Girl, Under Oath (Michael Gresham Series)

by John Ellsworth

  But even in the case of these terrible possibilities of what might come up during cross-examination, I still felt compelled to put Jennifer on the witness stand and have her deny any prior knowledge of Joe's marriage to another woman until the moment of his death when he confessed to her in the hospital. After all, juries are not stupid, and they are not to be disappointed, and they would expect Jennifer to testify and give them the opportunity to hear her, see her in action, and size her up. What if I disappointed them? Did I dare? I didn't think so. It looked to me like the detective, with his testimony, had successfully put Jennifer on the witness stand by making her come up and deny.

  The detective went on, and the gist of it was this. Some women, upon hearing the news of a second wife, would immediately call a lawyer and seek advice. Jennifer had not done that. Jennifer, instead, had done nothing until the police contacted her and asked her to come down to the station and talk to them. That was one strike against her. And it was a big one. He was wrong, of course, for she had contacted me. I would clear that up on cross-examination and show him a copy of the check with which Jennifer retained me.

  The odd thing was, though, even up until that moment in court that morning, Jennifer had made no arrangements with any family law lawyer regarding the situation she found herself in as a result of Joe's philandering. It was as if she were ignoring the whole situation. That might've been understandable when one was in shock, or it might've meant she had another plan in mind for the second wife. Or it might have been she was simply counting on me. Again, I’d clear it up on cross-examination.

  But innuendoes. It was a trial by innuendo, the worst kind. The jury smells smoke and the prosecution yells “Fire!” and Jennifer goes on trial.

  10

  Jennifer

  Freedom finally came down to money. And the Founding Fathers said there would be no debtors’ prison in America. Hooey.

  I cashed in a CD and paid my $100,000 bail over the lunch hour, and now I was free.

  It was a hassle getting out of jail even after I paid, and it took those lunatics six hours to process me out while I was in court. Do they have any idea how much money I lost in six hours away from my medical practice?

  My partners had been covering for me there, but they kept the money I would've made. What's even worse was that some of my patients will wind up liking the substitute doctor better, and I would probably lose 10 or 15% of my patient load.

  It’s very competitive out there, and attracting new patients is very difficult. I just hated to think what this kick in the butt over Joe's death was actually costing me altogether.

  11

  Michael

  Back to the trial after lunch. It was my turn to cross examine the detective. I stood and hurried to the lectern, indicating that I could hardly wait to sink my claws into the guy.

  "Detective Rodriguez, isn't it true that you have no factual connection linking Jennifer to the death of Joseph?"

  "No, that is not true."

  "Isn't it true that the only link you do think you have is the tenuous one made by the medical examiner who whispered to you that Joseph died under mysterious circumstances?"

  "No, that isn't true either."

  Again, we’re back to that point in cross-examination when the foolish attorney would ask the witness what link he knew of between the defendant and the cause of death. No one in that courtroom who knew me had any doubt that I was not about to ask that question. So, I moved on.

  "Isn’t it true you went to Paris, France to interview Elise Ipswich?"

  "I did go to Paris to interview her. And I did, in fact, interview her."

  As he was testifying about going to Paris and meeting the second wife, I could sense the jury watching Jennifer for her reaction, and I knew she was behaving viscerally. I wanted to turn and see what was going on with her—whether it was body language, facial expression, or a sudden intake of air when she heard about the other wife—but I didn't turn around and look. I didn't want to blow it up into any more than what the jury had just witnessed.

  "All right, you did go to Paris and interview her. How old is this Elise?"

  "She told me she's early thirties."

  “Did you believe her?”

  “She looks much younger.”

  "While you were in Paris, did you conduct any independent investigation of your own?"

  "I did. I went to the place that amounts to what we call the County Clerk, being the place where marriage licenses are recorded. I requested a copy of the marriage license between Joseph Ipswich and Elise Ipswich, and I was given a copy. I brought that copy back with me to Chicago, and I believe a copy of it was turned over to you, Mr. Gresham, during the discovery portion of the case."

  He was right. I had received a copy of the marriage license, and it appeared in all respects to be valid. What the witness didn't know was that my office had researched the legal effect of a marriage license and marriage ceremony in France where the bride is unaware her groom is already married to someone else.

  For Jennifer's purposes, the result of that research was not pretty. It was not pretty because, under French law, if one party innocently relied on the other party who was representing that he was free to marry, and if that one party had no indication that the other party was in fact married, then the innocent party could, in good faith, marry and receive the full benefits of a married spouse. Meaning, she could require her spouse to support her, to support the offspring of the marriage, and to stand by his marriage vows in all respects. Most importantly, she could inherit from him.

  Which meant that, under French law, Elise was entitled to everything that Joe owned when he died. What hadn't been said yet, and what remained to be gone into, was that under American law, the innocent spouse had the exact same rights.

