by Scott Pratt
“And Mr. Jordan was murdered that Thursday?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Where did your husband go?”
“I have no idea. I think maybe he was hiding.”
“But he returned on Friday?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Street.”
Grace approached the lectern. Before she got there, she said, “You’re a liar, aren’t you, Mrs. Street?”
“Objection!” Clancy said. “Argumentative.”
“Let me rephrase,” Grace said. “You’re dishonest, aren’t you?”
“Same objection.”
“Okay, let’s try this, and before Mr. Clancy starts objecting, let me just say that these questions go directly to Mrs. Street’s credibility. You’re an adulteress, aren’t you, Mrs. Street? You were having an affair with a man named Leonard Bright for several months before your husband was arrested for this crime, were you not?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Katie said.
“Will the court instruct Mrs. Street to answer the question, please? Were you or were you not having an affair with a man named Leonard Bright for several months prior to your husband being arrested for this crime?”
“Answer the question, ma’am,” Judge Geer said.
“Darren was insensitive,” Katie said.
“Is that a yes?”
“He called me names.”
“So you’re an adulteress. You admit that. You were dishonest and were sneaking around with another man during your marriage.”
“We’re getting a divorce. I was the one who filed.”
“Yes, and you had the divorce papers served on your husband right outside the courtroom following his initial appearance, isn’t that right?”
“Mr. Clancy was the one who suggested that,” she said.
I turned and looked at Clancy, who had suddenly become fascinated with his tie clasp.
“Can you tell the jury of one instance when your husband has been violent toward you or your son, or anyone else for that matter?”
“He told me he beat his father up and threw him out of the house when he was a teenager,” Katie said.
“That was to protect his mother and himself from being beaten, wasn’t it? You took an oath to tell the whole truth, Mrs. Street.”
“I don’t know if he or his mother were beaten. I wasn’t there.”
“Back in April, after your son was threatened, you say your husband disappeared and you didn’t see him for three days, is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
“But it isn’t true, is it? You saw him on Wednesday afternoon. He had taken Sean into hiding because he was concerned by the threat Jalen Jordan had made, and he came to your home to talk to you about it. And during that conversation, didn’t you mention something about suing the FBI if your son was killed?”
I kept glancing at the jury and they were looking at Katie like she was a bug they wanted to squash. It was a small victory, but at least it was a victory, and Grace seemed to be genuinely relishing the opportunity.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Katie said.
“Fine. Just so the jury understands, your husband called you, upset that someone had threatened your son, and asked you to pick your son up at school. You refused because you said the place where you work was having a sale and you didn’t want to leave.”
“He was overreacting.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because that’s what he does, especially when Sean is involved.”
“He loves his son very much, doesn’t he?” Grace said.
“I don’t know. I guess he does.”
“And he was only trying to protect him, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s been a good husband, a good father, a good provider, hasn’t he? He’s spent a great deal of time with Sean?”
“I don’t know what you want me to—”
“And yet you’ve filed a petition to terminate his parental rights, isn’t that true?”
“He’s a murderer,” Katie said. “I don’t want him anywhere near Sean.”
“He isn’t a murderer unless the jury finds him guilty,” Grace said. “You, on the other hand, are already guilty of being one of the worst people I’ve ever had the displeasure of cross-examining. Nothing further.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Katie was followed by Richie Fels, and it was all I could do to keep from leaping over the table and pummeling him right there in front of the judge and jury.
“Would you tell the jury about your encounter with Mr. Street on the day in question?” Ben Clancy said.
“He called my secretary and demanded to see me immediately,” Fels said, “and then he came storming in like he owned the place. He walked into my office and dropped a hundred-dollar bill on my desk, apparently in hopes of buying my silence.”
“Objection, speculation,” Grace barked.
“Sustained.”
“Before we go any further, Mr. Fels, I’d like to give the jury some sense of your background. You’ve been practicing criminal defense law exclusively for how many years?”
“Nearly thirty-eight,” Richie said. “I’ve published several articles in various law journals and have also written a text book on ethical issues in criminal cases. I’ve tried hundreds of cases in my career, everything from first-degree murder to driving under the influence. I’m listed in several publications as one of the top-rated criminal defense lawyers in the country.”
“And you’ve been friends with the defendant for quite some time, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Darren came to me several years ago and asked me to help with an appellate case involving his uncle. I agreed, and we became friends. I’ve admired his work.”
“And just in the interest of full disclosure, in that case you referred to a second ago that involved Mr. Street’s uncle, I was the prosecutor. I was on the other side.”
“Correct.”
“And you won. You secured Mr. Street’s uncle’s release from prison.”
“We did.”
“So you don’t exactly have an ax to grind with Mr. Street, do you?”
“No, I certainly don’t. I’m here only because I believe it’s the right thing to do.”
