Bennett, still smarting from the accusation that he arranged the murder of Bobby Vandiver, defended his case with passion: “The general test is to look at the evidence other than accomplice testimony and see if it tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense. The key word here is ‘tends.’”
DeGeurin cleared his throat to begin a protest, but Bennett angrily plunged ahead. He was bent on tearing down any weeds in his path. “We know that Ash Robinson had a motive for the killing of John Hill … we know of animosity between Ash Robinson and John Hill … we know there was a connection between Ash Robinson and Lilla Paulus. These do not, taken alone, make a case against Lilla Paulus. But as a whole, considering the evidence, they tend to connect her with the commission of this offense.”
It was late Friday afternoon, the end of the first long week of the trial. Judge Price asked each of the lawyers to prepare briefs supporting their contentions. He would stop by chambers on Saturday noon after his son’s baseball game. “I will rule on Mr. DeGeurin’s motion for an instructed verdict of acquittal first thing Monday morning,” he promised.
The betting in the courthouse corridor was that DeGeurin would win. Give Bennett an A for effort, they said, but give the defense the gold cup. And if Ash Robinson had not suddenly and rudely and foolishly injected himself into the picture over the weekend, perhaps the drama would have sputtered and died. But he did. The damned old man couldn’t keep his mouth shut when it was most important.
Stretched in sensation across the top eight columns of the Monday morning Houston Post for February 24, 1975, was a headline that angered Judge Price. ROBINSON DENIES ROLE IN SLAYING, shrieked the banner, touting a “Post Exclusive” and copyrighted interview with the man everybody in town was talking about:
Oilman Ash Robinson categorically denied Sunday he had anything to do with the slaying of Dr. John Hill.
Robinson said he certainly would not have arranged the killing of his former son-in-law, as was testified in court last week, before “an audience of people.”
“I didn’t want him dead,” Robinson said. “His killing didn’t solve his problems or mine.”
And on and on, Robinson using the newspaper as a trumpet to blast once again his anthem of innocence. He was breaking his long silence, he said, because he felt it necessary to respond to the allegations made against him in the Paulus murder trial. He wanted his grandson to believe in his innocence. The truth of the matter, said Ash in his interview, was that he wanted to get on the witness stand and—under oath—demolish the lies being told about him. But his health was failing, he told the reporter. He doubted if his doctor would permit such an ordeal.
“Bullshit,” swore Judge Price when he finished the article, slamming it down on his desk and wondering if the trial was now spoiled. In retrospect he realized that he should have locked the jurors up from the moment of their selection. Even though he daily lectured them not to read newspapers or listen to radio and television reports on the trial, it would have been impossible to avoid seeing this headline, set in a type size appropriate to a Russian invasion of San Francisco. Newsstands had it clearly visible all over the courthouse, and his car radio had crackled on the judge’s drive downtown that morning with reference to Ash’s interview.
Ever since the McKittrick-Paulus matters fell onto his docket by chance, the young judge had been fascinated and troubled by the manner in which the dramas were playing out. “It reminds me of that movie The French Connection,” he had once commented. “It seems to be the kind of situation where the higher-ups insulate themselves and the little people get shot or go to the penitentiary.”
Whether the judge might have granted the defense motion for an instructed verdict of acquittal had not Ash splattered himself across the breakfast tables of Houston must be speculation. But there could be no misreading of Judge Price’s cold anger when he entered the courtroom and beckoned DeGeurin and Bennett. “Mr. DeGeurin,” he said tersely, “your motion will be overruled. May we begin?”
The judge was here following an old and well-traveled route of procedure. He would let the trial continue, hoping that it would finally reach a jury, but if matters got out of hand, or if he developed second thoughts about turning down the DeGeurin motion, then he could at any time grant it and end the state’s prosecution of Lilla Paulus.
DeGeurin was disappointed and tired. His smooth and boyish face had new lines of fatigue, and his eyes were as pink as a rabbit’s from lack of sleep. He, too, was troubled by the newspaper article, for he recognized that the irascible old man was damaging his defense of Lilla Paulus. He had no control over Ash, despite gossip (which he denied) that he was being paid from Robinson’s purse.
