Compelling Evidence m-1

by Steve Martini

  Hazeltine’s eyes turn to little slits behind Coke-bottle lenses.

  “I have.”

  “Can you tell the court where this term comes from?”

  “Mickey Rooney.”, Hazeltine is curt, to the point. He does no more than answer the question stated.

  “The actor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’s the purpose of this clause-briefly, in layman’s terms?”

  “It’s designed to protect a party from a spouse who may seek to take unfair advantage.”

  “In what way?”

  Hazeltine is uncomfortable with the turn this line of inquiry is taking.

  “A spouse who might marry for money and seek a quick divorce,” he says.

  “Ah.” Nelson’s nodding, playing obtuse, as if he’s just now understood the significance of all of this. “Have you ever heard another name for this clause?”

  Hazeltine looks at him, down his nose. “Not that I recall,” he says.

  “Haven’t you ever heard the term ‘gold-digger’s covenant’?” asks Nelson.

  The witness gives a little shrug. “Some people may call it that.”

  “Well, wasn’t this clause, this so-called ‘gold-digger’s covenant,’ included in the prenuptial agreement you prepared for Mr. Potter?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was it the victim, Mr. Potter, who specifically asked you to include this language in the agreement?”

  “It was.”

  “And did you explain to the two of them, to Mr. and Mrs. Potter, at the time that they signed this agreement, its implications and what the legal effect was?”

  “I did.”

  “And what is that legal effect?”

  “Mrs. Potter could inherit nothing from the estate of Mr. Potter unless she was lawfully married to him on the date of his death.”

  “So if she divorced him”-Nelson pauses for a moment-“or if he divorced her, she would get nothing, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your witness.”

  Cheetam takes one long look at Hazeltine sitting in the box and waives off. He’s still stunned, shaken by Cooper’s torpedo.

  “Your Honor,” I say, “I have a few questions for this witness.”

  Cheetam looks over at me as if to throw daggers with his eyes. I look the other way, ignoring him.

  O’Shaunasy nods for me to proceed.

  I remain seated at the counsel table, and hone in on one gnawing question, the answer to which has remained closed to me in discovery.

  “Mr. Hazeltine, isn’t it true that prenuptial agreements are often drafted in concert with wills, that the terms of such an agreement are carefully coordinated with the terms of a will?”

  “That is common.”

  “Were you asked to draft a will for Mr. Potter at the time that you drafted the prenuptial agreement?”

  “Objection.” Nelson is on his feet. “Irrelevant, Your Honor.”

  O’Shaunasy’s looking at me.

  “The district attorney has opened this entire area, the question of the victim’s testamentary intentions. He’s produced evidence that unless my client was married to the victim at the time of death, she stood to lose everything acquired during the marriage. I think we have the right to see the full picture in these regards.”

  “Overruled. The witness will answer the question.”

  “I was asked to draft a will at the same time that I did the prenuptial agreement.”

  I get up from the table, and move laterally, keeping an appropriate distance from the witness.

  “I think you’ve already stated that Mr. Potter had no children.”

  Hazeltine nods his assent.

  “Did you prepare mutual wills for the Potters, or just one?”

  “Just one, for Mr. Potter.”

  “Under the terms of that will, if for any reason the defendant, Mrs. Potter, were disqualified from inheriting, because of divorce, or for any other reason, did Mr. Potter name any other heirs, persons who would inherit his estate?”

  Hazeltine is clearly uncomfortable with this. He’s looking up at the judge as if for a reprieve. “Your Honor, the will has never been read. I am the executor, but until these proceedings are completed, I thought it best that any probate be postponed. These are matters of considerable confidence.”

  “I can appreciate that,” says O’Shaunasy, “but they are also material to this case. You will answer the question.”

  Hazeltine looks back at me, a little hopeful that perhaps I have forgotten it.

  “Were there any other heirs named in the will?”

