A friend, sympathetic to the drama of the most critical day of Marcia’s life, provided a simple white jersey dress for her to wear. Bob Bennett insisted that the blue middy tie be draped modestly across the breasts, for although he had no intention of hiding Marcia’s line of work, he did not want her to perch in the witness box like a siren singing on the rocks. She washed and brushed her hair carefully, letting it fall naturally, and with a pale pinkish lipstick borrowed from a sister prisoner, Marcia appeared quite girlish, even demure. Each of the five women jurors scrutinized her carefully, as they would a new arrival at a party, then were clearly fascinated as she led them like tourists into the dark and forbidden caverns of money, sex, and murder. Bennett had warned her that he would be rough, that he—and certainly the defense lawyer on cross-examination—would journey brutally through her private life. He also cautioned her not to look out at Lilla Paulus, worrying that she might falter under the gaze of the older woman. “Don’t worry about that,” Marcia said, summoning courage, “that moment is going to be worth it all. Oh, I know she’ll try to stare me down. She’ll try to scare me out of the box. But it won’t wash, Lilla. Shut your old ugly eyes!”
“Was Lilla Paulus aware of your profession?”
“Yes.” Marcia’s voice was soft, thick Texan, covered with the nasal icing of a hillbilly songstress.
In a long series of questions, Bennett asked if Marcia had ever heard of a “contract” that Lilla Paulus was “shopping.”
Yes, she had. The “contract” had been around for several months. Lilla had asked her if she knew anyone capable of filling it.
“Did you learn who was the subject of this ‘contract’?”
Marcia nodded quickly. “Yes. Dr. John Hill.” With that she looked squarely at Lilla Paulus and between the two women was the ache of a child betraying a parent, the sorrow of age for errant youth. But if Lilla permitted herself a moment of emotion, she quickly regained her composure and replaced her mask of serene ice. Occasionally she nudged DeGeurin with an impatient elbow, but the lawyer was hanging on every word that emerged from the calm and responsive threat on the stand, and he would not permit his client to interfere with his concentration.
It was time for Bennett to introduce the great unspoken name into the proceedings. He pulled a small color snapshot from a folder and asked Marcia if she knew this man.
“Yes,” said Marcia, glancing at the picture. “This is Ash Robinson.”
Bennett offered the image to the jurors, and each member stared attentively at a benign grandfather—heavy, gray-haired, prosperous-looking in a dark blue suit, at ease in his favorite armchair, beneath photographs of Joan.
“Where did you first meet Ash Robinson?”
“At Lilla’s house.… Ash just came by.… He began discussing Lilla’s daughter, Mary Jo, and his own daughter … how they had ridden horses together.… He was very upset.… He spoke very sadly of the death of his daughter.… He was obsessed with the fact that he did not have custody of his grandson.”
Bennett moved cautiously. Marcia was the seamstress who alone could stitch together the conspiracy. “How many times did you see Ash Robinson at Lilla’s house?”
“Not many.… But Lilla told me he was the person who wanted the ‘contract’ filled.…”
Marcia told of mentioning the contract to Bobby Vandiver in the late spring or early summer of 1972. Bobby was “disinterested” at first, she testified. But after several weeks passed, he agreed to speak with Lilla.
“And what was the arrangement?” wondered Bennett. He was pleased with the manner in which his witness was testifying—clearly, logically, with no hesitations or embellishments. Occasionally he stole a sideways glance at the jurors. They were rapt.
“Lilla said he would get $5,000 for the contract … and she would get her money separately from the same source.… Bobby asked me if Lilla could be trusted, and I said, ‘Yes.’”
“Did you see Ash Robinson again?”
Marcia nodded. She remembered the old man came once more to Lilla’s house for a meeting while Bobby was asleep in another room. And there were “a few” meetings between Lilla and Ash in a parking lot across the street from Ben Taub Hospital, the city’s huge and crowded charity institution. There, Marcia testified, Lilla and Ash would rendezvous, either in her Cadillac or in a nearby park.