  That being the case, both spouses were entitled under the law of their lands to inherit Joe’s assets. The setup was terrible. The setup was an inevitable lawsuit and the inevitable costs of emotional and financial involvement. Even worse, there were children of both marriages, one of whom, Elise's daughter Çidde, had ongoing medical problems that were expensive.

  "Detective Rodriguez, it only makes sense to me that if you were to take the viewpoint that my client would be so upset to find out that her husband was a bigamist that she would poison him, then what if you put the shoe on the other foot and also considered that Elise, the French wife, finding out that her husband was married to an American woman, would be equally upset and equally capable of poisoning the man? Have you, in fact, weighed that in your own mind? I'm asking for a yes or no answer."

  "Yes, I have considered that the French wife might be equally angry and upset."

  "And yet, you've selected the American wife as the one who actually did the deed, rather than selecting the French wife as the guilty party. Without telling me why, I would like you to answer whether or not there was some reason you chose the American wife over the French wife as the guilty party?"

  “There was, yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  He then nailed me.

  "I chose the American wife, that is to say I focused on Jennifer Ipswich, mainly because she had access to the type of drugs it would take to poison Joseph Ipswich in such a manner that the poison would be untraceable. The French wife had no such access and no opportunity since she is employed as an economist. It was my opinion that she knew very little about the chemistry of poison after speaking to her only for a few minutes.”

  Rat had snuck it in on me. An end-run.

  “So you made a choice based solely on your opinion.”

  “On the one hand, I had the American wife who had majored in chemistry and who, as a physician, had access to any chemical she wanted on the planet, versus the French wife who had access to the latest financial filing on any given corporation with the SEC, but who knew zip about chemicals. It was an easy mental process for me from there. My guess was it would be equally easy for the jury to make that connection. Not opinion, sir, but fa
ct.”

  "Having said everything you just said," I began, slowly coming back around, "it sounds to me, and it sounds to the jury, like you still have only the most tenuous connection between Jennifer Ipswich and the death of Joseph Ipswich based entirely on the fact that she is a physician and therefore must've been the one doing the poisoning. So, I ask you, sir, isn’t it equally likely that the Hippocratic oath she took, which commands that she do no harm, would have an equal place in your logic, and that because of that Hippocratic oath to do no harm, she in fact has done no harm?"

  "Hippocratic oath or not, even doctors sometimes do bad things. That's my two cents."

  I had them there. I had made the point that one assumption was just as valid and just as likely as the other assumption. I knew that I was not going to do any better than that, and I knew that one of the goals of cross-examination was to end on a high point. I was definitely not at a low point, so I told the judge I had no further questions. I returned to counsel table and took my seat beside Jennifer.

  Then I stood right back up, theatrical as hell, but we must use what we’re given.

  “Oh, yes, Detective, before I forget. You’ve told the jury you told the medical examiner you wanted a gas chromatography study done on Joe’s body. How did that go?”

  I knew the answer, of course. But I saved this for last.

  “It didn’t go well. The ME forgot to run the test.”

  “And then?”

  He spread his hands, looking helpless. “And then Joe was cremated. Up in smoke. So, no gas chromatography or exhuming the body.”

  “So the jury can assume there was no poison in the body because you can’t offer one shred of evidence there was, isn’t that correct?”

  “Objection!” cried the State’s Attorney.

  I didn’t bother to answer, and the objection was sustained. I had made my point, and it was a good one: the State dropped the ball by not running the study. And then Jennifer had cremated the body.

  Almost as if she knew, too.

  The judge had other “pressing” matters in his court that afternoon and so he excused us until the next morning.

  12

  Email from Elise Ipswich

  To the addressees below

  •Michael Gresham

  •Frank Wilder

  •Jennifer Ipswich, M.D.

  My name is Elise Ipswich and I live in Paris, France at 1114 rue Dumont. I live with my daughter, Çidde, and our Portuguese Water Dog, Max. I'm the widow of Joseph Ipswich, to whom I was married in 2015, and of this marriage our Çidde is the only offspring. I have been married once before, I have no other children, and my age is 34. I was educated at the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas in economics, and I finished my graduate degree in economics at the London School of Economics.

  I'm an associate account manager at LVP Partners, a European private equity firm based in Paris, France. It is one of the oldest firms in the sector with its origins dating back to Lavas Affaires Industrielles, the historical principal investment activity of Paribas, which started operations in 1872.

  LVP manages €13.5 billion of dedicated buyout funds. Since 1994, LVP has completed 65 LBO transactions in 11 European countries, representing over €48 billion in transaction value. LVP has 62 agents from 10 countries in Paris, London, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, and New York City.

  I met Joseph as a patient when I went to see him about a disease I thought I had contracted from my first husband. Joseph was very kind and very interested in my case. He told me it was an infectious disease that could become an epidemic because it was so easily transmissible, and that that was why my own doctor had referred me to him.

