“In order to understand why the crime was committed, why the life of an innocent person bled out of a gunshot wound, you have to understand how the prisoner in the dock thought of herself.
“In each case of that romantic drivel she read, the handsome prince casts aside the attentions of shrews and vixens and takes into his arms and his heart the deserving young heroine.”
Desai’s voice grew low, deliberately. Jurors and the judge leaned forward to catch his words.
“But you see, she had not won the love of the prince. After her childish antics from the beginning of the marriage, her irrationality, endless demands for attention, she had lost his passion—his ardor had gone to another woman.
“To her shock, she realized she was the vixen in the story, the ugly stepsister, an ill-tempered, malicious shrew who would act out her rage at the truth with murder.…”
He paused and met the eye of each juror in turn. “I used an interesting phrase earlier, ‘in cold blood.’ By that I am referring to the fact that the crime was committed deliberately and premeditatedly, that it was not a result of a sudden rush of anger.
“This scorned woman calculated, deliberated, and premeditated, finally—in her own twisted mind—arriving at a scheme to get revenge for what she considered to be a slight to the self-image she had created for herself out of silly stories of romantic fantasies.
“All she needed was a gun.
“And an audience of millions.…”
* * *
DURING THE NOON BREAK, Marlowe joined the princess in a clerk’s office that had been converted into a holding area for the princess when she wasn’t in the courtroom.
“What a dreadful person,” the princess said.
Marlowe said, “What a bastard.”
“No, not the prosecutor, me. The person he described, the malicious shrew who murdered because she was rejected.”
“That’s not you, that’s a straw man the prosecutor created to blow away in front of the jury. He does it not by portraying you as you really are, but by casting you in a false light, taking bits and pieces of the truth, blowing them out of proportion, and inferring motives from them that you never harbored.”
But Marlowe knew she was in trouble. After she left the princess, she said to Hall, “I’ve never seen a prosecutor with an imagination. Every one I’ve been up against has been like Joe Friday in the old Dragnet series, sticking to the facts, just the facts, often boring the jury with them. This one has the imagination of Barbara Cartland and Danielle Steel. I’ll bet he’s read a few romance novels himself.”
“Trent asked me—”
“I know, he’s a little pushed out of shape about my attack on his learned pal, the prosecutor. But he’s too damn reserved and well mannered to talk to me about it directly, so he asks you to do his dirty work. Is that about the size of it?”
Hall’s jaw visibly tightened and she laughed from nervous tension. She grabbed his arm and squeezed. “I’ll be a good girl, but I’m not going to let Desai walk all over our client. Maybe Trent should be more miffed at the prosecutor who took a cheap shot at her. That baby-murder allegation got to the jury and will be in big black headlines tonight, but at least the damage is mitigated by the fact that I threw it back in Desai’s face. And he’s on notice that I’m not an old-school chum—he won’t step out of line again because he knows I will go after him. I’ll play this learned-friend stuff only when the other person considers me an equal. Neither Desai nor Trent give a damn about me—they’d both like to see me fall on my face.” She held up her hand. “I don’t expect a reply to my accusation about your learned friends.”
Hall nodded and pursed his lips, struggling with a reply. Finally he gave her a reluctant grin. “I will admit you gave Desai tit for tat—titfer, as the Cockneys say. But perhaps we can at least try not to antagonize the judge—or Trent.”
“I won’t antagonize the judge, at least not deliberately. But I won’t take any more cheap shots from the prosecutor. I believe in doing unto others as they do unto you.”
“Don’t you mean doing unto others as you would want them to do unto you?”
“No, my courtroom God is the fire-and-brimstone deity of the Old Testament, not turn-the-other-cheek. When my client’s life is at stake, it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, war to the knife, and the last person standing wins.”
48
Desai presented his case in chronological order, calling the prince’s assistant who had organized the party and playing the videotape of the killing itself. No doubt each juror had seen the shooting a dozen times on TV before being picked as a juror. His first significant witness was General Sir Henry Percy, a retired army officer and senior member of the Establishment. He was at the party and saw the shooting. He testified that the princess was calm and collected, that she was so composed, he thought it was a joke.
The reason for calling Percy was to defuse the anticipated heat-of-passion defense, to rebut the contention that the princess’s demeanor was one of sudden anger, but instead was calm, controlled, and determined. While the shooting was caught on film, the cameras were not positioned for a view of the princess’s face.
Marlowe realized that Desai was not just going to put on his own case, but at the same time was going to attack hers. Since he would have a chance at the end of the defense case to put on rebutting evidence, this gave him two chances to attack her case, to really drill his version into the minds of the jurors.
“Sir Henry, besides your military experiences, have you had prior experience in a situation in which someone was killed in a social context?”
“Unfortunately, I have.”
“Would you tell us about that matter?”
