The Tenth Case

by Joseph Teller

  MS. TANNENBAUM: I have no idea.

  MR. BURKE: Did Barry ever mention it?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Not that I recall.

  MR. BURKE: Did you ever ask?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: No.

  MR. BURKE: In eight years of marriage,

  the subject never even came

  up in conversation?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: I don't think you have a very clear understanding of our marriage, Mr. Burke. I was Barry's wife, not his business partner.

  MR. BURKE: So you had absolutely no idea if he had any life insurance or not. Is that what you're telling us? Again, we're not counting that twenty-five-million-dollar policy.

  MS. TANNENBAUM: I had no idea about that,

  either.

  Score one for Samara.

  MR. BURKE: So just to review for a mo ment. So far as you knew, you'd have gotten abso lutely nothing if you'd divorced Barry. Correct?

  MR. JAYWALKER: Objection. Asked and an

  swered.

  THE COURT: I'll permit it.

  MR. BURKE: Was that your understand

  ing?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Yes.

  MR. BURKE: And for all you knew, you might have gotten absolutely nothing under Barry's will if he were to die. Right?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Right.

  MR. BURKE: And finally, you might have gotten absolutely nothing in the way of life insurance, because again, there might not have been any? Right?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Right.

  MR. BURKE: You were sitting in a pretty

  precarious position, wouldn't

  you say?

  MR. JAYWALKER: Objection. Argumentative.

  Even as the judge sustained the objection, Jaywalker

  knew that Burke had not only wiped out Samara's previous

  point, but had scored heavily on his own. The jury didn't

  need to hear Samara's answer in order to understand that,

  at least so far as she knew, her fortunes were in serious

  jeopardy of turning full circle, from trailer trash to princess,

  and then back again to trailer trash.

  Still, Burke wasn't quite ready to take his foot off

  Samara's throat. He got her to admit that the relationship

  had gradually disintegrated over the years, as she felt in

  creasingly trapped in a marriage to a man who constantly

  put his business affairs ahead of her, even as he grew more

  and more bitter about the various ways in which she hu

  miliated him.

  MR. BURKE: Now, shortly before your

  husband was murdered, you were aware that his

  health was bad, weren't you?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: I knew that he had a cold that

  last night I saw him, or the

  flu. Something like that.

  MR. BURKE: Something like that. Any

  thing else?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Like I said, he was always

  complaining about something or other, always afraid

  he was sick or dying.

  MR. BURKE: How about coronary disease,

  heart disease? Did you know

  anything about that?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: I knew he'd had a heart at

  tack, back before I knew

  him.

  MR. BURKE: How about cancer? Did you

  MS. TANNENBAUM: No.

  MR. BURKE: You never knew that?

  know he was suffering from cancer?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: No, not until after his death.

  MR. BURKE: You're telling us that this ec centric hypochondriac, who was constantly complain ing he was sick and continually expressing his fears that he was dying, never once told you he had cancer?

  Jaywalker's objection and Samara's feeble "That's right" were completely beside the point. Burke's implication was crystal clear: Samara was lying. Not only had she believed she was financially vulnerable in a marriage that was rapidly disintegrating, but even were the marriage to somehow survive, she'd known full well that her husband might not. Desperate to protect herself in one way or another, she'd gambled on insuring Barry's life for a huge sum, and then murdered him during the brief six-month window afforded by the policy. Or so Tom Burke would argue in his summa tion, with logic that was pretty irresistible.

  And just as Jaywalker knew it would, that brought Burke to the insurance policy. He pulled out the applica tion now, folded it so that the last page was on top, and had a court officer place it in front of Samara.

  MR. BURKE: Tell us again whose signa

  ture that is, please.

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Mine.

  MR. BURKE: In your own handwriting?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: It's my own handwriting,

  yes.

  MR. BURKE: No one put a gun to your

  head and ordered you to

  sign it, did they?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: No.

  MR. BURKE: No one tricked you or de

  ceived you into signing it,

  did they?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: I have no idea. I don't re member signing it, so I can't really tell you the spe cific circumstances.

  MR. BURKE: No one blindfolded you?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: No one blindfolded me. I'm

  pretty sure I'd remember

  that.

  MR. BURKE: Would you turn the page,

  please, so that the cover

  page is on top. Have you

  done that?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Yes.

