Killer Ambition

by Marcia Clark

“Really.” I let my expression say what I thought of that answer before continuing. “Then you’re saying that prints rolled by an expert under pristine conditions are of no better quality than prints that a murderer leaves at a crime scene by accident?”

  He really couldn’t say that or he’d get laughed out of court, let alone his own profession.

  “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that sometimes the prints found at crime scenes don’t have such breaks as are shown here.”

  “Not breaks, plural, right? There’s only one.”

  Poplar looked at the monitor again, probably hoping to find more, but eventually conceded, “Yes, I only see one at this time.”

  “At this time? You’ve had weeks to look at these prints before coming to court today, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I looked at the prints before, obviously, and no, I don’t see any other breaks.”

  His tone was now petulant, and I noticed a couple of jurors were frowning.

  “But you stand by your conclusion that these prints don’t match?”

  Saying that, with the prints right there on the monitor in front of everyone, was the death knell for Poplar’s credibility. Even laypeople could see the match.

  Poplar sat up straighter, and now his tone was downright bitchy. “I’m not saying that, I’m just saying I don’t see enough points of identity to declare a match.”

  “But that’s not what you said on direct, Mr. Poplar, is it? You said on direct that these prints didn’t match.”

  “No, you must have misunderstood, Ms. Knight. That is not what I said.”

  I knew the jury remembered it too, because a couple of them were shaking their heads. So I was gracious.

  “Well, if that’s true, then I apologize, Mr. Poplar. But I’m sure Ms. Hogan, our talented court reporter, will be able to resolve this for the jury if they have any doubts.” I paused and smiled benignly as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of jurors make notes. “How many points do you need to declare a match, Mr. Poplar?”

  “I don’t have a specific number. I just have to be convinced that there’s enough to dispel any reasonable doubt.”

  Spoken like a well-coached defense witness. “I see. In other words, you have a sliding scale?”

  He narrowed his eyes, looking for the trap he knew was lurking in that question. “Well…yes.”

  “And that sliding scale means you can always give the defense the opinion they want if they’re willing to pay, isn’t that true?”

  “Objection! Argumentative!” Terry declared.

  “Nothing further.” I strode back to my seat and tried to act nonchalant. Not easy to do when you want to jump on the table, pound your chest, and do an end zone victory dance.

  My triumph was short-lived.

  At the five o’clock recess, I told the judge I’d need at least a day to prepare for the remaining experts.

  The judge had retreated a few steps since our heated exchange. “I’m inclined to grant that request since Ms. Knight only learned of these witnesses a couple of days ago.”

  “No need, Your Honor,” Terry said. “I’m not going to call any more experts.”

  “Well, that solves that problem, doesn’t it?” the judge said.

  Not hardly. I’d counted on using those experts to buy us some time for Parkova—and for me to figure out what those Nevada casino witnesses were going to say. I’d been worried that Terry might rest without putting on a defense. If she had, I might’ve been screwed. But she’d decided to put on witnesses, and that gave me a fighting chance.

  It’s what I always called “defense to the rescue.” Although the defense doesn’t have to prove anything, once they try to, the jury gets to see what they’ve got. And if what they’ve got is garbage, the jury sees there’s no real defense at all. Basically, the worse their witnesses are, the better my case looks. I can’t count the number of times the defense bailed me out by putting on a weak case. And it could work for me here too. If I could show that the defense was a sham, the jury might forgive me for the DNA debacle.

  But now, thanks to Terry’s move, I’d not only lost the opportunity to trash more defense witnesses, I’d just lost crucial time.

  76

  After court, the three of us met in my office and tried to figure out what the Nevada witnesses had to do with the case. I’d turned on my cell phone so I’d hear it if Graden called, but the default ringtone started playing almost immediately, telling me the reporters hadn’t given up.

  “How long’s it been since you answered any of their calls?” Bailey asked.

  “Weeks?” I had no idea. “You’d think they’d give up.” I shook my head and turned the ringer back off.

  “I couldn’t come up with anything Powers or Antonovich was doing in Vegas. No film shoots…nada,” Bailey said.

  “Me either,” Declan said. “The only thing I heard was that they were looking into investing in a casino, but that was a while ago.”

  I hated not knowing what the defense was up to. Because when it comes to a jury trial, what you don’t know can and usually will hurt you…badly. The case was a roller coaster, and all I could do was lean out of the car to try and see the tracks a few feet ahead. But when I walked into court the next morning, I stepped into a minefield no one could’ve anticipated.

  Judge Osterman took the bench five minutes early. Jimmy called the court to order, and the loud buzzing and milling in the gallery came to such an abrupt stop, it made my ears ring.

  “Juror number four left a message with my clerk,” the judge said. “If the parties would come to sidebar, I’ll let you all read it.”

  Juror number four was the black single mother who was my favorite. I looked at Bailey and Declan and shook my head as I rounded counsel table and moved to sidebar. This couldn’t be good.

