The Best Defense

by A. W. Gray

  “Miss Hays,” Rudin began, “are you sure Miss Cowan understands what is happening here?”

  Before Sharon could answer, Breyer cut in. “I’m sure she does, Judge. I observed her talking to Miss Hays just before she made her statement.”

  Sharon started to speak up, but now it was her co­counsel who interrupted. “I heard her, too,” Preston Trigg said.

  Sharon suppressed a smile. God, they loved her performance. She said, “Darla wants to attack the warrant on its face, Your Honor.”

  Rudin pursed his lips. “She’s questioning probable cause?”

  “So the court will be apprised,” Sharon said. “The warrant hinges on the location of the murder weapon at Miss Cowan’s home. Explaining how the gun got in Darla’s kitchen is a trial issue and not debatable in an extradition hearing. The justification for the search, however, is. The search came under a federal warrant. The feds are investigating interstate flight in order to avoid prosecution. It’s a matter of record that Darla traveled from Texas to California, and that circumstance alone might give the FBI cause to search, but without some evidence that the gun was in the house to begin with, the state has no right to use the fruits of the FBI’s labor.” Sharon paused to catch her breath, having said more of a mouthful than she’d intended. “Bottom line, Your Honor. If the federal search warrant’s invalid, suppression of the gun is automatic. If the gun is suppressed, then Texas’s arrest warrant is invalid on its face and Darla’s entitled to go free. Or so we’ll argue.” She shrugged around at the group in general.

  “And your client, totally aware of the circumstance, agrees with this?”

  Sharon nodded and lowered her gaze.

  Rudin flattened his palms on the bench. The flesh underneath his fingernails was pink, in contrast to his coffee-colored skin. “So it would seem, ladies and gentlemen, that we’re dug in for a while. You have evidence to present, Mr. Breyer. How long do you need?”

  Breyer’s chin bobbed up and down like a fishing cork. “While I hadn’t anticipated such a ploy from the defense, we can be ready tomorrow. I have witnesses to fly in, plus members of my staff, but they’re on call.”

  Sharon ignored the “ploy from the defense” barb and smiled at the judge. The “members of my staff” would include Kathleen, of course, which was to be expected. Without expert assistance, Sharon doubted if Milton Breyer could prosecute the running of a stop sign.

  “Is tomorrow satisfactory with the defense?”

  Sharon said, “They’re the ones throwing down the gauntlet, Your Honor. Their time, their place. I think we’re limited to the choice of weapons, aren’t we?”

  “Well put,” Rudin said. “I’ll clear the decks for ten a.m.”

  The lawyers all nodded and st8tted to retreat to their comers. Rudin said, “Oh. Just a minute.”

  The gathering recircled around the bench.

  “I allowed that”—Rudin pointed toward the camera in the jury box—“today under the assumption that we were having a hearing waiver. If we’re going to have any objections to the presence of television in the courtroom tomorrow, I should hear them now. Mr. Cuellar, we’re on your turf here.”

  The L.A. prosecutor spread his hands. “My field, Judge, but we’ve got visiting opposing teams. Entirely their call.”

  Breyer spoke up quickly. “There might be a question at trial, Your Honor. But in an extradition hearing, who cares?”

  Sharon looked away. You care, you silly ass, she thought.

  Rudin folded his hands. “I’ve yet to hear from the defense. Miss Hays?”

  Sharon looked from the judge to Breyer and back again. She had a sudden mental picture of what would occur if she objected to the TV coverage, an imaginary scene where Milton Breyer, Stan Green, and this phony judge surrounded her and punched her lights out. She very nearly giggled out loud. Sharon gave a little shrug. “Fine with us, Judge,” she said. “Our client’s used to being before the camera. If anyone’s to suffer stage fright I think it will be the lawyers. Don’t you?”

  16

  Russell Black asked Sharon if she’d lost her mind. “Possibly, boss,” she said. “But hear me out.”

  “Extradition’s automatic, girl. All you’re doin’ is givin’ Milton Breyer a chance to do more struttin’ on television.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “We’re not in the publicity business. We’re in the lawyer business. If I ever taught you anything, I thought it was that.”

  “Did you catch that judge’s act? God.”

