“I got off at two, so a little before that.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted to know if I wanted to go out with him, go to a party with him.”
“And how did you answer?”
“I-I said yes.”
“You said yes.” Jess spun that out to maximum effect, looking significantly at the jury as she did so. There it was, straight from the horse’s mouth, she willed her eyes to say above that fixed smile: Tiffany Higgs had said yes. Hopefully, the unspoken question that was left hanging was, what else had she said yes to that night? Jess watched the jury register it, felt a spurt of satisfaction, then let her attention swing back to the witness. “Where did he take you, Ms. Higgs?”
The courtroom went quiet in expectation. The grandmotherly juror’s knitting continued to rest untouched in her lap. The third juror from the left in the rear—male, midsixties, retired pilot—quit the incessant rocking back and forth in his chair that had underlined most of the proceedings with a just-audible-enough-to-be-annoying squeak. The rustling in the courtroom pews stopped. Even the court reporter’s fingers suspended over the keys.
There had been so much media coverage that everyone, it seemed, knew the prosecution’s version of the story: Rob Phillips had lured an unsuspecting Tiffany Higgs up to his apartment, where he had brutally attacked and raped her. Repeatedly. Over the course of a weekend that she claimed to have spent handcuffed to a bed. Only a fire in a neighboring apartment, which had brought firefighters in to evacuate the building, had saved her. The jury knew they were now getting to the steamy, salacious, sensational meat of it. Jess could feel the anticipation in the courtroom building, coursing like electricity through the air.
“He took me to his apartment.” Tiffany’s voice was so low that Jess had to strain to hear it. But asking her to repeat what she had just said might smack of badgering the witness, so she refrained.
“His apartment,” Jess repeated distinctly instead.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Crap. Another “ma’am.”
“So you went with Mr. Phillips to his apartment at two a.m.” Jess’s tone made that in and of itself sound reprehensible. Before Tiffany could counter with another miserable-sounding “yes, ma’am,” Jess hurried to add, “Would you say you went with him willingly? Or not?”
“W-willingly.”
“Refresh my memory, if you would, Ms. Higgs: what floor is Mr. Phillips’s apartment on?”
“The sixth.”
“To reach his apartment, you and Mr. Phillips rode up in an elevator together, isn’t that right? Do you recall how many others were in the elevator with you?”
“Three.”
Jess felt a spurt of satisfaction. Tiffany’s voice had gone way low again. Tiffany knew what was coming, and she feared it.
“Three.” Jess nodded pleasantly. It was always good to agree with the witness when you could. Feeling virtuous because she was being so nice, and was even remembering to keep her mouth stretched into that gotta-like-me smile, she cast a significant look at the jury. “We’ve already heard from those witnesses, but I want to make sure that there’s no mistake, so I’m going to ask you, Ms. Higgs: what were you and Mr. Phillips doing as you rode up to his apartment in the elevator?”
Tiffany wet her lips. The look she shot Jess was resentful. “You know the answer. We were kissing.”
“You were kissing.” Jess rolled the word around on her tongue for the delectation of the jury, then felt vaguely dirty. And if that made her feel dirty, she hated to think what she was going to feel like when she took Tiffany through a blow-by-blow description of her version of what had happened in Rob Phillips’s apartment that night. Maybe, if she was lucky, Pearse would take over before then. But then, she’d never been very lucky. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but hadn’t you just met the man about two hours before?”
“Objection!” Olderman was once more on his feet. “How long she had known him is immaterial. Opposing counsel is again clearly trying to influence the jury’s opinion of Ms. Higgs’s character.”
“Sustained.” Judge Schmidt frowned at her. Jess tried to look innocent. “Watch yourself, Ms. Dean.”
“Sorry, Your Honor.” Jess took a deep breath and turned her attention back to Tiffany, who was visibly shrinking in her chair. “You stated that you and Mr. Phillips were kissing. Would you characterize your participation as willing or unwilling?”
The previous testimony on that point, plus the grainy security video that had been recovered, made it incontrovertible, or Jess wouldn’t have asked the question. Never ask anything in court you don’t already know the answer to: Law School 101.
