A Criminal Defense

by William L. Myers Jr.

  “No, sir.”

  “And doesn’t it often happen that the person is upset and blurts out whatever it is that’s happened?”

  “Well . . .”

  “The person will say exactly the type of thing I asked you about earlier. He’ll say he couldn’t help it. He can’t believe he did it. Even that he’s sorry. You’ve heard all of those things, haven’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But Mr. Hanson’s message to you, at the crime scene, before he spoke with any lawyers, was that it wasn’t what it looked like. Meaning that he didn’t kill her, correct?”

  “After he ran out of the house, yes, that’s what he said. Or wanted me to believe.”

  I ask a few more questions, then return to the defense table.

  Devlin stands. “Officer, the defense counsel asked you questions about how other suspects reacted when caught immediately after a crime. But this wasn’t immediately after the murder, was it?”

  “As it turned out, no, sir.”

  “Ms. Yamura had been dead for quite some time. Time enough for the defendant’s emotions to cool, to think, to plan. To speak with an attorney, perhaps?”

  I object. Judge Henry sustains the objection, but the damage has been done. Some of the jurors are now looking at me, probably wondering whether David called me between the time of Jennifer’s murder and the time he was caught by the police at her house.

  “And one more question, Officer. Since defense counsel brought up this notion of suspects being distraught and upset, what was Mr. Hanson’s emotional state at the scene of the crime?”

  Kujowski looks directly at the jury. “He was cool as a cucumber.”

  Walker’s next witness is Officer Pancetti, whose testimony overlaps and corroborates Kujowski’s. Pancetti is the one who went inside the house, and Walker has him testify about the vacuum cleaner sitting in the middle of the floor, the running dishwasher, the lemon Pledge and Windex sitting on the coffee table.

  When Pancetti is finished, Walker asks him, “Did you reach any preliminary conclusions?”

  “Well, yeah. He was tampering with evidence, trying to wipe the place clean of prints, hair, and everything else.”

  I object, but the judge overrules me. It is what it is, his face tells me.

  Walker wraps up by having Pancetti describe where he found Jennifer’s body. Then Devlin obtains the court’s permission, walks up to the witness box, and hands Pancetti a photograph.

  “Does this photograph, Commonwealth Exhibit 1, accurately depict the location, position, and condition of Ms. Yamura’s body when you first observed it?”

  Pancetti says it does, and the photograph is admitted into evidence. Devlin has his trial technicians pull up the photograph on the large screen they’ve set up in the courtroom. This is the first of the many gruesome dead-body photographs the jury will see, and it impacts them. Some of the jurors stare at the picture, transfixed. Some look away immediately, gather their courage, and then look back at it again.

  Devlin lets the moment hang in the air until the judge presses him to move forward. “Do you have a question, Mr. Walker?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.” Devlin turns back to the witness. “Was her body exposed like this when you arrived?”

  Jennifer Yamura is fully clothed in the picture. But there’s something very private, almost obscene, about her dead body. No person would want themselves to be seen by others splayed out like she is on the steps.

  “That’s how she was,” Pancetti answers.

  Devlin pauses, then looks at the jury. “He didn’t even bother to cover her up? Put a blanket over her? This woman he’d made love to—how many times?”

  I object, and the judge sustains me. But the point has been made, and I see fury in some of the jurors’ eyes.

  And this is how the first day of trial ends.

  David is allowed to lean over the bar and kiss Marcie before the deputy escorts him out of the courtroom. Marcie, Vaughn, Alexander Ginsberg, and I wait for him to leave. We stand together quietly as the press and other spectators make their way out of the courtroom. I wait for Devlin and Christina Wesley to pack up and leave. Then I turn to Ginsberg.

  “Good luck,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ll call you in a little while, after you get back to the office. We’ll talk in more detail.” He turns and leaves the courtroom.

  “I think you did well with the crosses of Kujowski and Pancetti,” Vaughn says. “But Devlin’s getting his below-the-belt punches in over your objections. It’s close, but all they’ve proven so far is what we already admitted: that Jennifer was murdered and that the police found David at her house hours afterward.”

  Marcie looks from Vaughn to me, then takes her leave.

  “I’ll see you back at the office,” I tell Vaughn, hinting that it’s time for him to go, too.

  I leave the courtroom and walk over to Piper, who’s been waiting at the end of the hallway. I reach out for her hands, take them in my own. I sigh, and we stand there looking at each other.

  Then she breaks the silence. “I think you did great,” she says with a smile, but I see the fear in her eyes.

  “This is all going to turn out okay,” I say. Just like I promised her in the hotel on the night of the charity gala.

  Piper moves into me, and we hug, tightly. I walk her out of the building and down into the underground Love Park garage. Piper climbs in her car, opens the window. I lean through it and kiss her.

  “You’ll be late, I know,” she says. “I’ll have some leftovers in the fridge in case you’re hungry.” And with that, she drives away.

  Half an hour later, I’m back in my office. Vaughn has filled Susan in on what happened at trial. Now she sits in one of the chairs across from my desk. We talk a little about the two cop witnesses, and about what Devlin is likely to do tomorrow.