  “Most ludicrous thing I ever seen in a courtroom. What was all that business, puttin’ Stan Green on the stand?”

  “To introduce the players to the public at large,”

  Sharon said. “All for the camera’s benefit. I think the limelight will get in Milt’s eye so much, we can turn it around on him.”

  “Way I see it, you don’t have any real grounds for requestin’ a hearing.”

  “You don’t have all the facts, boss. Darla’s warrant points to the murder weapon, the gun, found at her house on a federal search warrant. I’m going to try and suppress the gun.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “On the grounds that the federal probable cause wouldn’t have been sufficient for the state to conduct its own search, so they can’t use the fruits of the FBI search in a state prosecution. If I can get a ruling that the Texas warrant is invalid, they’ll have to release Darla until they can officially indict her.”

  There were five seconds of silence. “Never happen,” Black finally said. “Plus you’re wavin’ a red flag, revealin’ strategy you plan to use at trial. The California court will allow the extradition an’ toss the hot potato of the gun’s admissibility to a Texas judge, and you’ve clued in the prosecution on what to be ready for. I’ve seen it happen over an’ over.”

  Sharon leaned one shoulder against the corridor wall as Preston Trigg exited the courtroom, followed by two minicams and three newswomen who pointed microphones in his direction. The assembly halted beside a row of benches, and the newswomen cast anticipatory looks at Sharon. She held up a just-a-minute finger as she said into the phone, “I’m willing to chance it, boss, in return for what we’re going to learn. With admissibility of the gun at issue, Milt Breyer will trot out his entire case to show his probable cause. It’s the opportunity of the decade, boss. How many times have you been able to make the state put on all its evidence in advance? Before it’s over, we’ll know everything that Dallas County knows.”

  “Not in a piddly extradition, Sharon. All they got to do is show a whit of probable cause. No way will they fire all their ammo in a proceedin’ like that. No judge worth his salt is goin’ to sit there an’ listen to…” Black trailed off thoughtfully.

  “Right, boss,” Sharon said. “No judge worth his salt. I wouldn’t waste my time trying this in a real live courtroom. But this is a movie set, and what you see here is as fictional as, oh, Minions of Justice. Rob’s show. As long as the reels are turning, this Judge Rudin will let them put on anything they want to. Don’t you remember all that extemporaneous testimony in O.J.? The Bolivian maid with the interpreter”—here Sharon raised her pitch and talked through her nose—“No, señor, no, señor, no señor?” She resumed her normal tone. “The ex­policeman hanger-on guy, Shipp? In the real world none of those people would have ever made it to the stand, but publicity puts a virus in the system. You watched today’s joke yourself, boss. Didn’t you see all the posturing and mugging? And if you’re looking for a dog-and-pony operation, you couldn’t pick a better candidate to chew up the scenery. Milton Breyer might show up in the morning with the Longhorn marching band.”

  Black’s tone was more subdued, tinged with respect. “Milt’s no shrinkin’ violet when it comes to the press.”

  “Which is what I’m counting on. Kathleen Fraterno’s going to have a cow, but not even Kathleen’s
going to be able to slow Milt down. Criminy, he just told the judge he had witnesses to fly in. We’ll have a preview of everything the state’s got, boss. Just wait.”

  Now Black gave a deep, hearty chuckle. “An’ I don’t suppose you’ll be objectin’ to any of this.”

  “Little me? I’ll be quiet as a mouse. Our California counsel has caught a dose of the public-eye bug, but I’ll muzzle him as much as I can.” Sharon’s tone turned serious. “I mean it about the gun. I think we can probably keep it out at trial.”

  “Be better for us if she hadn’ checked any luggage on the flight from Dallas to L.A. Then they’d have to explain how she carried a .38 through security onto a commercial airliner.”

  Sharon looked down at her feet. “They’ve got us there. She checked four pieces. But Darla’s never seen the gun before.”

  “She says. Sharon, any defendant—”

  “Is subject to lying,” Sharon interrupted, “to their lawyer or anyone else. I know her, boss. She’s not lying.”

  “Don’t be settin’ yourself up for a letdown, believin’ in this woman.”