“I was willing.” Tiffany’s eyes darted toward the prosecution table in obvious distress.
“According to the previous witnesses, you and Mr. Phillips were, in fact, ‘making out’ in the elevator.” Jess managed to sound a little sorrowful at having to point this out, and mentally patted herself on the back for her tone.
Tiffany’s head came up. She took a deep breath.
“That was when I still thought he was a nice guy.” She looked toward the jury. Her eyes flashed. Her voice rose in sudden, unexpected defiance. “But he isn’t! As soon as he got me inside his apartment he changed into a monster. He hurt me! He raped me! He said—I thought—he was going to kill me! It’s the truth, so help me God.”
Then, before Jess could even begin to counteract in any way, Tiffany dropped her head into her hands and burst into noisy tears.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jess felt the jury’s sudden rush of sympathy for Tiffany slam into her like a gust of gale-force wind. The Cheerios clumped into a knot.
“Your Honor!” Olderman was on his feet, raising his voice in an effort to be heard over the sudden excited buzz from the gallery. “We request a recess to allow the witness time to compose herself. Your Honor!”
“The defense has no objection to giving Ms. Higgs time to compose herself, Your Honor,” Jess said before Judge Schmidt could respond. The sounds emanating from beneath Tiffany’s pale hands pressed to her even paler face were heart-rending. Enough so to make even Jess, who was busy steeling her heart by reminding herself that from the defense’s perspective this emotional display was nothing more than a ploy designed to unfairly prejudice the jury, feel a nearly irresistible impulse to pat the weeping woman consolingly on the shoulder.
“This seems to me like a good time to take a lunch break,” Judge Schmidt announced to the courtroom at large. “It’s almost noon anyway. We’ll reconvene at two.”
Noise filled the courtroom as everybody sprang to life at once. The judge rose, as did the jury. The prosecution team converged on Tiffany. Jess retreated to the defense table.
“You call that a Malti-poo?” Christine greeted her under her breath, shaking her improbably red head so that the ends of her short, feathery ’do quivered. At forty-one, formidable in a black blazer, flowing skirt, and polka-dot bow-necked blouse that made her look just about as wide as she was tall (nearly six feet), Christine had coarse features, sallow skin, and small, snapping brown eyes. The combination should have made her unattractive, but it didn’t, because her personality was forceful enough to overcome any physical flaws. She had a Ph.D. in psychology and a J.D. from Stanford Law and was arguably the preeminent jury consultant in the country. Which, of course, was why she was on Ellis Hayes’s payroll: with a few notable exceptions, they only hired the best. Christine was already on her feet and gathering her belongings preparatory to going to lunch even as she glared at Jess. “Hell, you’re as bad as Collins. Just smaller. And female.”
Her bulk blocked her comments from being overheard by anyone else, for which Jess was thankful. Since Pearse had conscripted her onto the defense team, originally just temporarily, to help with background research because the member of his team who usually did that had been sent off on a quick business trip to follow a lead, and had then eloped and failed to return, she’d been working with Christine eve
ry day. She liked her, respected her, was learning a lot from her and appreciated her outspoken ways. Usually. At least when the caustic remarks Christine was famous for weren’t directed at her.
“I was gentle with her. I smiled,” Jess protested in an aggrieved undertone.
“Some smile.” Christine slid a yellow legal pad into her briefcase. “I’ve seen better smiles on barracudas. Hope you don’t have any lunch plans, cause we’ve got some work to do.”
Jess started to reply, then almost bit her tongue as a heavy arm dropped unexpectedly around her shoulders.
“How ya doin’, sweetheart?” The defendant’s father gave Jess a hard hug that had her fighting back a grimace. Though it might not have been working just at present on her, the three-term senator from Virginia was renowned for his charm. A blue-blooded charter member of the D.C. old boy network, he was a glad-hander, a kisser of babies, always clapping men on the back or hugging women, immensely popular with his constituents. Six feet tall, a little overweight, a little jowly at sixty-two, he was still a handsome man with regular features and a full head of dark hair (Grecian Formula, anyone?). He was also one of the leading contenders to be the next Republican nominee for president of the United States, or at least he had been before his son had been charged with rape. Appearing beside him, his wife, Vicky, nodded a greeting. A tall, thin, fifty-something blonde, Georgetown chic in a pale blue linen suit and pearls, she reached for her son’s arm even as he, a younger, handsomer version of his father, came around the table to join them.