“Ash was very leery of anyone else’s presence,” said Marcia, explaining the furtive strolls in the woods. But they did not walk far enough to be completely out of her sight, said Marcia. “Lilla was handed what appeared to be money by Ash,” she said, boring her eyes once again into Lilla, suddenly seized with renewed coughing.
Once the bargain was struck between Lilla and Bobby Vandiver, Marcia said, Lilla helped plan the killing. “Lilla took us over on Kirby Drive and pointed out the house and more or less told us Dr. Hill’s daily routine, who was normally in the house … that sort of thing.” The first drive-by of the Hill home was three or four weeks ahead of the crime.
“At this stage of the game,” asked Bennett, “what were the arrangements?”
“There were none,” said Marcia, almost cheerful in reminiscence. She sounded as if the conspirators were such rank novices at murder—characters from a bumbling British film mystery—that it was miraculous the death actually occurred. “We couldn’t even figure out when he would be alone. He never was. There were always people around him.”
“How often did you go to the Hill home?”
“I can’t count that high. We went at times ranging from six in the morning to four in the morning.”
Bennett skipped ahead in time to the final days of John Hill’s life. He asked Marcia to describe how she and Bobby stalked the doomed plastic surgeon.
“Ash Robinson told Lilla that John Hill was either in Seattle or Las Vegas around September 16,” she answered. “I called Vegas … but I couldn’t locate him. He was lost.… On September 24, 1972, Ash informed us that Hill would be coming home later on this day and that he supposedly had $15,000 cash on him to pay his lawyer.… Lilla told me that the day before Ash had given her $7, 000 on the contract.… Lilla had the flight schedule for National Airlines, and there were three flights due into Houston from Vegas.… Lilla said she could not find out which flight the doctor was on. She asked me to find out. I called National and they told me Hill was due in at 6:38 P.M.…”
Bob Bennett interrupted, retrieving one of the slips of paper he had earlier introduced as a state exhibit, offering it now to Marcia for identification. The slip, seized in Jerry Carpenter’s search of Lilla’s house, bore scribbled flight numbers and estimated times of arrival.
“Do you recognize this handwriting?” asked Bennett.
“Yes,” said Marcia. It was the hand of Lilla Paulus.
Quickly DeGeurin objected, claiming that Marcia had not been qualified as a handwriting expert. Judge Price let her comment stand, and Bennett moved hurriedly—and happily—into a newly opened door. How long, he wondered, had Marcia been a guest at Lilla Paulus’ home? If all the nights were added up, estimated Marcia, they would total three months. Bennett nodded tellingly, hoping that the jury would make the important connection that Marcia was very much a fixture at the Paulus home and not just a rare guest. This would tend to bolster her opinion about the handwriting, as well as her earlier testimony about the murder contract being “shopped” for some time.
Finally Bennett led Marcia with patience and gentleness through the fulfillment of the contract, driving Bobby to the Hill home, waiting in the House of Pies for his phone call, the difficulty in picking him up, returning to Lilla’s house for the balance due.
“How much money did Lilla pay him?” asked Bennett.
“Five thousand dollars, whereupon Bobby gave her $1,000 back for steering him to the job.…”
“A commission?” suggested Bennett, dropping the word heavily, emphasizing the price tag on a human life.
“Yes,” agreed Marcia.
DeGeurin was in tro
uble. Normally he would rip into a witness of Marcia’s reputation, slashing her character, impeaching her believability, approaching the task with the distaste of a man forced to dismantle a blocked sewer pipe. But Marcia had already owned up to the shaded portions of her life. Already she had accepted the roles of prostitute, dope addict, assistant murderer. And she sat there patiently, no more fearful of what was to come than a housewife facing a census taker’s clipboard. All DeGeurin could do was stomp heavily over the ground, searching for little flaws that might, if gathered together, make a fission in some juror’s mind.
“What does ‘chip’ mean?” demanded DeGeurin.
“Bobby and I were bed partners,” said Marcia.
“Did you share your earnings with Bobby?”
“Occasionally.”
“Are you familiar with the term ‘pimp’?”
“Yes.” Marcia’s answer was curt, for she knew what was coming.
“Was Bobby your pimp?”
