“Yeah.”
“So you broke into your own house?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Cause I wanted to be inside my own home. I wanted to see my wife.”
“What did you see when you got inside? Was there a light on?”
“Um, no. I turned on a light.”
“And what did you see?”
“Not much. It looked like Rae hadn’t cleaned up in awhile.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because of the clothes on the chairs and stuff.”
“What were you thinking then?”
“Just that I wanted to see Rae.”
That was a good place to shuffle my notes. It’s a little trick when you want the jury to get the full effect of an important answer. I wanted them to see a man who wanted nothing more than to be with his wife, not a man who had murder on his mind. Howie was doing fine.
I returned my notes to the exact order I had before. “What did you do next?”
Howie thought a moment, and it seemed to me he was almost afraid to continue. His voice was even more detached when he began to speak. “I walked down the hall to the bedroom and opened the door.”
“Was the light on?”
“No.”
“Did you turn it on?”
Tolletson stood. “Objection. He’s leading the witness.”
“Sustained,” Judge Wegland said tonelessly.
I cleared my throat. “What was the next thing you did, Howie?”
“I turned on the light.” Someone in the gallery laughed. It sounded like Howie was just repeating the answer I’d already implied in my previous question.
“And what did you see?”
“Rae.”
“Where was she?”
“In bed. She sat up.”
“What, if anything, did she say to you?”
Howie’s eyes narrowed in a mixture of emotion and troubled memory. “I don’t remember exactly. I just remember we started to talk.”
“Can you remember any of the conversation?”
“Only some. She wasn’t very happy to see me, I guess. Maybe because I woke her up.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Not much. It’s all kind of dark. I’m sorry, Jake.”
He was childlike in that moment, and that’s when I began to feel very confident about my chances. There was no way all twelve jurors would think this man a cold-blooded murderer.
“You just have to tell us what you remember, Howie, that’s all. You just tell this jury what you absolutely remember, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Listen carefully. Did you, at any time, pick up a knife?”
Howie gently shook his head. “No.”
“Did you, at any time, strike your wife?”
“You mean hit her?”
“Yes.”
“No, I didn’t do that. I would never do that. Not to Rae. I loved her.”
I took in a deep breath, then said, “All right. Do you remember anyone else being in that room with you and Rae?”
This was the biggie. I well remembered Howie’s hysterics at the preliminary hearing, when he began to scream about the devil. With an emotional outburst of that magnitude, you just never know what the jury is going to think. But it was a question that had to be asked.
Howie’s eyes became blank screens, and he sat motionless for a long moment. Then, in almost a whisper, he said, “The devil.”
I responded in a quiet tone. “You think you saw the devil, Howie?”
“Yeah.”
“Could it have been a person?”
“The devil can appear as a person.”
“Yes, Howie, but you’re sure you saw someone else in that room?”
“I think so.”
It was perfect. Howie wasn’t ranting and raving, but he was clearly going through an emotional wringer. Even if I’d been able to coach him, I couldn’t have come up with anything better than this.
“And then what do you remember?”
“Pain.”
“What kind of pain.”
“Here.” Howie pointed to his side.
I said, “May the record reflect Mr. Patino is indicating his right side, approximately two inches above his waistline?”
“The record will so reflect,” said Judge Wegland.
“What happened there, Howie?”
“I guess I was cut.”
“With a knife?”
“That’s what the doctors said.”
“You don’t remember being stabbed with a knife?”
“No. I just remember the pain. I think I passed out or something.”
“And what’s the next thing you remember after that?”
“Sitting. I was sitting in the living room in my house. I was bleeding. Some men were asking me questions. From the police. Jake, do I have to answer any more questions? I’m tired.”
He was no longer my witness but only my childhood friend, looking to me for help. I looked at the judge. “Maybe this is a good time for our recess, Your Honor.”“All right,” said the judge. “We’ll be in recess for half an hour.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DURING THE BREAK I talked to Janet and Fred. They were supportive, saying they thought I did a good job and to hang in there.
I hardly heard what they were saying. I was looking for Lindsay, who had apparently slipped out of the building. I was surprised at how much I wanted to see her.
But she had made the right decision, I had to conclude. I had treated her shabbily, and why should she put up with it? What would an atheistic drunk have that would be in any way attractive to her?
Still, the longing was there inside me.
When court got back underway, Lindsay was once again seated with her parents. She was here for the big show.
In the universe of trials, there is nothing as stirring as the cross-examination of a defendant. Here is where it all hangs out. The defendant, by taking the stand, declares his innocence of the charges and challenges the prosecutor to prove otherwise.
