“Yes.”
“And did we continue our affair after I learned about your relationship with Bissonette?”
“Well, you kissed me after that,” she said. “When you gave me the subpoena.” That got a chuckle from the crowd.
“But now our relationship is over, is that right?”
“It was over before it started,” she said.
“And we’re not seeing each other anymore?”
“No,” she said and then she let out a sly smile. “Not even if you begged.”
I stepped back and winced. My reaction was noticed, there was a titter from the jury, a few slight laughs from the audience behind me. And somehow, with the laugher it all seemed all right now. It was the banter that did it, the clichéd angry girlfriend bit that did it. It was as if my relationship with Veronica now fell neatly into that whole boy-girl thing, absolving me of anything dark and sinister. I glanced over to the jury and there were some admiring glances, that someone like me could have played around with someone like her. I had been raised a few notches in their esteem. It was incredible, I thought, that a woman with whom I was obsessed could mash a grapefruit in my face in the middle of a crowded courtroom and it only served to build up my standing. Sure, let it happen just like that. I had a job to do, a story to tell, and now it was time to tell it.
“All right, Miss Ashland,” I said. “You have a checking account, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Is there another name on that account?”
“Chet’s name is also on the account.”
“Why?”
“I was getting some money from Jimmy every now and then through Chet. Putting Chet’s name on it made it easier for him to give me the money.”
“Did there come a time when certain large amounts were deposited in that account?”
“Yes,” she said. “Chet asked me to put in certain amounts of cash.”
“Chet asked?” She had made another mistake. “You mean the councilman.”
“No, Chet. I assumed he was asking on behalf of Jimmy. Everything before with that account had always been on behalf of Jimmy.” So that’s what she had meant when she said Jimmy had asked her to deposit the money. But why had Concannon gone along with it? I looked at Chester. He had the same look of doubt his face had held before.
“How much was deposited?” I continued.
“I don’t know the total, but each deposit was always just under ten thousand dollars.”
“How many deposits?”
“Ten or fifteen.”
“And what happened to the money?”
“I don’t know firsthand,” she said.
“Tell us what you know,” I said.
“Objection, hearsay,” said Prescott.
“Sustained,” said the judge.
“Well, what had you heard?” I asked.
“Objection,” said Prescott.
“Sustained,” said Judge Gimbel. “Move on, Mr. Carl.”
That line wasn’t working. She didn’t know enough to get out what I had wanted to get out about Norvel Goodwin and the money. Her knowledge was secondhand, her answers too indistinct. I looked over at the jury box. I saw a yawn. The sight of it cut me. I was losing them. I needed something big, now.
“All right, Miss Ashland, let’s move on to Zack Bissonette.” There was a pause, which sucked back the jury’s attention. “Where did you meet him?”
“At his club. Jimmy, Chet, Chuckie, and I used to go there. That’s how we met.”
“How did you start dating?”
“Dating?” She tossed me a little smirk, just to let everyone know she was no cheerleader in a ponytail. “He asked me out one night at the club.”
“While you were there with Jimmy?”
“Yes. Whatever his shortcomings, lack of gall was not one of them.”
“And what did you say?”
“I gave him my phone number.”
“You wrote it down for him?”
“I just told it to him. I figured if he was interested enough he would remember.”
“And he remembered?”
“Yes. He called me the next day.”
“And you went out together.”
“Yes.”
“Why, Miss Ashland? Why did you go out with Mr. Bissonette?”
“He was handsome, he had played baseball, poorly maybe, but he had played, he dressed in black, I don’t know, I guess I couldn’t think of a reason not to.”
“Now when you started going out with Mr. Bissonette, were you using drugs?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“How long had you been drug-free?”
“Over two years.”
“Did you see Mr. Bissonette many times?”
“A few.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Yes, I slept with him.”
“Did there come a time when you stopped seeing him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I grew bored. I grow bored easily, Mr. Carl, as you know. He was boring, that’s all.”
“So you told him it was over.”
“Yes.”
“How did Mr. Bissonette take it?”
“Not very well. He wanted to keep seeing me. He insisted we keep going out.”
“What happened?”
“I said no, that it was over.”
“Did there come a time when you started seeing him again?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well, he was begging, he was a pest. One night when I was bored, with nothing to do, I called and told him he could come over.”
“Did he bring anything with him?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He brought me cocaine.”
I stepped back from the podium for a moment to let the last answer sink in. The points were being laid out and I wanted the connections to be drawn by the jurors before being made explicit by Veronica. I wanted them to expect to hear what Veronica would say, that Jimmy, who was violently opposed to drugs, had reacted violently once he found out that Bissonette had been first sleeping with and then supplying drugs to his mistress, a woman who had filled the gap in his life left from the drug death of his daughter. I wanted to set it up so that when Veronica gave voice to the obvious suspicions her response would be that much more believable. I turned around to look at the rest of the courtroom. There was Morris nodding at me, sitting next to Herm and Beth. Slocum was also in the audience, taking notes as he prepared for the murder trial. Behind Jimmy, where his wife usually sat, was an empty place in the benches. The courtroom artists were busily sketching the scene. Everything was perfectly in place. When whatever murmurs that had arisen from the cocaine response faded, I stepped back to the podium to continue.
“Did you take the cocaine that Mr. Bissonette offered?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why, Miss Ashland, if you had been drug-free for over two years?”
“Because I missed it, and I was lonely, and I was disgusted that I had allowed a stiff like Zack back into my bedroom. Because I am not as strong a woman as I would like, Mr. Carl.”
“Did you become addicted again?”
“Yes.”
“Did you only get cocaine from Mr. Bissonette?”
“No.”
“Where else?”
“Anywhere I could.”
“Did you have another primary source?”
“Yes.”
“Who, Ms. Ashland?”
“Norvel Goodwin,” she said.
“The same man who had been selling out of that crack house on Fifty-first Street, the same man who Jimmy Moore had beaten with a chair?”
“Yes.”
“Now, did there come a time that someone else found out about your renewed drug use?”
“Yes.”
“And who was that?”
“Chet Concannon found out,” she said.
She had made still another mistake that I had to correct. “You mean the councilman, don’t you?”
“No,” she said. “It was Chet who found out.”
“And then Chester told the councilman?”
“No,” she said. “Chet came right to me.”
I gave her another chance. “So when did the councilman come over?”
“He never did. Chet had the limousine that night, he often used it, and he came over to my apartment after he found out.”