“No.” Marcia drew herself up almost haughtily.
DeGeurin made a face of surprise, as if he had just been told that the sun rose each morning in the north. “Then was Bobby a hijacker, a person who robs other people from time to time?”
Marcia agreed with that.
The defense attorney gestured with his right hand at the thin, coughing woman beside him. Then he whirled and pointed accusatorily at Marcia. “Do you deny that you and Bobby Vandiver planned to ‘rip off’ Lilla Paulus … a widow … living alone … well off … an easy mark?”
Marcia almost laughed. “She might be,” said the prostitute with heavy sarcasm, “if her home wasn’t an arsenal.”
The lawyer looked surprised again. “You’re inferring that Lilla Paulus’ home was an arsenal?”
“Yes,” said Marcia firmly.
Prudently, DeGeurin backed away from this coiled and rattling snake as fast as possible. Better that he make a clear distinction between his respectable client and this disreputable whore.
“Isn’t it true that in actual fact Lilla Paulus had no real knowledge of your true character?” DeGeurin asked.
Marcia looked amused. “No. She was aware. She even called me at the William Penn Hotel and asked for Dusty.” Bob Bennett was silently happy with this answer. Marcia had cleverly managed to slip into the trial record the fact that she worked at the faded downtown hostelry under the trick name of Dusty. One of the four slips of paper introduced in evidence had both the name of the hotel and the pseudonym written on it.
The defense lawyer punched around with unmarkable impact, trying to set up targets—Marcia’s addiction to drugs, the charge that she co-operated with the police to obtain narcotics, and—over and over again—that she and Bobby Vandiver were professional robbers, out to steal from Lilla Paulus.
For the better part of two days the opposing lawyers tossed Marcia back and forth like a bean bag, DeGeurin trying to tear her stuffing out as a lying, conniving, junkie whore who changed stories as whimsically as the wind, Bennett seeking to patch any punctures by insisting that his witness was a repentant, truthful, helpful, justice-desiring young woman. Whatever, Marcia emerged, at least to the press and the young Turks who had begun to fill the courtroom, as a credible witness and a potent offering for the state.
Significantly, DeGeurin did not attempt to impeach Marcia’s graphic narrative of the murder and its planning or Lilla’s alleged involvement. The best he could do was hammer at the discrepancies between the testimony she had given at her own murder trial four months earlier and what she was now swearing to—and at the same time rip off the bandages from the sores of her life and display the festering ugliness to the jury. But would this be enough to make the jury disbelieve her? Bennett did not think so. Privately, he was not alarmed at DeGeurin’s attempt at character assassination. In his summation, he intended to tell the jury that of course Marcia was a dope addict-prostitute, and of course Bobby Vandiver was a robber-hit man. You don’t hire a preacher to go out and do your killing for you, he would say. Or something like that.
Toward the end of Marcia’s second day on the stand, Bob Bennett could not resist pointing out, almost mischievously, that if the prostitute’s testimony was all that tainted, then why had Dick DeGeurin visited her jail cell and implored her not to testify? It was true, wasn’t it, that DeGeurin paid frequent visits? And it was true, wasn’t it, that he was not her attorney in this matter?
Not only were both facts true, she testified, DeGeurin had even suggested to her that Bobby Vandiver was assassinated on direct order of Mr. Bennett of the district attorney’s office. At this, the young prosecutor’s face went hot with anger. The charge was reprehensible, and besides, it made no sense. Since he had worked out a deal with Bobby Vandiver and was crucially dependent on his co-operation to convict the others, why would he order a killing? But all he could do was object vehemently. He could not reveal the delicate negotiations that had gone on between him and a now dead killer. At this point the two lawyers ceased being polite adversaries and became bitter antagonists. “Now we get dirty,” murmured one of the reporters.
Scowling at the defense table, Bennett spun back to Marcia, searching for a way to get off stage positively before his wrath caused something reversible.
“Have you ever up to Tuesday of this week been a willing witness in this case?” he asked.
Marcia shook her head. “No.”
“Then why are you now testifying?”
