Star Witness

by D. W. Buffa

  The last guest had left sometime after six-thirty. At seven-thirty, in a different dress, Mary Margaret Flanders arrived at the home of one of the last of the Hollywood moguls, the men who had brought together the different strands of entertainment and by their control, first over the performers and then over the media in which they performed, turned it into an industry. She was one of the several dozen invited guests on the occasion of the old man’s eighty-seventh birthday. In testimony that lasted only a few minutes, Louis Griffin, the last witness called by the prosecution, told the jury that he had seen Mary Margaret Flanders leave around eleven.

  He was certain she had left alone. When the courtroom doors shut behind Louis Griffin, Annabelle Van Roten rose from her chair. With an air of grim satisfaction, and in a solemn voice, she announced that “The People rest, Your Honor.”

  She stood with her head held high, savoring the moment, extracting from that formal statement of completion all the advantage she could. If she had any doubt about how well she had done, how airtight the case she had built, she concealed it better than any criminal ever hid his crime. With the intense sincerity of a woman insistent on righting a wrong, she kept her eyes focused on the judge. She was steady, certain, absolutely confident that no matter what the defense might now try to say, she had made the case, proven beyond any question that Stanley Roth was guilty of murder.

  Judge Honigman asked if the defense would be ready to begin the next morning. The moment gone, Annabelle Van Roten sank into her chair and began absently to pull together the notebooks and papers scattered over the table in front of her. A cruel smile of self-confidence hovered over the edges of her mouth. She knew she was going to win. She was thinking ahead to the way her own life might change after victory in a case of this magnitude and notoriety.

  That night, alone at the hotel, trying to work my way through what I was going to do the next day when I called the first witness for the defense, I remembered what I had seen on the face of Annabelle Van Roten. It was the look of someone of modest means, quick to despise the thoughtless and undisciplined habits of the rich, who suddenly and unexpectedly finds herself wealthy. It is a little unsettling to realize how much of what we think and feel depends on the conditions in which we live, and how easily we abandon at the first opportunity everything we thought we believed. It was apparently what had happened to the witness I was going to call. Richard Crenshaw did not become a police officer because he thought it would give him a chance to become a screenwriter; but as soon as it did, he forgot all about what he was supposed to do as an officer of the law.

  Crenshaw was to be the first witness for the defense and Stanley Roth was to be the last. That was all I had, two witnesses, and both of them put on for the purpose of showing that Mary Margaret Flanders had once called the police to protect herself against her husband and that Stanley Roth had on more than one occasion attempted to hurt someone. It was one of the few cases I could remember where the only thing left to the defense was to insist that everyone tell the truth. It seemed a strange and perhaps ironic twist of fate that I was going to do it in the only place in America where make-believe, a game for children, was the serious business of adults.

  THE NEXT MORNING, INSTEAD OF taking her accustomed place at the small desk below the bench, the clerk whispered a few words to Annabelle Van Roten. Then she walked the few steps to where I was sitting next to Stanley Roth.

  “Judge wants to see counsel in chambers,” she said curtly.

  “What is it about?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” she replied as she turned on her heel and trudged back to the doorway at the side through which she had entered.

  Rudolph Honigman was waiting behind his large plain wooden desk. A dozen or so black-and-white photographs of the judge standing next to various figures, posing with the stiff formality of local civic leaders, hung on the wall behind him, forcing themselves on the eyes of anyone who occupied, as Van Roten and I were now doing, the two blue-cushioned wooden chairs in front. On the wall behind us, metal bookshelves were filled with the sequentially organized reports of the state appellate opinions.

  “We have a bit of a problem,” he began, choosing his words carefully. “The bailiff reported that one of the jurors has complained that another juror has been making statements about the case.”

  “What kind of statements?” asked Van Roten, immediately suspicious. Honigman drew his lips together in a way that lengthened the line of his jaw. With his thumb and all four fingers he stroked his chin.

  “The first juror—the one who brought it to the bailiff’s attention—said the other juror had said she didn’t think Stanley Roth could have done it, or words to that effect.”

  “Then she has to go; she has to be replaced,” insisted Van Roten, making an emphatic gesture with her head.

  Honigman smiled benignly, less for Van Roten’s benefit than as a sign, made mainly for his own pleasure, that he had anticipated—word for word, if the look of satisfaction in his eyes was to be believed—her reaction and had already done something to forestall it.

  “I’ve talked to her—the juror complained of. The bailiff reported this to me last evening. I had her in here first thing this morning. She claims all she said was that she still had some doubts and that she wasn’t going to make up her mind until the defense had had a chance to put on its case.”

  That was not good enough for Annabelle Van Roten. She fairly bristled as she reminded Honigman that the juror had no business saying anything about the case at all.

