Star Witness

by D. W. Buffa

  We kept driving along the narrow road, past clusters of small houses tucked away in the hills, until we came to a cottage set back in a tangle of manzanita trees.

  “This is where I live,” announced Julie as she pulled into the carport and turned off the engine. When we got inside, Julie poured me a drink.

  “Tomorrow’s Friday,” she said as she sat on the sofa beside me. “I thought I’d drive up to Santa Barbara for the weekend. There’s a place I go up there when I have things I need to think about.”

  She pulled one knee onto the sofa and rested her arm against my shoulder.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” She smiled, and then added: “Or do you have to go back to San Francisco?”

  At that moment I did not want to go anywhere. She took the glass out of my hand and put it down on the coffee table. She took my hand and got to her feet.

  “In the meantime, why don’t you stay here tonight? I promise to get you to court on time,” she said in a low, husky voice as we began to walk toward the other room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  STANLEY ROTH WAS NOT ANGRY at all. If anything, he seemed a little amused.

  “You didn’t show up last night,” he said as I settled into the chair next to his. I removed from my briefcase a black loose-leaf notebook and a yellow legal pad.

  “It was late when I finished dinner,” I explained, rapidly scribbling a note about something I wanted to ask the prosecution’s next witness. “And I still had a lot of work to do.”

  I kept my eyes on the sheet of paper in front of me, watching my hand race across the page, leaving in its wake the scratch marks of my indecipherable scrawl. For a while Roth did not say anything; but I could feel him watching me. I knew he did not believe me.

  “Just remember what I told you about her,” he said presently.

  I stopped writing. With the pen poised to resume its work, I turned my head. He was not giving me a warning to stay away from her; he certainly was not threatening to do something if I did not. He was telling me to be careful around a woman who could be trusted only within limits, if she could be trusted at all.

  Stanley Roth expected loyalty and he sacrifice, and he was too convinced of his own importance and the importance of what he did to imagine anyone could think him a hypocrite, or learn that they had better look out for themselves, each time he discarded someone he decided was no longer necessary or useful. I knew I could not fully trust Julie Evans, but it was not because of anything Roth had ever told me. I had become more involved with her than, for a lot of reasons, I should have; so involved, I’m afraid, that whatever regrets I might have about it were not likely to stop me from seeing her again. I was the willing prisoner of my own lingering illusions about what I thought I could still be in the eyes of a beautiful young woman.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said rather brusquely to Roth.

  I quickly finished the note I was writing to myself, and then put down the pen. Pushing my chair back at an angle, I bent toward him so none of the jurors who were twisting into their places in the jury box could hear.

  “Why did you resign?” I asked, peering intently into his pale blue eyes. “Did Wirthlin threaten to tell the D.A. what happened the other night?”

  There was no response. Roth started to look away.

  “Wirthlin is the prosecution’s next witness.” With a slight backward movement of my forehead, I gestured toward Annabelle Van Roten at the counsel table behind me. “She told me yesterday there was a rumor that what happened to me was not an accident. Where do you think she heard that?”

  The jury was finally seated. Roth turned away from me, facing them. In the first row, the third juror from the left, a woman in her early thirties who had once done a little acting and whose smooth, well-shaped hands had appeared in several soap commercials, smiled discreetly. She began to converse with the juror next to her, a heavyset, middle-aged woman. Roth placed his arms on the table and tapped his fingers together. On the bench, Judge Honigman arranged the case file, getting ready to start the day’s proceedings. Below him, the clerk crossed her arms and retreated into a daydream of her own. I put my hand on Roth’s shoulder and did not let go until he turned around.

  “I need to know,” I whispered insistently. “What is he going to say? Is he going to tell the jury that you tried to kill him?”

  Reluctantly, Roth shook his head from side to side. “I don’t know what he’s going to say, but he won’t say that.”

  He said it with a kind of paid-for certainty, and we both knew what the price had been. I started to say something, but Roth stopped me.

  “He was not supposed to say anything. No one was supposed to know about the studio until the trial was over. But he couldn’t wait to tell Julie, and then Julie told you.”

  The sound of shuffling papers came to a stop. Rudolph Honigman cleared his throat. While he invited Annabelle Van Roten to call the next witness for the prosecution, I tried to remember everything I could about Michael Wirthlin.

  Perhaps it had been just a rumor, something Van Roten had heard, something she had used to see what reaction she could get from me; perhaps it had been a rumor started by Wirthlin himself, forwarded to the district attorney’s office through some anonymous informant to gain what leverage he could with Stanley Roth. Van Roten did not use it. She asked Wirthlin a great many questions, but she never asked him if he had ever been assaulted by Stanley Roth. Wirthlin had extracted a high price for his silence; too high, I thought, not to see how far he would lie.

