Marine One (23 page)

I
FELT EXPOSED
and Hackett felt invulnerable. I was trying desperately to develop a nonexistent case while looking over my shoulder, yet I had to produce my experts for depositions.

At the conclusion of Bradley's deposition, Hackett tried not to gloat. The court reporter and the rest of the attorneys left the conference room; Hackett and I were standing there with Bradley, who was putting his papers back into his lopsided briefcase. Hackett put the cap back on his expensive fountain pen and put the pen in his shirt pocket. He looked at me. "Mike, help me here. You have refused to settle this case, and I had assumed it was because you had something to say in the defense of WorldCopter. But now we're done with the experts." He looked confused. "You don't have
anything."

I tried to answer a little more quickly then I would otherwise have so as to look defensive. "They're going to show that the NTSB's conclusions-and your experts-are wrong. They're just speculating."

Hackett shook his head. "Mike. You know if you don't tell the jury a story better than mine, you're going to lose. Mine not only is right, but everybody has heard about it in the newspaper since the NTSB announced it. How in the hell do you expect to win?"

I looked at him somewhat smugly. "Maybe something will break between now and trial. Maybe some witness will come out of the woodwork."

Hackett bit. "A surprise witness? Surely you mean somebody on the witness list then? And we've deposed virtually all of those who have anything to say about anything. Plus, if it was an actual surprise, I don't know how you could anticipate it now." He adjusted his coat. "You're not planning on pulling something, are you, Mike? Because that would be unethical."

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just going to go back to my office."

He said to my back, "I've got your witness list, Mike. I'm going to hold you to it."

Bradley and Will met me at the crash site like we had planned. The FBI agents recognized my car and didn't even ask me to stop. I stopped anyway to tell them who else was coming. I parked and dragged my lawn chair to where the helicopter had hit the ground. I unfolded it and sat in the still morning. A slight chill was in the air as I sipped from my coffee travel mug and looked at the trees. This was just a hunch really, and unlikely to produce much, but I had to know.

I could hear a van approaching over the hill. Wayne Bradley no doubt, with Karl Will.

After a few minutes they appeared at the crest of the ridge and came down to where I was sitting. Bradley was breathing hard. Will said, "I see you took my advice. Brought your chair."

"Of course. Where's yours?"

"Right here." He unfolded his chair and sat next to me.

Bradley said, "We don't have time to sit around in lawn chairs and talk about our grandchildren. This trial is
on
us. We're already on the record as not knowing anything. If we don't come up with something pretty quick, frankly we're going to look silly."

Karl had stopped listening. "So what are we going to look at, Mike?"

We could hear a truck approaching. Bradley asked, "Expecting someone?"

"Yeah. They'll be here in a minute. What I wanted to take a look at is that limb that was broken during the accident." We looked up. "That one," I said, pointing. They both looked up into the gray sky and could just make out the brown branch that was still attached to the tree. "I think we need to go up and look. You and me, Karl. I've got this feeling that branch is trying to tell us a story, and we need to go up there and listen to it."

Will asked, "What are you thinking?"

I looked at the hill as the truck struggled over it behind us.

Will looked at the truck. "Who is this?"

"My tree trimmers. I asked them to bring their cherry-picker truck out here so we could go up and look at that branch. Bring your camera, Karl. If we find anything interesting up there, I want to document every step we take and exactly where everything was."

The truck parked where I showed it to go, lowered its outriggers for stability, and freed the bucket. Will and I climbed in and started up. I wasn't sure the truck's extension arm would take us high enough, nor was I sure what I would do if it did. We passed quickly by the fattest portion of the tree, and I moved us closer to the brown, broken branches. Only one large branch had broken, but numerous smaller branches were attached. It had broken close to the trunk and in the direction that I had suspected. The helicopter's blade had clearly smacked this branch on the way by, and by the direction of the break the helicopter had to have been upside down.

Will pointed at the location of the break. "I thought we'd see a cut or some other blade impact point. This just looks like it was hit. I don't see anything cut at all."

I inched us closer and we could both see where the blade had hit the branch. It had knocked off several small branches and taken the bark off the three-inch-thick branch where it had broken-not been cut, but broken. Violently. Bark held the branch on and kept it from plunging to the ground like the other branches.

