Judge O’Donnell shot a look in their direction, nearly provoking another wave of snickers, then said, “With all present and accounted for, court is back in session. Mr. Abernathy, please call your next witness.”
Ronnie turned now, making brief eye contact with Hutch, and he knew he’d made the right decision in ignoring Keating’s threat. If any of the old guy’s lackeys came within ten feet of him, he’d call the cops.
Hopefully no one would have to call the paramedics.
Abernathy stood up, looking fully recovered from the morning session. “I’d like to call Ms. Carlene Harding to the stand.”
So that’s why Jenny’s secretary was out.
A guard moved to a door, pushed it open and said something to the person waiting behind it. A moment later a tall black woman wearing a stylish but conservative skirt suit stepped into the courtroom and made her way to the witness box. She was movie-star pretty, and it looked to Hutch as if she’d spent some time in the makeup chair before driving to court today.
Everyone waited as she was sworn in and stated her name, then Abernathy approached the podium.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Harding.”
She smiled warmly. “Hello.” No case of the jitters for this witness. In fact, she looked so calm and collected that Hutch had to wonder if she was on something.
“Ms. Harding, where are you currently employed?”
“The Law Offices of Treacher and Pine.” There was a hint of pride in her voice.
“And what is your occupation?”
“I’m a legal secretary.”
Abernathy nodded. “And what exactly does that job entail?”
“I have a number of duties. I keep the court calendar for my attorneys, schedule appointments and depositions, prepare briefs, take dictation, and handle any written correspondence that may be needed.”
“And for which attorneys do you do all this work?”
“I’m currently assisting Curtis Tobin and Mitchell Clark in contracts.”
“What about four months ago? Who were assisting then?”
Harding’s eyes clouded slightly. “Mr. Tobin and Ms. Keating, in the same department.”
“Jennifer Keating? The victim in this case?”
She nodded solemnly. “Yes.”
“And how long did you work for Ms. Keating?”
She thought about this, then said, “Jenny came aboard about a month after I started, so approximately four years.”
“I see. And how would you characterize your relationship with her?”
“Unlike some attorneys I’ve worked for, Jenny never looked down on the support staff. We didn’t really socialize outside the office, but I like to think we were friends.”
Abernathy nodded then checked the notepad in front of him on the podium. “I assume your duties were the same for Ms. Keating as they are for Mr. Tobin and Mr. Clark?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Did you also handle her phone calls?”
“Only the calls that came through the office switchboard. Jenny had a cell phone that she used quite frequently.”
“Was that a business phone?”
“Not technically, no. It was her personal line. The office used to supply cell phones for the attorneys, but the practice became cost prohibitive and the attorneys were encouraged to use their own.”
“So would the cell phone be a number she would normally give out to clients?”
Harding shook her head. “No. That number was private and would only be given to close friends or work associates. Any calls from clients would have gone to her office phone, if they knew her direct extension, or be routed through me.”
“I see,” Abernathy said. “So if I needed to talk to Ms. Keating and didn’t have her cell number, how would I have contacted her?”
“Call the firm’s main number and the operator would transfer it to me. Once I determined who was calling and why, I’d buzz Jenny and ask if she was available.”
“And if she wasn’t?”
“I’d take a message.”
“What if Ms. Keating herself needed to call a client. Did she ever have you make the call, then connect to her once the party answered?”
“That was part of my job, yes.”
Abernathy bobbed his head and spent a short moment formulating his next question. Then he said, “Ms. Harding, you say that you and Ms. Keating didn’t really socialize outside the office, but is it fair to say that you knew a good deal about her social life?”
“I think so, yes.”
“And how is that?”
“Like I told you,” Harding said, “we were friends. Office friends. She’d sometimes talk about her private life and the people she knew outside work.”
“Assistant District Attorney Warren Lutz, for example?”
“Yes, they were in a romantic relationship for quite some time.”
“Did she ever talk about that relationship?”
Harding nodded. “Sometimes. Not often. More toward the end, when they decide to call it quits.”
“Is that how she characterized it? That they had decided to call it quits?”
“Yes,” Harding said. “She told me it was a mutual decision. She said the relationship had run its course and they had both decided to move on.”
“Did she ever tell you why?”
“Objection,” Waverly called out. “Is this a murder trial or a soap opera?”
This got a few laughs from the gallery.
“Your Honor, defense counsel opened this door this morning when she inferred that ADA Lutz was the one who should be on trial here.”
“I inferred no such thing, Your Honor. I was merely pointing out the deficiencies in Detective Meyer’s—”
“Oh, please,” Abernathy snapped. “You as good as accused the man of—”
“All right, children, that’s enough.” O’Donnell waved an impatient hand at them. “Objection overruled, let’s keep moving.”
The two attorneys took a moment to calm down, then Abernathy repeated his question. “You can answer Ms. Harding. Did Ms. Keating ever tell you why she and Mr. Lutz decided to move on?”
