Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller (42 page)

"You were pretty good too. I think you've nailed her."

Altschuler extended his big hand. Warren suddenly wondered, Why have I always believed I was better than he is? He thinks he's a righteous man helping to keep order in the universe — he sends guilty people to prison for as long as the law allows. I think I'm righteous because I keep them out for as long as the law allows. He's usually right, I'm usually wrong.

He took Bob Altschuler's hand and shook it.

===OO=OOO=OO===

At four o'clock the jury still had not reached a verdict. Judge Bingham sent a message through the bailiff: if they wished to continue deliberating, he would remain in the courtroom until 8 P.M. After that they would be escorted to a hotel where they would have dinner and spend the night. Then they would resume at 9 a.m. the following morning. Or, if they wished, they could quit at 6 P.M. and be taken at that time to dinner and the hotel.

A cryptic note came back from the jury foreman: "We will continue deliberating, your honor."

At half past four Warren conferred in whispers with Rick, then took the elevator up to the seventh floor and the 299th. Judge Parker's courtroom was empty except for the judge and Nancy Goodpaster, huddled at the bench, working on the court calendar. Goodpaster smiled quickly at Warren and mouthed a hello.

The judge was suntanned and looked as if she had gained a few pounds. "Well, if it ain't my friend Mr. Blackburn."

"How are you, Judge?"

"Just fine. And you, counselor?"

"Just fine."

"Jury still out in
Boudreau
?"

He nodded. "But the smart money says they'll reach a decision before eight o'clock this evening. Tomorrow morning at the latest. I've got my witness ready for
Quintana.
When can we do it?"

"Tomorrow and the next day are pretty free — anyway, I can bump a few people around. Thursday on, my docket's full. So you get going by tomorrow after lunch or I dismiss the jury and we pick a new one in September. That's it."

A new jury in September would cancel out all his advantage, and he would have to keep Jim Dandy on ice for at least a month. Warren looked gloomily into the judge's unfathomable eyes. Just then the telephone rang on the bailiff's desk.

Nancy Goodpaster walked over, picked it up and listened for a moment. "Yes," she said, "I'll tell him." She hung up and turned to Warren. "Your partner wants you in the 342nd. The
Boudreau
jury's coming in."

===OO=OOO=OO===

"All rise!" the bailiff called, and the jury filed in and took their seats. Johnnie Faye Boudreau stood between Rick and Warren at the defense table. Bob Altschuler stood at the prosecutor's table, slightly hunched, fingers tapping a light tattoo on the walnut. The jurors as they took their seats looked across at Johnnie Faye and met her questioning gaze. But there seemed to be no emotion in their eyes.

Judge Bingham asked if they had reached a verdict, and the foreman, the man in the black windbreaker whom Johnnie Faye had insisted be on the jury, said yes, they had. He handed a slip of paper to the deputy clerk.

"You may read the verdict," Judge Bingham said.

The deputy clerk read aloud in a calm voice: "We the jury find the defendant, Johnnie Faye Boudreau, not guilty by reason of self-defense."

The blood fled from Warren's face. Johnnie Faye let out a whoop. She threw her arms around Rick and hugged him. Then she wheeled with outstretched arms to hug Warren. But Warren was not there.

He strode, almost ran, out of the courtroom. Reporters trotted after him, plucked at his sleeve, shouting questions. For a moment he was trapped, could not evade them without shoving them aside. The microphones were nearly in his teeth. A tumult of galvanic anger rocketed through him from head to toe. "The jury has spoken," he replied, "for better or for worse. Ms. Boudreau is free. That's all that matters. I have nothing more to say."

But he couldn't get away. They were blocking him, clutching at his sleeve. "Mr. Blackburn, what do you mean
'for better or for worse'!
Are you casting doubt on the justice of the verdict?"

"The jury is always right," Warren said, quoting himself to his former client, "whether they're right or not."

Amid the clamor and shrieks of disbelief, he brushed past the reporters and cameramen. To every other shouted question he murmured, "No comment." He headed for the stairwell.

