Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (24 page)

"No, it never came up."

"It never came up," I repeated, as if the words
themselves were ashamed to be heard.

"What kind of car did you have then, the night your
wife was murdered? Four-door or two-door?"

"Two-door."

"But it had a back seat, correct?"

"Yes."

"You parked it at the parking structure across from
your office that night?"

"I always parked it in that parking structure."

"And that night you had sex with Kristin Maxfield in
the back seat of that car, did you not?" I was staring right at
him, taunting him with the knowledge that I knew what they had done
and where they had done it, something only Kristin could have told
me. His eyes went blank. "And I suppose you didn't have sex with
her a second time on the same day your first wife was buried?"

"No, I told you," he insisted. "It never
happened!"

"Your first wife, Nancy Goodwin, was a talented
woman, wasn't she?"

It caught him off guard. "Yes, she was," he replied,
suddenly subdued. "Very talented."

"And you've already testified that it was her idea to
take out the insurance policy, correct?"

"Yes," he said, watching me, trying to figure out
where I was going with this.

"And she agreed that you ought to move money out of
your checking account at the bank into a mutual fund. That is what
you testified, is it not?"

"Yes."

"Is it fair to say that she was a full partner in all
the major financial decisions that were made while you were
married?"

He did not hesitate. "Yes. Completely. If anything,
she knew more about that sort of thing than I did."

I lowered my eyes and walked slowly toward the jury
box. Standing in front of the last juror in the front row, I rested
my hand on the railing.

"That's quite odd, isn't it?" I asked, looking
back.

He had no idea what I meant. "Odd?"

"Yes, odd that when you weren't able to deliver the
ten thousand dollars in cash to the brokerage firm, you decided to
leave it in a safe at work—while you began a murder trial that was
scheduled to last for weeks—instead of entrusting the money and the
errand to your wife."

He started to answer, but I cut him off with a wave
of my hand.

"No further questions, your Honor."

Chapter Sixteen

The morning light streamed through the solitary
wooden casement window and over the double set of bound briefs.
Sipping coffee from a maroon plastic cup, Horace Woolner viewed
them with a jaundiced eye.

"These are motions to set aside rulings on motions to
set aside rulings on motions to set aside. It's been going on so
long no one can remember the beginning, and I don't think anyone
really expects to see the end. It's like that case in Bleak House,
Jarndyce versus Jarndyce. Dickens. You remember?" He laughed. "It
goes on for years. Years! And then, finally it's over and there's
nothing left. Not a cent. All the money they were fighting for has
gone to pay the lawyers."

Open in the front, the black judicial robe draped
over his shoulders was bunched up under his legs where he had sat
down without bothering to straighten it. "We were told to read
Bleak House the summer before I started my first year in law
school. You know," he said, raising an eyebrow the way he did
whenever he was about to commit a particularly excessive
exaggeration, "the damn thing must be about three million pages
long. They must have paid Dickens by the word."

It was seven-forty-five in the morning. Since the
beginning of the trial, it had become something of a settled
practice for us to meet in his chambers for a cup of coffee at the
start of the day. Horace began his day earlier than any other judge
in the building. He liked to schedule oral argument on complicated
civil matters at eight, on the theory that the longer they had been
awake the more lawyers were likely to talk. It was a phenomenon
that had no obvious application to himself.

Pointing at the two briefs laid side by side in front
of him, he asked, "You know what this is about? Two brothers suing
each other over the business they inherited from their father.
There's no business left, you understand. It went under years ago,
but each of them is convinced it was the other one's fault. And
someone has to pay, don't they? Which is perfectly fine with the
lawyers, who measure the world in billable hours.

"Sometimes I miss being DA," he said, as he stood up.
"There's something clean-cut about criminal law." He poured himself
another cup of coffee. "Want some more?"

I shook my head and waited until he sat down. "Are
you all right, Horace?"

He looked at me, surprised. "Sure, why not?" "Because
it's not even eight o'clock in the morning, and you're wired."

"I'm always like this," he protested. "I wake up
early."

"You go to bed late."

"Yeah, and I wake up early," he insisted. "I've never
slept much."

It was a little too glib, a little too evasive.

"You worried about something?" I asked, searching his
eyes. There was a slight pause, a brief hesitation, as if there was
something he wanted to say but knew, even as he thought about it,
that he was not going to. "The only thing I'm worried about is
whether you're going to be able to convict Marshall Goodwin," he
said finally. "I hear he did pretty well the last two days."

With both hands wrapped around the cup, he lifted it
to his mouth but did not drink."Until you got hold of him, that
is." A shrewd glint came into his eye. "First you tell Jones that
Kristin has been to see you twice; then you ask Goodwin that
question about the back seat of his car. Wonder what the two of
them talked about last night?"

"Or what each of them is thinking about this
morning," I added. Draining off the little coffee that was left, I
set my cup on the front corner of the desk. "What do you think
she'll do?" I asked. Then, before he could answer, I changed my
mind. "What do you think she should do?"

"You mean, should she lie to save her husband?" He
looked away, slowly shaking his head. "If she really loved him, it
wouldn't even be a question for her, would it?"

Gathering up the two neatly bound briefs, Horace
fastened his robe at the collar. "I have to get into court," he
said, glancing at the clock. Then he was gone. Horace was never
late.

Neither was Irma Holloway. With a brief glance at the
jurors, she perched on the edge of the high-backed black leather
chair, stretched her thin arms forward, and clasped her hands."You
may call your next witness," she advised the defense.

