Dr. Klatz was manifestly unhappy at being present. He looked as if he would gladly perform a clitoridectomy on the deputy attorney general, without anesthesia.
“When did the defendant first come under your care, Doctor?”
“April of 1983.”
“Why did she come under your care?”
“She was recommended.”
“Why was she recommended?”
“She had experienced a second miscarriage the previous month. Her physician referred her to me.”
“What was your evaluation of her, medically?”
“That’s none of your business,” the doctor said. “It’s none of anyone’s business.”
Judge Dutch instructed the doctor gently to answer.
Dr. Klatz shook his head. “With all respect to you and the court, you can find me in contempt and put me in jail, but I will not answer that question.”
Judge Dutch drummed his fingers and contemplated the dreariness—for everyone concerned—of having the doctor dragged off in handcuffs. He waved up the lawyers.
One of the television networks had hired a lip-reader to decipher what the judge said during the sidebars. They couldn’t broadcast a direct translation, of course. But their correspondent certainly seemed to have an uncanny knack for predicting just how Judge Dutch would rule.
The correspondent told his viewers, “My guess is that he will not force the issue and will let the prosecution proceed along a parallel line of questioning.”
“Dr. Klatz,” the prosecution continued, “did you prescribe a regimen of birth control pills for Mrs. MacMann?”
Dr. Klatz looked at Beth. What was the use? They had the prescriptions.
“Yes. You already know that.”
“Has Mrs. MacMann remained your patient since April 1983?”
“Yes.”
“And has she continued to take birth control pills under your prescription since that time?”
“I have prescribed them. Whether she took them, I can’t say.”
The deputy AG asked the court to enter into evidence a thick stack of paper, prescriptions dating back two decades and continuing until recently.
“Tell me the good news,” Boyce said to his associate who monitored the media.
Beth had gone back to Rosedale for a long bath and, Boyce suspected, good cry.
“The women,” the associate said nervously, “are furious. The message they’re sending is ‘Hands off her body,’ ‘None of your business,’ echoing Klatz’s line. The head of the National Organization for Women used the term vast male conspiracy. The National Association of Former First Ladies issued a guarded statement standing by her.”
“Now the bad news.”
“The word liar was used twenty-three times during the evening news cycle. CBS used the term credibility problem. ABC is teasing tonight’s Nightline show with the line ‘Can we believe her?’ Tomorrow’s New York Post has a story quoting—indirectly—the archbishop of New York saying that if she and the President had had a kid, maybe all this wouldn’t have happened.”
Boyce groaned and went off to get Vlonko’s report.
Vlonko was staring at his computer screen, scowling.
“We got problems with two, four, and eight. Maybe big-time problems.”
“Two is the Catholic with four kids?”
“Five fucking kids. And the sister with the Down’s baby.”
“What about four and eight?” Juror number four taught Sunday school and just loved kids, according to her questionnaire. Juror eight was liable to feel betrayed at hearing that a defendant who’d told the court how desperate she was to have a baby had been popping birth control pills like breath mints for two decades. On weekends, she volunteered at an adoption agency.
“I would say, Boyce, not so fucking good,” said Vlonko. “Lips very tight all day. Hardly moving. Hands on laps. This is hostile posture.”
The drawback to being a trial attorney was that you couldn’t, after a bad day, stun yourself into insensibility with a good stiff drink. The lovely clink of ice, the little cat’s feet padding up to the cortex, the furry body rubbing up and down against it like a scratching post.
Not tonight. Tonight would be a long night, spent closely reading articles from medical journals and psychiatric journals about birth control pills as a hormone management tool and on the long-term post-traumatic effects of miscarriage.
Chapter 23
Boyce’s cross of Klatz elicited a nearly unbroken string of yeses from the eager-to-help doctor, but it felt like bailing a leaking boat with a too small bucket. He’d have kept Dr. Klatz on the stand longer if he could, just to bathe the jury in his amiable, nonjudgmental, pro-Beth aura.