“All right, then, will you please continue telling the jury about your encounter with Mr. Street on that Tuesday afternoon?”
“He came in and dropped a hundred dollars on my desk. It was obvious that he was quite distraught. He told me a breathless story about a man who came to his office seeking representation who wound up threatening his son. He believed the threat to be legitimate, and wanted advice on what he should do. I told him if he thought the threat was genuine, he should take his son somewhere out of harm’s way until he could get the police involved or until the threat was contained in some other way.”
“And how did he respond?”
“He said he was thinking of killing the man.”
Grace sprang to her feet and objected, but just as he had throughout the trial, Judge Geer found an exception to the hearsay rule and allowed the statement to stand.
“Please continue,” Clancy said.
“I again told him I thought he should simply move the boy, but he said, ‘Richie, you know I’m not wired like that.’”
“Was there anything else?”
“Not really. He left shortly thereafter. The last thing I told him before he walked out the door was not to kill anyone, but then, just a couple of days later, I saw that this man had been shot, and I realized it was the same man Darren had been talking about. I made some calls to the Board of Professional Responsibility in Nashville and talked to the good folks there about my ethical responsibilities in this
situation, and we agreed that it was my duty to come forward. So I called the FBI, and now here I am.”
Grace moved to the lectern a couple of minutes later. I’d told her what an ass Richie had been, and I knew she wasn’t pleased. She’d told me she was looking forward to going after him.
“There’s a long history of deep animosity between Mr. Clancy and my client, isn’t there?” she said.
“Objection,” Clancy said. “I fail to see the relevance of my relationship with the defendant.”
“He brought it up, judge. He opened the door when he asked about the appellate case.”
“I’ll allow it for a short time,” the judge said. “Tight leash, Miss Alexander.”
“The fact is that Mr. Street was infuriated by Mr. Clancy’s conduct during Mr. Clancy’s prosecution of Mr. Street’s uncle, correct?”
“Darren was quite upset, yes.”
“In fact, he was so upset that he dedicated himself to helping Mr. Clancy’s opponent in the next election for district attorney general and Mr. Clancy lost by a narrow margin, isn’t that right?”
“I suppose it is.”
“So if there’s anyone in this trial with an ax to grind, it’s Mr. Clancy, correct?”
“That’s enough, Miss Alexander,” the judge said. “Move on.”
“It’s also correct that you have grossly exaggerated your testimony, isn’t it? You’ve taken Mr. Street’s comments to you entirely out of context.”
“That isn’t true,” Richie said.
“You’ve already said Mr. Street was upset. He was upset because Jalen Jordan had threatened to kill his son and throw him off a cliff, isn’t that right?”
“I believe he said something like that, yes.”
“And this threat had been made within just a couple of hours of Mr. Street’s visit to your office?”
“I believe so.”
“And he came to you because he believed you to be his friend, correct? He trusted you?”
“I think he did.”
“You were friends, weren’t you?”
“Probably more colleagues than friends, but we knew each other.”
“He told you he’d given some thought to killing Jalen Jordan, correct?”
“He did.”
“But you didn’t take him seriously, did you?”
“I was concerned.”
“Really? Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t really see it as my place to call the police.”
“You didn’t go to the FBI until after Mr. Street had been arrested, did you, Mr. Fels?”
“I believe it was a couple of days after they picked him up, right.”
“And a couple of days after you spoke to Mr. Street at the jail. He wanted to hire you, didn’t he? He wanted his old friend, a man he trusted, to represent him in this case?”
“His mother called me and asked me to come to the jail.”
“And you told him you would need a minimum of two hundred thousand dollars to take the case, correct?”
“I don’t remember the exact fee I quoted him.”
“Why? Because you were drunk?”
“Objection!” Clancy said.
“Sustained.”
“The truth is that you came to the jail and asked for an extremely high fee. Mr. Street thought you were his friend and would find a way to work something out, but you weren’t willing to do that. So the two of you got into an argument and you left, correct?”
“It is true that I left. I certainly did.”
“And after the argument, you suddenly had an attack of self-righteousness, called the FBI, and have now come into a federal courtroom and exaggerated, if not outright lied, because Mr. Street ruffled your feathers, isn’t that right?”
“Objection!” Clancy shouted.
“That’s enough, Miss Alexander,” the judge said.
“Fine, I’m finished,” Grace said. “You’re some friend, Mr. Fels. And I want it on the record that I’m filing a disciplinary complaint against you for violating the attorney-client privilege and for committing perjury here today.”
She turned away from the lectern and sat down next to me. I could feel the heat coming off her. We were probably losing the trial, but Grace was definitely finding her courage.