At this point, what DeGeurin should have done was quit. Rest his case. Call no witnesses for the defense. Depend upon an impassioned sermon of scorn to wreck the state’s feeble case against his client. But all weekend long he had tried theoretically to put himself in the jury box and study just how much damning information was on the record. This is always a challenging task for a lawyer, for when a person lives with a murder case for years, privy to every intimate nuance and detail, it is difficult to distinguish between the few trees newly planted for the jury and the massive forest already growing in the brain.
Had he been a juror, DeGeurin reasoned, trying to be objective, he would have voted for acquittal. The state’s case simply did not meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But could the average juror—the heavy-set grandmother or the vacant-looking young secretary—distinguish between real evidence and the power of colored photographs of a dead man? Between real evidence and the unsubstantiated testimony of a prostitute trying to win herself the best possible bargain? Other factors were at work within DeGeurin. He had prepared a substantial defense. Witnesses were on tap, briefed, ready to respond to carefully rehearsed questions. Were he to rest the case now and not call on these people, he would be like a man who built a cannon and then went into battle but never got to fire his wondrous contraption. Moreover, the ambitious young lawyer’s ego was caught up in the heady proceedings. Television lights embraced him at every entrance and exit from the courtroom. However his role thus far had been in the supporting actor category, interrupting now and then with a jibe at the district attorney. Only if he became the ringmaster, cracking his whip and bringing on the acts, only then would he have principal billing. “I go on trial with my client,” he said before the first session began. He had labored for ten thousand hours to prepare these moments. And he was not content to quit with what might be a hollow victory. What his reputation hungered for was a resounding triumph. Like Racehorse Haynes, he wanted them to lift him to their shoulders and carry him from the courtroom.
First, he had to do something about those irksome pieces of paper that the state deemed “evidence.” Most troubling was the scrap found deep in the recesses of Lilla’s handbag the day she was arrested, the one containing Ash Robinson’s private unlisted telephone number. Several routes of attack were open to DeGeurin, the principal one being his claim that the search itself was invalid because Jerry Carpenter and his posse had frightened his client into permission with their bristling guns. But an extensive objection to this search was already in the trial proceedings. He would gamble that the appellate court would rule favorably on that some later day. For now, he called back to the stand one of the state’s own witnesses, Mr. Bolton, the security director for the telephone company. On behalf of the prosecution, Bolton had testified that Ash Robinson took out a private number in the autumn of 1972, about the time that John Hill was murdered, kept it for a few weeks, then ordered it discontinued. Bob Bennett had hinted strongly that this brief-lived number was the communication link between Ash Robinson and Lilla Paulus to plan the killing.
Over a half day of tedious and boring questioning—at least two of the jurors nodded off on occasion as the flustered witness was made to shuffle through stacks of complicated billing invoices that he, as a company cop, clear
ly had no sophisticated knowledge of—DeGeurin finally elicited the opinion that the unlisted number was installed a few days after the murder of John Hill. This hardly seemed relevant to the issue on the table, i.e., What Was Lilla Paulus Doing With The Private Number Of Ash Robinson In The First Place? But DeGeurin growled and snapped so dramatically at the man from the telephone company that perhaps the jurors were mildly impressed. If somebody spends four hours trying to make a point, his hard work seemed to say, surely it must be significant.
For underscoring, DeGeurin summoned one of his prestigious brothers from the bar, attorney Richard Keeton, counsel now and then for the conspicuously absent Ash Robinson. He sat now in the witness box, the very model of respectability, anxious to tell how “agitated and distraught” Mr. Robinson was in the shocking days following the murder of John Hill. In fact, the old man’s telephone—the one publicly listed in the directory—was ringing off the wall. Day and night. Attorney Keeton testified that he was occasionally present in the Robinson home during this crisis period and had helpfully answered some of the rings himself. His face indicated that these were from cranks and ill-wishers, out to harass old Ash. DeGeurin nodded knowingly, as if he were glad to get the truth finally out. And the truth, according to the defense, was that Ash Robinson grew so weary over people bothering him that he was forced to disconnect his regular telephone number and have a new and unlisted one installed. This he kept until matters quieted down, until the case moved off the front pages, and then he took his old listed phone number back. And had the temporary unlisted one removed. What could be more logical than this? asked DeGeurin.
