Desperate Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “I’m not sure. Not long. It wasn’t a regular thing. Maybe seven or eight months.”

  “Bearing in mind, Mrs. Hammond, that I can have the police check to find out if you’re telling the truth, when was the last time?”

  She thought it over, tossed another nasty look at Prentiss then said, “May 15th, I believe, was the last time.”

  “Just a few weeks before the death of your best friend, the woman whose husband you were sleeping with, Catherine Prentiss.”

  “Objection, your Honor,” Marc said.

  “Sustained. Move along, Mr. Gondeck.”

  “May I approach again, your Honor?” he asked Rios as he stood up, picked up one of the sheets of paper Jennifer had brought in and walked up to the witness again.

  “Yes, you may,” Rios answered even though Gondeck had not waited.

  He handed the paper to Ava and said, “I’m showing you a document entitled ‘Visitor Sign In Log’ for the Hennepin County jail. On line fourteen of this document, is that your name and signature?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “And in the space of that line where you write the name of the jail inmate you were visiting is the name Gordon Prentiss, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she again quietly answered.

  “And you wrote down the time you arrived and the time you left which indicates you were there about an hour and twenty minutes, is that correct? Were you there that long?”

  “Yes.”

  “At the top of the page is the date. Tell the jury the date you visited the defendant.”

  She did this which was on the previous Sunday, two days ago.

  “Now I have nothing further, your Honor,” Gondeck said as he took the jail log from Ava and returned to his seat.

  “Redirect?”

  “Yes, your Honor,” Marc said.

  “Mrs. Hammond, did Judge Prentiss put you up to coming here today to tell the truth about what really happened?”

  “No,” she answered with obvious relief. “In fact, he knew nothing about it. I didn’t tell him anything about it.”

  “Then why did you visit him?”

  “I guess I felt a little guilty. You see, I never really liked Gordon. I don’t even know why I became involved with him. I knew Catherine was seeing Carter McElhenney at the time so I figured she wouldn’t care. I really don’t know why. I think I was a little bored. I just don’t know.”

  “One last question. Were you telling the truth before or are you telling the truth now today?”

  “Today,” she said emphatically. “I obviously have nothing more to hide. Gordon Prentiss did not kill Catherine.”

  “Recross?” Rios asked Gondeck.

  “No, your Honor. But I request that I be allowed to put a rebuttal witness on the stand now, your Honor.”

  “Approach,” Rios said and waved her hands to indicate the three lawyers come to the bench.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “I want to put Dr. Chase on the stand again. He will deny that Catherine Prentiss had any suicidal tendencies.”

  “He had an opportunity…”

  “There was no reason to. No indication to believe this was even possibly a suicide,” Gondeck countered.

  “He’s right, Marc,” Rios said. “I’ll allow it, but we’ll take a break first.”

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  During the afternoon break, Marc took Prentiss into a conference room and sat silently staring at his client for several minutes while Prentiss avoided eye contact with him. Marc finally broke the silence and said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I can do to possibly fix this. I know what you should do,” he continued. “You should bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye.”

  “I didn’t put her up to it!” he almost yelled.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marc calmly replied. “You also didn’t tell me about the affair and you didn’t tell me she visited you in jail. Did you think the cops wouldn’t notice? The prosecution wouldn’t find out?”

  “I had no idea she was going to testify at all let alone what she said today.”

  Marc leaned back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling and said, “Okay. We’ll keep going.”

  “How will you cross-examine Dr. Chase?”

  “I have no idea. I’ll think of something,” Marc wearily replied.

  Dr. Chase was brought back into the courtroom after the break. He was extremely annoyed at having to cancel three appointments but was assured the taxpayers would reimburse him for his expenses.

  Gondeck wasted little time in establishing that Chase had seen no suicidal tendencies in Catherine Prentiss at all. In fact, the psychiatrist told the jury that he had specifically asked her about this possibility several times and was quite certain that she was not the least bit suicidal.

  “Is it possible, Doctor,” Marc began his first cross-examination question by saying, “that she simply lied to you?”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” he answered. “But not likely. I would have certainly seen through it,” he foolishly bragged.

  Marc hesitated for a moment wondering why the doctor would make such a statement. Realizing at this point, he had little to lose Marc then decided to do a little fishing with the witness.

  “Let me remind you, Doctor, that you are under oath and I can find out if you’re telling me the truth. Have you ever had a patient commit suicide who you did not think was suicidal? A suicide you failed to diagnose?”

  “Objection, relevance?” Gondeck said hoping for the best.

  “Overruled. He opened the door, Mr. Gondeck.”

  “I didn’t mean I can always diagnose a suicide. I meant…”

  “No, Doctor. That’s not what you said,” Marc interrupted and slammed the door on him. “You said, ‘I would have certainly seen through it’. I can have the court reporter read it back. Did you ever have a suicide you failed to diagnose, yes or no?”

  “Yes,” he answered shifting in his seat.

  “How many?”

  “Two,” the doctor reluctantly said.

  Sticking his neck out a little further, Marc decided to fish a little more. “And you were sued for malpractice both times, weren’t you, Doctor?”