  It wasn’t. Her mother had been rushed to the hospital last night. The doctors said it was a heart attack and they didn’t know if she’d make it. The juror needed to stay with her mother; she was the only family her mother had left. She provided the names of the doctor and the hospital, in case the court needed verification. She apologized and said she deeply regretted causing the inconvenience.

  “I did have my clerk verify all the information, and it checks out,” the judge said. “Obviously we have to let her go.”

  “Oh, I agree, Your Honor,” Terry quickly replied.

  The speed of her response told me she’d figured out that juror number four was probably in our camp. But there was nothing I could do. This was legitimate cause to excuse her.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling as though I’d been kicked in the gut…again. Every time I started to feel like we were back on our feet, some new disaster fell out of the sky to knock us flat.

  The judge called the jurors out, explained that a personal emergency had come up for juror four, and said that the clerk would now draw an alternate at random to replace her. I held my breath as Tricia mixed up the name cards for the five alternates in a glass bowl and pulled one out. She opened the card and read. “Alternate number five.”

  It was the talent agent. He’d been my big gamble. We could be golden, or we could be totally screwed now. It was anyone’s guess.

  As I pulled out my legal pad, Terry called her next witness. “The defense calls Suzanne Forester.”

  A plain-looking, heavyset woman in her forties with steel gray hair and no makeup took the stand. I recognized her as one of the Nevada witnesses.

  Bailey leaned over and whispered, “Here we go.”

  I nodded. Whatever she had to say would give us a good idea of what the rest of the Nevada witnesses had been summoned for. As she raised her right hand and took the oath, I was almost more curious than nervous about what was to come.

  Terry established that Ms. Forester lived in Las Vegas and had worked for the past ten years as a hotel maid. “Are you a member of a union?”

  “Yes, a hotel workers’ union.”

  “And did you work for the Pink Pan
ther Hotel and Casino approximately five years ago?”

  “Yes. I worked there until it got sold.”

  “What happened when it was sold?”

  “The new owners shut down the hotel and laid us all off. They said they were going to renovate, and when they were done, they’d hire us all back.”

  “Did they renovate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And did they hire you back?”

  “No. They didn’t hire none of us back. They went non-union.”

  “I see. And who were these new owners who refused to hire you back?”

  Her eyes scanned the courtroom. “Him,” she said, pointing to Ian Powers. “And him.” She pointed to Russell in the audience.

  “So they broke their word and never rehired you or any of the rest of the employees?”

  “No. And then, a little while after they reopened, they sold the place.”

  “They don’t own it anymore?”

  “Far as I know, they’re out.”

  “And have you found other work?”

  Suzanne Forester shot an angry look at Ian Powers and huffed, “None of us have. Ever since those two dumped all their union workers, all the casinos been finding ways to get rid of us.”

  I leaned over to Bailey and whispered, “So this is the conspiracy? How…?”

  Bailey shook her head. Terry spent the rest of the morning calling the other Las Vegas workers, but there was little for me to do on cross. She wasn’t trying to show that any of these people were involved in setting up Ian Powers. Terry was just using these people to lay the groundwork for the “real” straw man. A quick scan of the jury told me most of them seemed confused. I knew they wouldn’t be for long.

  Back in my office at the noon break, Bailey and I tried to figure out how the defense would do it.

  I opened my container of yogurt and stirred up the fruit. “They’ve got to show that someone in Russell’s inner circle who could’ve known about the kidnapping is tied in closely with the union—”

  “And that there’s someone in the union crazed enough to commit two murders just so he or she can set Ian up. It’s so…out there.” It was. But I’d seen worse theories find traction in the jury room.

  77

  By the time we got out of court, I was wrung out. Too many curveballs in too short a time. I unlocked my office door, flopped into my big, cushy chair, and let my head fall back as I closed my eyes.

  “You were right about where the Vegas witnesses were coming from,” I told Declan. “But I did not see that union thing coming.”

  “They bought the casino under another name,” Bailey said. “Andower Limited. And of course, they got rid of it a couple of years ago. The thing is, you’d have to know what you were looking for to find out about it. I only figured it out now because the witnesses gave us the name of the hotel.”

  “Makes sense. Explains why the media didn’t catch it either.”

  “But they’ll be all over it now. Might even give those jerks a little well-deserved bad press.”

  I sat up. “Come to think of it, when did you have a chance to get all that?” She’d been in court with us all day.

  “I did a little checking on my cell while you were bouncing around with those witnesses.”

  “Your cell? Are you suicidal?” I asked. The judge had said he’d confiscate any cells that weren’t turned off.

  “The advantage of sitting behind you guys—he can’t see what I’m doing.”

  “So how are they going to connect this union business to Russell on the day of the kidnapping?” Declan asked.

  That was the question of the day—or more accurately the trial. We found out soon enough.

  The next morning, when the jury filed in, I tried to suss out my talent agent, now known as juror number four. But he didn’t look at me or the defense.

  “The defense calls Angela Mosconi,” Terry announced.