But there was one important crack in the shield. And Bob Bennett was quick to point it out. It so happened that Ash Robinson had owned, for several years, another private unlisted telephone number. He still did to this day, as a matter of fact. If he was getting crank calls on his publicly listed number, then why was it necessary to have a brand-new second private line installed? Why not just give out his long-established confidential number to those with whom he wished to speak? Why take out a new unlisted number for a period of a few weeks, and why did it turn up in Lilla Paulus’ purse?
Albert W. Summerford looked exactly like his name. He had a precise, prissy face, a twitching white mustache that behaved like a rabbit’s whiskers, and a manner so meticulous that if asked, “How are you, Al?” he would probably respond with his 9 A.M. pulse rate, blood sugar content, and perhaps the exact number of times he had sneezed since Christmas. He was a handwriting expert, but one who promptly informed Dick DeGeurin, his patron in this matter, that he preferred to use the more dignified appellation “examiner of questioned documents.” Following that, he presented his credentials, taking almost a quarter of an hour to tick off thirty-five years of professional life, including “consultation with the U. S. Secret Service.” He estimated that since 1940 he had participated in from 6,000 to 7,000 cases, and had examined more than 100,000 questioned documents. Obviously Summerford enjoyed delivering his dossier. He probably did it at cocktail parties. He had been engaged by DeGeurin to examine the four slips of paper seized and introduced as evidence against Lilla Paulus. And, after meticulous study, he “could not positively identify her as author.” To reach this conclusion, Summerford explained, he had dictated nine full pages of random material to Mrs. Paulus and she dutifully wrote his words down. Then he matched this writing against the state’s evidence. In great detail he described his conclusions, saying things like “Note here that the capital ‘Y’ begins with an approach stroke on this page, and on this slip of paper it does not.”
“Well, can you then eliminate Mrs. Paulus as the person who wrote this note?” demanded DeGeurin, brandishing the blank check found by police in Lilla’s bedroom night stand, on the back of which was written “You had better tell Ash they are trying to subpoena Ma.”
“I would be inclined to,” said Mr. Summerford in a voice as clipped as his white sideburns. “… there are a number of differences that cannot be reconciled.”
And what about the scrap of paper with Ash Robinson’s unlisted telephone number?
Summerford hemmed and hawed around this bramble bush. There were both differences—and a few similarities—in the hand that wrote this number and Lilla Paulus’ sample writing as he had studied it. There was not enough material for him to identify her or eliminate her as the authoress of this telephone number.
In conclusion, he felt that one of the other slips of paper, the one containing airline flight schedule information and a partial gin rummy score, “seemed to be written by Marcia McKittrick.”
Bob Bennett rose for cross-examination, and his manner indicated that he put approximately as much faith in handwriting experts as he did in four-year-old kiddies who wore velvet suits, lace collars, and performed faith healing in tents. “Isn’t it true, Mr. Summerford,” he said, not concealing the sarcasm in his voice, “that if a person is excited or in ill health or …” Here he paused. Lilla Paulus was conveniently coughing again, wheezing, trying to catch her breath. He waited for her to complete her beautifully timed seizure. “… or out of breath that their handwriting is different?”
Summerford shrugged. “A person only knows how to make letters one way,” he said.
“Isn’t there something called a tremor?” pressed Bennett.
“Yes,” agreed the expert.
Bennett glanced at a folder on his table. In it were additional samples of Lilla Paulus’ handwriting, obtained by the state months before. To Bennett’s naked eye, they seemed remarkably dissimilar to those specimens she had given Albert W. Summerford. He felt Lilla was fooling somebody. The district attorney could have spent a full week attacking the “art” of Albert W. Summerford, for he believed that some experts, once handsomely engaged, tend to be overly helpful in making conclusions favorable to the person who paid the money. But he elected not to whip this horse. Bennett sensed that Summerford was not a particularly helpful witness to the defense. The jury had seemed a little restless, even disinterested in his pompous analysis of Lilla’s dotted i’s and hastily crossed t’s. On a hunch, he passed the witness.