"Hit it pretty hard," Will said.

We looked down to where the others were standing, trying to imagine Marine One passing by in the crashing storm.

Will looked around. "So if the blade hit this branch hard enough to do this kind of damage, maybe a tip weight came off here, Mike. Where would it have gone?"

I shook my head as I looked with him. "No idea. I just wanted to look up here to put my mind at ease. Let's push this thing as far into the tree as we can."

Will looked down. "I think the men who brought the truck are already thinking we're pretty far out from the truck. I don't want to tip over-"

"I'm not going back down until I've seen everything there is to see up here."

Will bent down as we passed under another heavy branch and into the shaded inside of the tree. I drove the basket deeper still inside the tree as the small electric motor worked against the branches. It was darker than I expected. The sun was blocked by the higher branches. My eyes adjusted slowly and I looked at every twig. Karl looked above us for any sign that other branches had been involved but weren't visible from the ground.

Karl said, "I'm not seeing much. You?"

"Not yet." I pushed against the tree. I couldn't force the basket any deeper into the tree. Karl reached up and grabbed the branch directly over our heads, pulled on it to feel its strength, and pulled himself up and out of the basket. "If we're going to do this, we've got to do it right. I've got to get to the trunk. We're still five feet away."

"You'll kill yourself."

"No, I won't. These branches are strong."

He crouched on one branch while holding the other one above his head like a rope. He moved slowly to the trunk and stood up. The broken branch was directly behind and below him. He turned carefully and grabbed the two small healthy sections of the branch that were still attached to the trunk. He felt the twisted, broken turn of the branch and the small, shredded section that kept it from plummeting to the ground. He looked outward to the brown section of the branch and imagined Marine One crashing down next to the tree.

I could see the massive blade hitting the branch and tossing it aside like a plastic straw. I tried to imagine exactly where the end cap and the tip weight would have hit. I could tell Karl was wondering the same thing. He stared for several seconds considering the numerous possibilities. He hugged the trunk and stepped down to the next branch. He looked directly under where the broken branch attached to the trunk, and there it was. Something had hit the trunk and scarred it. "See this?" he asked, pointing.

I nodded.

He moved inward and looked at the mark. The light-colored mark wasn't where something had hit the trunk at all. It was a tool mark. A knife. "Somebody worked something out of the trunk here, Mike. Could have been the NTSB found a piece of metal embedded in the trunk here and worked it out."

My heart was pounding. "Tip weight?"

Karl hesitated, then said, "Could be." He touched the bark and found a small flap next to the blade mark.

"We'd better measure the impact point and mark it on our diagram. Check the depth too. Take a picture. Maybe it will help our reconstruction."

He did, then looked for anything else that could help us. Finally he said, "Let's go back down."

I couldn't. If there was one tip weight, there could be more. They had to have been stuck to the bolt in the end of the blade, or the threads. "We'll get that tip weight from the NTSB."

"No, we won't. They'll never talk about it until the docket is released, which will be years and they may not have found one. Just dug with their knife but came up empty."

"What about the branch itself?"

Karl touched the end of the branch that was still attached, where it had been exposed from the break. Nothing. He dug his finger into the stringy remains of the connection between the still living tree and the brokenness farther out. "Something…" He pulled his Leatherman out of the case on his belt and opened the needle-nose pliers. He grabbed the branch above with one hand and reached down with the pliers with the other. He found a hard point and grabbed it.

I leaned over to look, careful to brace myself. I couldn't see anything, and he found it again with the pliers. He pulled on it hard as I grabbed the camera in the bottom of the bucket and began photographing Karl and where he was pulling. It gave. He pulled it up, wrapped his left arm around the branch, and brought it up to look at it. It was a tip weight. Half a tip weight. The circular washer-shaped piece of metal, perhaps an inch and a half across, was broken completely in half. I looked closely at it in the dim light, wondering what had caused it to break. He held it where I could see it clearly and photograph it with and without the flash.

"Tip weight," I said, confirming the obvious.

