“And you saw the two of them order red wine together?”
“Yes.”
“And you saw Ms. Vila give Richard the tea that he drank that evening?”
“I did.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Phillips. No further questions, Your Honor.”
I stood. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Phillips.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Shepherd.” She spoke as if she’d just run into me while we were both out and about.
“Your niece testified that you had other appetizers at the rehearsal dinner besides prosciutto. Is that true?”
“We did.”
“Shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, olives, caviar?”
“There were a wide range of items, Mr. Shepherd.”
“Richard was free to eat whatever he wanted, wasn't he?”
“He was.”
“You're not suggesting that Ms. Vila made him eat anything, are you?”
Paulette Philip shrugged. “Men can be influenced.”
“How so?”
“I think you know.”
“Tell me.”
Paulette Phillips glanced at Liselle and said, “Your client is striking, Mr. Shepherd. It’s not a leap to think that men will try to impress her.”
I decided not to ask if Richard had. I was certain it was true. I took a different tack. “Your brother-in-law ran a multi-billion-dollar corporation. He can make his own decisions, can't he?”
“He used to be able to. He can't anymore.”
“You’re close with Richard Phillips’ ex-wife, Sharon, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Mr. Phillips was married to her for twenty-four years, wasn't he?”
“He was.”
“And in those twenty-four years, you would have attended many things with Sharon, wouldn't you?”
“Of course.”
“After Richard’s divorce, you didn’t care much for the dates he brought to family functions, did you?”
Paulette shrugged. “Some were better than others. I was optimistic about Ms. Vila until…” she shrugged again.
“Did you talk to the prosecutor before testifying today?”
“I did.”
“How many times?”
“Three or four.”
“When?”
“Shortly after charges were filed would've been the first time. A few more times closer to the trial.”
“And the prosecutor told you her theory about the St. John's wort, didn't she?”
Paulette Phillips nodded. “She did.”
“And the prosecutor's office told you about the significance of the aged meat and red wine, right?”
“She said it was a potential issue.”
“That's why you remember it, isn’t it?”
“I told you why I remembered it and when prosecutor told me her theory, it fit. Perfectly.”
I was making no progress here. I needed to get out of this line of questioning and scrambled for a solid finishing point.
“Richard Phillips was the head of a multibillion-dollar corporation who made decisions that affected himself and thousands of other people every day, wasn’t he?”
“He was. We miss him very much.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Phillips. That's all I have.”
Victoria stood. “Mrs. Phillips, during your testimony, you weren’t talking about Richard Phillips making business decisions that affected other people, were you?”
“I was not.”
“I got the impression that you were talking about Richard’s personal decisions that affected himself. Was I wrong?”
“No. That’s exactly what I meant.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
I decided the best thing was to get Paulette Phillips out of the courtroom. “No questions, Your Honor.”
“The witness may step down,” said Judge French. Paulette Phillips left the stand and, unlike her niece and nephew, didn't look one time at Liselle Vila and left the court. When she was gone, Judge French said, “Members of the jury, that’s all we are going to do today. We will see you tomorrow at nine a.m.”
We were collecting our things when Victoria came over to me. “I had mentioned that we're calling Pearson and Stephen Phillips tomorrow.”
I smiled. “We certainly don't want to leave any of the Phillips out of this.”
Victoria shrugged. “They all saw important evidence. I wanted to let you know that we’re calling Wrigley too.”
I remembered a scientist buried around number eight-four on their witness list. “The toxicologist?”
She nodded.
“Didn’t you cover that ground with Gerchuk?”
“Wrigley didn't examine Mr. Phillips. He examined the tea.”
“Is that what he’s going to talk about?”
“That’s it. It’ll be limited to the report we gave you. It shouldn’t take long.”
I kept my face straight. “What’s he going to say?”
Victoria smiled a little. “You know. It’s in the report.”
I had read the report and had my own expert analyze the tea. I knew exactly what he was going to say tomorrow. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Sure.”
I went back over to Danny and Liselle.
“What was that about?” said Danny.
“She's letting me know that they're turning up the heat tomorrow. Let's get back to the office.”
I turned to Liselle. “Join us for dinner? It's just sandwiches and we’ll be working but it's company if you want it.”
Liselle smiled and nodded. “I do.”
“Then let's go.”
Danny, Liselle, and I were sitting around the conference table with Hungry Howie’s as the sandwich provider of choice. I finished chewing and said, “So, tomorrow we have the investigating police officer, a toxicologist to talk about the tea, and Stephen Phillips.”
“Okay,” said Liselle.
“Pearson is going to talk about his investigation. You’re sure you told him that you didn’t know about the Lopressor?”
Liselle nodded. “I’m sure. We just didn't know each other that long.” She took a bite of her Italian sub. “This is really good.”
After this case, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to look at pepperoni and salami the same way. “Victoria is probably going to ask Pearson about the Ribbon Falls protest. You only went the one time?”
