him, isn't that so?"

"It would seem so," Mr. Nguyen said carefully.

"Sir, before you moved here, where did you live?"

"In Singapore. And before that, Saigon."

"How many languages do you speak?"

"Five, to different degrees of fluency. Vietnamese, of course — English, French, and Thai. And some Chinese, the Mandarin dialect." He offered a modest smile.

"But you don't speak Spanish, isn't that so?"

"I have not had the opportunity to learn."

"And when Mr. Quintana supposedly cursed at you, it was in Spanish, isn't that so?"

Mr. Nguyen frowned. "As I said, it was clear."

"Sir, excuse me, but I didn't ask you if it was clear or not, did I?"

"No, but—"

"Please, Mr. Nguyen! I asked you if Mr. Quintana cursed at you in Spanish, didn't I?"

"Yes, I suppose you did."

"You know the answer to that question, don't you?"

"Yes." Nguyen twisted in the witness chair and glanced up at the judge.

Warren said, "Would you do the jurors and me the courtesy of looking at me, not at the judge, and answering the question that was put to you? Did Mr. Quintana curse at you in Spanish?"

"I seem to recall that was so."

Warren's voice rose angrily. "Did you understand one word Mr. Quintana said?"

"Some few words," Nguyen said, trying to save face.

"Oh?" Warren gambled. "Repeat them to the jury, please."

"I do not remember them," Nguyen said.

"No further questions, your honor."

===OO=OOO=OO===

The next witness, Rona M. Morrison — a pale, nervous woman in her late forties — was sworn in. She seemed to project: why am I here? I didn't do anything wrong.

Prompted by Nancy Goodpaster, she related that at about a quarter past eight on the night of May 19 she had delivered some skirts and cotton sweaters to the dry-cleaning establishment on Wesleyan, and on the way back to her car had "just kind of peeked into this station wagon was settin' there." And there was a man on the seat who "looked real dead."

"What did you do then?" Goodpaster asked.

"Yelled, I s'pose. Then this lady came out of the dry cleaners."

Goodpaster had some crime scene photographs stamped by the clerk and formally introduced into evidence, and then handed them to the witness.

"Is this what you saw, Ms. Morrison?"

Rona Morrison nodded, then began to leak tears.

Warren scowled. A weeper was always a bonanza for the prosecution.

"Ms. Morrison," Judge Parker said, stabbing out her cigarette in a big green glass ashtray, "my court reporter doesn't have a nod button. So would you kindly compose yourself and then answer yes or no."

Yes, that's what Morrison had seen. Goodpaster passed the photographs to the jury. Let them dwell on the face painted with blood, the staring eyes.

Warren took over for cross-examination. There was nothing of value he could learn, but it was an opportunity to get the jury to understand that he wasn't out to savage truthful witnesses.

"Ms. Morrison, this is painful for you, isn't it?"

She said it was. She'd had nightmares.

"I can understand that. Did you see anyone else in that parking lot that evening?"

No one that she could recall.

"You didn't see
this
man, did you?" He put his hand on Hector's shoulder and squeezed it.

"No, I didn't see him."

"Thank you, Ms. Morrison. No more questions."

Goodpaster called the crime scene photographer to nail down the fact that the photographs shown to the jury were indeed photographs of the body of Dan Ho Trunh. A Fire Department emergency medical technician testified that he had arrived at the Wesleyan Terrace parking lot at 8:27 P.M. on May 19 and checked for a carotid pulse before pronouncing Trunh dead. Then the Harris County assistant medical examiner took the stand to tell the jury that the cause of death, in lay terms, was a .32-caliber bullet lodged in the brain.

It was tedious and painstaking business, but in theory a jury arrived collectively virgin, knowing nothing about either crime or victim. You had to prove to them that crime and victim in fact existed.

Warren waived cross-examination for those three witnesses. From the corner of an eye, he saw Judge Parker nod. Good fellow, she seemed to indicate. That's the way to get on with it.

"The state calls Sergeant Hollis Thiel."

Wearing the customary ill-fitting brown suit of a Homicide detective, Thiel settled into the witness chair. Pink-faced, with eyes like hard little brown buttons, he was at ease. He had been here before. He was a master of cop jargon: "Sergeant Douglas and I received the assignment at twenty-hundred-twenty-five hours on 19 May 1989. We arrived at the seven thousand block of Wesleyan at approximately twenty-hundred-fifty hours. The complainant was in a reclining position in the front seat of a 1983 Ford Fairlane station wagon…"

Goodpaster asked him what he had found when he searched the vehicle.

"Registration papers for the vehicle, which led us to a positive identification of the complainant as Dan Ho Trunh. A box with various electrician's tools. Some dirty shirts and a couple of balled-up jackets."

No weapon of any kind, Thiel replied, when asked. No wallet, no money.

"As an experienced homicide investigator, did you detect any signs of a struggle that preceded Mr. Trunh's being shot and killed?"

"No, ma'am."

"Pass the witness."

Warren stepped in front of the defense table.

"Sergeant Thiel, isn't it a fact that in Harris County more than two out of three homicides involve a victim and a murderer who are either friends or blood relatives?"

That was indeed a fact, Thiel said, before Goodpaster got to her feet to object on the grounds of relevance. Judge Parker sustained the objection.

"Your honor—"

"Don't argue with me, Mr. Blackburn. I've ruled."

Warren tried another tack. "Sergeant Thiel, your expertise in homicide investigations has been established by Ms. Goodpaster. So let's follow through. When you reached the crime scene, the window on the driver's side of the victim's car was open, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And the driver's door was unlocked, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"You found no wallet on the victim or in the car?"

"None."

"If Mr. Trunh had a wallet, someone took it before your arrival?"

"That's correct."

"And there's no telling, is there, who took that wallet? It didn't have to be the person who shot him, did it?"

"Objection!" Goodpaster barked. "Calls for speculation."

"Sustained."

"But, your honor—"

"Sustained. Get on with it, Mr. Blackburn."

Warren seethed a moment, then calmed down.

"Let me put it this way, Sergeant. All anybody had to do — anybody who came along — was to open the door the way you did, and see a dead man and take his wallet. Isn't that true?"

"Objection!"

"Don't answer, Sergeant!" the judge cried. "Mr. Blackburn, that's enough! I'll see both counsel in chambers!"

Two rebukes from the bench on the first morning. Juries invariably followed the judge's leaning, if the judge leaned. And Lou Parker leaned hard. I'm getting killed, Warren thought. In chambers, seated at her desk, the judge coughed for a minute, lit another cigarette, then pointed that familiar finger at Warren's chest. "Now listen here!" Her voice was phlegmy from smoking. "When I rule, that's
it.
You want to appeal to a higher court and claim error, be my guest. But don't try to get in the back door when the front door's slammed in your face, or I'll hold you in contempt! This is
my
courtroom. You follow?"

Warren considered his options. He could placate her, he could argue the point on its merits, he could shut up and let her roll over him, or he could take a stand. He felt he had come a long way since he had lied for Virgil Freer, a long way even since J. J. Gillis. He was tired of being stepped on by this woman.