The prosecution had given Lonetta Sue Scutt a good scrubbing and put her in a dress that managed to cover most of her tattoos. Her hair had been dyed so dark that it had a granular quality, like a wig made from shoe polish and fishing line. For someone who lived in the desert, she had suspiciously pale skin, and decades of two packs a day had cured her vocal cords to sandpaper. She listed her profession as “home-maker” and “exotic dancer.”
Aware that her witness did not present the image of Mother Teresa, Clintick kept her direct examination brief.
Had she been in the employ of Governor and Mrs. MacMann? Oh yeah. Had she observed stress in the marriage? Ohh yeah. Had she heard Mrs. MacMann express her intention to—she was quoting here from a statement she had made to the FBI—cut off the governor’s penis? Uh-huh. Is that a yes, Ms. Scutt? Oh yeah. And was she fired shortly after overhearing this? Uh-huh, and she threatened me to keep quiet or the state troopers would take care of me. Thank you. Your witness.
Boyce was courtly. He showed Lonetta Sue Scutt no less respect than he would have the Queen of England. Ms. Scutt, are you currently taking any medication? I take a few pills, uh-huh. You have a prescription for OxyContin? That’s a powerful painkiller, is it not? Yeah, and I got a powerful pain. What was the cause of the pain, Ms. Scutt? There was this accident. What kind of accident? I got some battery acid powder up my—in the sinuses? Really? How does battery acid powder get into the sinuses, Ms. Scutt? It was an accident, like.
Boyce admitted into evidence the emergency room report from the Morongo Basin Hospital. Lonetta had snorted the battery acid powder. Her cocaine dealer had given it to her. She had paid him for her previous purchase with sex. Along with the sex was included a nasty dose of sexually transmitted disease. The dealer paid her back by substituting granulated battery acid powder for cocaine in her next purchase. It was a miracle she hadn’t died.
“Irrelevant!” DAG Clintick cried.
Boyce fired back that she should be ashamed to have called such a witness in the first place. The photo of a foggy-glassed Judge Dutch angrily pointing his finger at them made the cover of Time.
“My guess,” the lip-reader-assisted network correspondent told his viewers while the judge was wagging his finger and threatening to fine both Boyce and Sandy, “is that Judge Umin may be so fed up at this point that he’s prepared to sanction both the defense and prosecution.”
“Ms. Scutt,” Boyce continued, “did you telephone the National Perspirer and try to sell your story to them for the sum of one million dollars?”
“Why not? Everyone else connected to it is making a fortune.”
Lonetta was refreshingly candid.
“Two final questions, Ms. Scutt. Did you tell the Perspirer that while serving lunch to Mrs. MacMann and her friend Mrs. Hackersmith, you heard Mrs. MacMann say she was going to cut off the governor’s penis?”
“That’s what she said.”
“And would this be the same gubernatorial organ that you—that you had had in your physical possession before serving lunch to Mrs. MacMann and her friend?”
“Objection!”
Sidebar.
“I will rephrase the question, Ms. Scutt. Were you orally acquainted with the governor?”
“I don’t have to answer that. Do I, Judg
e?”
Before Judge Dutch could answer, Boyce said softly, “I won’t keep Ms. Scutt any longer, Your Honor. No further questions. I would like to recall Mrs. MacMann.”
Beth took the stand. “Mrs. MacMann, did you threaten in Ms. Scutt’s presence to cut off the governor’s penis?”
“No, that’s inaccurate. I told Mrs. Hackersmith that I was going to cut off his balls.”
It took some gaveling to quiet the court.
“Your Honor,” Beth said, “I apologize for the language. I could have used a more general anatomical term, but I wanted to quote what I said verbatim.”
Judge Dutch, whose glasses were now opaque with vapor, merely grunted. Boyce continued.