  “She was told—you told her, you told them all—not to discuss the case even among themselves, not until they had heard all the evidence and the case had been sent to them for deliberation. I think she should be replaced.We have two alternates,” she added to show how simple it would be. I was not eager to lose a juror who, so far as I knew, might be the only one who had not already decided Stanley Roth was guilty. As I had been reminded so forcefully in that restaurant when Jack Walsh accosted me, almost everyone thought Stanley Roth was guilty.

  “Did she say why she said it?” I asked, hoping to somehow encourage Honigman to do what I thought he wanted to do all along.

  “She said some of the other jurors had been making remarks to the effect that with the evidence the prosecution presented there did not seem to be much doubt about what had happened.”

  So much for the presumption of innocence; so much for the promises I had extracted from each of them not to make up their minds until they had not only heard all the evidence but had carefully deliberated with all the other jurors. They felt so comfortable with their conclusions that they were sharing them with each other, making it that much more difficult for any one of them later to change his mind. I was in trouble, and I knew it.

  “I don’t think it means anything, just some casual remarks,” said Honigman with the bland expression of someone who prefers not to look too closely at things for fear it might involve too much additional work.

  However large the number of those who had at least provisionally decided Stanley Roth was guilty, the prosecution needed all twelve of them to convict. Van Roten renewed her demand that the talkative juror be removed.

  “For all we know, she’s only saying that about the others because she thinks it’s the best way to defend herself against what she said.”

  I made a suggestion I knew she could not possibly accept.

  “To be fair, let’s bring them all in, one by one, and ask them each whether they have expressed any opinion, made any kind of statement, and then throw off any one who has. That way,” I added with a sidelong glimpse at Van Roten, “we won’t just be getting rid of jurors who haven’t yet made up their minds.”

  “That’s ludicrous, and you know it,” she said, staring daggers at me. “There is one complaint—only one complaint—about the misconduct of a juror. That’s the only thing we’re here to discuss.”

  Honigman stopped me before I could reply. “I’ve talked to her,” he said with a
n air of finality. “I’m convinced it wasn’t anything serious, and I don’t see any reason to dismiss her. I called you both in to let you know what happened and the way in which I dealt with it. That’s all.”

  “Which juror is it?” asked Van Roten rather too insistently, as if the district attorney’s office might want to investigate further.

  “I do everything I can to protect the anonymity of jurors. I know you would never reveal her name,” said Honigman, with what I thought was a slight trace of irony; “but someone in your office might. Besides,” he added as he got to his feet, “I’ve already decided she did nothing wrong.”

  Honigman had left us both with something to worry about, but while Annabelle Van Roten might have to fret about a single skeptical juror, I had to convince what might already be a majority that they were wrong to think Stanley Roth guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the murder of his wife. Nor was it just the simple disparity of numbers that was to Van Roten’s advantage. Majorities have a way of imposing their will on a minority. It is difficult enough to speak your mind in the presence of people you barely know, to hazard the chance of finding yourself isolated and alone if no one else agrees; but to insist upon your own opinion, to refuse to follow the judgment of others when everyone is against you, requires a strength of conviction, a moral certainty not found nearly as often as we might like to think.

  Back in court, I waited while Detective Crenshaw was put under oath for the second time, wondering if I could lead him into the kind of damaging admission that would make the jury begin to move in the direction of the defense instead of the prosecution.

  “When you were here before, Detective Crenshaw, as a witness for the prosecution, I asked you several questions about the extent of your acquaintance with both the defendant, Stanley Roth, and his wife, the victim in this case, Mary Margaret Flanders.”

  From the table below me I picked up the typed pages of the trial transcript I had asked the court reporter to prepare.

  “So there is no question about what you said, let me read it back to you.”

  Whether or not it was because of the comment I had made about his expensive-looking suit, this morning he was dressed again in a sports jacket and slacks. He seemed relaxed and not the least concerned that he might have said something he would have any reason to regret.

  “Question: ‘What was she like?’

  “Answer: ‘What was who like?’

  “Question: ‘Mary Margaret Flanders. You worked with her. You told Ms. Van Roten that you knew her. What was she like?’

  “Answer: ‘She seemed like a very nice person. She was certainly very nice to me.’

  “Question: ‘Did you talk to her very often?’

  “Answer: ‘No, not very often. A couple of times, perhaps—not more than that.’

  “Question: ‘On the set?’

  “Answer: ‘Yes.’”

  I looked up and searched his eyes. I skipped forward a few pages and read again:

  “Question: ‘Who hired you to be a consultant on that picture?’

  “Answer: ‘Someone from the studio. I don’t remember the name.’

  “Question: ‘I see. Then it wasn’t Stanley Roth, because I assume you’d remember his name, wouldn’t you?’”

  I stopped reading.

  “You didn’t bother to answer that question, Detective Crenshaw. I have just a little more to read.”

  I thumbed through several pages to the one I wanted.

  “Question: ‘When you served as a consultant on that one movie, the one during which you first met Mary Margaret Flanders, did you review a script—to make sure what it said about police procedure was accurate, or at least not too far removed from the way things are actually done by police detectives?’