  “There were several. A distant cousin in the Midwest was the only surviving relative other than Mrs. Potter. He was to get a small inheritance. Mr. Potter left several hundred thousand dollars to the law school. The balance of his estate went to his wife, and if she predeceased him or for any other reason was disqualified, then the entire estate went to a single alternate beneficiary.”

  “Who was that?”

  Hazeltine is pumping little points of perspiration through his bald scalp.

  “Hjs partner,” he says. “Mr. Skarpellos.”

  There are little murmurs in the courtroom.

  “So if Mrs. Potter were”-I search for a better word but can’t think of one-“eliminated, then Mr. Skarpellos would take her part of the estate?”

  Hazeltine swallows hard. “That’s correct,” he says.

  “Oh.”

  The full measure of Matthew Hazeltine’s reluctance is now clear. Matters of confidence or not, I can be certain of one thing. Whatever Hazeltine knows of Ben’s will is also known to Tony Skarpellos. Such is the Greek’s domination of his so-called partners. I am finished with the witness and release him to a worse fate: his office and the wrath of Tony Skarpellos.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Is it important?” I ask her.

  I I’m on a lunch break from Talia’s case, wolfing down a deli sandwich and working to return phone calls, a stack of slips left on my desk by Dee from that morning.

  “Not vital,” she says, “but a loose end that we should tie up before we close the estate.”

  I’ve never met Peggie Conrad, the paralegal recommended to me by Harry to handle Sharon’s probate. I messengered the file to her after an initial telephone conversation. Since then I have talked to her twice, each time by phone. In listening to her talk I conjure the image of a dowdy, middle-aged woman. Her voice has a certain frumpish quality, a rasp that gives off mental odors of alcohol and cigarettes. It seems that Sharon’s probate, like so much of the rest of my life, is not going well. A couple of items are missing from the file.

  “I just about got it assembled,” she says. “It’s a little messy, the file. Nothing I can’t fix, you understand. When I’m done goin’ through everything I’ll publish the notice to creditors, prepare the decedent’s final tax return-unless her father already did one.” It is more a question than a statement.

  “Better do it,” I say. Knowing Coop and his mental state at the time of Sharon’s death, I’m sure he was in no mood for dealing with the minutiae of tax returns. The fact that the state could tax this transaction, the death of his only daughter, was, I am certain, as foreign to George Cooper as capital gains are to the homeless.

  I’ve heard this morning, through the grapevine, that the police have run out of leads. A month ago they thought about checking cellular telephone records on the off-chance that the driver of Sharon’s car may have had a hand-held portable phone, and that he or she may have used this to get a ride from the scene. But this was such a long shot, one that even Coop could not justify pursuing. Instead he has called in every chit he holds, and finally convinced the cops to give him one man, a skilled forensics tech, for three hours, to go over the car one more time in hopes of finding something they may have missed in earlier searches.

  “I’ll take care of it,” says Peggie Conrad. “The tax return. Then I’ll set up the property schedules. That’ll do it, I thin
k.”

  “How long before we can close?” I ask. “I’m anxious to get it done,” I tell her. “A favor for a friend.”

  “Thirty, maybe forty-five days. One court appearance. We might be able to avoid it. If there’s no complications, no creditors’ claims, sometimes they’ll take a case on a written submission. Do you want me to try?”

  “If you can, it would help. This thing that’s missing, the receipt, is that a complication?” I ask.

  “A claim check,” she corrects me. “I doubt it.”

  I work my pen over a legal pad as she talks, listing the items she needs to finish.

  “Sharon’s W-2 form for the last year. For the tax return,” she explains.

  I grimace. “I’ll have to get that from her father.” Sharon is a tender wound with Coop. The thought of opening it, even for a minor matter of business, is not a pleasant one.

  “Now to the claim check,” she says. ‘The police inventory from the accident shows Sharon’s personal effects. It’s nothing much, but it lists this claim check from a hardware store, a place called Simms. Doesn’t say what it’s for, but whatever’s there is an asset of the estate. The claim check seems to be missing. You might check with her dad or just call the store. No big thing. If we can’t find it, we’ll just abandon the item and show it as lost on the schedules.” Peggie reads the number of the claim check to me and I make a note. I will call the hardware store. On this I can avoid dealing with Cooper.