He climbed back into the bucket and handed the broken tip weight to me. A frown clouded his face. "How does this help us exactly?"

"I'm not sure it does."

"Looks broken to me, Mike. Looks like it failed in fatigue somehow. Too much of a gap between it and the next one. Probably defective. We'll have to tell the NTSB about it, and Hackett."

"In due time."

"You're not going to hide it or something, are you?"

"No." I started moving the basket back out into the sunshine.

"So what's the plan?"

"I'm going to let Bradley look at it, and he can take his time. Discovery is over in our case."

"You've got to let them know about it."

"I said I would."

"Well, it looks to me like the tip weight fractured and the lost weight did what we would expect-it caused uncontrollable vibrations. It caused the crash, Mike."

I pushed the lever on the basket and drove us downward to where Marine One had hit the ground. "Maybe. And maybe not."

THE TRIAL WAS upon us. I drove to the courthouse with Rachel, Braden, and Justin, my paralegal. The back of the Volvo was full of boxes of deposition transcripts, motions, attachments, witness outlines, and pleadings, all in clearly marked three-ring binders. I never knew what I would need, so I usually took too much. We walked up to the courthouse from our reserved parking spot. The first lady had to park out front too; there was no underground or secret parking anywhere. The journalists were quite happy about that.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and fairly warm for Annapolis that time of year. The press had been there all night. The satellite vans were everywhere. Cords and cables ran across the street and through the bushes. Some cameras were set up on tripods, others were on the shoulders of cameramen who walked around looking for something to film. We were an hour early for the motions in limine, which were to be heard at 9 AM.

As we grabbed our boxes and began putting them on our luggage carts to wheel them into the courtroom, we were surrounded by the press. Do you have any comments, Mr. Nolan? What is your theory of the case? You say in your expert reports that the NTSB was wrong, but what do you think happened?

They had been doing their homework; they had read all the expert reports that had been filed with the court and had of course published them for all the world to see. They had read the motions
in limine
and had their legal consultants on top of all the issues. They were ready to go. But I wasn't talking. Nor was anybody else. "Thanks for your interest. I can't talk about it. I'll be happy to talk to you after the trial is over."

"You've got to give us something, Nolan. Tell us who your witnesses are going to be. Tell us what you're going to ask the first lady. Are you going to cross-examine her? Do you think you'll win any of your motions
in limine?"

I smiled and ignored the reporters. The four of us made our way through the throng. The courthouse was brand-new, but unlike many federal and state courtrooms built today, our assigned courtroom actually had windows. Real, live daylight streamed in. Many courtrooms feel like post-op rooms, but this courthouse was designed by an architect who respected the traditional colonial architecture that dominated Annapolis. It was beautiful and inspirational, and new. It made me proud to be a lawyer every time I walked in.

We walked up the aisle and through the small gate and put our materials at the defense table, always the table farthest from the jury box. The windows were on the long wall to the right, and the imposing bench of Judge Betancourt was in the front, with the windows to her left. The clerk was going through the exhibit lists and the premarked exhibits and smiled as we walked in. She glanced at the members of the press who had nearly filled the available seating and were looking for something to do. Many began scribbling, describing no doubt that Rachel had decided to wear a navy blue gabardine pantsuit on the first day of trial rather than a skirt. I didn't care what anybody wore as long as they looked respectful to the court. But I'm sure with Rachel's looks she was going to get a lot of ink about how she dressed and how she behaved as a woman attorney in a massive trial. What a pain. Many of the reporters had already commented on what weaklings we were compared to the irresistible force of Tom Hackett and his army. I saw it as an advantage for us, but the press didn't see it that way.

I wheeled my cart up to the table, unloaded the boxes, lined up exhibit and witness notebooks in order in front, and placed the boxes in the corner with the cart. Rachel did likewise on her side of the table. The table bent around in an L shape, and our notebooks lined their way around the corner. Braden put the remaining exhibit books behind us and took a seat directly behind us in a chair on the inside of the rail. Justin, my paralegal, did likewise. I pulled out my motions
in limine
notebook and began rereading the argument outline that I had prepared for the twenty-three motions
in limine
that we and Hackett had filed. They were motions that attempted to limit the evidence and keep prejudicial or wrong evidence from even coming into play in the trial. I thought that some of them might get granted, but wasn't optimistic we'd get them all. As I continued to study my outline, I could hear the reporters whispering questions behind me. I continued to ignore them as I had the reporters outside.