There are two newspapers in Houston, the morning Post, and the afternoon Chronicle. Both are relentlessly home town in outlook, both are conservative politically, and neither would make a list of the ten best in America. But they are on occasion scrappy in an intramural sort of way, and when the Post bannered its “exclusive” interview with Ash Robinson and his denial of all the charges rumbling through the courtroom, the Chronicle was clearly scooped. It was hardly one to win even a footnote in the history of journalism, for Ash Robinson had been eminently approachable since the day his daughter died, opening his door with a courtly handshake to correspondents from Europe, New York, even suburban weeklies. Whatever, the Chronicle, feeling a little scorched, dispatched one of its reporters to Kirby Drive and once again Ash had something worth a headline. In fact, he had probably held back an appetizing tidbit for the other newspaper, realizing that with his left hand he could dominate the morning edition and with his right command impressive help from the evening competition.
On the next day the Chronicle was thus proud to inform its readers in a top-of-the-page scream, OILMAN SAYS LIE DETECTOR TEST CLEARS HIM IN SLAYING. Below was elaborate detail of the polygraph test Ash had bought himself in New York.
The paper hit the streets at midmorning, just as the jury was about to assemble. A copy was put before the judge in his chambers, and if on the day before Frank Price had been angry, now he was furious.
He ordered the jury sequestered from this moment on, instructing the bailiff to make arrangements for lodging, meals, and security guards. And he stalked about his office, the copy of the newspaper crushed in his hand like a club looking for a target. “Why doesn’t Mr. DeGeurin call Ash Robinson?” he wondered out loud. “It says in the paper that he is sick, but he isn’t too sick to lay around out there in River Oaks conducting press conferences. Hell, he’s staging his own trial,
which will undoubtedly clear himself since he is the judge and the jury.”
The young judge was just spouting off, for he well knew that the defense could not dare put the old man on the stand. Not only would it open the door to interminable and ruthless cross-examination from Bob Bennett, Ash would probably invoke the Fifth Amendment. And in that event, murmured the judge, almost perversely, “it would be bye-bye, Lilla.” If Ash by silence refused to support Lilla Paulus, he would throw her to the wolves.
A reporter stopped Bob Bennett and asked if the state planned to subpoena the oilman. Bennett looked almost nauseated. “Do you think I’m going to vouch for Ash Robinson’s truth and veracity?” he snapped. If the district attorney hauled Ash into court and made him a state’s witness, then Bennett would, under law, be “sponsoring” the old man, and if Ash predictably denied every allegation, then it would destroy the prosecution of Lilla Paulus. The mire was positively Machiavellian, and surely Ash Robinson was reveling in everybody’s predicament.
Bennett was walking hurriedly toward the courtroom when he was struck by a new notion. It might just be that his prosecution had been dealt a valuable wild card. With the old man making all of these offstage noises, surely the jury was going to start wondering why Dick DeGeurin did not summon him to buttress the defense posture. Where the hell was Ash Robinson? The jurors must be asking themselves, Why doesn’t the defense get him up here to testify on behalf of Lilla? “This is crazy,” said Bennett in a whispered conference with his associate, Bob Burdette, just outside chambers. “But Ash’s absence may be the strongest god damn thing we’ve got going for us.”
Dick DeGeurin astonished the courtroom by calling as his next witness Lilla Paulus. The maneuver was breath-taking in its danger, for the district attorney would be beside himself with eagerness to rummage, in cross-examination, through the closets of the defendant’s life. But, DeGeurin reasoned, after consultations with the maestro of criminal law, Percy Foreman, the risk was worth taking. There were no felony convictions on Lilla’s criminal record, nor were there convictions of misdemeanors for moral turpitude. Only a few bond forfeitures, and these were, in the main, from two to three decades old. The state could not bring them up for the jury’s consideration. DeGeurin knew that he must be on guard to block every attempt Bennett made to tarnish his client, and indeed, the state might get in a few licks. But, reasoned DeGeurin, there was enormous capital to be made from Lilla Paulus personally taking the stand and, under oath and the penalty of perjury, calmly denying the heinous accusations against her. And Lilla wanted to testify. She had, after all, once stood as target for a knife-throwing act. And she had, after all, made it through fifty-six years of an exceptionally flamboyant life. She would not miss the opportunity to enter the place of supreme importance and acquit herself well, in every sense of the word.
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