She nodded. “With about five thousand other people.”
“And that was it?”
She chewed and thought. “That was the only time I protested the fracking publicly. I was preoccupied with the ash borer quarantine at the time. We were deciding where to impose it.”
I nodded. “I've cross-examined Pearson before. I’ll deal with anything else new that comes up. Tell me how you make the tea.”
Liselle took another bite and held one hand up as she chewed before she said, “Does that matter?”
“It does. Their toxicologist is going to testify that the tea contains about fifteen times more St. John's wort than is present in other teas.”
“Vicki told you that?” said Danny.
I kept my eyes on Liselle. “No. I had it tested myself.”
Liselle's expression didn't change. “Sometimes I buy processed leaves and sometimes I dry them myself. I can't tell you which batch this was. I didn't think it mattered.”
“Why is it so high?”
“Don't forget you're not ingesting it directly. Because it's tea, it's diluted in the water; it can be weaker or stronger depending on how long it steeps. It needs to be more concentrated to be effective in the tea.”
It seemed like she believed that but I wasn't sure it was true.
My expression must've shown because she said, “If he was getting too much St. John’s wort, he would have shown signs of overdosing. Well, not overdosing, but being nervous and jittery and all the things that having too much St. John's wort does. He wasn't.”
“That's a good point. I’ll remember that. F
inally, no interactions with Stephen Phillips other than the kind we heard today? Eating, drinking, and small talk?”
“That's all I can think of,” she said.
“Do you have any questions from today?” I asked her.
Liselle kept her eyes down and, in that moment, she seemed particularly vulnerable. “I don't understand it at all, Nate. How they could think that I…”
I realized again that Liselle had been up here alone for a very long time.
Danny jumped in. “I'm still not seeing it either, Liselle. So far, it's seemed more the other way, that the family had more animosity toward you than you had toward Richard.”
Liselle looked at me. I nodded. Then she looked back at Danny and said, “I’ll just be glad when this is all done.”
Danny leaned forward. “There’ll just be another couple of days of their case. Then we’ll put on ours and we should be done by middle of next week. Right, Nate?”
“Right.”
Liselle nodded, gave Danny a little smile, then said to me, “How is James?”
“Getting better every day. Still in therapy, walking but not running yet.” I smiled. “Izzy said he’s obsessed with hawks. She had to get him a set of binoculars to shut him up.”
Liselle smiled, the first truly joyful one I’d seen in a while. “They are beautiful.”
“Yes, they are.”
We were all finished with our sandwiches. “I'm afraid we have to get back to work,” I said.
She stood. “Of course. Thank you. Both of you.”
I waved. “Don't thank us yet.”
“Still,” she said.
I checked my phone. “Olivia is going to pick you up in a couple minutes and take you home.”
“Okay. I'll wait out in the lobby.”
A question I had from that day occurred to me. “Hey, when they were all golfing, the day of the rehearsal, where did you go?”
She smiled. “To southeast Detroit to see the neighborhood where the first ash trees had been hit by the borer. It's fairly well documented, in your wife's research and others’, but I wanted to see for myself.”
“Were you able to find it?”
“The neighborhoods, yes. The trees?” She shook her head. “Most of them weren't even there anymore. They had died and started to fall, so in a lot of places I just found stumps. It was almost worse.” She shook her head again. “You can read about things like that but sometimes you just have to see it to really drive it home.”
I gathered the sandwich wrappers. “Danny, could you wait with Liselle for Olivia? I have to get started.”
“Sure,” said Danny without looking at Liselle.
“Hang in there,” I said to Liselle. “I'll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay, Nate. Thanks.”
Danny stumbled a little bit before he opened the door for her and then Liselle asked him about the picture of the cute little girl on his desk and Danny regained his balance as he spoke about his daughter on the way down to the lobby. Their voices faded and I got to work.
38
Mitch Pearson was the first witness called the next morning. He strode into the courtroom in his usual testifying uniform: a dark gray suit tailored extra slim so that it was tight enough to reveal his large frame and the gun he carried at his hip. He wasn't wearing his badge at his belt this time, though. This time, he was wearing it around his neck on a lanyard, like he’d just arrived on a crime scene, and as he sat in the witness chair, the badge was still visible for the jury to see, just above the railing. Pearson sat straight, folded his hands, and identified himself as Mitch Pearson, Chief Detective in Charge of Serious Crimes for Carrefour, Ohio.
After Pearson had introduced himself to the jury, Victoria said, “Detective Pearson, were you called upon to investigate the death of Richard Phillips?”
“I was.”
“When?”
“The night that he died.”
“How did that come about?”
“We received a call from a plainclothes officer that there had been a death at a wedding reception at the Forester Hotel.”
“A plainclothes officer was there?”
“She was.”
“Why?”
“We’d been advised that the Phillips family would be in town so we stationed officers near the celebration.”