  “Is that it?”

  “As far as I can tell. Do you do these often?” she asks.

  “Never before”-I hesitate for a second-“or again.”

  “I can tell.” She laughs.

  “That bad?” I say.

  “No worse than the usual. Some lawyers give me probates so old they’ve gone through two generations of executors,” she says.

  “The lawyer’s motto,” I tell her. “When in doubt, procrastinate. It’s what makes malpractice so lucrative.”

  “You said it, I didn’t.”

  “I’ll call you when I have the other items.” Then I hang up.

  Next on the stack is a message from Skarpellos. I call and get Florence. Tony’s out to lunch, seems he’s meeting with Cheetam. He wants to talk to me. According to Florence, it’s important. She builds me into his schedule for later that day, following Talia’s afternoon session. I hang up.

  I feel as if suddenly I’m welded to the Greek, part of his mercantile empire. Like a bag lady at a one-cent sale, Susan Hawley has accepted Skarpellos’s offer, a free defense for her silence in “boink-gate.” I am now left to juggle Hawley’s defense as I watch Talia slide slowly into the abyss that has become her preliminary hearing.

  Like envoys at the United Nations we sit four abreast at the defense table, Cheetam next to Talia. I’m to her right. Today Harry’s joined us. I’ve told him about the blunder over the bullet fragment, how Cooper handed our leader his own head on a platter. Cheetam thinks that Harry’s presence here is a show of force, a turning out of the troops for his case in chief, the first day for the defense. He has glad-handed and back-slapped Harry all the way into the courtroom. But I know Harry better. Having missed the big one, he nurtures hopes of seeing Gilbert Cheetam get his ass waxed one more time. There is a certain quiet malevolence in the nature of Harry Hinds.

  In the early afternoon, Nelson’s putting the final touches on his case. He calls a witness from the state department of justice, a woman from the records section. There is little fanfare here, and no surprises. She testifies to the registration of a handgun in the name of Benjamin G. Potter. This is the small handgun purchased by Ben for Talia, the one that Talia and Tod have yet to find. As with everything else owned by Ben, this was a pricey little piece, a $400 semiautomatic Desert Industries twenty-five-caliber ACP. Nelson ties this neatly to Coop’s testimony, the fact that the twenty-five-caliber ACP is the smallest steel-jacketed round manufactured in this country.

  O’Shaunasy is taking notes.

  Having delivered this final blow, Nelson rests the case for the state.

  O’Shaunasy inquires whether Cheetam is ready to proceed. He is.

  Cheetam is up and at it. He calls his ace expert.

  Dr. Bernard Blumberg is a medical hack known to every personal injury lawyer west of the Rockies. A psychiatrist by training, Blumberg, for a fee, will testify on every aspect of medical science from open-heart surgery to the removal of bunions. He is notorious for being available on a moment’s notice-the expert of choice when others have failed to shade their findings sufficiently to satisfy the lawyers and clients who hire them.

  It is what has happened here. Cheetam has exhausted the pool of local experts, men who in good conscience could not dispute the substance of George Cooper’s pathology report. Several have offered to put a favorable spin on some of the findings. But this was not good enough for Cheetam. Skarpellos has put him in touch with Blumberg.

  I spent two hours arguing in vain with Cheetam that it was a mistake of monumental proportions. He told me if I couldn’t handle it to stay home.

  Blumberg is an impish little man with wire-rimmed glasses and a booming voice. He fits the popular image of science, but with the feisty nature that has allowed him to weather the blows of a career of rigorous cross-examination. He has spent twenty years fighting a fundamental lack of credentials and qualifications.

  Today he is sharing his expertise on the subject of forensic pathology. He takes the stand, is sworn, and Cheetam moves in.

  “Doctor Blumberg, are you familiar with the phenomenon called lividity?”