  Then I ask, “Have you seen Tommy? Is he planning to watch any of the trial?”

  Susan tells me that Angie said he’s up at the trailer.

  Our conversation ends abruptly, and I get to work. The hours pass quickly as I finish my cross-examination prep for Devlin’s witnesses. I turn to the window behind my desk. The tower clock at City Hall reads 9:45. My eyes take me past City Hall and down a few blocks on Market Street to the tall building whose roof still holds the red, neon PSFS sign. I stare at the sign. Then the letters fade, and I see my own eyes staring back at me.

  A tidal wave rises inside me, threatening to wash me away, drown me . . . the same way I felt when Tommy told me about killing our father. But this time I do not surrender to the pain. I cannot. I must, must, must hold myself together, see this thing through, make it work out, for everyone’s sake. Everyone, that is, except Jennifer Yamura and her shattered family.

  28

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13

  Day two starts with my cross-examination of Officer Pancetti. “Yesterday, your testimony and that of Officer Kujowski seemed to cover everything—except why you were there.”

  Pancetti sets his jaw. He knows where I’m going and why.

  “The prosecutor asked if you were directed by dispatch to go to Addison Street to follow up on a report of a possible disturbance. You remember that?”

  “Sure.”

  “But you chose not to go into the details of what was reported to dispatch.”

  “I just answered the questions. I didn’t choose anything.”

  “Fair point. It was Mr. Walker who chose not to play the audio of the 911 call.”

  Devlin objects, and the judge sustains him.

  “You’ve heard the tape, haven’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  I nod to Vaughn, who moves up to the counsel table and pushes some buttons on the laptop hooked into the courtroom’s audiovisual system. I tell the judge we’re going to play the audiotape for the jury, subject to later authentication by the dispatcher during our own case-in-chief. Judge Henry asks Devlin if there is any dispute as to the tape’s authenticity. Devlin says n
o, so Vaughn plays the tape.

  The first words the jury hears are, “911, what’s your emergency?” The dispatcher’s voice is clear, but the caller’s voice sounds muffled, as if he’s trying to disguise it. I listen carefully, as I have every time I’ve listened to the tape. There’s something vaguely familiar about the caller’s voice.

  “Something’s going on in a house in my neighborhood,” the caller says. “I think maybe someone is getting hurt. There’s a lot of shouting and screaming coming from the house. And it sounds like things are crashing and getting smashed up. Lotsa rockin’ and rollin’.”

  “What’s the address?” the dispatcher asks.

  “It’s 1792 Addison Street.”

  “I’ll send someone over.”

  “You better hurry. They’re shouting and screaming at each other. And it sounds like someone is getting hurt real bad.” Then there’s a click.

  When the tape is finished, I refocus on the witness. “But when you went into the house, you found the oddest thing, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, the caller said he heard people shouting, but there was only one person in the house, and that was Mr. Hanson, right?”

  “Maybe he was shouting to himself.”

  “But the caller said ‘they’ were shouting ‘at each other,’ didn’t he?”

  “I guess.”

  “And all that crashing the caller heard. When you went inside—nothing was broken, was it?”

  “No.”

  “No smashed vases?”

  “No.”

  “No broken glasses or windows or shattered glass from picture frames?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t find a single broken item, did you?”

  “No, sir.”

  I pause and let this sink in. Then I make my point.

  “Someone knew Mr. Hanson was in that house and wanted very much for the police to catch him there, didn’t they?”

  Devlin objects that my question calls for the witness to speculate. The judge sustains him, but the point’s been made. To nail it home, I press forward.

  “As a police officer at a murder scene, did you ask yourself why someone would call the police and say things that couldn’t possibly be true—like the voices shouting and all the crashing?”

  “I didn’t know the details of the call when we first got there.”

  “But you heard the tape later. Didn’t you ask yourself then?”

  Pancetti hedges.

  I’ve made my point. Before he can think something up, I end my examination. “Nothing further.”

  Devlin, still on his feet, asks one follow-up question. “Regardless of what was said on the call, when you got to the house, you found that it turned out to be the scene of a murder?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  Devlin’s next witness is Barbara King, David’s executive assistant at HWI. Barbara is a tall, attractive woman in her early sixties with perfectly coiffed white hair. Barbara walks with authority to the jury box and looks directly at the jurors as she puts her hand on the Bible and promises to tell the truth. Although some businessmen enjoy having a young bimbo as their assistant, the smart move for someone as highly placed as David is to have a mature, no-nonsense woman running his office. That Barbara King is such a woman comes across quickly.

  “Ms. King, by whom are you employed?” Devlin asks.

  “Hanson World Industries,” Barbara answers crisply.

  “Until June of this year, what was your title, and who was your immediate superior?”

  “My title was executive assistant to the general counsel. I worked directly under David Hanson.”

  “And since June?”

  “When Mr. Hanson took a leave of absence, I kept my title but began reporting to Mr. Kratz.”

  “How long had you been Mr. Hanson’s executive assistant?”

  “For ten years, since our previous general counsel retired.”

