Fowler’s eyes had gotten something back in them -anger or hatred or both. Either, Hardy thought, was better than nothing.
‘You’re a big help, Dismas, thanks a lot.’ At least Jane had modulated her voice.
Fowler straightened up. ‘Don’t tell me I don’t want her back. You don’t know…’
Hardy nodded. ‘You’re right, Andy, I don’t know. What I do know is that you never had a chance to get her back because you never had her in the first place.’
‘What do you suppose this is doing, Dismas?’ Jane asked.
‘It’s all right, hon,’ Fowler told her.
Hardy kept at it. ‘Damn straight, it’s all right. You ask what it’s doing, Jane? I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting a little tired of wading through all of this while the ol’ judge here sails on overhead.‘ He spoke to his client. ’Andy, I’m sorry, but you’re not some tragic hero. I can’t just sit here and watch you waste away over some fairy tale you’ve concocted that’s pretty well destroyed everything you’ve worked for.‘ Hardy softened his voice, put his hand on Fowler’s back. ’The woman’s dead, Andy. She’s not coming back. It’s time to wake up and this is your wake-up call.‘
David Freeman, famed defense counsel, was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case, and Elizabeth Pullios knew it. Thus far they had established beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that Andy Fowler had been devastated by May, had hired a private investigator to find out why she had stopped seeing him, had found out it was because she had fallen in love with Owen Nash, or acted like she did, and had kept a surveillance on the movements of Nash for the next several months, until the man’s murder. To nearly everyone he knew – except for Gary Smythe -he had told less than the truth, had indeed lied, about Owen Nash. He knew the location of the gun on the boat and his fingerprints were on it. He was an expert sailor in his own right and could easily have taken the Eloise in and tied it up after dark, even in rough water.
All that established, however, Hardy still thought the jury would have a difficult time bringing in a murder verdict, especially after Fowler testified for himself (assuming Hardy could move him to do so). So far everything the judge had done – a couple of white lies, a more or less natural curiosity to understand more about why a lover, as perceived by him, had tired of him, a plausible explanation of how fingerprints came to be on the murder weapon – could be explained, Hardy hoped, by the overriding fact that he had merely wanted to keep an illicit and embarrassing relationship secret.
Up to now, Hardy believed, none of this showed sufficient consciousness-of-guilt to prove anything to secure a conviction. When David Freeman took the stand, however, all that would change. In spite of Freeman’s private support, it was going to get ugly, Hardy thought. He was prepared to object to every question if need be, and if the jury didn’t like him for it, so be it. The bare facts of Freeman’s testimony would be damning enough – he at least wanted to try to contain any interpretation of them.
Pullios, playing affable and deferential, began to walk Freeman gently through some establishing testimony, then commenced zeroing in on the events of the previous June.
‘Mr Freeman, do you know the defendant?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’
‘I’ve known the judge for many years.’ He didn’t so much as glance at Hardy.
‘Would you say you were friends?’
‘We’ve had a courteous professional relationship. We don’t see each other socially. Sort of like me and you.’
He smiled. She smiled. The jury seemed to like it.
‘Last June, did your relationship change?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘The judge hired me.’
Chomorro: ‘Mr Freeman, we’re all aware that the defendant was a judge in this court. For accuracy’s sake, please refer to Mr Fowler either by his name or as the defendant.’
Freeman said it was a habit, he was sorry.
‘And what did Mr Fowler hire you to do?’
‘To defend May Shinn, who had been charged with killing Owen Nash -’
Chomorro’s gavel came down with a crash. Hardy suppressed a smile. Nice, Dave, he thought.
‘Mr Freeman, restrict your answers to the questions asked.’
‘I’m sorry, Your Honor, I thought that was what was asked.’
But there it was in the record. Pullios could not very well object since she had asked the question. There was nothing to do but press on. ‘Mr Fowler hired you to defend May Shinn, who, as you say, was charged with murder?’
That’s right.‘
‘Were you surprised by his request?’
‘Not at first.’
This was a wrinkle Hardy had not expected. In his deposition Freeman had said he was stunned by it. Now he was not surprised ‘at first.’
Pullios went with it. ‘Why not “at first”?’
‘Sometimes the court will want to check out a couple of defense firms before giving a criminal assignment. See if they might be overloaded, that type of thing.’
‘But that wasn’t the case here?’
‘No.’
‘What was the case here?’
‘Well, the judge – excuse me, the defendant – wanted to hire me as a private person.’
‘To defend Ms Shinn?’
‘Yes.’
‘And was that unusual?’
‘I’d say, yes, it was.’
‘Was there anything else unusual about the arrangements?’
Hardy stood at his table. ‘Objection. Overbroad.’
‘Sustained.’
Pullios tried again. ‘Was Ms Shinn to know about this arrangement?’
Hardy was up again. Conclusion from the witness and hearsay. Pullios might be getting it out, but it was going to be pulling teeth. She smiled tightly. ‘Can you describe to us the conversation you had with the defendant regarding her defense?’
‘Up to a point, yes.’ Freeman said. He spoke directly to the jury. ‘After I accepted the job, of course Mr Fowler became my client and our conversations were privileged.’
Freeman wasn’t giving up a thing. Hardy had been planning on drawing him out on cross, going into the false arrest of May Shinn, all of that. But it seemed Freeman was doing his work for him.
Pullios, however, could read the signs, too – this one said ‘Ambush Ahead.“ Freeman was, in prosecutor’s lingo, going sideways. Witnesses did it all the time. Pullios had seen it before. She got a little less friendly.
‘Mr Freeman, is it a fact that Mr Fowler asked you to keep your relationship with him a secret from Ms Shinn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it a fact that bail of five hundred thousand dollars was set for Ms Shinn?’
The facts continued to come out: that Fowler had put up his apartment building as collateral; that Ms Shinn was indicted by the grand jury for murder, putting the case in Superior Court; that Shinn’s trial was assigned to Fowler’s courtroom…
Now Pullios was on a roll and there wasn’t much to do about it. ‘Now, Mr Freeman, knowing as you did the relationship between the defendant and Ms Shinn, what was your reaction to the assignment of Ms Shinn’s trial to Mr Fowler’s courtroom?’
Freeman thought about his answer for a moment. ‘Well, I had mixed feelings. I thought it would be good for my client if the trial went on in Mr Fowler’s court, but I thought there was no chance that would happen.’
An answer Pullios wanted. ‘You expected Mr Fowler to recuse himself?’
Hardy objected, citing relevance. ‘Who cares what Mr Freeman expected?’
Chomorro thought, I do, and said, ‘Overruled.’
Pullios repeated the question, asking whether Freeman expected Fowler to recuse himself.
‘Of course.’
‘But he did not?’
Freeman gave it a second, but there was really no avoiding it. ‘No, he did not.’
Hardy thought he could make a few points.
‘Mr Freeman, Ms Shinn was charged with killing Owen Nash, the same individual the defendant is now charged with killing?’