“Why is that?”
“Given the Phillips’ profile, it seemed like the prudent thing to do.”
“Could you explain?”
“The Phillips are a well-known, wealthy family. In addition, large companies like Doprava tend to draw extreme positions against their policies. We did not want anything to happen when the Phillips were in Carrefour.”
“Were you aware of any threats against the Phillips or Doprava when you assigned the plainclothes officers to the wedding?”
“Not at that time, ma'am, no.”
“So what happened next?”
“After I received the call, I went straight to the hotel to secure the scene.”
“What did that entail?”
“I spoke to our plainclothes officers and to hotel staff. The consensus was that Mr. Phillips had had some sort of cardiac event on the dance floor so it did not seem like a crime scene to me at the time. I asked for the names of the staff working that night and a guest list and then obtained permission to search Mr. Phillips’ room.”
I stood. “May we approach, Your Honor?”
Judge French waved us up. Victoria and I went to the bench and I spoke quietly so that the jury couldn’t hear me. “Your Honor, I renew our objection to any evidence garnered from the search of my client’s hotel room. There was no warrant and she did not consent to it.”
Judge French looked at Victoria.
“Your Honor, we briefed this at length before the trial and, consistent with your preliminary ruling, we point out that Bre Phillips consented to the search. Ms. Phillips booked this room along with the rest of the Phillips’ rooms but, more importantly, since Mr. Phillips had died, Bre Phillips was his heir and authorized to act on his behalf as to his possessions and his room. For the reasons Your Honor stated in your preliminary ruling, we submit that evidence from the search is admissible.”
I shook my head. “Your Honor, the fact that Ms. Phillips booked the room is irrelevant. If that were the case, a travel agent could consent to the search of any room he’d booked for a guest. Further, Bre Phillips was not authorized to consent to a search of my client's possessions regardless of her status as Mr. Phillips’ heir.”
Judge French waited until we were done before he nodded and said, “For the reasons set forth in my preliminary ruling, the Court finds that Bre Phillips was authorized to consent to the search. The Court agrees with Mr. Shepherd that the fact that she booked the room is not relevant. However, once Mr. Phillips died, the only practical way for Mr. Phillips’ possessions to be removed from the hotel room and for his bill with the hotel to be settled was for his heirs to handle it. The Court will not allow evidence of a search of any of Ms. Vila's possessions that were in the room. For example, I will not allow testimony if Detective Pearson looked into her suitcase or her purse. However, he can testify about any of Mr. Phillips’s possessions that are relevant and about anything that was in plain view in the room.”
Victoria and I both nodded and she went back to the lectern as I returned to the counsel table.
“It's coming in,” I whispered to Liselle. She nodded.
Victoria continued. “Detective Pearson, you said that you received consent to search Mr. Phillips’ room?”
“I did.”
“From whom?”
“From his daughter, Bre Phillips.”
“And why did you obtain permission from Mr. Phillips’ daughter?”
“Because at that point, Mr. Phillips was dead and she was acting on his behalf.”
“Did you ask Ms. Vila if she consented to the search?”
“I did not.”
“Why not?”
“Beca
use she wasn't there and because I had no intention of searching her belongings. Instead, I wanted to see if Mr. Phillips had anything with him that would explain his collapse.”
“Like what?”
“Like legal or illegal drugs.”
“Wouldn't toxicology give you that result?”
“In six to eight weeks. But we wanted to have a better sense of what had happened right away, to see if there was any easy explanation for it.”
“And what did you find, Detective Pearson?”
“Nothing that we thought was significant at the time.”
“Is there anything that is significant to you now?”
“Yes.”
“What was that?”
“Two things. We found a bottle of prescription pills sitting on the left side of the sink next to a drinking glass with toothbrushes in it.”
“Did you take a photo?”
“I did.”
A photo of the hotel sink went up on the screen. “Is this that photo?”
“It is. You can see the prescription bottle there in the upper left, next to the glass.”
“Did you move anything before you took this picture?”
“I did not. That was what the sink looked like when we found it.”
“And what was in the bottle?”
“A medication called Lopressor.”
The picture was blown up so that the bottle was clearly visible. One of Victoria’s associates highlighted the word “Lopressor” in yellow. “Is this a true and accurate representation of what you found?” asked Victoria.
“It is.”
“Do you know what Lopressor is?”
“I didn't at the time. I now know that it is a beta blocker medication used for control of high blood pressure and heart arrhythmias whose industry name is metoprolol.”
“And it was sitting there in plain sight?”
“I saw it easily.”
“What else did you find?”
“The suite had a small kitchenette with a refrigerator, stove, and sink. It also had a coffee maker. Next to the coffee maker, we found a white cardboard box with teabags in it.”
“Did you find any significance to that?”
“Not at the time.”
A picture of the kitchenette went up on the screen. A white box was visible next to the coffee maker. “Is that the white box you were referring to?”
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