“I can’t say I like the way this is going,” the senator continued without waiting for Jess to reply. He was looking at Pearse.
“We’ve got to get the truth out of her.” Mrs. Phillips, too, was looking at Pearse. “All that shaking and crying she’s doing—she’s making the jury feel sorry for her. Can’t you get the judge to order her to stop that?”
“There’s no doubt the witness’s demeanor is having an effect on the jury, but I’d rather not make an issue of it.” Pearse gave Mrs. Phillips his best reassuring smile.
He was on his feet, buttoning up the jacket of his perfectly tailored gray suit, which he wore with a white shirt and silver tie. Pearse was vain, as the best defense lawyers often were, gravitating to the profession because it called for much peacock-y strutting before a jury, and the ensemble had been chosen, Jess suspected, to play up the arresting light gray of his eyes. Six-three, forty-ish, with a leonine mane of raven hair and the burly build of a prize fighter, Pearse had a prominent nose, broad, high cheekbones, and a jaw so square it could have been stolen from Mt. Rushmore. Handsome wasn’t the right word to describe him, although Jess supposed he was. Imposing was a better one. A Yale grad himself, he was the biggest of Ellis Hayes’s big guns in the criminal defense division. “I’m hoping that when it counts, Ms. Higgs’s emotionalism will work in our favor.”
“It makes her look like the nutcase she is, Mama, don’t you see? That’s what we want. That’s what Jessie here is trying to show.” Rob smiled at Jess even as he spoke reassuringly to his mother. It was an effort to smile back: she hated the way he called her Jessie, which no one else ever did and no one had invited him to do. It was inappropriate under the circumstances. It was condescending. It was irritating, particularly since, given the fact that she was a very lowly member of the defense team and he was the client, correcting him wasn’t in the cards. Add in the fact that he had somehow acquired her cell phone number and had called her on it twice, both times to ask her something he could have found out from anyone else, and it was also a little creepy. “It should be obvious to anyone from just watching her up there that she’s got some major emotional problems. So that’s good for us, huh?”
He, too, looked at Pearse, who made a noncommittal gesture by way of a reply.
“The woman’s a liar.” Mrs. Phillips’s expression was fierce. “Can’t they see that?”
“She’s hanging herself up there. You just heard her admit we were making out in the elevator.” Rob patted his mother’s hand. “Jessie’s got her on the run already.” His eyes met Jess’s. She realized that one of the things she found so off-putting about him was his smug assumption that she found him attractive. “You just keep hammering away at her, Jessie, and she’ll fall apart, see if she doesn’t.”
She forced a smile in response and devoutly hoped he couldn’t read what she was thinking: I don’t like you.
He was tanned, with even features, gleaming white teeth, and dark brown hair kept short and well groomed for the trial. Handsome, well-educated, and rich—Rob Phillips shouldn’t have been hard up for female company, so why, Jess kept asking herself in an effort to bolster her own personal belief in his innocence, would he need to resort to rape? She’d been in his orbit for weeks now, and he’d been nothing but friendly toward her. Overfriendly? That was, she supposed, a matter of opinion, based, objectively, on nothing more than those two phone calls and the way he called her Jessie. Still, above and beyond that, there was something about him that just simply made her radar go off.
Something about him that bothered her. Something that increasingly made her think, I’m terrified Tiffany’s telling the truth.
It was a gut feeling that was inconvenient, unwelcome, unsettling. It also, she reminded herself grimly, had nothing to do with anything factual, or, indeed, anything at all. By law, Rob Phillips was entitled to the best defense money could buy.
And that was Ellis Hayes.
He smiled at her then, the slow smile of a man who thinks he’s charming the woman he’s targeting, and she couldn’t help it: client or no client, she frowned and looked pointedly away.
Whatever the truth about his guilt or innocence, she was working hard to get Rob Phillips off the hook here. She didn’t have to flirt with him, too.