“Did you dismiss Ms. Scutt because she overheard you discussing your … surgical fantasies vis-à-vis the governor?”
“No,” said Beth, looking directly at her accuser. “Ms. Scutt knows very well why she was dismissed.”
“Objection.”
“Withdrawn, Your Honor. No further questions.”
The mood that night in Boyce’s war room was somewhat improved. Until Beth said to him quietly, “About what Damon might say? There was this conversation I had at one point with Ken.…”
Damon Jubal Early Blowwell looked as if he might still be in the military and not some K Street political consultant. He was in his midfifties, wore his hair trimmed to within a centimeter of his skull, and kept his jaw in a permanent jut. He had suspicious brown eyes, the tight lips of someone anticipating disrespect, and the physique to do something about it. When he smiled, his whole face seemed to suck inward at the center in a fierce pucker that made him look not entirely human. His normal expression was a scowl.
He answered with “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” and bit off the ends of sentences like tobacco plugs. When the clerk swore him in, Blowwell stood rigidly erect and added one last word to his answer: “So help me God.” Vlonko told Boyce afterward that when Blowwell took the stand, all nine male jurors sat up in their seats.
Boyce had gone back over every public utterance Blowwell had made following the President’s death. He had never come right out and accused Beth of murder, but for someone who had been such a faithful family retainer, his coolness toward her had been conspicuously glacial.
Blowwell had gone to work for Ken MacMann the moment that Ken announced he was running for president. He’d been a hard-partying political hack in Alabama. Getting his fellow Vietnam veteran elected president had restored a sense of purpose to his life. He quit drinking and became a born-again Christian. When a former Green Beret with two Bronze Stars finds his way back to the path of righteousness, it’s prudent to get out of his way. The citation for his medals was classified. Boyce’s Pentagon moles had found out that they were for assassinating eight high-level Viet Cong cadres.
Blowwell had become wealthy since leaving the White House. He now had clients all over the world. But President MacMann’s death had been hard on him. Boyce’s investigators had found out that he had increased visits to Alcoholics Anonymous to five a week—up from one a week when he worked at the White House. Boyce hoped he would not have to mention that in court, especially since jurors four, seven, and fourteen had relatives who attended AA. He also hoped he wouldn’t have to insinuate that Damon’s war experiences had left him with, as they say, “issues.” Jurors one, three, six, and fifteen had friends or relatives die or be wounded in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Boyce really didn’t want to have to blow his nose all over a military man’s ribbons.
DAG Clintick took her time walking Damon through his background.
“You served two tours in Vietnam?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Was that unusual?”
Boyce knew very well she was just trying to get him to object.
“Probably was not typical.”
“Why did you serve two tours in Vietnam?”
“I wanted us to win.”
Jurors one, six, and fifteen were nodding.
Boyce thought, This one is the real article, and he’s coming right at us.
“What did you do in Vietnam, Mr. Blowwell?”
Beth whispered, “Shouldn’t you be objecting?”
“Shh.”
“My job was to kill the enemy.”
“You were Mr. MacMann’s campaign manager and, when he became president, his political director at the White House. What did that job entail?”
“Killing the enemy.”
The courtroom erupted in laughter. Judge Dutch himself grinned. Boyce thought, Slick, very slick.
“Did you and the President have frank discussions?”
“Wouldn’t have been much point in having unfrank discussions.”
“Of course. You were his confidant, after all.” Ms. Clintick smiled. “He trusted you.”
“And I trusted him.”
“Did President MacMann ever discuss his wife with you?”
“Objection.”
Sidebar.
DAG Clintick continued, “Did the President ever confide in you whether he was dissatisfied in his marriage?”
“He did. He told me that he wanted to divorce Mrs. MacMann.”
The courtroom stirred.
“Did he say when he wanted to divorce her?”
“Immediately following the reelection.”
Judge Dutch had to gavel the courtroom to silence.
“Did he say whether he had made this intention clear to Mrs. MacMann?”
