Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller (37 page)

He didn't protest that he had called and the line had been busy. That seemed so flimsy.

"This is a bad time, Charm."

"I know that," she said softly. "I'm sorry, but I thought we might grab a quick lunch. I have to get back to the station in an hour. Can you do it?"

Warren hesitated. He had said to Johnnie Faye all that he intended to say. In the afternoon she would undergo cross-examination; he wanted time to ponder the holes in her story, to figure out where Altschuler might gain entry to rip apart the whole fabric. It was definitely the wrong time for a visit, an unnerving chat. Part of him wanted to say to Charm, "Go away." Part of him wanted to say exactly the opposite. And he owed her a thank-you — it was she who had pointed out the blue dent on Johnnie Faye's Mercedes — although there was no way he could pay it.

On the other side of the defense table, Rick cleared his throat. "I'll go with our client. No problem."

Johnnie Faye smiled at him. "I'm fine. Take your wife to lunch."

As they left the courtroom the reporters moved in like a platoon of infantry veterans occupying a conquered village. But Warren brushed past them almost roughly, murmuring over his shoulder, "No comment now. When the trial is over, I'll talk." Steering Charm by the elbow, he fled with her through the welcome closing door of a down elevator. The bone of her elbow was hard enough but in the gloom of the elevator, descending, he felt that he was with a ghost.

Warren knew he had been weak. He should have said
no. He didn't want to hear any more accusations or details of her affair or enter into further debate on the division of property. She could have written him a letter; she could have had Arthur Franklin contact him.

The feeling that he had succumbed to pressure was an odd one, a new one. No, he realized — old. It was the feeling he had lived with for those three years since Virgil Freer. But during that time he had denied it, tamped it down into deeper parts of his being, where it had festered. He had convinced himself and Charm that it was otherwise. Again he amended that.
Not
convinced Charm, not in the end. She had seen through his denial, his confusion, his ennui. But she hadn't been able to help him, and he surely hadn't been able to help himself, or hadn't wanted to with sufficient vigor. How odd, to see that so clearly now. Under the same skin was new resolve, new perception. He was not even the person he had been before Virgil Freer. The old person had assumed that there was logic to human events, that if you did
a,
then
b
would follow. If you worked diligently and imaginatively at something that gave you pleasure, you would succeed. If you married for love and were kind, you would be happy. If you raised children with discipline and loving guidance, they would turn out well and make you proud. Life was not like that. He had been naive, a child in a lawyer's gray suit. Life was an ongoing war against unseen and usually undefined enemies. Your own
naivet� was one of those enemies. You had to battle it, and improvise, and guard your back. See things clearly even if it made you scream.

He took Charm to the little Greek restaurant. There was better food in other places near the courthouse, but those restaurants were always crowded, noisy with lawyers and court personnel, not places to bring your wife who was divorcing you and wanted to talk. On the way over he spoke succinctly about the case, and at his side Charm listened, apparently interested but for the most part silent. The Greek place had plastic tablecloths and thin, bent forks. The table was wobbly until Warren stuffed a folded paper napkin under one leg. He ordered a Coke and a salad, and Charm ordered something he couldn't pronounce. Warren leaned back in his chair.

"So? What's up?"

Charm said, "I've split up with Jack. That's the name of the man I was seeing. Jack Gordon. About two weeks ago."

Good, Warren thought. At the same time a part of him thought, not good at all. Not good for her and probably not good for me.

"I told you he was married, had three kids, and he was in the process of divorcing. That was all true. But maybe it wasn't as clear-cut as he made it sound. I mean, he's divorcing, but he still has a lot of ambivalent feelings about his wife — her name is Emily — and certainly about his children. He's Jewish. He feels a lot of guilt."

Warren cocked his head and asked, "Do you have to be Jewish to feel guilty about divorcing your wife and giving up your children?"

"No, but it adds a certain dimension to the process." Charm managed the pained shadow of a smile.

I like the way she puts things, Warren thought. I always did. Suddenly he felt in all his parts the enormous weight of loss.