  Wirthlin was on the stand most of the day, answering questions, some of them quite technical, about the financial condition of the studio and the arrangements that had been made to insure against the possibility of the death or incapacity of its leading star. Used to wellappointed, softly lit rooms, it had taken him a while to adjust to the glaring lights of the crowded and numbingly utilitarian courtroom. At first, he kept glancing nervously at the jury; astonished, I think, that this was what real people looked and dressed like. He seemed to be afraid that simply by being there he might be mistaken for one of them. When it was my turn to take the witness, I asked him if he wanted a glass of water; I think he would have preferred that I had asked him if he wanted to wash his hands.

  “Mr. Wirthlin,” I began, still sitting in my chair, “you’ve testified that the studio, Blue Zephyr, in which you’re one of the partners, is in some financial difficulty; and that it has in fact lost a great deal of money over the last several years.”

  Through narrowed eyes, I peered at him as if I were trying to reconcile an apparent inconsistency in what he had said. Using my left hand for support, I rose slowly from the chair.

  “You testified that most of this money was lost because of projects directly involving Stanley Roth.”

  I stepped carefully to the end of the counsel table closest to the jury box and directly to the right of where Roth had been sitting all day, watching his partner contribute without any obvious reluctance to the case against him.

  “The last three or four pictures of Mary Margaret Flanders—the last three or four released while she was still alive—lost money. Isn’t that what you testified?”

  “Yes, that is what I testified,” replied Wirthlin matterof- factly. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. Then he lowered his eyes and began to study, one by one, his manicured nails.

  “The studio was in danger of going bankrupt?”

  Wirthlin glanced up. “It could have come to that.”

  In the small space in front of the witness stand I began to pace: three steps to the court clerk’s desk, where I immediately encountered a sullen, possessive stare, and three steps back. Three steps in any direction and I was in danger of stumbling into something. I shook my head in embarrassment. A couple of the jurors smiled knowingly. I pulled myself straight up, turned sideways to the witness, and faced the prosecutor.

  “Apparently, Ms. Van Roten is attempting to establish a motive; though, frankly, it is still a littl
e unclear to me what it might be.”

  Annabelle Van Roten sat back in her chair, resting the side of her face on the tapered fingers of her left hand.

  “The studio was losing money. Then Mary Margaret Flanders was killed and two things happened: the insurance policy the studio carried on her paid off; but far more important, the picture—what everyone now knew would be the last picture Mary Margaret Flanders would ever make—was a huge financial success.”

  Slowly, and as it were, reluctantly, I turned away from Annabelle Van Roten and again faced Michael Wirthlin.

  “The suggestion, I guess, is that Stanley Roth murdered his wife to save his studio. Is that the way you see it, Mr. Wirthlin? Stanley Roth murdered his wife because it was the only way he could keep Blue Zephyr?”

  Though my back was to her, I could hear the chair scrape along the hard linoleum floor as Annabelle Van Roten rose to object. Before the words were out of her mouth, I waved my hand in the air, signaling my contrition. Quickly, I retrieved a document from the file folder on the counsel table.

  “Would you look at the last page and tell us if that is your signature?”

  I handed him the document and waited while he glanced at the bottom of the page where he had signed his name.

  “Yes, that’s my signature,” he said as he let the document hang limp in his hand.

  “Not Stanley Roth?”

  “No, I negotiated the contracts.”

  “In fact, you insisted on that, didn’t you?”

  “I was the chief financial officer. That was—is—part of my job.”

  “But you didn’t decide that Mary Margaret Flanders —or anyone else—was going to be cast for a part in a Blue Zephyr film. Stanley Roth—or some other producer or director—made that decision. Then you worked out the details—the financial details—correct?”

  “Yes, to a point.”

  Wirthlin was anxious not to be thought as having had no role in the more creative side of the business. “In any major picture—with any major star, we—I mean, Stanley and I and a few other people as well—would usually talk about what kind of budget we had to work with, who among the people we wanted might fit within that budget. Sometimes, if the project was particularly interesting, we might be able to get someone for less money up front in exchange for a percentage of the gross. So it wasn’t, you see, like a lot of other businesses where you need to hire someone and you call up personnel and tell them to find someone. We were all involved in deciding who it should be and how much we should spend.”

  I looked over at the jury and smiled; then I turned back to the witness.

  “I see. And you were all involved—weren’t you?—I mean, you and Stanley Roth and Louis Griffin—in the decision about what to do with Mary Margaret Flanders’s last picture, the one she didn’t finish, the one she was making when she was killed.”

  “Yes, we were.” Wirthlin furrowed his brow. “It was a very difficult decision,” he added in a voice designed to emphasize the solemn nature of the task.

  I stared at him, incredulous. “Oh, but it wasn’t difficult for you at all, Mr. Wirthlin!” I insisted forcefully. “You knew right from the beginning that you wanted the picture finished. You knew from the beginning that you wanted that picture—Mary Margaret Flanders’s last picture—released as soon as possible. Difficult? It wasn’t difficult, Mr. Wirthlin; not for you, anyway. You were the one—not Stanley Roth, not Louis Griffin—who insisted it had to be put out while the public was still mourning her death; had to be put out before she was forgotten; had to be put out, Mr. Wirthlin—and I believe these are almost the identical words with which Stanley Roth described to your face what you wanted—‘before the public became more interested in his murder trial than in her last picture.’ Isn’t that true, Mr. Wirthlin? Aren’t you the one who, more than anyone else—certainly more than Stanley Roth—was concerned about how to make money from her death?”