  MR. BURKE: Do you see some capital let

  ters in bold print at the very

  top of that cover page?

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Yes.

  MR. BURKE: Would you read that portion

  MS. TANNENBAUM: Out loud?

  MR. BURKE: Yes, out loud.

  MS. TANNENBAUM: (Reading) "Application for

  to the jurors, please.

  term life insurance policy."

  MR. BURKE: Look halfway down the page, if you would, to the words, "Summary of con tents." Would you read the print, also in capitals and also in bold, immediately following those words.

  MS. TANNENBAUM: (Pointing) Here?

  MR. BURKE: Yes, there.

  MS. TANNENBAUM: (Reading) "Name of in sured, Barrington Tannenbaum. Amount of policy, twenty-five million dollars. Term of policy, six months. Name of beneficiary, Samara M. Tannen baum."

  MR. BURKE: Thank you.

  Burke put the application away and moved to the items found in Samara's town house. As Jaywalker had on direct examination, he had her identify the towel as one that looked like hers, the blouse as definitely hers, and the knife as identical to a set in her kitchen. And as Jaywalker had, he gave her an opportunity to explain who, other than she, might have hidden the items behind the toilet tank of her upstairs bathroom. Samara had no answer. She'd been home alone the entire time, from her arrival after visiting Barry until the detectives showed up the following day. Did she think someone had sneaked in and hidden the things there without her noticing, or put them there after she'd been taken away in handcuffs? Or perhaps the detec tives had planted the items, out of some inexplicable desire to frame her?

  Again, Samara had no answers.

  Had she perhaps hidden them there only temporarily, figuring to get rid of them as soon as she could, only to be surprised by the speed with which the police had shown up? No, she insisted, that wasn't the case; she'd never put them there in the first place, though she couldn't say who had, or how they'd managed to accomplish it.

  There comes a time in cross-examination when jurors have heard enough, when their eyes begin to glaze over out of skepticism, and they slide back in their chairs with something that looks very much like outright disbelief. As often as not, that time comes without a clear line of demarcation. In Hollywood, or on the TV screen, there was always a dramatic Gotcha! instant, followed by either loud music or a fade to a commercial break. In real life, there's generally nothing to accompan
y the moment but sadness.

  Samara was no longer being believed.And if Samara was no longer being believed, this trial was as good as over. Jay walker knew that as surely as he knew his own last name.

  It was nearly five o'clock. Burke asked to approach the bench. There he requested permission to go over to the fol lowing morning to complete his cross-examination. Judge Sobel agreed. Jaywalker was too beaten to object, and aware that even if he did, it would do no good.At that point, in fact, he'd pretty much decided that nothing would do any good.

  Trials are a little like sporting events, at least in the sense that both are contests that develop rhythms of their own after a while. Almost invariably, there's a series of momentum shifts, a pattern of highs and lows that could almost be charted on graph paper. An hour ago, the defense had been riding a crest of sorts. Samara's feistiness had earned her points in the early sparring. But Burke had weathered it, and bit by bit he'd succeeded in surrounding her with the evidence and trapping her with the facts. It reminded Jaywalker of the unsolicited advice he'd once heard an old-time trial lawyer dispensing in the hallway to anyone willing to stop long enough to listen. "When you've got the facts," he'd been saying, "pound the facts. When you've got the law, pound the law. When you don't have either one, pound the table."

  From the outset, the trouble with this case had been that the prosecution had both the facts and the law on its side. At one or two minor high points in the trial, Jaywalker had deluded himself into believing that in spite of that imbal ance, he might somehow figure out a way to walk Samara out of court. Now, he realized, he was going to be pretty much reduced to pounding the table. And while that might produce some noise, it was facts and law that generally produced victories.

  That night, in spite of knowing better, Jaywalker poured himself a generous measure of Kahlúa, placed it on his kitchen countertop and pulled up a stool. For a good twenty minutes he sat in front of it in near darkness, doing nothing but staring at the tumbler and the almost-black liquid that filled the lower half of it. Even without putting his nose over it, he could smell the thick coffee aroma drifting his way, all but taste the syrupy sweetness as it magically kissed away the harsh bite of the alcohol. Only when he'd told himself for the twentieth time that he couldn't do it— not to himself, not to his profession and most of all not to his client—did he dare to shift his weight slightly, first to one side, then to the other, in order to remove his hands from underneath him, where they'd grown numb from his weight.

