Yet surely I have a duty to Leigh to do everything I can to win this case. So why am I not calling her? If I can’t even trust my own client, this case has more to do with my own ego than the lawyer’s canons of professional responsibility.
The phone rings. It is Jessie, who says, “Leigh’s in the shower. I’m downstairs.” As I tell her what I want, Sarah, with pizza in hand and Woogie at her heels, walks out of the kitchen.
“How do I get there?” Jessie asks without a pause.
I marvel at the excitement in her voice. I wouldn’t go out my front door when Chet was shot until I absolutely had to, and she’s willing to break into a house on the spur of the moment.
“I’ll park in the garage across from the courthouse and leave my keys and directions for you at the front desk. A camera with film will be in the front seat. Put the pictures in an envelope, and Dan will walk across the street during the trial and pick them up.
I don’t expect you to testify that you broke into his house.”
“Thanks,” she says dryly.
“All of the witnesses are supposed to be in the witness room by eight-thirty. How do we get him out of his house?”
I look at the pizza cooling on the stove and begin to get hungry again. I haven’t thought of that.
“You know how old people are; he’ll probably be thirty minutes early,” I say.
“He’s got a red Saturn. If it’s not in his driveway, he’s already left. If you can’t find anything in fifteen minutes, forget it and come on down. If you’re only a few minutes late, he’ll never suspect it was you.”
I describe his house as best I can remember and answer her questions about what to photograph to set up the initial questions and then get off the phone so I can track down a Polaroid.
I shouldn’t have been worried.
“I’ll rip off Brenda’s and meet you at seven in the Excelsior parking garage,” Dan says after I call him back.
Dan’s main worry, like the concern of most of the human race, is with getting caught. As we discuss the case and how I will try to use the photographs, I wonder if he and Brenda have used the Polaroid to photograph each other naked. I can’t imagine it. Yet, who knows, as the song says, what goes on behind closed doors?
At ten the phone rings again, and I fear it is Jessie backing out. Instead, when I answer. Pearl Norman’s boozy voice says, “Mr. Page, neither my daughter nor my husband killed my son-in-law…. I’d like to talk to you.”
Where is she calling from? I wonder. Surely Shane wouldn’t be putting her up to this. I hear the sound of water running and realize she could have a portable phone in her bathroom.
“I can’t talk to you, Mrs. Norman,” I say.
“As a witness in the case you’ve been instructed not to discuss it with anyone. Don’t you remember the judge telling you that this morning?” I re mind her. Grider will have me disbarred if he thinks I have tried to influence a witness.
She mutters something incomprehensible and hangs up, and I kick myself for never having tried to follow up with her. Does she have some information, or was this the drunken call of a pathetic alcoholic who is sure to lose something tomorrow? Either her daughter is going to jail or her husband’s reputation will be irrevocably harmed, or’ both. It occurs to me that I never checked out her alibi, but the truth is that I haven’t ever been able to make myself take her seriously. What did Leigh say? She has been out of the loop ever since she was born. Still, tomorrow when she testifies, she may say more than she intends to, and that may be what this phone call was all about.
Sarah’s light is off when I lock up the house at mid night. I hope she will be there when I get up the next morning. In bed, I have trouble getting to sleep. My daughter is right. I use people. I used Jessie and even Dan tonight. Maybe when this case is over I need to think about the direction my life is taking. Yet, with a little luck, I can win this case tomorrow. I know I can.
17
Jill begins her case with the two octogenarians Leigh originally claimed she spoke with at the church between nine and eleven-thirty and follows with Nancy Lyons, who also contradicts the story Leigh gave to the police.
All we can do right now is pretend we are not being hurt by her lies. During the middle of their testimony I send Dan across the street to the Excelsior with his briefcase to pick up what I hope are some pictures of the inside of Tyndall’s house. Ten minutes later he comes back and nods, and it is all I can do to resist tearing into the envelope he lays beside me on the defense table. For the last hour I have imagined I could hear sirens, but my strange friend Jessie St. Vrain must have carried out her crime undetected. Hurray for the West Coast, I think, as Dan whispers, “She got a few halfway decent shots of some equipment and the interior of his house.”
Watching the jury as Jill zips through her witnesses, I think about Tyndall’s possible answers. If he doesn’t authenticate the pictures, they will be useless. Leigh, beside me in a beige suit that sets off her magnificent black hair, has a quizzical expression on her face, but I shrug as if Dan merely went out to get some routine documents. Since Chet’s death, I have not been able to read her. If she has been participating in some kind of cover-up involving her father, Chet’s suicide is not a part of it. If anything, she is more perplexed than I am by his decision to end his life. Understandably, she is so nervous today she can’t keep still and stirs impatiently at almost every question.
“Try to remain motionless,” I remind her.
“If you move around too much, some of the jurors will take it as a sign of guilt.”
She nods solemnly and clasps her hands in her lap.
Her testimony will be the key, but all she can do now is wait.
Jill puts on the cops who took Leigh’s statement, follows with the pathologist who fixes the time of death at between ten and eleven-thirty, and then calls Mrs. Sims, who found Art’s body. As I listen to this poor old lady babble about the crime scene and how she burst into tears, I find it unlikely that Leigh would have picked a weepy, frail old woman in her seventies to discover Art’s body. Yet, that unlikelihood could have been part of a desperate attempt to cover up his murder. I waive my chance to cross-examine the witness lest I reinforce the impression she is making. Between sobs, she has volunteered that Leigh, like herself, became hysterical.
Beside me, Leigh tears up, possibly from guilt at what she put the old lady through. I don’t discourage her, and during this emotional moment, I take a peek at the pictures. They could help, but everything depends upon Tyndall’s answers. As I quickly flip through them, I see that Jessie has done about as well with the Polaroid as I could have hoped for. Though the quality isn’t terrific, she has managed to get various pieces of equipment, including a tiny microphone similar to the one she wears, next to a photograph of Tyndall and a young woman, who may well be Mary Patricia.
Ann and Bobby Wheeler prove to be more nervous witnesses than I would have expected, given their wealth and sophistication. Holding herself stiffly erect in a spruce-green cotton knit dress which is overlaid with expensive jewelry, Ann, so warm and sympathetic before when I interviewed her, answers in a tense, clipped voice. She is more forthcoming than her husband and establishes that there was, indeed, an argument between Leigh and Art the night before he died.
“Did you check out their alibis?” Dan asks, during Jill’s examination of Bobby.
“Hell, no,” I mutter. Moments before, Bobby Wheeler barely acknowledged that there had been a little unpleasantness in the neighborhood that day. Still, Dan is right. We should at least have made a phone call or two. Ann, her gold bracelet clanking against the arm of the witness chair, tells Jill she was playing tennis at the “club” all morning. If I had been able to establish that they, too, had actually been at home at the time of Art’s death, Leigh’s odds might have improved. But as fastidious and career-driven as Bobby appears to be, I can’t form a mental picture of him taking off a morning to murder anyone or even to screw his wife. These people are simply embarrassed to be here.