  “I am.”

  “I call your attention to the medical examiner’s report. Have you read this report?”

  “I have.”

  “In particular have you examined page thirty-seven of that report-the so-called blood-spatter evidence found in the service elevator near Mr. Potter’s office?”

  Blumberg nods knowingly. He is particularly good at this. He has been known to make a complete ass of himself on me stand, and still nod knowingly-with great authority.

  “Have you read that part of the report, doctor?”

  “I have.”

  “And have you come to any conclusions regarding the findings stated there, specifically I refer to the conclusion that the drop of blood in question was that of the decedent, Benjamin Potter?”

  “I have. It is my professional opinion that the finding of the medical examiner as to this evidence is incorrect-it is in error,” he says.

  Cheetam looks to the bench for effect. O’Shaunasy is not taking notes.

  “And on what do you base this opinion?”

  “On the clotting patterns of blood.”

  “Yes, doctor.” Cheetam is moving in front of the witness box now, alternately bending low and pacing, using body English to draw the witness out, to get him to deliver the canned opinion that the two of them have hatched.

  I notice that Harry has begun to doodle on a legal pad as he sits next to me, a small round circle that he inscribes over and over with his pen, until it is burned into the page.

  “Please explain to the court, doctor.”

  “Blood clotting occurs as a result of a complex of chemical actions involving plasma, protein fibrinogen, platelets, and other factors. Clotting begins soon after death, causing a separation of the fibrin and the red blood cells from the remaining liquid, the serum,” he says. “Once clotting has occurred, blood will no longer flow freely from a wound.”

  “How soon after death would clotting occur so that the blood would no longer flow freely from the body?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “That soon?”

  “Yes.”

  Harry’s doodle has now grown a thin straight line, two inches long, down toward the bottom of the page.

  “What is the significance of this factor in the present case, doctor?”

  “According to the pathology report the time of death was seven-oh-five P.M. Accepting the theory of the police that
the decedent was killed elsewhere and that his body was moved to the office shortly before the reported gunshot in the office at eight-twenty-five, I must conclude that the blood in the victim would have already clotted and would not have flowed freely in order to drop in the elevator as stated in the report.”

  Cheetam is oblivious to the fact that his own expert is now accepting as gospel the time of death fixed by Coop. This is, in fact, wholly inconsistent with the defense that Ben shot himself, for under this theory, he died nearly an hour and a half before the sound of the shotgun blast in the office. Little details.

  “Thank you, doctor. Your witness.”

  Nelson cracks a slight grin and rises from behind the counsel table.

  “Doctor Blumberg, are you board certified as a pathologist?”

  Blumberg mumbles. Along with authoritative and knowing nods, he is recognized for his excellent mumbling, particularly on cross.

  “I couldn’t hear the witness.” The court reporter has chimed in. She is stalled at her stenograph machine by the witness, who has swallowed his answer.

  O’Shaunasy leans over the bench. “I didn’t catch it either.”

  “No.” Blumberg is looking at the court reporter through Coke-bottle lenses, a magnified evil eye.

  “Have you ever practiced in the field of forensic pathology?” Nelson is enjoying this.

  “I have testified in the field many times.”

  “I’m sure you have, doctor, but mat doesn’t answer my question. Have you ever practiced in the field of …”

  “No.”

  “I see. Tell us, doctor, are you board certified in any field?”

  “I am.” This is stated with some pride. The witness straightens in the chair and puffs his chest a little.

  “And would you tell the court what field that is.” Nelson’s found the soft underbelly.

  “Psychiatry. I am licensed as a medical doctor,” he says. His ticket as a physician has been the basis for Blumberg to put his nose under every scientific tent known to mankind.

  Harry’s doodle now has two lines coming off of the longer single line, drawn out and down at a forty-five-degree angle, to form a large inverted “Y.”

  “I see, so you’re a medical doctor, board certified as to specialty in the field of psychiatry, here to testify on the fine points of forensic pathology and specifically serology, the science of blood clotting?”