"So if the test showed two hundred milliequivalents per liter, what would that suggest, Doctor?"
Good old Charlie Riggs.
"I'm not sure. But you can't prove…"
He let it hang there.
"And if a cardiologist with special expertise in heart rhythm disturbance comes into this courtroom after examining the EKG of Harry Bernhardt and identifies a widened QRS duration and subsequent ventricular fibrillation, indicating probable potassium poisoning, what then, Doctor? What do you say then?"
The swinging gate in the bar squeaked open, and Jonas Blackwell rushed through. "Your Honor, I request a brief recess."
"Denied!" the judge shouted. "And sit down."
The lawyer stopped in his tracks, looked around, and took a chair next to Cindy. Judge Stanger turned toward the witness. "Dr. Schein, there's a question pending. If you wish, the stenographer can read it back."
"I've made a ter…" Schein mumbled, his voice trailing off.
"What's that, Doctor?" the judge asked.
"I've made a terrible mistake," he said, his voice barely audible. "I believed Guy. I never would have done it had I known. I swear.. "
Jonas Blackwell was on his feet. "Your Honor, my client invokes his Fifth Amendment rights. I request that the questioning be terminated."
"I said, sit down!" the judge thundered. He leaned close to the witness stand. "Doctor, your counsel suggests that you rely on your right against self-incrimination. Do you wish-"
"No!" Schein waved off the judge with a stiff gesture that reminded me of Richard Nixon on the day he quit. "Harry Bernhardt was an evil man. Maybe he didn't abuse Christina, but what he did to Emily was a crime. He knew we were in love. He could have let her go, but he was so cruel, so inhumane. And Emily was so beautiful and frail. She lost the will to live. It's Harry's fault she died, not mine."
That puzzled me. "No one said it was your fault."
"He killed her," Schein said, "maybe not with a gun or a needle."
There it was again. What was he saying? We weren't here to talk about Emily. Or were we?
"How did Emily die?" I asked.
Socolow stood up, seemed to think about objecting, and sat down again.
"I begged her to leave him." Not exactly responsive, but why not let him ramble? "I told her how I'd take care of her, protect her, but she couldn't do it. She wasn't strong enough. He snuffed the life out of her. She begged me to do it…"
Lawrence Schein stared into space. Abe Socolow and I exchanged looks. He shrugged his shoulders, telling me it was my ball, run with it. At the defense table, Chrissy's eyes were filled with tears.
"Do what?" I asked.
"End it. We made a pact. I'd poison her while she was sedated. Then I'd kill myself."
Omigod.
A rumble of astonished voices swept through the courtroom.
Judge Stanger lifted his gavel, but never brought it down. Miraculously, the noise stopped, no one wanting to miss a word.
"With potassium chloride," I said, all the gaps filling in. "The needle. You injected Emily Bernhardt, but then you chickened out. You killed her but not yourself. You're a killer and a coward."
His head bobbed up and down. "At her first spasm, I knew what I did was wrong. All these years, and I still see her pain, even with the sedatives. I've carried it with me all this time. That's why I had to do something."
"Why?"
It's a question you're never supposed to ask on cross, but this time I knew the answer.
"Because I'd killed the wrong Bernhardt. I'd carried the guilt and shame for so long, it had nearly driven me insane. I had to kill Harry Bernhardt. I had to heal myself. It was my therapy."
34
Judge Myron Stanger shed his black robe and tossed it across the sofa. He loosened his tie, opened a door of leaded glass on his credenza, and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel's.
"Let the record reflect that we have reconvened in chambers," he said. "Counsel for the state and defense are present, as well as the defendant."
And the court stenographer. She never gets mentioned, but there she was, banging away at her little machine. I could hear the commotion on the other side of the door, the judge's secretary fending off reporters like a blocker picking up the blitz. Britt Montero's angry voice came through the door, something about the First Amendment and access to the courts. Chrissy and I sat next to each other in chairs facing the judge's desk. She looked confused and frightened. I patted her hand and winked at her.
"Let's go off the record, Margie," the judge said, and the stenographer straightened up and cracked her knuckles. "God-damnedest thing I've ever seen in a courtroom, and I've tried more cases than the two of you put together. What the hell do we do now, boys?"
The judge hadn't opened the bottle, wouldn't until the hearing was over. He pulled a Cuban cigar out of his desk drawer, a stubby four-inch Entreacto that would have looked good on Edward G. Robinson.
"I'd like to make a motion," I said.
The judge simultaneously lit his cigar and nodded to Margie, whose fingers were poised over her keys the next instant.
"But first, the defense rests," I said.
The judge exhaled a pungent puff of white smoke and turned to Socolow. "Any rebuttal?"
Socolow said, "The state waives rebuttal."
"The defense moves for a judgment of acquittal," I said, opening the rule book. "Under 3.380, no view which the jury may take of the evidence favorable to the state can lawfully support a conviction. The undisputed evidence is that my client simply did not kill her father. A third party did, and hence…"
Did I really say "hence"?
"… there is no basis on which a jury could find her guilty of murder of any degree or of manslaughter."
"What about aggravated assault, Jake?" the judge interrupted, while studying the red-hot tip of his cigar. "If Abe here asked for it, I could charge the jury on ag assault or maybe attempted murder."
"Respectfully not, Your Honor," I said. "She hasn't been charged with aggravated assault, and under Perry v. State, the charging document can't be amended now because of a variance in proof. Additionally, attempted murder is not a lesser included offense, because it's possible to commit each offense without committing the other, and each contains elements the other does not. Therefore, under the rule, the court has no choice but to render a judgment of acquittal."
There are occasions-not many, I grant you-when I almost sound like a lawyer.
The judge puffed on his stogie, if a thirty-dollar cigar can be called a stogie. "Abe, sounds like your buddy's done his research. You got anything to say?"
"Jake's wrong about one thing," Abe said, looking at me with a tight smile. "The evidence isn't undisputed. The medical examiner testified that the cardiac arrest stemmed from the shooting. Dr. Schein seems to think he killed Harry Bernhardt. Technically, therefore, it's a jury question. It's-"
"Judge, the EKG and the electrolyte test make it clear what killed-"
"Jake, don't interrupt me!" Socolow stood and paced to a window overlooking the Miami River. "I said, technically it's a jury question. That doesn't mean the state wants it to go to a jury. We'll be in front of the grand jury this afternoon and we'll have an indictment for first-degree murder against Lawrence Schein by dinnertime, maybe another against Guy Bernhardt for conspiracy. It'd be pretty damn embarrassing if we charged a man with murder the same day a jury convicted someone else of the crime. I'm not sure what killed Harry Bernhardt. Maybe your client did it; maybe Schein did it; maybe God said it was time. But I know this. There's a difference between moral culpability and legal culpability. This young woman's been victimized by her brother and her doctor. I'm not going to add to it."