The door slammed behind him. Warren rested his forehead against the cool of the flaking drywall. His hands felt clammy, his stomach heaved and twisted. Altschuler knew the truth, and it didn't matter. You had no choice, Altschuler had said. But I did, Warren thought, and I made it. If I had real guts I would have grabbed those microphones and said, "She's free — free to lie, free to murder again, free to celebrate our complicity. If there's justice, it's only by accident. The system stinks. Ask a man named Hector Quintana, who may die for a murder he didn't commit:
She did."

He wanted to howl with frustration, and all he could manage was a pitiful groan to the four walls. But what could I have done that would have worked? Nothing. And what can I do now? Nothing yet. But so help me God, I'll find a way.

Above Rick Levine's massive desk in the old Cotton
Exchange Building was a blue neon sign that said LAWYER. In one corner of the room stood wooden replicas of a medieval rack and an iron maiden. ("To help you remember more accurately," Rick would say to his clients.) In another corner on the parquet floor was a red bubble gum machine. Digging into a jar of coins, Rick fed two nickels into the machine and offered Warren one of the pink-wrapped pieces of bubble gum that popped out.

Warren shook his head. In front of him, on a corner of the desk, Bernadette Loo set down a mug of steaming fragrant black coffee.

After the verdict, Rick had talked to several of the
Boudreau
jurors. "You know," he said now to Warren, "it never ceases to flabbergast me how people take on new personalities. The rest of their lives can be all fucked up, they may cheat on their taxes and their spouses, and be real couch potatoes and dorks, but when they get to be jurors, man, suddenly they're conscientious Americans and professors of logic. They respect the law, they want to do the right thing. Gives me faith in the system."

"That makes one of us," Warren said impatiently. "So tell me what happened."

"They took the first vote right after they got to the jury room. Eight not guilty, two guilty, and two couldn't make up their minds. Right after lunch it looked like they were going to hang up. The foreman — the guy in the black windbreaker who owns a TV appliance store, the one our client insisted on having — was the last holdout. He says, 'I hated her guts, I just didn't believe half of what she said.' But this other juror, the shriveled-up secretary with the oil company, really got on his case. She kept telling him, 'You can't convict a woman because you don't like her. I want to vote guilty too, because I have doubts that she's innocent, but they're on the emotional level. And the judge told us that the state has the burden of proof.' You figure that one out," Rick said to Warren.

"Anyway, they kept arguing. That sourpuss in the first row says, 'I feel so sorry for Ms. Boudreau. Maybe she's guilty, but I think she really loved that awful doctor, and he took advantage of her and wouldn't marry her. She was brave, just like Mr. Blackburn said.' — Does that make you happy, boychik? — And then the clothing store executive, with the sideburns, the one who always wore a red tie?" Rick broadened his western accent: "He says, 'If a guy came at me with a poker, y'all better b'lieve I'd put
six
bullets between his eyes.' So black-windbreaker yells, 'What about the business of her making the detour to drop off her handbag?' And red-tie looks baffled and says,'
What
detour?'" Rick cackled like a rooster. "Another woman juror tells black-windbreaker,
'I
would have taken my handbag upstairs, but maybe Johnnie Faye was confused. I think that's why she wiped the palm prints off the poker. It's so hard to remember what you did and why you did it.' And black-windbreaker throws up his hands and says, 'I give up. Not guilty.'"

"And you still think they're conscientious?" Warren asked.

"Sure I do," Rick said. "It's a matter of definition and perspective. You have to remember that people are basically nuts."

Warren understood that his former partner, sitting behind his desk, wore the light air of triumph. They had won a big case. The newspapers had headlined the verdict and there were photographs of Clyde Ott and of a confident Johnnie Faye Boudreau entering the courthouse between her two lawyers. In a boxed sidebar below the headline, a bold subhead read:
"Defense Attorney Not Enthusiastic over Triumph; Casts Doubt on Verdict."
All the late-night TV news reports led off with Warren in the hallway and moved from there to a clip of Bob Altschuler in the same hallway, stating that "No, I don't know what Mr. Blackburn meant. The basis of our adversary system in this country is that a defense counsel, no matter what his private beliefs, is required to make his best effort on behalf of an accused client. And Mr. Blackburn certainly did that… Yes, he was skating awfully close to the line, but there are no penalties for such statements…"

Even as he reached his office at nine o'clock on the morning after the verdict, Warren's telephone had been ringing. The red message light was blinking; the tape was full. He unplugged everything. At eleven o'clock he drove downtown to Rick's office near the courthouse.