  Slowly, carefully, he poured the liquid back into the bottle from which it had come. He didn't want to spill any, after all, not with a verdict likely by early next week. He would be needing it then, it and a lot more.

  He rinsed out the glass and opened the dishwasher, then saw that it was full, not of dirty dishes and glasses, but of clean ones he hadn't bothered putting away earlier in the week. So he set the glass in the sink. His wife would've scolded him for that act of laziness, he knew. But his wife was dead, and he lived alone now. And suddenly the full impact of that terrible aloneness hit him head-on and knocked the wind right out of him, and he found himself gripping the counter with both hands in order to steady himself. Thank God for that suspension, he told himself. Thank God I won't have to keep doing this anymore.

  27

  ROCK BOTTOM

  If Jaywalker thought he and Samara had hit bottom the previous afternoon, he was about to learn a whole new defi nition of the phrase. Before the jury was led in Friday morning, Tom Burke asked for a conference in the judge's robing room. Jaywalker told Samara to relax and wait in the courtroom, then followed the judge, the clerk, the court reporter and Burke through the side door.

  "What gives?" he asked Burke.

  "I'm afraid you're not going to like it," was all Burke would say. And from the grim look on his face, it was clear he meant it.

  Once the reporter was seated and ready, Burke wasted no time in getting to the point. "I learned this morning," he said, "less than an hour ago, in fact, what I'm about to place on the record. It concerns the defendant, and an incident that dates back to when she was fourteen years old and living in Vigo County, Indiana, under the name Sa mantha Musgrove."

  The name actually sounded vaguely familiar, but Jay walker was already too busy feigning righteous indigna tion to pursue that tangent. He'd donned his most exaggerated stage frown, making sure Sobel didn't miss it. No matter what it was that Burke had dug up, it was ancient history, too remote in time to allow into evidence. More over, Samara had been a child at the time. And what if she'd chosen to condense her name? So had Jaywalker, for that matter. Big deal. What mattered was that Samara was twenty-eight now. There was no way in hell Judge Sobel was going to permit Burke to question her about something she'd done when she'd been fourteen.

  "It seems," said Burke, "that contrary to the defendant's earlier testimony that she left home because she didn't get any birthday presents, the facts are actually a little differ ent. The real reason seems to have been that she was molested by one of her mother's boyfriends, a man by the name of Roger McBride. The defendant appears to have gotten even with Mr. McBride by assaulting him and then fleeing the state immediately afterward. And incidentally, according to my atlas, at least, Vigo County includes Prai rie Creek."

  "Assuming for the moment that this is all true," said the judge, "you're going to have a very hard time convincing me that it bears directly on her credibility. First, she was fourteen at the time. Second, it was a long time ago. Third, for all we know, her act may have been justified. And fourth, assault isn't one of those crimes, such as perjury or forgery, for example, that have much to do with truth-telling."

  Jaywalker smiled. He couldn't have said it better himself.

  "All true," said Burke. "Which is why The People con cede we'd have no right to go into it on the issue of the de fendant's credibility."

  "And how else would you be entitled to bring it up?"

  "As a prior similar act."

  By that, Burke meant some previous act that could shed light not just on the defendant's credibility but on her having committed the crime itself. For example, proof that a defendant had robbed banks in the past with a unique modus operandi—say by presenting a demand note written in red crayon and illustrated with five happy faces—would be admissible to show that he'd robbed one more in pre cisely the same fashion.

  "You've convinced me it was prior," said the judge. "But that it was an assault, and this case is, in effect, an assault causing death? That hardly meets the similar test."

  "With all due respect," said Burke, "you're going to change your mind when you hear how she assaulted Mr. McBride. It seems she took a knife and plunged it into his chest, up to the hilt. It happened to miss his heart by an eighth of an inch. Apparently the blade wasn't quite long enough."

  Jaywalker felt his knees go weak and almost buckle. All he could do was watch helplessly as Burke produced copies of four pages of material he said he'd received by fax that morning. There was an incident report, a follow-up report, a wanted notice and a copy of a photograph. Though it was grainy, black-and-white and of poor quality, there was no mistaking Samara's dark eyes peering out from the page, or her pouty lower lip.