  Van Roten was on her feet before I had finished, objecting as strenuously as she could.

  “The witness isn’t on trial, Your Honor! If Mr. Antonelli has a question, let him ask it—but this kind of personal attack has no place... ”

  Honigman raised his hand, letting her know she had said enough.

  “Mr. Antonelli, perhaps... ”

  “I’ll rephrase the question,” I replied, my gaze still fixed on Michael Wirthlin.

  “Would it be fair to say that you were in favor of finishing Mary Margaret Flanders’s last picture as quickly as possible?”

  The ferocity with which I had come after him had taken him somewhat by surprise. He planted both feet on the floor, hunched his shoulders and eyed me with suspicion. He listened to the question carefully.

  “A great deal of money—nearly a hundred million dollars—had been invested in that picture. When Ms. Flanders died, there were still several scenes left to shoot, but it was almost finished. We had to finish it: Too much money had been spent to stop.”

  Growing more confident as he spoke, Wirthlin straightened his shoulders and raised his head. He turned to the jury.

  “We also thought it was the best picture Mary Margaret had made. We thought we owed it to her public to make sure it was finished.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Wirthlin.”

  I paused long enough to let him know I was going to insist that he did. “You wanted to finish it as quickly as possible, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you wanted it released as soon as possible?”

  “Yes; I thought it was important that her public not have to wait to see her last, best picture.”

  “Important for the public,” I remarked, smiling in admiration at the way he made it all sound so utterly noble and disinterested. “And important for the studio as well, wasn’t it? You had to know, didn’t you, Mr. Wirthlin—a shrewd businessman like yourself—that with everyone still talking about her death her last picture had to be a huge box-office success? You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I thought people would want to see it—yes.”

  “Not everyone agreed, though, did they?”

  “That people would want to see it?” he asked with a superior smile.

  “Not everyone agreed that it should be released as early as it was. Your other partner, Louis Griffin, didn’t think it should be released until after this trial was over. Isn’t that right, Mr. Wirthlin?”

  “There were discussions, but in the end we all agreed on when it should be released.”

  “Louis Griffin objected, didn’t he?”

  “Louis had some reservations.”

  “Some reservations?” I repeated skeptically. “He thought the early release of that film might have an adverse effect on this trial, didn’t he? He thought it might add to the already existing atmosphere of suspicion and doubt that always surrounds a defendant in a murder trial. He thought it would hurt Stanley Roth’s chance for a fair trial. Isn’t that right, Mr. Wirthlin?” I demanded energetically.

  “We couldn’t be concerned with that!” Wirthlin shot back. “It was a business decision. Stanley agreed. Stanley insisted on it.”

  Drawing back a step, I placed my hand on the jury box railing and cocked my head, as if he had said something that made it necessary to look at him from a new perspective. I narrowed my eyes and slowly stroked my chin.

  “Stanley Roth insisted on it because he wanted to save the studio, even if it meant it would jeopardize his chance for a fair trial?”

  It took him a second fully to grasp the implication of the question I had just asked.

  “He said—and I believe you said the same thing— that it was impossible to tell what effect—or whether it would have any effect at all—on the outcome of the trial.”

  “In other words, he was willing to take that chance— a chance that could cost him his life—because his wife’s last picture, if released early enough, would help save the studio?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so were you—
ready to take a chance on his life ... to save the studio, weren’t you?”

  “Your Honor!” protested Annabelle Van Roten from the table behind me.

  “Withdrawn,” I shouted back. I folded my arms across my chest, crossed one foot over the other, and for a few moments gazed silently at the floor.

  “You’ve known Stanley Roth for quite some time, haven’t you?”

  I inquired, shoving my hands deep into my pants pockets. Without raising my eyes, I waited for his short, one word answer and then asked the same question about Mary Margaret Flanders.

  “And did they love each other?” I asked, looking up at him.

  He struggled to find an answer, and I asked him again.

  “That’s a little difficult for me to say. I imagine they must have, but I’m not sure I’m in a position to know what either one of them felt about the other.”

  I lowered my eyes and began to move the tip of my right toe from side to side, sliding it back and forth over the gray cracked linoleum floor. It was warped along the edge, pulling back from the bottom of the jury box railing, leaving behind a narrow gap filled, as I now noticed, with a greasy layer of dirt and dust. A tiny spider, reddish brown and not much bigger than the flat end of a pin, waited motionless just inside.

  “You were with the two of them on occasion—had dinner with them; were at various social and charitable events with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were a guest in their home?”

  “Yes.”

  “They were guests in your home?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you also knew them, of course, not just as a couple, but individually: Stanley Roth because he was your partner; Mary Margaret Flanders because she was a motion picture star with whom you worked professionally. And yet, you still can’t tell us,” I asked, moving my arm in an expansive gesture toward the jury on my right, “whether they loved each other?”