  Sharon had a pensive moment, leaning against a corridor wall in Los Angeles, California, receiving advice from her boss and mentor from a half continent away. Russell Black seldom missed the target. She watched the knot of newspeople gathered around Preston Trigg. Trigg’s mouth worked as he gestured with his hands, Jay Leno style. “I’ve been wrong before,” Sharon finally said. “But if I can’t convince myself, I’ll never put anything across to the jury. Darla’s my friend, and I believe in her. I don’t know how I’ll get over it if she’s lying to me.”

  Sharon kept pace with Preston Trigg as they threaded their way through a gaggle of reporters at the building entry and started down the wide stone steps. It was nearing five in the afternoon, the sun sinking behind tall downtown buildings and a chill creeping into the air. Down below, the Lincoln stretch waited at the curb. Lyndon Gray, stoic as stone, leaned a hip against the fender with his arms folded.

  Reporters waved notepads and brandished ballpomts, forming a three-deep human corridor on either side as tile. lawyers descended. Questions came from all directions, on every topic from trial strategy to what Darla was having for dinner in her cell. Sharon stepped around a handsome sandy-haired man who looked familiar, and thought she’d seen him on one of the networks. Jesus Christ, everyone in L.A. looked like a star of some kind. The man opened his mouth as if to say something, then backed away and let her pass. A newswoman in jeans asked Preston Trigg if David Spencer had been having an affair behind Darla’s back. Trigg stopped in his tracks and started to answer. Sharon yanked on the California lawyer’s sleeve so hard that he nearly fell headlong, then stepped on ahead of him. Trigg stumbled and caught up with her. “What was that for?”

  She grimly shook her head. “You’re going to have to cool it with these reporters, Pres. We’re representing Darla, not ABC.”

  Trigg pointed down toward the sidewalk, where Milt Breyer and Harold. Cuellar stood before a bank of microphones with lights shining in their faces.

  “Doesn’t stop them from popping off,” Trigg said.

  “Let them,” Sharon said. walking fast “If they want to—”

  “Miss Hays.” The voice was male and slightly effeminate. A hand shot out of the crowd and clamped onto Sharon’s arm.

  She halted and turned in anger. Some overzealous reporter clawing at her was the very last straw. They wanted a scene? She’d give them a freaking…

  The hand was connected to a skinny arm, which in turn was encased in a lavender silk sleeve. The flimsy shirt billowed in the wind. The man was pale as a ghost, and Sharon thought of an undertaker who’d accidentally embalmed himself. He held up a photo cut from a magazine. The picture showed a glamorous young model, her hair swept back with one bang drooping seductively over her forehead. Sharon had seen the model somewhere, on a TV commercial perhaps. The man seemed ecstatic. “It’s you, Miss Hays,” he said. “Believe me it is.”

  Sharon blinked and gaped at the guy. “Excuse me, but that’s a model. It isn’t me.”

  “The hair is you.” He turned the picture so that he could look at it along with her. “Jennifer Aniston,” he said. “Friends.”

  Sharon looked at the photo again, recognition dawning. Sure, Jennifer Aniston. “I don’t watch sitcoms,” Sharon said, and turned to continue down the steps.

  The man kept pace, holding a business card in front of her nose. Sharon took the card and read it. Jacque. Hairdresser to the Stars. She said, “That’s nice, Mr. Jacque, but I don’t—”

  “I’ll do you for free.” Jacque’s accent was straight from the Bronx, odd for a Frenchman.

  Sharon looked at the picture once more, then back at the hairdresser. “How could you afford to?” she said. “I’d think you were too busy doing the stars.”

  “You’ll be in millions of homes tomorrow. If you’d just mention my name to a reporter or two …” Jacque stood up to his full height, which placed his forehead on a level with Sharon’s nose. “My normal fee would be … just hundreds.”

  Sharon looked at the picture again, and imagined herself doing research while having to flip that silly bang out of the way in order to read.

  “I have my own limo waiting,” Jacque said, “to whisk you away to my studio in Beverly Hills. Only take a couple of hours.”

  Sharon looked down at the street. Sure enough, there was a second limo down there, this one pink. She sighed. “Appreciate the thought, Mr. Jacque, but I don’t have a couple of hours. I have to get ready for this hearing tomorrow.” All up and down the steps, reporters stared at her. She turned to her co-counsel.