"Anyway," she resumed, "I'm not into ambivalence. We had it out, and he cried, and I wasn't exactly dry-eyed, and I finally said, 'You're a grown man, go back to New York, see Emily. Get your act together.' So he did, but then I went through a lot of soul-searching, the result of which was that I decided all this was a little too complicated for me, and maybe I hadn't been thinking all that clearly. Maybe my feelings for him were ambivalent too. I mean, I cared for him, but I wasn't up for all that Sturm und Drang. And then there was you. Jack was always jealous of my feelings there. I told Jack a lot about you."

"Oh?" Warren felt uncomfortable. And yet he was curious.

"He wound up thinking you were a pretty nice guy, even though you threatened to stomp him with your cowboy boots. He couldn't quite figure out why I'd left you."

Warren said nothing.

"So I called him in New York about ten days ago," Charm related, "and told him it was all over. I suspect in some way he was relieved. It had all happened too soon for him. I mean, too soon after his marriage ended."

"Well," Warren said, "life doesn't always work on a convenient timetable" — aware that he was skirting the deeper issue. He busied himself with his salad, picking out the last bits of feta cheese.

He looked up and saw that Charm was disconsolate. She lowered her head and raised one hand to press against her temples. She had hardly touched her food.

"I feel so shitty," she murmured.

"Because Jack's gone."

"Partly. Mostly because I walked out on you the way I did. Or kicked you out, as the case may be. I made a mistake. Now I'm paying for it."

She had said this without his being able to see her eyes. When finally she lowered her hand, he saw that her eyes were filmed with tears. He ground his teeth as some of her pain invaded him.

"I apologize," she said. She still was not looking directly at him; her eyes were lowered like a penitent's. She was sniffling. "For then, and for now. I shouldn't come to you like this and snivel like a schoolgirl. But I had to tell you."

"I don't know what to say, Charm." And that was true.

"You don't have to say anything. Well, maybe you do. Do you hate me, Warren?"

"No."

"
Did
you hate me?"

"Hate is the wrong word. I was angry. I was hurt. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Did you find another woman?"

"Yes, there is someone else."

"Shit," Charm said. She reached into her handbag and blew her nose sharply in a tissue. "Well, that's the way it goes, I guess. Is it serious?"

Warren said, "It's still in the fun stage."

Charm began stuffing things back into her handbag. "I'm going to let you pay for lunch. I'm leaving." She spoke nervously, softly. "I'm so ashamed of the way I acted with you. I didn't stop loving you, I just got fed up with our life. I came here to tell you that, and that other stuff, and to ask you if…" She choked a little and the echo of her voice crowded the air with melancholy. "And to ask if you'd come home. Not today, but when you were ready. Don't answer now. I know what you'd answer. I can see it in your eyes. And don't pity me. I'll be okay."

He wanted to say something, although he had no idea what words would come from his mouth. His mind was jammed, the circuitry overloaded with contradictory thoughts and emotions: pity and anger and tenderness, a burst of affection followed by a stab of disgust, even a flash-flood memory of what he had once called love. But he had no chance to voice any of them. He felt his lungs were filled with sorrow, not air. She fled from the restaurant.

Rising from his chair, Warren watched her reach the door and shove it open, vanish into the hot street. What a good-looking woman, he thought — what great legs, what a gorgeous ass. What heart, what soul. What a quick mouth. What a fool she was. And I don't want her back.

There it was, not to be denied. He looked at his watch. He had ten minutes to pay the bill and get to the courthouse for the cross-examination of his client.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Glancing at his notes, Bob Altschuler leaned back lazily in his chair at the prosecutor's table. He said, "Ms. Boudreau, I remind you that you're still under oath to tell the truth."

Johnnie Faye's hands were on her handbag in her lap. She met Altschuler's distant hard gaze without wavering.

"We'll start at the beginning, work our way gradually up to the night of the murder, just as your attorney did. Does that suit you?"

"That's up to you, sir," Johnnie Faye said.

Altschuler raised an eyebrow, then studied the yellow legal pad. "All right… I recall that you said drugs had killed one of your brothers. Did you say that?"

"Yes, I did."

"But you also said, earlier in your testimony, that both of your brothers had been killed in Vietnam. Which is it, Ms. Boudreau? Drugs or bullets?"

A mistake, Warren thought. She'll only get more sympathy from the jury. But he knew where Altschuler was headed.