All morning and halfway through the afternoon, the
defense summoned one witness after another to testify that Marshall
Goodwin could not possibly have had anything to do with the murder
of his wife. Then, an hour and a half after we returned from lunch,
Richard Lee Jones rose from his chair and announced that he had
called his final witness. Sitting just below him, Goodwin fidgeted
restlessly and his eyes shifted from one place to the next.

Holloway asked if the State had any witnesses it
wished to call for rebuttal.

"Yes, your Honor," I replied, as Goodwin's head
jerked up. "The State recalls Kristin Maxfield."

She had the look of a woman who had gone to bed
crying. I did not even pretend to be kind. "The testimony you gave
here before was not in all respects entirely truthful, was it, Ms.
Maxfield." Sternly, I stood at the counsel table and waited.

Her eyes drifted toward the other end of the table,
where her husband was also waiting to hear what she would say.

"Ms. Maxfield?" Her eyes came back, for an instant
met mine, and then looked down at the floor. Gradually, as if she
were coming to terms with a decision she knew she could not avoid,
she raised her head. "No. I was not entirely truthful."

"You get one more chance, Ms. Maxfield. Now, did you
or did you not deliver a sealed envelope to Travis Quentin the day
he was released from the county jail?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes, I did."

"And did that envelope come from the defendant,
Marshall Goodwin?"

She glanced at her husband and said, as if to let the
world know how wretchedly unhappy she was that she could no longer
lie for him, "I'm sorry."

"Ms. Maxfield?"

Digging her nails into the arm of the witness chair,
she nodded. "Yes," she whispered, her eyes downcast.

"I didn't quite hear you," I said sharply.

"Yes," she replied, raising her head.

"The night Nancy Goodwin was murdered, the night you
were working with Marshall Goodwin, did you have sex with him?"

Biting her lip, she nodded.

"I'm sorry. You'll have to give your answer out
loud."

"Yes."

"Describe to the jury, please, where that took
place." Nothing, not a word, not even a blink of her eye. "Did it
take place in Marshall Goodwin's car, in the back seat of his car?"
Still nothing. "Ms. Maxfield?"

She watched me without expression. "Yes," she said
finally.

"And when was the next time you had sex with Marshall
Goodwin?"

For a moment, she hesitated, her lips parted, as if
she hoped I would change my mind and ask her something else. "He
said he didn't want to be alone."

"It was the same day Nancy Goodwin was buried, wasn't
it?" I asked. "The night of her funeral?"

"Yes," she admitted.

I stared hard at her and then, crossing my arms,
lowered my eyes and walked toward the jury box. "You were asked
these same questions in the grand jury, weren't you?" I asked, as I
spun around.

"Yes."

"And you lied to the grand jury, didn't you?"

"I was trying to protect my husband."

"You lied," I insisted.

"Yes."

"And when you testified before in this courtroom, in
front of this jury," I said, waving my hand toward the twelve men
and women who were sitting on my right, watching her closely, "you
lied then too, didn't you?"

"I was trying to protect my husband," she
repeated.

"Are you telling the truth now?"

"Yes," she replied in a subdued voice, contrition in
her eyes.

I eyed her sternly. "You're not holding anything
back? Everything you say here is the truth?"

"Yes," she promised.

"Good," I said, with a quick nod of approval.

I walked back to the counsel table as if I were
finished. When I reached my chair, I hesitated—and then stood
straight up.

"But you haven't told us the whole truth, have you,
Ms. Maxfield?"

She blinked. "Yes, I have."

"You haven't told us that when you delivered an
envelope to Travis Quentin you knew what was inside it. You knew
you were giving him instructions on how to murder Marshall
Goodwin's wife, because you were part of it from the very
beginning, weren't you?"

"No!" she insisted. "I wasn't. I didn't have anything
to do with it. I didn't even know he had anything to do with it,
until... "

"Until what?" I demanded, as I put both hands down on
top of the table and bent forward, glaring at her. "Until
what?"

"Objection!" Jones shouted, as he sprang out of his
chair.

"Until what?" I demanded. "Until he told you he had
her killed?"

Ready to clutch at anything that might yet give her a
way out, she cried, "Yes! He told me."

"Objection, your Honor!" Jones shouted again, beating
the table with his open hand.

Judge Holloway hammered her gavel with such force
that the silence when she stopped was a kind of physical shock.
Bending forward, the wooden gavel dangling from her hand, she
darted a glance first at Jones, then at me. "Mr. Antonelli—"

Before she could say another word, I held up my hand.
"No further questions, your Honor."

Jones was still on his feet, his mouth trembling.
"Your Honor, I ask the court to strike the testimony of this
witness. The prosecution was badgering her with questions even
after I had made an objection."

"Denied," Judge Holloway ruled, without hesitation.
"Do you want to examine this witness?" she asked, with studied
indifference.

Jones muttered something under his breath.

"What's that, counselor?" Holloway asked sharply.

"Yes, I would." He looked at Kristin Maxfield,
huddled in the witness chair, and in a calm, steady voice, appeared
to take her side.

"This has been a difficult time for you,
Kristin—"

Judge Holloway interrupted. "A witness is never
addressed by his or her first name."

"Hasn't it, Ms. Maxfield?" he asked, his eyes still
on her.

"Yes, it's been difficult," she agreed.