“You’re being too nice to the whore,” Senator Phillips lowered his voice to say to Jess, his tone turning vicious. She felt her throat tighten, both at the word, which she hated to hear applied to any woman but found especially offensive in this particular context, and at the idea that this very important man who was paying the bill was less than pleased with her work. Fortunately, she didn’t have to reply: he was already looking past her to Pearse. “With all due respect to Miss Dean here, I’d feel better about things if you were helming the ship, Pearse.”
“I am helming the ship. Jess is just asking the questions,” Pearse answered. “You know we agreed to follow Dr. Hubbard’s strategy.”
“You’re paying me big bucks, Senator, and the reason you are is because I am damned good at my job,” Christine said. “So I suggest you let me do what it is I do.” She switched her gaze to Jess. “You’re keeping the jury from going completely over to the prosecution’s side, which is the important thing right now, while Ms. Higgs is up there shaking and crying on the stand. Later, when they have other witnesses up there, Pearse can do his thing.”
They were all, including defense cocounsel Andrew Brisco—Columbia grad, mid-thirties, attractive if not precisely handsome, with shaggy auburn hair, blunt features, and rimless glasses that slightly magnified bright blue eyes—moving toward the door by that time. Andrew, who was five-ten and lean, looked small walking behind Pearse. Andrew was the physical evidence expert, but his role in the courtroom today was basically to serve as another set of eyes and ears, and an extra brain on which Pearse as lead counsel could rely.
“Interrogating the victim in a rape case is damned hard.” Andrew’s remark was obviously aimed at Senator Phillips. Jess was touched to realize that he was coming to her defense. She didn’t know him at all well, as most of her interaction to date had been with Pearse and Christine. “You pretty much can’t win no matter what you do. You just don’t want to turn the jury off to your side of the story until you can give them the picture you want them to see.”
No one replied to that, but Jess smiled gratefully at him as she pushed through the gate with the rest of the defense team. They fell in behind the straggling crowd of exi
ting spectators heading up the aisle.
Lunch would be waiting in the counsel room off to the left for the defense team. No need for any of them to so much as leave the floor unless they wanted to, which Jess wouldn’t have even if Christine hadn’t made it clear they were working through lunch: too much media outside, for one thing. Given her recent notoriety, the last thing she needed was an encounter with the media, especially when she’d been asked—no, ordered—to keep a low profile.
Which so far hadn’t exactly worked out so well.
Two women came barreling down the aisle, pushing their way through the exiting horde, and Jess recognized Tiffany’s mother and sister. The mother was short and heavy-set, with small eyes and a smaller mouth set in a round face topped by a slick cap of black hair. The sister was as blond and waiflike as Tiffany.
That’s why what she said as she shouldered past Jess came as such a shock.
Looking Jess squarely in the eye as she shoved past, she muttered, “Bitch.”
Head swiveling after the sister because she couldn’t help herself, Jess saw that beyond her, in the well, Tiffany was just now stepping down from the witness stand. Olderman’s hand curled around her elbow to steady her, and Sandra Johnson, the lone woman on the prosecution team, held her hand and talked softly to her. Then the mother and sister burst through the gate and fell on Tiffany with loud cries of sympathy. Jess jerked her eyes forward again, but not before she noticed that Sandra Johnson, who’d relinquished her position to Tiffany’s family members, was smiling. And not because of the touching family tableau in front of her, either, Jess knew. She was smiling because, from her perspective, life was good. From Olderman on to Johnson and David Kister, also a veteran prosecutor, the vibe was quietly confident. They obviously felt the trial was going their way. Now their three-strong prosecution team plus Tiffany’s family hovered solicitously around Tiffany, who was drooping in their midst like a wilted flower. Everything about the prosecutors, from the ink staining their fingers—courtesy of the cheap pens called for by government budget constraints—to their slightly seedy suits, made it clear: compared to the high-powered, big-moneyed defense, these were the low-rent guys. They were—or should have been—the underdogs. But they weren’t, not with this trial, not today. Because, in the end, it was all up to the jury, and juries were unpredictable.
Justice Page 4