Suddenly the door opened and Hackett and his entourage walked in like they owned the place. He had a cart, as did each of the other attorneys that were with him. There was Bass, his buzz-cut hatchet man, his stunning female paralegal, and an associate I didn't recognize at all. Hackett walked through the gate, placed his briefcase on the table, and said, "Mr. Nolan."

"Mr. Hackett," I said in response without looking at him. "Mr. Bass."

"Ms. Long," they said.

"Mr. Hackett. Mr. Bass."

I waited for one of the plaintiffs, one of the widows, to come in for the arguments because I had figured Hackett for someone who wanted his client there during the motions
in limine
arguments to elicit sympathy from the judge. Most of the time clients skipped the motions in limine because they were usually legal and technical in nature and not something to which the parties could individually contribute. But sometimes they would show up in the hope that the judge would grant their motions out of sympathy.

The judge had considered conducting a lottery for seats to the trial because of the demand from the public. Instead, the court had opted, at least for the first week, to have people line up outside the courthouse for the back five rows. The doors would be open to the general public thirty minutes before court began. By the time I had gone through my outline three times and begun reviewing the motion papers, the bailiff opened the doors of the courtroom to the public. They had gone through security and been thoroughly checked and now were abuzz with excitement. They tried unsuccessfully not to be loud. They could also see that the judge was not on her bench. They thought that gave them freedom to converse loudly, which I suppose it did, but the noise was annoying.

After the public was seated behind the press, the bailiff went up on the other side of the gate and stood between the counsel tables by the lectern. He turned around and said, "If I could have everybody's attention, please."

He waited until the room was completely silent. I continued to work. He went on, "Although court is not in session, the attorneys and other people working on behalf of the parties are preparing for the hearings which are about to take place. I therefore request that you remain quiet during this time. I will ask you to stand when the judge enters and court is about to be in session."

They all nodded, anxious to please, and the room grew silent. The artists there on behalf of the press were sitting front and center. They were drawing Hackett and me and undoubtedly Rachel. Judge Betancourt had made it clear there were to be no television or still cameras. The only images that would be allowed out of the courtroom were artist drawings of the participants and witnesses.

After another twenty minutes had passed and it was ten to nine, the court's clerk came in and took her seat before her computer. She began typing away on her keys and asked for appearances. Hackett and I both got up, walked to the clerk, and handed her our business cards. She knew who we were, who we represented, and why we were there; she just needed to go through her procedures, which I actually appreciated. I liked precision and order in the conduct of a trial. I liked rules that everybody followed and I could count on being applied equally. I told her I was there on behalf of WorldCopter SA, the European company, and WorldCopter U.S., and she nodded and wrote those names on my card. Hackett did likewise and told her he was there on behalf of all the plaintiffs, whom of course he called "widows." He said, "I'm here on behalf of all of the widows of Marine One."

I tried not to roll my eyes and went back to my seat. I could feel the pressure rising in my chest as we approached the commencement of this immense trial and was sure that my heart rate was now over a hundred beats per minute.

Rachel seemed calm and was preparing a chart for me for the jury selection, or voir dire, as it is officially called. Judge Betancourt was a bit unusual, at least for federal courts now, in that she actually allowed the lawyers to conduct some of the questioning of jurors. Most federal judges made you submit written questions, some of which they would ask, then ask the rest on their own. They would give you no room at all in your attempts to load the jury box with people favorable to your client and to eliminate those you believed might be against you. That was of course what we did; it was part of the adversarial process. The idea was that the resulting jury would end up somewhere in the middle and therefore be fair. Judges, thinking themselves unbiased and balanced, often cut the process short, made their own decisions, and ended up with a jury that was in fact biased. I'm sure the judges were less rosy about the role of judges when they were trying cases as lawyers.