Bernadette Loo flew into the office just as Warren set down his empty coffee mug. "She's here."

"Who?"

"The one who loves Chinks and gooks so much."

Rick turned to Warren. "She called me last night at home. She is seriously pissed off." He turned back to Bernadette. "So what did you tell her?"

"That you were with a client."

Rick swung back to Warren. "What do you want me to do?"

"Let her in. But frisk her first."

Rick laughed uneasily. A few seconds later, wearing the same cherry-red suit and white hat that she had worn to the trial of Hector Quintana, Johnnie Faye surged into the room, a hand planted on a wide hip, cheeks white, lips drained of blood.

She pointed a finger at Warren. "I want to talk to
him.
Alone."

Warren nodded. Rick went out the door with Bernadette Loo. A little too eagerly, Warren thought.

"Now listen," Johnnie Faye Boudreau said, her body quivering. "You shot your mouth off, you had your fun. 'For better or for worse… the jury is right whether they're right or not.' You greased your lousy little conscience. But let's get something straight —
you
didn't win that trial for me! I saved my
own
neck!"

"I'd say for the most part that's true," Warren replied calmly.

"You bet it is. And you came about one inch from getting disbarred for those cutesy remarks. Counselor, I want to remind you of the law. Whatever I told you is still privileged, unless you care to wind up pumping gas, which is what you'd be doing right now if my case hadn't come along to save your ass. Doesn't matter a fuck that you're not my lawyer anymore. Privilege is privilege. Is that clear?"

"That's always been clear," Warren said.

"And if I see your face one more time on TV talking about my case, or any similar shit — just watch out!"

Warren rose from his chair. "Are you threatening me?"

"A word to the wise," Johnnie Faye shot back.

Reaching past a pile of Rick's papers, Warren flipped the switch on the desk tape recorder. The green light blinked on. "Let me point out one thing to you," he said, "because it's my obligation to do so. Any admissions you make now don't fall under the cloak of privilege. Anything I find out that doesn't derive from what you told me when I was your lawyer, I can use against you. And I will. Now, you crazy bitch, keep talking."

Johnnie Faye Boudreau raised the middle finger of her right hand and jabbed it twice toward the ceiling. Then she wheeled around to the door. Hips gyrating, heels clicking on the parquet floor, she swung out of the office.

Warren shut off the tape recorder and picked up his briefcase. A moment later Rick came back in, shutting the door behind him.

"I heard some of that. You want my advice? Be careful. That lady has a history of doing nasty things to anyone who stands in her way."

"I'm going to put her away for life," Warren said.

===OO=OOO=OO===

As they had agreed, Charm was waiting for him at noon outside the 342nd District Court, Judge Dwight Bingham's courtroom. Just after Warren said hello and Charm kissed him on the cheek to congratulate him on the verdict, the courtroom door swung open and Maria Hahn stepped out with Judge Bingham. They were laughing. Recognizing the caliber of the hilarity, Warren guessed that Maria must have just told him a new joke. The judge, halting, thrust out his hand. "Mr. Warren! I see by the papers you've been a bad boy." He inclined his bald head toward Charm. "Can't you control your husband, Mrs. Blackburn? Get him to keep his big mouth shut?"

But he was smiling. He had enjoyed the case. You could never suffer a reversal on an acquittal.

Maria Hahn wasn't smiling.

Warren exchanged a few more words with the judge and then said, "Goodbye, your honor. Goodbye, Maria. See you later."

"Join us for lunch," the judge suggested. "I can learn from your beautiful wife what's going on outside this courthouse."

"Thanks. Can't today," Warren said, suffering. "Some other time."

Again he took Charm to the Greek restaurant. She looked pale and even thinner than before. On the way, she said, "That's the woman you've been seeing, isn't it?"

"Which one?"

"Come off it, Warren. The tall one with the big boobs and great legs. The one who was giggling with the judge."

Warren was mildly amazed. "How could you tell?"

"The way she looked at you. And you at her." Charm clamped her lips shut.

In the restaurant, her eyes moist, hands trembling, she said, "Give me a chance, Warren. Don't throw away our marriage for someone you hardly know."