Patiently, and in detail, Johnnie Faye explained what had happened to Clinton and then Garrett. She spoke directly to the jurors. Then she turned back to the prosecutor. "So what I meant was that Garrett was killed
by
Vietnam, even though he wasn't actually killed
in
Vietnam."

"In other words, when you were testifying you said one thing and meant another — is that a fair way to put it?"

"In a way. But about my brother Garrett, I didn't think that was important."

"It's only important insofar as this jury can see how your mind works, Ms. Boudreau, when you're asked to state the truth under oath."

Before Warren could object, she said, "I
was
telling the truth. I said later that my brother died of an overdose."

Two minutes into cross, Warren thought, and she's already being drawn into arguing with Altschuler. She'll get ripped apart. Warren stood, shaking his head sadly. "Your honor, the prosecutor is meant to ask questions of the witness, not badger her or lecture to the jury. Would the court be kind enough to remind him of that?"

"Is that an objection, Mr. Blackburn?" Judge Bingham asked.

"It is, your honor."

"Sustained. Don't do that anymore, Mr. Altschuler."

Warren glanced sharply at Johnnie Faye, hoping the message had got through. But she was leaning slightly forward in the witness chair, clutching her handbag. Her eyes were focused completely on Bob Altschuler.

Altschuler said, "Ms. Boudreau, you told the jury, didn't you, that back in 1970 you were proud to have represented Corpus Christi in the Miss Texas Pageant?"

"Yes, sir, I was."

Consulting his notes, Altschuler said, "Isn't it a fact that you made a speech at the Miss Texas Pageant, in front of television cameras, denouncing the pageant as a 'stupid and demeaning charade'? Aren't those your words, Ms. Boudreau?"

"They may have been, but that had nothing to do with how I felt about going there to represent my hometown."

Altschuler turned to Judge Bingham. "Your honor, would you please instruct the witness to answer yes or no if a yes or no answer is called for."

Judge Bingham nodded. "Please try to do that, madam."

Johnnie Faye said, "Your honor, I can't do that if he's going to twist the facts."

Warren's eyes rolled in their sockets. Now she was arguing with the judge!

Bingham ignored her and said, "Continue, Mr. Bob."

"Didn't you also say to the press at the Miss Texas Pageant: 'Virginal meat is the only kind the male chauvinist pigs will let you show off in this circus'? Aren't those your words?"

Johnnie Faye's fingers dug even deeper into the leather of her handbag.

"Yes, sir, I said that."

"Were those words meant to demonstrate how proud you were to represent your hometown?"

"That's not true."

"Excuse me, are you answering yes or no?"

"I'm trying to say that one thing had nothing to do with the other."

"Does that mean yes or no?"

"No," she said angrily. "Or yes. I don't even remember your stupid question."

Altschuler nodded, as if he had learned something of great moment. "Strike the stupid question," he said. "Now, Ms. Boudreau, in deploring the difficulties of your work at your nightclub, you said that God hadn't made a perfect world. Do you believe in God?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you go to church regularly?"

"Objection," Warren said. "Irrelevant."

"She opened the door," Altschuler explained, "when she brought up God."

"She opened the door to whether or not she believed in God," Warren argued to the bench. "She didn't open the door to her churchgoing habits."

"He's just splitting hairs," Altschuler snapped.

"I don't think so," said Bingham. "I won't allow it. Objection sustained."

Altschuler growled, "If counsel for the defense doesn't want the jury to know his client's so-called 'churchgoing habits,' I won't ask." He shook his head in apparent disgust.

If Altschuler was going to play the role of gunfighter, then Warren would play sheriff. Instantly he was back on his feet — "Your honor, I object. And I'm sure the jury can do without all these melodramatic facial gestures."

"Nonsense!" Altschuler barked. "We're looking for the truth! I think we have a right to know if we're dealing with a truth-teller or a hypocrite!"

With fervor that waltzed perilously close to gallantry, Warren turned to the judge and said, "Your honor, please! These are just speeches and innuendos." He might not have been so protective, he knew, if Altschuler hadn't been so personally aggressive.
Lawyering is acting. If a lawyer gets a jury to trust him more than the other son of a bitch, he's home free.