  Chase hesitated then quietly said, “Yes, I was.”

  “So, you have a clear and obvious professional and financial interest in making this jury believe Catherine Prentiss was not suicidal and you did not commit malpractice in her treatment, isn’t that true doctor?”

  Gondeck objected because the question was clearly argumentative and Rios sustained the objection and told the jury to disregard the question. Too little, too late. The answer was evident and the bell could not be unrung.

  Rios had another doctor appointment with her clumsy teenager so she called a halt for the day. As the courtroom was emptying, Prentiss actually thanked Marc for the job he had done on Dr. Chase.

  “How did you know he’s been sued for malpractice?” Prentiss asked him.

  “I didn’t. I took a flier on it and got lucky. Besides, what did we have to lose?”

  “Amazing testimony today,” Gabriella said into her hand-held mic. “If yesterday we had a bombshell go off, today we had a nuclear explosion. This trial is turning out to be better than any soap opera.” She then went on to tell Melinda Pace and her audience all of the titillating details of the day’s events leaving nothing for the imagination.

  “I only wish I could take the time to see this for myself,” Melinda replied. “That guilty SOB will try anything and his lawyer should be disbarred.”

  “I don’t think it’s Mr. Kadella,” Gabriella replied. “On the whole, he’s doing a really good job for his client.”

  “His client is scum and should be locked up forever. Thank you for the update, Gabriella.”

  The Corwin Family Gulfstream V with its lone passenger touched down at the Teterboro airport just before 8:00 P.M. Vivian quickly disembarked, entered the waiting Town Car and was quickly dri
ven to her dinner date at the same restaurant they had used the last time they met here. She was escorted back to the same private room and offered her cheek to Dante when he rose to greet her.

  Always the gentleman, Dante held the chair for her as she sat down. After returning to his own seat, while pouring Vivian a glass of wine, he said, “They sent what you’re after. I’ve read it and I’m not so sure you should.”

  “I’m all grown up, Dante,” she said as she took a sip from her glass.

  “It’s not that, my love,” he said. He picked up a package, an inch thick envelope, and placed it on the table. “I know how angry this will make you at our government.”

  “Let me have it.” She held out her hand toward him.

  “This does not go back to Minnesota with you. In fact, I am going to personally shred it and burn the remains.”

  She took it from him and said, “Agreed. Have you ordered dinner? I’m starving.”

  “Yes, I did. Read.”

  Vivian started going through the dossier pausing only to allow her meal to be served. She continued while eating, silence between the two of them the entire time. She was only half-way through the papers when the plates were removed.

  Finally, almost a full hour after she began, Vivian finished her reading. She replaced the papers in the envelope and handed it back to her former lover.

  “Are they sure it’s the same man? The pictures in there,” she nodded at the envelope, “don’t look like him.”

  “No, they’re not positive. The fingerprints taken from the glass are only from his right hand and they were a little smudged. Russian DNA testing isn’t, well, as sophisticated as ours. They’re still checking what was in the glass. But they’re fairly confident. Enough so to send this information about him.”

  “If it is him, I can see why the government would want to protect him.”

  “Yes, he would have very valuable information. Even now, after all these years.”

  “Especially now,” Vivian added. “Now what?”

  “For your ears only. They’re going to send some people here and to Minnesota to check his identity. It will take a couple of days. They thought by Saturday or Sunday. They’re going to need some help from me so I’ll keep you informed, if you want me to.”

  “Of course I want to know. I want to see this through.”

  “I thought you would.”

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  Before court began on Wednesday morning, Marc met with Prentiss in the same conference room they had been using throughout the trial. The judge was dressed well, if a little modestly, in an undistinguished gray suit, plain white shirt and unremarkable tie. Marc had a barber visit him this morning, an expense Marc hoped he personally would not get stuck with. Marc wanted his client to look professional but not come across as a wealthy snob either.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Marc asked.

  “Yes. The jury needs to hear from me that I did not kill Catherine. We’ve been over this many times. Aren’t you sure?”

  “No,” Marc replied. “I’m not. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I like it. What little good you think you can do by getting on that stand will likely be offset by the beating Gondeck is going to give you on cross.”

  Prentiss had been pacing about the small room while Marc remained seated at the small, round table. The judge sat down across from his lawyer and said as humbly as he could, “I appreciate your efforts. I really do. But if I’m going to go down for this then before I do, I am going to get on that stand and proclaim my innocence. If no one believes me, so be it. At least my conscience will be clear.”

  “Okay,” Marc said as he stood up to go into the courtroom. “Let’s go.”

  Marc called Prentiss to the stand and a minor buzz went through the courtroom. It was as if a betting pool about him testifying had taken place among the media, which in fact it had, and the winners and losers were both reacting. Rios rapped her gavel a couple of times and the gallery quickly settled down.