  “Answer: ‘Yes.’

  “Question: ‘You have some familiarity, then, with the mode, the style, or perhaps I should say, the way in which a script is organized, the way each scene is described and the dialogue written within it. Is that correct?’

  “Answer: ‘Yes, I have some familiarity with that.’

  “Question: ‘Did you ever think that perhaps you could write one of your own, one that was at least as good as the ones you had seen?’

  “Answer: ‘I wouldn’t mind trying that someday. I think it might be interesting.’”

  Placing the typewritten pages on the table, I gazed thoughtfully at them for a moment before I looked again at the witness. He had had plenty of time—weeks, in fact—to consider what he had said. He had to have known from the way I first asked those questions that Stanley Roth had told me all about the circumstances in which they had first met and what had happened as a result. He certainly must have heard about what I had almost shouted in the face of Jack Walsh. Everyone in Los Angeles had heard about the way I had practically convicted my own client by insisting that not only had he once hit Jack Walsh’s daughter, but that she had called the police to report it. Crenshaw had lied under oath, not once, but repeatedly; and yet, as I looked at him, trying to guess what might be going on in his mind, I could not detect the slightest trace of concern. He was as cool, as utterly unflappable, as the day he walked into court, the key witness for the prosecution.

  “When you said you had only talked to Mary Margaret Flanders ‘a couple of times,’ and always on the set, that was not true, was it, Detective Crenshaw?”

  He did not blink his eyes; he did not fidget with his hands or move around in the witness chair; he did not change expression at all. His voice was calm, steady, that same well-modulated voice that after a while made you want to scream with impatience because it seemed so impervious to any real feeling or emotion.

  “I did speak to her several times on the set, just as I said.”

  “But you had spoken to her before, hadn’t you?”

  Again there was no change in his demeanor, nothing to suggest anything except that he was completely in charge, if not of the proceedings, then at least of himself.

  “Yes, I had.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Annabelle Van Roten. Her head was bent over a note she was making. The pen in her hand had come to a stop. I had called Crenshaw back to the stand as a witness for the defense, but everyone knew he was a witness for the prosecution. I did not so much as bother to ask the court for permission to treat him as hostile before I began to subject him to the kind of leading questions reserved for cross-examining a witness for the other side.

  “The first time you talked to her was at her home, wasn’t it?” I demanded as I stepped round the end of the counsel table.

  “Yes.”

  He said it with such indifference, such inexplicable unconcern, that for a brief, passing moment, I wondered if I had gotten so lost in the question I wanted to ask that I had asked him something else, some routine, preliminary question that he could of course answer without embarrassment.

  “At her home, The Palms?” I asked, to be sure.

  “Yes.”

  I stopped, gave him a quick, searching look and then took a step toward him.

  “You were there because Mary Margaret Flanders had called the police and said her husband, Stanley Roth, had assaulted her, weren’t you?”

  “Someone had called 911. She gave the address, then apparently hung up. She didn’t give her name. A patrolman was sent to the address to inquire.”

  “Yes, yes; and when the patrolman arrived and could not get through the gate, you arrived—isn’t that correct?” I asked irritably.

  “Yes. I convinced Mr. Roth to open the gate, and I went up to the house.”

  “And that is when you first met them, Mary Margaret Flanders and Stanley Roth, not at the studio, not on the set of a movie on which you were working as a consultant?”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact, that was the only time you ever talked to Mary Margaret Flanders. You never talked to her on the set of a movie, because you were never really hired as a consultant, were you, Detective Crenshaw?”

 
; “No, that’s not correct. I was hired as a consultant. You can check the records at Blue Zephyr. And I did speak several times to Ms. Flanders on the set. You can check with her assistant.”

  “I’m aware of the way the payment made to you was carried on the books at the studio, Detective Crenshaw. We’ll come back to that. Right now, however, I want to ask you about the night you came to her home. You came in your capacity as a police officer. You weren’t invited there, you weren’t a guest of theirs, were you?”

  “No.”

  “You came there because there was a report of domestic violence and because the patrolman had not been able to gain access to the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you got to the house, you told the patrolman he could go—that you would handle things on your own, correct?”

  “It wasn’t a situation that required more than a single officer.”

  “But instead of letting the patrolman handle it, you stayed yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. In some situations it’s easier for a plainclothes officer. I knew who Mr. Roth was, and I knew who his wife was. I could tell it wasn’t anything all that serious, and I didn’t see any reason why they should have to be embarrassed by what had happened.”

  I started to ask the next question, but Crenshaw wanted to explain something.

  “That was the reason there was never any formal report. I talked to Ms. Flanders, alone, and she told me she was all right; that it was as much her fault as anyone’s. She asked me not to do anything. She begged me not to do anything. She said that if some reporter found out, the tabloids would get hold of it and blow everything out of proportion. At the time,” he added, a look of regret in his eye, “it didn’t seem too much to ask.”