“I feel,” said Marcia, “that it’s the right thing to do.” At her place, Lilla Paulus smiled pseudo patiently, as one would when dealing with a renowned psychopathic liar.
“That’s all for now, your honor,” said Bennett.
In the court anteroom, waiting for the elevator that would drop her back to the jail, Marcia was invigorated, anxious to relive her appearance, as an actor likes to sit up after the performance and unwind. “It was worth it,” she said, a little pride showing, “just to see the expression on Lilla’s face. She was always the height of composure. I thought nothing could get to her. But when I told about her meeting with Ash, I thought she was going to fall apart.”
Bennett appeared with a compliment for her forthright testimony. And he volunteered a special guard to watch over Marcia in the women’s jail that night. No need for that, said Marcia. She was exhilarated and strengthened. “Last night the matron wanted to put me in an isolation cell for my own protection,” she said. “But I refused. There’s no shower or toilet, and besides, I’m not scared any more. You know the crazy thing, Bob? The other girls said they had been wondering why the hell it took me so long to make my decision.” Nonetheless, Bennett quietly ordered that a discreet watch be kept over Marcia, for he had come to know—and fear—the way people who had roles in this case kept dying.
To conclude, Bennett summoned a Mr. Bolton, “security director” from Southwestern Bell Telephone, who testified about activity on Lilla Paulus’ line. During the days preceding the death of Dr. John Hill, long-distance calls were charged to her number and placed to Western Airlines in Seattle, Air West in Seattle, and the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, where the convention of plastic surgeons was being held, and which Dr. Hill was scheduled to attend. There was also a call made to Red, Bobby Vandiver’s sister, at her home near Dallas, this tending to verify a bit of testimony from Marcia about Lilla calling Bobby there on September 11, 1972, and suggesting that now was a good time to fill the contract.
Even more important, the man from the telephone company testified that, for a short period of time in the autumn of 1972, Ash Robinson took out an unlisted telephone. The number was 523-3746. At this revelation, Bob Bennett produced the smallest slip of paper he had previously introduced mysteriously as evidence. This was a scrap found in the recesses of Lilla’s purse on the day she was arrested by Jerry Carpenter. On it was jotted the same private phone number, 523-3746.
With that, Bob Bennett rested his case. It was not the most powerful he had ever presented, but it was, he reasoned, the be
st he could do. He had given the jury a dead man, eyewitnesses to the crime, a confessed participant, and a few scraps of paper that fragilely bound Lilla Paulus to the role of agent for murder. It would have strengthened his position had he been able to put other people on the witness stand who would testify to having heard Lilla Paulus “shop the contract.” There were, he believed, at least three. Perhaps four. He even had their names and whereabouts. The layman would assume that the district attorney possessed the power to subpoena such people and force them to testify. Not at all. In one of the pretrial strategy sessions Bennett had fantasized the futility of his position. “I can just see it,” he told Jerry Carpenter. “I tell this dude in the North Carolina jailhouse that my name is Bob Bennett and I’m from the district attorney’s office in Houston and I insist that he come with me to testify he heard Lilla Paulus looking around for somebody to kill John Hill. He listens and he says. ‘Well, fuck you and the horse you rode up on, buddy.’”
Nor was Bennett content with the image of Lilla Paulus that he had presented to the jury. Other than Marcia’s helpful remark that the defendant’s home was an “arsenal,” the jurors had been given nothing to indicate that the coughing gray woman with the haunting eyes lived a life at considerable odds with her image.
As expected, Dick DeGeurin immediately requested an instructed verdict of acquittal. In the privacy of Judge Price’s freshly decorated chambers, under a large gold-hued metal weeping willow that dominated the major wall, the defense lawyer imperiously scoffed at the state’s case. “There simply is not a shred of evidence that links Mrs. Paulus to this offense,” said DeGeurin. “As I see this case, it is much stronger from a defense standpoint than the Chapman case.” His reference was to a famous decision in which the appellate court threw out a conviction of a robber who was arrested with a piece of paper in front of him showing how some loot was to be split. That evidence was not of sufficient corroboration, the court decreed.
Blood and Money Page 54