“He told me that he had discussed it with her.”
“And what was her reaction?”
“She was not pleased. He said she had called him a name.”
“What name?”
“It’s a pretty salty term.”
Judge Dutch reluctantly gave Blowwell permission to continue.
“She called him a ‘cocksucker.’ ”
Gasps, gaveling. Network censors scrambled, too late, to hit the bleep-out button. Throughout America, mothers cautioned their children that such language was not to be repeated in their households. In Europe, the sound of laughter could be heard through a million windows. In Asia, there was confusion as precise translations were sought. Judge Dutch finally removed his useless glasses.
“So it would be fair to say that Mrs. MacMann was displeased by the President’s revelation of his intention.”
“I would say yes.”
“Did the President say if Mrs. MacMann had said anything further with regard to her intentions?”
“He told me that she was planning to run for public office herself—the governor’s office that he had held—after the President was reelected. He said she told him that she would agree to a divorce once she had accomplished that. She told him that the only way she would leave the White House was on her terms.”
Murmurmurmurmurmur.
“Thank you, Mr. Blowwell. No further questions for the witness at this time, Your Honor.”
Boyce was fantasizing: His associate burst through the courtroom doors, breathless, tie askew, bruised, even missing a shoe. He was clutching a U.S. Army dossier designated “Top Secret.” Inside was a report that Sergeant Damon Blowwell had been dishonorably discharged for massacring an entire elementary school of peace-loving Vietnamese children, including the school mascot water buffalo, Phong. He had decorated the bar at the noncom officers’ club with their little pigtails. Not only that, but—
“Counselor?”
Chapter 24
Well,” Boyce said once they were back at the hotel behind closed doors, “your campaign to rehabilitate yourself is coming along nicely.”
“Don’t start.”
“I think I’m doing an admirable job of not starting. You’re lucky I don’t have a spittoon handy.”
“Damon blew that conversation way out of proportion.”
“No, darling. What he blew was us. Out of the water.”
“You recovered well. I thought your cross brilliant, insinuating that he was a religious fanatic and war crimin
al.”
“We did not ‘recover’ today. All that was purely for the benefit of juror three.”
“Which one is he?”
“She. By now you should know these people better than your own relatives. The lesbian who hated her Baptist military father.”
“Oh, her.”
“In case everyone else in the jury fell in love with Damon, she’s our only hope. My God, what a disaster.”
“Damon was spinning. It wasn’t untrue, but he made it sound worse than it was.”
“Did you call Ken a ‘cocksucker’?”
“Yes. And he was.”
“When you take the stand again you can tell the jury it was a pet name. My widdle cocksucker. You do realize that Blowwell would not have taken the stand if you hadn’t testified? His lawyer told me as much. It was your testimony that finally put his needle into the red and made him come forward with all this.”
Boyce took off his tie and hurled it across the room as if ridding himself of a snake that had wrapped itself around his windpipe. “What is it with all these war heroes? You can’t throw a stone in this case without hitting one. Didn’t your husband ever hang out with normal people?”
“I think Damon has a problem with female authority.”
“He can discuss that on TV with Oprah when he writes his book. Meanwhile, we have a problem, with him.”
Boyce picked up the phone and buzzed.
“George? Boyce. Did you get anything on him? … No VC ears? … Are you sure? I’d lay odds there’s a My Lai in that man’s record somewhere. Have you spoken to everyone in his platoon? … Well, track him down in goddamn Peru, George, I don’t care what it takes.… Then hire a goddamn helicopter. What about his AA friends? I know AA types are fiercely loyal to each other, but we’re not dealing with samurai warriors here, George. They’re recovering alcoholics. You get ’em alone, you pull out a bottle of hundred-dollar Scotch and hold it under their noses, and I promise, within ten minutes they’ll be singing ‘Whaddya Do with a Drunken Sailor’ and telling you everything you want to know.” Boyce hung up.
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