  “Come on, Pres, we’ve got work to do.”

  Trigg didn’t move. He said to Jacque, “Uh, listen. Do you work on guys?”

  Jacque’s expression softened. He regarded Preston Trigg with one critically arched eyebrow. He put Jennifer Aniston’s picture away and produced another magazine photo, this one of Brad Pitt dashing down an alley with Morgan Freeman close on his heels. Pitt’s hair was in inch-long quills, with the top front swept forward in a rakish line. Sharon recognized the scene, and had bitten her nails to the quick while watching the gut-wrencher of a movie. Seven.

  Jacque held the picture as Preston Trigg cradled his elbow in his cupped hand and scratched his chin thoughtfully. Jacque rattled the photo. “Voila,” the hairdresser said.

  17

  Ted Koppel wanted to know if the defense request for an extradition hearing had shocked the legal experts. Gerry Spence admitted that he hadn’t been expecting any such strategy, and openly questioned Sharon Hays’s legal smarts. Leslie Abramson disagreed, stating that the move had caught the prosecution off guard.

  You tell ‘em, Les, Sharon thought. She looked up from her reading and testily rattled the papers in her lap. The scene on the giant TV screen was an over­the-shoulder shot from behind Koppel as he carried on conversations with two television monitors. The monitor on Koppel’s right showed Gerry Spence at home in Montana or Wyoming or wherever he lived, resplendent in buckskin behind the desk in his library. Sharon wondered if Spence had any sheep on his ranch, and if he spouted legal theory at cowhands and settlers as he rode the range. Leslie Abramson’s pretty blond hair and even features beamed from the other monitor.

  Sharon was on the den sofa. Gray, Yadaka, and Mrs. Welton sat in recliners as the quartet watched Nightline and Gray taped the show. True to his word, he had recorded anything and everything pertaining to Darla’s atSe which had come over the networks. Two dozen tapes, carefully labeled as to date and content, were now lined up in the upright glass-front case, one shelf below the David Spencer movies.

  Sharon held a pile of Xeroxes in her lap, and there was a second six-inch stack of copies on the sofa beside her hip. As Preston Trigg had left the courthouse with Jacque the hairdresser, Sharon had headed for the L.A. Count
y Law Library. She’d nearly worn out two copying machines in duplicating whatever statutes and court decisions she could find pertaining to extradition and suppression of evidence.

  The network abruptly switched viewing angles, showing a head-on shot of Koppel at his desk. “We’re going to have to cut for a commercial,” he said. “When we come back, we’ll have just enough time for opposing statements from the prosecution and the defense. Stay with us.”

  Sharon frowned. Who for the prosecution and who for the defense? In order to get Milt Breyer on the show, the network would merely have to blow in his ear. But who’s our spokesman? Sharon thought. God, not Preston Trigg, surely they wouldn’t …

  The lead-in to the commercial consisted of ten seconds of film clip. The first segment was Darla’s most famous in cinema, wherein she crept naked toward a couple having intercourse on a king-size bed. She clutched a butcher knife. Superimposed black rectangles hid her breasts and pubic area. The scene switched briefly to a close-up of Darla’s face, also from Fatal Instinct, her mouth twisted sensuously as she said to her lover, “I’ll kill anyone who comes near you.” Sharon angrily tossed her ballpoint aside as the com­ mercial began.

  Mrs. Welton twisted in her recliner. “The nerve.”

  Yadaka bent forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Doin’ a number on ‘er.”

  Which the media certainly was, Sharon knew, and immediately considered ways of shielding potential jurors from those freaking mini-clips. Her first impulse was an injunction, preventing the TV folks from showing fictional carnage featuring Darla, but such a move could call even more attention to the actress’s blood­thirsty screen persona. Tomorrow she’d bounce the situation off Russ, see what he had to say. She wrestled with her thoughts through a Nissan commercial, through Michael Jordan ordering a Ballpark Frank, through Troy Aikman asking the concession kid how many Cokes he’d sold while Aikman had gone twenty­four for thirty-six in the passing statistics. She came out of her trance as Ted Koppel reappeared.