The door in the back corner of the courtroom opened and Judge Betancourt came in. She stopped just short of the three steps that led to her seat behind the bench. The bailiff said, "All rise. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Maryland is now in session. The Honorable Patricia Betancourt presiding. Please be seated and come to order."

The judge climbed up to her black leather chair and sat down. She looked smaller then I remembered. She was perhaps five foot three and 115 pounds. She had short-cropped brown hair and reading glasses. I could tell she'd spent extra time on her makeup that morning. I wondered if she actually thought of the reporters, the press, and the artists who would be drawing her that day. It's human nature to try to look good, especially if you think it's for a big audience. This was without a doubt the biggest audience she would ever be in front of in her entire life. Would trying to "look good" affect her decisions? It was disquieting to think of the judge of your case primping for the press.

"Good morning, counsel."

"Good morning, Your Honor," all the attorneys responded, standing.

She had the clerk call the case, then said, "Mr. Hackett, I don't believe you've ever tried a case in front of me."

"No, Your Honor, I've never had the pleasure," he said.

"Usually I do motions
in limine
in chambers, but since this is a case of such note, we will have the motions
in limine
arguments here."

"That's fine, Your Honor, wherever you'd like to do it is fine with me," Hackett said.

"Mr. Nolan, good morning."

"Good morning, Your Honor."

"We have twenty-three motions
in limine
to argue this morning, and I believe you win the prize as you filed thirteen of them. We shall therefore deal with yours first."

"That's fine, Your Honor, how would you like to address them?"

"In order. I don't think we need to stand on formality during this initial proceeding. Why don't you be seated, Mr. Nolan. Mr. Hackett, I will ask you for your comments in addition to whatever you said in your opposition as we proceed through his motions, and then we will address yours. Do you understand?"

We all did and we began. Judge Betancourt was clinical in her rulings on the motions. For each motion she gave us her tentative ruling and explanation and asked for comments from the side that would be unhappy with the ruling. It was extremely efficient. When that party had had his say, her ruling stood, and we went on to the next one. Her rulings were well thought out, precise, and fair. It was a good start. Six of my motions had been granted, and four of Hackett's. None of them gutted the other side's case. The rulings resulted in evidentiary changes that nibbled at the edges of the case, but nothing that went to the heart of anything significant.

After completing the arguments on the motions, Judge Betancourt launched right into her explanation of how she was going to do the jury selection. We hadn't even reached our morning break yet. She had the clerk call the jury room to have the jury panel come in the room immediately after the morning break.

They were all there when we returned. The bailiff had asked three of the observer rows to wait in the hallway during the jury selection process. They would be allowed to return to their seats after the jury was selected and trial had commenced.

After the voir dire panel had been seated, Mrs. Collins entered the courtroom. Nice timing. Everybody knew who she was. Her picture had been in the paper hundreds of times over the last few months. She was always the sympathetic and grieving widow, who was extremely pretty and everyone wanted to meet. She had not granted a single interview since the accident, and the public was starving to hear her voice and find out more about her. As she made her way down the aisle, Hackett feigned surprise as he stood to welcome her. He walked over to open the gate for her, and she sat down gracefully next to him. She looked even prettier and more radiant than during her deposition. She obviously knew how to take care of herself. She wore a nicely fitted suit with a gold Celtic cross around her neck. As she sat, she turned back around toward the gallery and smiled at the prospective jurors. Her smile was perfect for the occasion. It wasn't a smile ingratiating herself to the jury, nor was it a smile of embarrassment. It was an acknowledgment of their presence, a statement of her appreciation of them, and a quick demonstration of humility. I just couldn't imagine it had been rehearsed, but I also couldn't dismiss that as a possibility.

The judge came in, the courtroom was called into session, and jury selection began in earnest. The court had sent out a large number of jury subpoenas to accommodate the necessary jury pool for this case. It was thought that a lot of people would be dismissed for cause, for not being able to be fair in a trial. That was certainly my expectation. A French corporation that "killed the president" was likely to be unpopular. Some would probably want to make speeches about how outraged they were. It was important that the court acknowledged that, but equally disheartening. No one was going to be biased against the first lady or the widow of the pilot; any bias was going to run toward WorldCopter, the evil foreign corporation.