  The two of them, Marc and Prentiss, along with Maddy Rivers, had spent the previous evening in a room at the jail practicing his testimony. Maddy served as a faux juror and critiqued it for them. Marc’s main goal was to try to soften the image that had been created of him. There was no chance he could convince a jury that someone who used the name J. Gordon Prentiss III was a regular guy; someone the jury could envision sitting at a ball game, tossing down a few brews and rooting for the home team. That was not going to happen. The best he could hope for was to convince them that he really wasn’t the arrogant, self-absorbed, egotistical, control freak, wife beating, sex pervert the jury undoubtedly believed. Of course, the problem was J. Gordon Prentiss III was, in fact, all of those things.

  Marc spent the first hour and a half tossing softballs to him to let him tell the jury his story. Where he came from, the life he had been brought up in that, while privileged, was also filled with pressure and expectations. He talked about his relationship with his parents, especially his father. It was the defense’s best effort to give the jury the sense that Gordon was, in a way, a lot like everyone else; a product of his genetics, upbringing, environment and parenting.

  About this point, Rios took a break and Marc met with his client at the defense table.

  “How do you think it’s going?” Prentiss asked.

  “Who knows,” Marc answered. “If you ever figure out how to read a jury, let me know. We’ll make a fortune. We’ll just keep going. Remember, you’re just trying to show the jury that you’re not hiding anything and they should believe you and that they should not convict you just because they might believe you’ve been a bit of an asshole.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” Prentiss sarcastically replied.

  After the break, Marc walked him through his adult years; his time as a lawyer, his experience on the bench and most importantly, his marriage. As difficult as it may have been, Prentiss admitted he had been a bad husband and probably a worse father. He also took the opportunity to spend a little more time telling the jury about his own parents and the job they did, especially his father, serving as examples for him.

  “Where are your son and daughter?”

  “We’re estranged. Jonathan lives in New York and my daughter is in Chicago. Jonathan came to see me a few weeks ago in jail. We talked and he left. Of course, they are my biggest failures.”

  “Tell the jury about the night your wife, Catherine died.”

  Having rehearsed this several times, he was quite prepared for it. Gordon leaned forward, looked directly at the jury and for the next fifteen minutes went over every detail of that night. From the moment he arrived at his going away party right up to the exact second he discovered Catherine on the floor of her bedroom.

  “Judge Prentiss, I am going to ask you the question the jury needs to hear you answer. Did you come home, argue with Catherine about a divorce, take a knife from the kitchen, stalk her up to her bedroom and plunge that knife into her chest at the exact same moment she struck you with a bottle of vodka?”

  Knowing this question was coming, Prentiss patiently waited for Marc to finish it in its entirety before answering. When Marc finished, Prentiss turned away from his lawyer, looked directly at the eyes of the jurors and clearly, emphatically and sincerely said, “No. As God is my witness, I did not kill my wife. She was already dead exactly as I’ve explained when I found her.”

  With that, Marc finished his direct examination of his client and turned him over to Gondeck. Before Gondeck began, Rios called for the lunch break and excused the jury.

  At about the same time Prentiss was finishing his morning testimony, Leo Balkus was sitting at his desk reading a local newspaper. He had his stockinged feet up on the desk, his four hundred dollar loafers sitting on the floor. Leo had been reflecting on how good life was before he started reading the daily update on the trial of Gordon Prentiss. Prentiss was an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, a pebble in his shoe, an irritant he was unable to elimina
te. At least not right now.

  Having missed his opportunity in the jail, Leo would have to wait until after the trial. If Prentiss was acquitted, Leo would take personal pleasure in a meeting with the soon-to-be-late Gordon Prentiss. If convicted, Leo could get at him in any prison he went to. Leo could afford to be a patient man.

  Johnny Czernak walked in as Leo was finishing the news article about the trial. Johnny was almost as much of a sociopath as Ike Pitts and even more loyal. He just wasn’t as bright as Ike, but Leo could do the thinking.

  “Nice face,” Leo said for perhaps the twentieth time referring to Johnny’s again bandaged nose and two black eyes.

  “I’ll get that bitch. You’ll see. Sooner or later I’ll find her.”

  “Right. Then what? She’ll kick your ass again,” Leo laughed.

  “I won’t give her the chance next time,” Johnny said as he stood in front of the desk, his left arm still in a sling.

  “What time did Ike say he’d be in?” Leo asked.

  “Later. He was out late last night. First to check on Conrad then he was gonna see that new chick at the strip joint.”

  “Conrad,” Leo said. “He’s gone, but sooner or later he’ll turn up. I got some people looking for him. I’m looking forward to having a little chat with him, too. What’s up?”

  “There’s a delivery for you from a M. Ramirez in Miami.”

  “What the hell is Manny doing sending a shipment to me personally?” Leo asked rhetorically.

  “There’s a note taped to the box. Says, ‘Relax, it’s a gift. It’s not what you think.’ You want me to bring it in?”

  “Have it brought in through the back door,” Leo answered gesturing at the exterior door behind the desk. While Johnny was gone, Leo went back to the paper. A few minutes later he heard a delivery truck in back then the door opening. Johnny stood aside while a UPS driver wheeled in a 2’d x 3’w x 3’h wooden box and set it on the floor.