“I was a friend and fellow soldier with Robert Rhenford, the 4th Earl of Rhenford. Many in this courtroom are too young to recall the case, but it was quite sensational in its day, about thirty years ago. The earl, believing his wife to be unfaithful, killed her. He made rather a mess of it. He observed her being flirtatious during a social gathering at his estate. I was in attendance and saw that she had had a bit too much to drink and was getting too familiar with another man. In a moment of intense anger, the earl rushed into his library, where he kept a gun in his desk drawer, and came running back into the room. He shot her before any of us could intervene.”
“Really, not unlike the shooting of the prince, would you say?”
Marlowe knew what he would say and had a number of reasons to object but kept her seat—this was going to be one of a number of witnesses who testified about the princess’s composure at the time she pulled the trigger.
“Actually,” the general said, “it was quite unlike the current situation. The earl was in quite distress, his anger was obvious, he had lost total control of himself, letting his passions take the driver’s seat.”
When it came time for cross-examination, Marlowe asked the general, “You were a close friend of the earl’s, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, Bobby and I were at Eton together.”
“And you shared many experiences with him—attended his wedding, the christening of his children, shared many glasses of brandy and quite a number of cigars, isn’t that right?” She smiled and nodded at a cigar poking out of his pocket. Her information came from a profile prepared by Trent’s staff.
“Yes, we were chums.” The general’s voice cracked with emotion, but he immediately gained control of it. “Until the killing of his wife, of course—that was quite unforgivable. He avoided the rope because of heat of passion, provocation, that sort of thing. He died soon after in an auto accident.”
“An accident in which he had been drinking?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was alcohol involved.”
“And he had been drinking heavily the night he shot his wife?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Now, in regard to the prince, you were an acquaintance of his prior to his marriage to the princess, is that correct?”
&nbs
p; “Yes.”
“In fact, you never even met the princess until after the wedding?”
“I believe I met her at a polo match a few months after the wedding.”
“You’ve never seen the princess drunk, have you?”
“Drunk? Of course not.”
“Never saw her when she appeared angry or hurt? Never saw her when she was so desperate and distraught she was suicidal. Isn’t that true?”
“I don’t know what you are getting at.”
“What I am getting at is a response to my question. The truth is, you have never been around the princess enough to be able to gauge her emotional state, nor are you a mind-reader. The truth is that you don’t know what turmoil was going on in her head the night of the shooting, do you?”
“I saw her face clearly before she pulled the trigger.”
“Have you ever heard of the expression shell shock, General?”
“Of course I’ve heard the expression, I’ve been a career officer.”
“It comes in different manifestations, doesn’t it? Some soldiers who have been traumatized react overtly violently and others appear to go into a catatonic state?”
“As I have testified, I have a previous experience with a killing that gives me great insight into the mental processes of a person who kills. The princess was not a victim of battlefield trauma.”
“What traumas has the princess experienced?”
“Excuse me?”
“I asked you about the traumas the princess experienced.”
“I—well, I don’t know the answer to that. I know she had a very fine life and an excellent husband.”
“Do you? What was their married life like? What did they say to each other in the privacy of their bedroom? Was there any violence in their marriage?”
“My lord,” Desai said.
“Yes, Miss James, restrict yourself to a single question and wait for an answer.”
“Yes, thank you. Now, General, even though you have hardly spoken to the princess in your life, you claim to know personal things about her. Did you get your information from the tabloids?”
“My lord!” Desai shot up from his seat.
The judge frowned down at Marlowe. “General Sir Henry Percy is well known to this court as a distinguished gentleman and soldier.”
“He’s also an opinionated, adverse witness to my client who has been permitted to testify about matters he has no knowledge of. May I proceed, Your Honor?”
“Proceed,” the judge whispered.
“You spent your entire adult life in the army, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And besides your friend Bobby, you have seen many men under stress during your military career?”
“Yes, of course.”
“For many reasons, not just military ones, but domestic problems? Would you say that you’ve dealt with hundreds of men with problems over the decades?”
He grinned. “Perhaps thousands.”
“Thousands of men?”
“Yes.”
“Would you consider yourself a man who enjoys the type of things that are typically male-oriented, things like sports, guns, hunting, horses, that sort of thing?”
“I have never gotten into crochet or knitting.”
Laughter exploded in the courtroom.
Marlowe didn’t smile. “In fact, General, other than a short marriage—your wife passed away early in the marriage, I understand—you have spent your entire life surrounded by men and dealing with men, isn’t that correct?”
“I suppose that’s a correct statement. It’s the way of career military men.”
“For most of your active duty time, women were not in uniform other than in those few positions allotted to females?”
“Correct.”
“Men are sometimes quick to anger, aren’t they? You’ve seen men having a beer one minute while talking about soccer or rugby, and the next throwing punches at each other, haven’t you?”