  “Over the course of the decade during which you worked for Mr. Hanson, did you become familiar with his routines and procedures?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you manage his schedule?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember Thursday, May the thirty-first, of this year?”

  “With the help of my calendar, yes.”

  Devlin has a printout of the calendar marked as an exhibit. He hands it to Barbara King. He has her testify to David’s schedule. It was a busy day that started at 8:00 a.m. He had three back-to-back meetings, followed by a long phone call to outside counsel and a shorter call to Edwin. At 11:15, David had a light snack brought into his office from the executive dining room. He placed two more calls while he ate, then left the office at 11:50.

  “It sounds like Mr. Hanson’s days were tightly scheduled,” Devlin says.

  “That’s correct.”

  “And as his executive assistant, you knew with whom he was meeting, and when, and who he was talking to on the phone?”

  “Correct.”

  “But he left his afternoon open?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  For the first time, Barbara shifts in her seat, glances at David.

  “No.”

  “Did he always take off in the afternoons without telling you where he was going, like he did the afternoon Jennifer Yamura was murdered?”

  “No.”

  “Did he often do that?”

  “No.”

  “This was not a typical occurrence, then?”

  “Correct.”

  “Mrs. King, let me ask you directly. Was David Hanson in the office any time after 11:50 on May the thirty-first of this year?”

  “No.”

  “And if he told the police who arrested him that he was in the office all afternoon, that would have been a lie?”

  Barbara pauses before answering. “It would have been incorrect.”

  “Would it have been a lie? Since he had to have known where he was, and since he wasn’t in the office, his telling the police that he was in the office had to have been a lie, correct?”

  I object, and the judge sustains me. Devlin is beating a dead horse. Everyone in the courtroom knows David lied to the police about where he was at the time of Jennifer Yamura’s death.

  When my time comes to question Barbara King, I walk toward the witness box with a smile. “Good morning,” I begin. Mrs. King wishes me a good morning in return. “It seems like the prosecution was trying to make the point that it was unusual for Mr. Hanson to leave the office in the afternoon without telling you where he was going.” Walker could object to my statement, but he’s clearly reluctant to do so on my very first question. “Although it wasn’t Mr. Hanson’s everyday practice to do this, did he in fact clear out of the office from time to time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when he did this, would he tell you where he was going?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask?”

  At this, Barbara King pauses for only the second time in her testimony. “No.”

  “Let me ask you frankly. Did you, as Mr. Hanson’s executive assistant for ten years, suspect he was having an affair?”

  “Of course.”

  “So when he left the office that day and didn’t return, it didn’t surprise you?”

  “No.”

  “And the other times he was out of the office, a woman who turned out to be his lover didn’t end up dead?”

  “Certainly not.”

  I ask whether David is the only high-ranking executive she’s worked for at HWI over the years who performed this disappearing trick. Devlin’s objection is sustained, but my point is made. Lots of alpha businessmen have calendars with empty afternoons.

  Devlin is on his feet the instant I’m seated. “Mrs. King, the defense is claiming that Mr. Hanson was not with Ms. Yamura the afternoon she died. If he wasn’t at the office, where else could he have been? Who else would he be wi
th but with his lover, Jennifer Yamura?”

  At this, Barbara King blanches. She looks quickly at David, then me, then past both of us into the spectator benches. Devlin doesn’t catch this because he is facing the jury with a smug look plastered on his face. He doesn’t see whom Barbara King glances at in the gallery. I don’t need to see. I know who it is.

  Devlin’s next witness is Albert Mays, one of the managers of the garage in David’s office building. As he did with Barbara King, Devlin moves quickly through Mays’s testimony, establishing that David pulled into the garage at 7:45 a.m. the day Jennifer was killed and didn’t leave until 6:20 that night. He returned to the garage four-plus hours later, at 10:40 p.m., and his car remained there until the next afternoon. I pretend to pay little attention to his testimony, again trying to convey to the jury that I think it’s unimportant. When Devlin is finished with direct, I act as though I’m unsure whether even to bother with any cross. Then I turn to the jury, shrug, and ask the witness just two questions.

  “So if I understand the import of your testimony, Mr. Hanson was likely somewhere in the city of Philadelphia at the time of Ms. Yamura’s murder?”

  “Uh, I suppose so.”

  “Just like a million other people?”

  Walker objects, and I withdraw the question.

  Judge Henry dismisses Albert Mays and signals it’s time to take our midmorning break. After the break, the court refills, and Devlin puts Kevin Kratz on the stand. Kratz’s testimony is pretty much a replay of what he’d said at the hearing that caused Judge Henry to revoke David’s bail and send him to jail pending the outcome at trial. This time, however, Kratz doesn’t seem afraid so much as resigned. He says what Devlin wants him to but comes across as listless, almost lifeless. This frustrates Devlin, who glances back periodically to Christina Wesley. Given Kratz’s complete lack of enthusiasm for what he’s saying, I decide to limit my cross to a single, vital point.

  “When my client went on a leave of absence, you’re the one who took his job as general counsel of HWI, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “A big raise in pay?”

  Kevin takes a deep breath. “Substantial. Commensurate with the additional responsibilities.”