Fels was the last witness of the day, and by the time he was finished testifying, I could barely stand up to walk out of the courtroom. I looked for my mother, but she was being sequestered outside the courtroom because she was to be a witness—my only witness besides me. There was no one else in the courtroom who was on my side. Uncle Tommy was dead, and our small family had been fractured and separated by my father’s alcoholism many years ago. My father, too, was dead, having run a car into the trunk of an oak tree two years after I kicked him out our home. I hadn’t spoken to him in the interim and didn’t attend his funeral.
I’d never felt so alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When they came for me the next morning, I felt like I was being led to the gallows. I knew James Tipton would be the first person on the stand, and I knew what he was going to say. I just didn’t know why.
As soon as court was convened and everyone was settled, the clerk called Tipton’s name. He walked in looking uneasy and out of place in a brown suit.
Clancy: “State your name for the jury, please.”
Tipton: “James Tipton, Junior.”
Clancy: “Mr. Tipton, are you familiar with the defendant, Darren Street?”
Tipton: “Yes, sir.”
Clancy: “Tell the jury how you know him.”
Tipton: “He was my lawyer when I was charged with aggravated assault a couple of years ago. We ended up taking it all the way to a trial and the jury found me not guilty last year. He and I became friends. He’s even been up to my home a couple of times.”
Clancy: “So how do you feel about Mr. Street now? Do you like him?”
Tipton: “I like him a lot. He’s a good man and a good lawyer. I feel real sorry for him, though. I hate that he put himself in this spot.”
Clancy: “I suppose it’s probably difficult for you to testify here today then, is it not?”
Tipton: “Very difficult. Very hard.”
Clancy: “Mr. Tipton, back on April sixteenth of this year, did you see the defendant?”
Tipton: “I did.”
Clancy: “How did that come about?”
Tipton: “He showed up at my house around seven-thirty, eight o’clock in the evening.”
Clancy: “Were you expecting him?”
Tipton: “No. He showed up out of the blue. My dog started barking and I looked outside and saw a minivan, so I went out onto the porch and Darren hollered at me.”
Clancy: “Tell the jury about the encounter you had with the defendant.”
Grace stood up and objected that Tipton’s testimony was unreliable and inadmissible hearsay. Clancy countered that the things Tipton was going to testify to were admissible because they were “statements against interest,” another exception to the hearsay rule that allows witnesses to repeat statements they heard if the statements were supported by corroborating circumstances and would tend to expose the person who made them to criminal liability. The judge agreed with Clancy.
Clancy: “Go ahead, Mr. Tipton.”
Tipton: “Well, like I said, he kind of showed up out of nowhere. He came in the house and we sat down at the kitchen table. He seemed a little upset, so I asked him if he’d like a beer or maybe a shot of moonshine and he said he would, so I got us both a beer and grabbed a jar of moonshine out of the freezer. He took a couple of long pulls of the moonshine and drained a beer real quick and asked me for another one. So I asked him if something was wrong, and he said this man had come to his office and tried to hire him. He said t
he man gave him fifty thousand dollars for what Darren thought was a pretty minor case at first. But he said he needed the money so he took it. Then he tells me that during the conversation, the man tells him that he’s the guy that killed those two little boys they found out by The Sinks and just a few minutes later he threatened to kill Darren’s son.”
Clancy: “Stop right there, Mr. Tipton. I move to strike the last sentence and ask the Court to instruct the jury to disregard what the witness just said.”
The Court: “I can’t unring the bell, Mr. Clancy. He’s your witness. You were supposed to instruct him.”
Clancy: “I did, Your Honor. I went over this very thoroughly with him.”
The Court: “Mr. Tipton, you will make no further reference to the boys who were found. They have nothing to do with this trial. If you mention them again, I’ll jail you for contempt. Is that understood?”
Tipton: “Yes, sir.”
The Court: “Continue, Mr. Clancy.”
Clancy: “At some point in the conversation, did Mr. Street ask you for something?”
Tipton: “He did. He asked if I had a rifle I’d sell him.”
Clancy: “And what did you say?”
Tipton: “I said, ‘Darren, you’re my friend. If you need a rifle, I’ll sell you one, but don’t tell me what you’re going to do with it.’”
Clancy: “Did you eventually sell Mr. Street a rifle?”
Tipton: “I did.”
Clancy: “And how did you happen to come by this rifle in the first place, Mr. Tipton?”
Tipton: “I bought it from a buddy of mine I used to hunt with by the name of Bill Miller.”
Clancy: (Shows the witness the rifle previously entered into evidence.) “Is this the rifle you sold to Mr. Street?”
Tipton: “It appears to be.”
Clancy: “How much did Mr. Street pay you for this rifle, Mr. Tipton?”
Tipton: “He paid me five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.”
Clancy: “Didn’t you think that was a little expensive for a rifle?”
Tipton: “I did, and I told him as much, but he insisted. He said he’d gotten it from the man who came into his office and didn’t want it.”