“Not really. I have my suspicions, but—”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
Abernathy smiled at the witness. “I appreciate your honesty, but let’s try to avoid any hint of conjecture in your answers. Tell us only what Ms. Keating told you.”
“She said they just realized they were better off as friends.”
Abernathy nodded. “And when they were more than just friends, did Mr. Lutz ever call her?”
“I don’t know about her private number, but yes, of course, he would sometimes call the office complaining that she’d turned off her cell, wanting to know if she was in a meeting or stuck in court.”
“And after they ‘moved on’?”
“I didn’t notice any change in the frequency of calls.”
“What about Ms. Keating? Did she ever have you call Mr. Lutz during this period?”
“Yes, many times,” Harding said, then showed the glimmer of a smile. “I once asked her how she could stay friends with a man who had shared her bed—it’s not something I could do—and she told me that she still found him intellectually stimulating and saw no point is shutting down an entire relationship simply because they were no longer having sex.”
Abernathy nodded and fiddled with his notepad, pausing to let the jury ponder this notion. He was no doubt hoping that he had repaired some of the damage Waverly had done this morning.
Then he said, “Ms. Harding, when was the first time you heard the name Veronica Baldacci?”
“About a month before Jenny was killed.”
“And in what context did you hear it?”
“Jenny came into the office and said she’d run into an old college roommate the night before. I asked her if it was one of the friends in the photo that she kept on her credenza and she said ‘yes’ and pointed Ms. Baldacci out to me.”
“Yes.”
“And what did she say?”
“That at first she was happy to see Ms. Baldacci, but things had gotten awkward.”
Abernathy nodded. “Did she say why?”
“Yes. Over the course of their conversation, Jenny mentioned that she was working for Treacher and Pine and Ms. Baldacci became visibly upset by this revelation.”
“Objection,” Waverly said. “Hearsay as to my client’s frame of mind.”
“Sustained.”
“What about Ms. Keating?” Abernathy asked. “Did she say she was upset about the meeting?”
“She said she felt surprised and uncomfortable because she hadn’t realized that the firm was representing Ms. Baldacci’s ex-husband in their custody case.”
“I don’t understand,” Abernathy said. “If Treacher and Pine was representing the ex-husband, wouldn’t it stand to reason that Ms. Keating would know this?”
Harding shook her head. “Treacher and Pine is a very large law firm with over a hundred and fifty attorneys in several different departments on three separate floors. Jenny worked in contracts, not the family law division, and the firm is very strict about client confidentiality. Unless there’s a legal question involved, sharing of case files is strongly discouraged.”
“So Ms. Keating wouldn’t have access to the ex-husband’s files?”
“No,” Harding said. “In fact, Jenny was a stickler about ethics and stayed as far away from the case as humanly possible. To the point where she instructed me to refer any calls she might get from Ms. Baldacci to the attorney handling it.”
“Even though there was no real conflict of interest?”
Harding shrugged. “Like I said, she was a stickler.”
“And did she get any calls?”
“Yes, several.”
“When was this?”
“The first came about two days after their encounter, when I was out sick.”
Abernathy’s eyebrows went up. “If you were out sick, then how did you know about it?”
“Because the woman who replaced me that day didn’t know about Jenny’s instructions, and mistakenly sent the call through to her. When I saw Jenny the next day, she was quite upset about the whole thing. Said she hated to treat Ms. Baldacci like a leper, but felt she had no choice until the case was resolved.”
“Did she characterize the nature of the call?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled. Answer the question, Ms. Harding.”
Harding looked at Abernathy. “She said it was contentious, but she didn’t go into detail.”
“Fair enough,” Abernathy said. “But you told us there were several calls. Did you personally receive any of them?”
Harding nodded. “All of them.”
“And did you make any kind of notation’s regarding these calls?”
“Not at first,” Harding said. “But after a while I started marking them on my computer calendar.”
“And when was this?”
“In the week before Jenny was murdered.”
Abernathy moved to the prosecution table and picked up a stack of papers. Holding them up he said, “Your Honor, I have here a printout of the calendar in question, which I’d like to enter into the record as State’s Exhibit 2.”
“So entered,” O’Donnell said.
Abernathy handed a copy to the court clerk, then turned to his witness. “Ms. Harding, can you elaborate on these phone calls?”
Harding took a breath. “They were fairly innocuous at first. Ms. Baldacci called, identified herself, and I told her Jenny wasn’t available, then transferred her to the family law department.”
“You say they were innocuous at first. Did that change?”
“Oh, yes,” Harding said. “Very much so.”
“In what way?”
“Ms. Baldacci became increasingly hostile and demanding on the phone and began calling with more frequency, several times a day, asking to be put through to Jenny. That’s why I started marking it down.”
“And what do you consider hostile behavior?”
“Calling me names, for one thing.”
“Oh?” Abernathy said. “Can you give us an example?”