  He treated me with various medications, and in six months’ time, I was cured. Possibly three months into our relationship as doctor-patient, he asked me one afternoon if I would like to have dinner with him sometime.

  Joseph was a very attractive man, and I was very lonely so I accepted. That first night, we talked about our backgrounds and our education and we both confirmed to each other that we were single and looking for a long-term commitment in a relationship. It wasn't said that way specifically, but the clues were there, and we both knew why we were together that evening.

  Approximately six months later, after taking some visiting friends to the Louvre that afternoon, Joseph and I snuck away for dinner alone and he surprised me with an engagement ring. It was a very beautiful ring, and I was very much in love with Joseph, so I accepted his proposal of marriage.

  My parents announced the engagement in the Paris newspaper, and my best girlfriend from college fêted me with an engagement party.

  Approximately one week before he died, Joseph sent me an email and told me he was very ill. He was home with Jennifer. He had always told me that Jennifer was his sister who took care of him and his business affairs while he was in America. He also told me that Jennifer ran his medical practice in Chicago and that if anything ever happened to him, I should contact her.

  After I received his email, I called his medical practice in Chicago and was told that he had passed away. Then a nurse in his medical practice in Paris—who knew about such things—told me the truth: my husband was married in the USA.

  I cried for three days and couldn’t get out of bed. You must understand that I love this man deeply, that he was the first real love of my life, and that for the most part, I had lived a very cloistered life before I met him. Occasionally, I would go out for a glass of wine with a friend from work, but for the most part, I spent my evenings and weekends with my daughter and with my computer working on my accounts.

  Our life together was quiet and studious as we were both involved in our professions and preferred spending quiet time together at home in our townhouse on rue Dumont as opposed to spending lots of money eating out and buying special clothing and things of that nature. We have both been very circumspect in our spending, in fact, and we have together purchased and half-paid for the townhouse in which I now live with Çidde.

  I'm writing to say that I certainly do not wish to disturb anyone's life and to tell Jennifer how very sorry I am that Joseph died. In the most difficult way, I can share that pain with her since I'm going through the exact same loss. Joseph was a wonderful man, and I'm sure we will both miss him very much.

  My main concern is our daughter Çidde. She is HIV positive as a result of a blood transfusion she had when she was six. This happened when a tonsillectomy resulted in an emergency surgery. As a result, she lost two pints of blood and had to be transfused. That’s when she got the bad blood.

  She also has other congenital problems, and because of these things, I must pay approximately €1000 per week for her medical needs.

  Joseph always promised me that he would take care of those payments for me, and he always did. Now, however, I find myself in a situation where, with the other overhead in my life and the low pay which associates receive at LVP Partners, I'm unable to keep up with the costs of our daughter’s medical needs.

  For this reason, I'm writing to find out whether Joseph had assets or insurance that maybe someone would be willing to share with me in order to help defray these costs. I'm not looking to win a case, and I'm certainly not looking to take away Joseph's assets from Jennifer. My main wish is to see if I can bargain away enough assets to help pay the approximately €4000 per month our daughter requires for her treatment and maintenance.

  Please take my situation into your hearts and sit with it while plans are being made about what to do with Joseph's second wife. I know that you will be fair with me and we will all come away from the situation as friends, or at least as acquaintances who respect one another. I wish I knew more about what happened to Joseph, but I know it's a very difficult time for Jennifer, and I do not wish to pry.

  With God in my heart I pray, peace be with you.

  Elise Ipswich.

  13

  Michael

  I checked my email after court. That’s when I received the e
mail from Elise Ipswich. It was puzzling, to say the least. I remembered my first meeting with Jennifer, in which she described Elise as somebody cool and appraising, someone who told her she wanted one half of Joseph's assets and that Jennifer should even be prepared to sell her house. The email I received from Elise sounded like none of that. In fact, she sounded like a very reasonable person.

  I was at the office the next morning at six. Coffee and beef jerky. I keep a couple of bags inside my Everything drawer in my desk for emergencies. The trial was going all right. We would win because the State just didn’t quite have the smoking gun it needed. The beef jerky was like cardboard and tasteless. I knew I’d reek of garlic all morning. Floss, toothpaste, and mouthwash. Followed up by Juicy Fruit. Then I was off to court again.

  Before trial resumed, I had a few moments with Jennifer at counsel table while we waited for the judge. I opened my laptop to the Elise email and turned the screen to where it confronted Jennifer. "Have you seen this?"

  "I have. It looks like she's after money."

  "I have to admit," I said, "she sounds pretty reasonable. It looks to me like we’ll be able to make a settlement with her of some kind and she will go away happy and able to care for the child Joe had with her."

  "I don't think so," said Jennifer coolly.

  "How's that?"

  "Read it again, Michael. She's after $4000 per month from me. I don't have that to give to her."