  Dani’s personal assistant? I turned to look at Bailey. She shrugged and shook her head. Angela walked in looking as confused as we were. For some reason, that made me feel better.

  Terry quickly established that Dani was Russell’s current wife and Angela had been Dani’s assistant for the past three years. Asked if her employer was in the courtroom, Angela pointed to Dani, who looked both stricken and confused. Asked if she sometimes spent the night in the house, Angela said that she did, and generally had the run of the place.

  “And you were at the Antonoviches’ house the night Hayley got—for lack of a better word—kidnapped, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You remember that Dani and Russell spent most of that evening in the study together, don’t you?”

  Angela frowned and thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. They may have.”

  “Well, you saw them there when you brought Dani her green tea, didn’t you?”

  “I really don’t remember, to be honest.”

  “But you generally do bring her a cup of green tea every evening, isn’t that right?”

  “I usually do. But that night was so weird…I don’t exactly know whether I did or not.”

  “If Dani or Russell says you brought her tea in the study that night, would you agree they were probably right?”

  Looking mildly perplexed, Angela said, “I guess.”

  I had a feeling I knew where this was going. A glance at Bailey showed me she did too. Declan had on his poker face, but I could see his wheels were turning. If I was right, this was about to get ugly.

  “Your father is currently retired, is he not?”

  Angela looked startled at the abrupt shift. “Yes.”

  “Before he was retired, what did he do?”

  “He worked in the restaurant of a casino in Las Vegas as a maître d’.”

  “And what else did he do?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Wasn’t he also the president of the hotel workers’ union?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “You’re very close to your father, aren’t you?”

  Now Angela looked worried as well as confused. “Uh, sure.”

  “And isn’t it true that you called him on the night of Hayley’s kidnapping?”

  “I—no. No, I didn’t.”

  Terry brandished a cell phone bill and one of her law clerks handed a copy to Declan. “Who pays for your cell phone, Angela?”

  “The Antonoviches.”

  I quickly scanned the bill. It looked legit and I doubted Terry would pull a bush-league trick like trying to dummy up an exhibit. I wasn’t about to object and let the jury think this worried me. But I’d have it checked out later, just to be safe.

  Terry approached the witness stand. “I’m showing you the phone bill. Do you recognize the number at the top?”

  “Yes, it’s my number.”

  “I’ve highlighted a phone call on this bill. Do you recognize that number?”

  “Yes. It’s my father’s number. But I—”

  “That’s enough, you’ve answered the question.”

  And she’d established who the “mole” was—the one who connected the union to Russell and the kidnapping.

  “So you did call your father the night of the kidnapping, didn’t you?”

  “I…yes.”

  “Now, since your father was union president up until about a year ago, you know that he was very vocal—along with many other union officials—about his anger with certain casino owners who laid off their union staff and rehired non-union workers, don’t you?”

  “I know they didn’t like it.”

  “Didn’t some of the casino owners get death threats?”

  “My father would never—”

  “In fact, Russell Antonovich and Ian Powers were among those casino owners who received death threats, isn’t that right?”

  I jumped to my feet. “Objection! No foundation, assumes facts not in evidence, and it calls for speculation! There’s no evidence this witness knows anything about that!”

  “Counsel is
allowed to inquire, Ms. Knight. If the witness doesn’t know, she can say so.”

  “It’s also hearsay, Your Honor!”

  “That’s enough, Ms. Knight. I’ve ruled. Take your seat.”

  I might’ve fought the ruling a little harder, but I knew that Terry would get it all in anyway. And now I knew how.

  “Isn’t it true that your father’s union made death threats on Russell Antonovich and Ian Powers?”

  “No!”

  “And isn’t it true that when you called your father that night you told him about the kidnapping?”

  “No! My father just had open-heart surgery! I called to find out how he was doing!”

  “You didn’t tell him about the kidnapping? Something as outrageous as that happens and you don’t mention it?” Terry’s incredulous tone said it all. No one would believe she hadn’t at least mentioned it.

  “I didn’t even know about the kidnapping till the police came! And I didn’t talk to my father after that—I never had the chance!”

  “So you deny having seen the message about the kidnapping on Russell’s cell when you brought Dani her tea that night?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you deny having told your father about the kidnapping that night?”

  “Yes! I absolutely deny it! And my father would never—”

  Terry cut her off with the wave of her hand. “I have nothing further.”

  I used my cross to let Angela repeat her denials in full sentences, but the damage was done. When she left the stand, red-faced and teary, the jury was awash in frowns and skeptical looks.

  The judge announced the mid-morning recess, and as the jurors filed out, I saw Wagmeister and Ian exchange surreptitious congratulatory nudges, elbow to elbow, as they stood and pretended to watch the jurors exit with solemn expressions. After the jurors were gone, we huddled at counsel table.

  “We’ll need to line up our rebuttal witnesses for tomorrow,” I said.

  “You think they’re done?” Bailey asked.

  “Just about. They’ve got one more. But they’ll be done by the end of the day.”

  “Let me put a call in to Graden and see if Parkova’s made any progress.”