“Many times.”
“But you don’t see it that often with a woman, do you? It’s more unusual for a woman to resort to physical violence?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s been my experience. Men are more likely to fly off the handle and get physical.”
“And women tend to hold in their emotions, correct?”
“My lord,” Desai said, “we are getting into areas of psychology that are best left for those in that field.”
“I don’t agree,” Marlowe said. “This gentleman has testified about the emotional state of my client. I’m entitled to discover his qualifications for making his judgment of her character.”
“Proceed.”
“I saw a calm, collected woman in complete control of her emotions,” the general said.
“Actually, I never asked you a question, but thank you for volunteering the information. I don’t doubt that’s what you thought you saw, but you don’t have the experience to judge a young woman’s emotions, do you? As you pointed out, you’ve spent your entire career surrounded by men.”
“I have had experiences with women, thank you.”
“But not on the same level as men, that’s what you’ve testified to, most of your adult life you have been in a position to judge the emotional responses of men.”
“You’re making a speech, not asking a question. Go to your next question,” the judge said.
“In this case, you judged the princess as you would a man, isn’t that a fact?”
“No. I—”
“In fact, General, you don’t have the foggiest notion of what was going on at the time of the incident in the mind, heart, and soul of the young woman you’re testifying against, do you?”
“I know what I saw. She was calm and collected.” His jaw was tight.
“You are not used to having your opinions challenged, are you, General? Especially by a woman, isn’t that true?”
“Your Lordship,” Desai said in a pained tone.
“Are you finished with this witness?” the judge asked her.
“No. Alcohol is a disinhibitor, isn’t it?” she asked the general.
“We all know that alcohol will make one less inhibited.”
“And isn’t it true that what you experienced thirty years ago was your drunken friend losing control under the effect of alcohol and shooting his wife because of who she was talking to? Isn’t that why his emotions were so obvious—he was a lush who couldn’t hold his liquor?”
General Sir Henry Percy pressed his lips together and didn’t respond. Marlowe went on.
“In fact, isn’t it true that the accident that took his life also killed a young mother and two children, an accident your old school chum caused when his car went over the dividing line because he was dead drunk?”
“I am not here to be badgered.”
“I believe you’re here to testify, and it’s still my turn to ask the questions. You don’t like the princess, do you?”
“No, I have a prejudice against people who kill the Crown Prince of my country.”
“It’s more than that, isn’t it? You’ve never liked her, have you? She was never part of the polo and hunt crowd, was she?”
“I’m sure I can’t tell you exactly what the woman did with her spare time.”
“Isn’t it true that you came into this court to condemn a woman whose suffering you know nothing about and have your voice crack with emotion over the fate of a damn lush who killed an innocent woman and children with his car?”
“My—my lord!” Desai stammered.
“You found nothing wrong with your drunken friend killing his wife and innocent people, but you are aghast that a woman could strike back—”
The judge shot up. “You are out of order! This court is in recess!”
* * *
TWENTY MINUTES LATER MARLOWE left the judge’s office with Philip Hall at her side. Desai and Trent had both left ahead of her in a proper British huff. The judge had mostly sat and stared at her. He appeared con
fused and in a quandary, as if he wanted desperately to hold her in contempt but knew it wouldn’t play well in the news media.
“I don’t think they know what to do with you,” Philip said.
“Who? Trent and his learned friend?”
“Everyone—Desai, Trent, Sir Fredic, the judge.”
“Because I’m a woman in their territory.”
“Oh, no, a fossil like General Sir Henry may still believe that women aren’t the intellectual equal of men, but there are too many fine female lawyers for anyone involved with the law to have that Stone Age notion. Besides, British women are every bit as tough to handle as you are. The judge who gets respect all day in court goes home at night to have his wife take him down a notch or two because he forgot her birthday. No, it’s something completely different.”
He paused in the hallway and met her eye.
“I really suspect that their problem is not because you’re a woman, but because you’re such a damn fine lawyer.”
49
Desai’s next witnesses was a twenty-year staff member of the royal household. He was the servant who offered to announce the princess as she entered the main hall where the party was being held. That put him in a position to observe the princess close up immediately before the shooting. He testified that the princess had been calm and collected when she walked by him.
“In your twenty years in a royal household, have you ever seen a Royal present anything but restraint toward the public?” Marlowe asked on cross.
He admitted that he had not.
Another member of the household, a woman who assisted the princess as a maid the night of the shooting, followed with the same theme, that the princess was calm.
Marlowe asked her, “I notice you told the police that the princess could have swift mood changes—what did you mean?”
“Oh, she’s quite famous for going from one place to another with her moods. She’d be calm one moment, then blow at us, and then laugh hysterically the next. But she was calm that night, she was.”
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