Harding seemed to steel herself, no longer the unruffled witness she was when she first sat in the box. “The worst one was about two days before Jenny was murdered. It was late in the afternoon and I had already fielded several calls from Ms. Baldacci during the day. Then she called again, and while I can’t be sure what was going through her mind, she was very frank about what she thought of me.”
“What did she say?”
Harding straightened in her chair, looking directly at the jury. “She said—and I’m quoting here—‘Put me through to Jenny you uppity black bitch or I’ll gut you where you sit.’”
For a moment the courtroom seemed frozen in time. Not a sound was uttered, all eyes on Ronnie as the words sank in.
Then Abernathy turned to Waverly, a small, self-satisfied smile on his face. “Your witness, counsel.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“PUT ME THROUGH to Jenny, you uppity black bitch, or I’ll gut you where you sit,” Waverly repeated as she got to her feet and moved to the podium. “Did the caller really say that?”
Looking wary, Harding sat up even straighter, and Hutch could see that she was bracing for an attack. “Yes. Yes she did.”
“Those exact words?”
“Yes. It’s not something I’m likely to forget. It frightened me.”
“I don’t blame you. I think we can all agree it’s a pretty disgusting thing to say. But are you sure it was my client who said it?” She gestured to Ronnie. “Ms. Baldacci?”
Harding cocked a brow at her as if to say, you’re kidding right?
“Why wouldn’t I be? She called at least five times that day. And more than twice that during the week.”
“That’s a lot of calls,” Waverly said. “But let’s go back for a moment. You testified that the first time you heard the name Veronica Baldacci was about a month before Ms. Keating was killed. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And Ms. Keating pointed her out in a photograph on her desk.”
“Her credenza,” Harding said forcefully, as if she were a teacher correcting a student.
“Her credenza,” Waverly repeated with a nod. “And that was the first time you heard the name Veronica Baldacci. But what about the first time you actually met her? When was that?”
Harding looked confused. “I beg your pardon?”
Waverly gestured to Ronnie again. “When did you first meet my client?”
“I’ve never met her,” Harding said. “We’ve never even been in the same room together until now.”
Waverly frowned. “I don’t understand. Detective Meyer testified that the majority of the phone calls came from the Dumont Hotel, directly across the street from your office.”
“So they tell me.”
“Yet in all that time, Ms. Baldacci never once crossed the street to try to speak to Ms. Keating in person?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
“So let me get this straight,” Waverly said. “Are you claiming, under oath, that you’ve never met or spoken to my client face to face? In the flesh, so to speak?”
Harding stiffened, a quiet hostility creeping into her eyes, as if she thought her integrity were being impugned. “Not a claim, it’s the truth.”
Waverly nodded, then said, “So tell me this, Ms. Harding. If you’ve never seen or spoken to my client before today, how could you possibly know that the person on the telephone was Veronica Baldacci?”
Murmurs rumbled through the courtroom, Hutch and his friends exchanging looks. Waverly had played this one perfectly.
But Harding had an answer. “Because she identified herself, that’s how.”
“Oh? In what way?”
“She said, ‘This is Ron
nie Baldacci, put me through to Jenny.’”
“Really? Exactly like that?”
Harding shrugged. “More or less. Sometimes she said, ‘This is Ronnie Baldacci, don’t transfer me to that other clueless bitch, let me talk to Jenny.’ This was usually accompanied by a several expletives.”
“So you’re saying she identified herself every time she called?”
“I can’t swear to it, but it certainly seemed that way. Believe me, I got awfully tired of hearing the name.”
Scattered laughter rang out but quickly died when Judge O’Donnell shot his gaze toward the gallery.
Waverly said, “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that someone who was desperate to have her calls put through to Ms. Keating would always state her name, even after she’d repeatedly been denied?”
“I wouldn’t know, but that’s what she did.”
“If you were making such calls yourself, wouldn’t you resort to some type of subterfuge to get through?”
“Objection, Your Honor. The witness’s opinion in that regard is irrelevant to these proceedings.”
“Sustained. Move it along, counsel.”
Waverly nodded to him. “Sorry, Your Honor. Ms. Harding, did you ever speak to your boss about these calls?”
“To Jenny? Yes, of course.”
“And what did she say?”
Harding sighed. “She told me to keep transferring them to the family law department. It was a bit frustrating, to say the least. I just wanted to be rid of them. I was tired of dealing with it and I thought she should speak to Ms. Baldacci and make it clear that she should no longer try to contact her.”
“So she never took any of the calls?”
“Not that I know of, other than that first one, when I was out sick.”
Waverly paused. “So let me understand this. The one person who knew Ronnie Baldacci and could positively identify her voice had never taken any of the calls you handled. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Harding said.
“Yet when this caller identified herself as Ronnie Baldacci, you assumed she was telling the truth. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Harding said, looking impatient now. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Mortal Crimes 1 Page 173