The prosecutor must face up to the challenge. It is make or break. If the defendant holds up, the case is lost—or at the very least, the jury hangs.
And everybody knows it.
So Benton Tolletson, standing up to examine Howie, walked to the lectern like Wyatt Earp approaching the O.K. Corral. He looked fully armed.
The first words out of his mouth were, “Why did you kill your wife, Mr. Patino?”
No warm up, no preliminaries—just an in-your-face question designed to put Howie on the defensive immediately.
It worked.
Howie looked stunned and confused and hurt. He started to open his mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out. He shook his head. Tolletson just let him squirm.
Finally, Howie managed to say, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know why you killed your wife?”
“I . . . don’t know what I did.”
“You killed your wife, didn’t you?”
“I . . .”
“Let’s go back a bit, Mr. Patino. Maybe this will help us. You testified that Rae sometimes made you mad. Do you remember that?”
Howie shook his head.
“Please answer out loud,” said Judge Wegland.
“No,” said Howie.
Tolletson picked up his legal pad and looked at it. “You don’t remember testifying that Rae was very outgoing and that this sometimes made you mad? You don’t remember that?”
“Oh,” Howie said quietly. “Okay.”
“Okay what, Mr. Patino?”
“I remember.”
“That’s good.”
I objected at this point, just to show Tolletson I wasn’t going to let him say whatever he wanted. The judge sustained me.
Tolletson didn’t miss a beat. “You were mad that Rae was outgoing because you were jealous. Isn’t that it?”
Frowning, Howie said, “I don’t know.”
“I . . . guess.”
“We don’t want you to guess, Mr. Patino. Yes or no?”
“Sometimes.” Howie flashed a small hint of anger at Tolletson.
“Such as when she might talk to another man, right?”
Howie hesitated.
“Right, Mr. Patino?”
“Sometimes!”
The entire courtroom seemed to snap to attention at this outburst. Tolletson let the tension build, waiting before he asked his next question. On the stand, Howie was breathing hard, his eyes darting back and forth across the courtroom like a kid who’d been backed into a corner by the school bully.
The picture was pitiful, and I thought that if Tolletson pushed it too far the whole thing could backfire. As if he sensed my very thoughts, Tolletson framed the next question softly, almost soothingly.
“Mr. Patino, isn’t it true that you just didn’t feel good about Rae ignoring you, especially when she would talk to another man?”
Nodding, Howie said, “Yeah.”
“That’s understandable,” Tolletson said, suddenly playing good cop to his previous bad cop. “And wasn’t that what ultimately drove you to kill your wife?”
Howie shook his head like he was trying to clear out cobwebs. “I don’t know,” he said weakly.
Tolletson turned to another page of his notes. “Something you said on direct confused me. Do you recall testifying that when you came to your house that night and no one answered, you thought that Rae might be at a friend’s house?”
“Um, yeah.”
“And that’s when you decided to go in and wait for her. You recall that?”
“Yeah.”
“But then when your lawyer, Mr. Denney, asked you why you broke into your house, you answered, ‘I wanted to see my wife.’ Do you recall that?”
“I . . . no.”
“You don’t recall that?”
“No, I don’t.”
Tolletson set his notes on the lectern and made a half turn toward the jury. “During the recess I asked the reporter to find that portion of the direct testimony and mark it. Your Honor, with your permission, I will have the reporter read it back to us.”
“Wait a minute!” I said, jumping to my feet.
“Is that an objection?” Judge Wegland asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“On what grounds?”
I had no idea what grounds, so I said, “That’s impermissible.”
“Do you mean inadmissible, Mr. Denney?”
“Both,” I said.
“This is the official court record,” said the judge. “Sometimes we have the reporter read back a question. I see no reason why she cannot read back an exchange. Go ahead.”
The reporter, a middle-aged woman who up to this point had been all but invisible, suddenly took center stage. She lifted the folds of transcription paper from her tray, holding them in front of her like ticker tape, and began to read.
“Question: What were your thoughts when you got to the sliding glass door and found it locked?
“Answer: I figured Rae was at a friend’s house or something.
“Question: And you decided to go inside and wait for her?
“Answer: Yeah.
“Question: So you broke into your own house?
“Answer: Yeah.
“Question: Why?
“Answer: Cause I wanted to be inside my own home. I wanted to see my wife.”
The reporter lowered the paper back into the tray.
“Does that refresh your recollection?” Tolletson asked.
“I guess so,” Howie said.
“Isn’t that really why you broke into your house, to see your wife?”
“I wanted to see her.”
“You knew she was inside all the time, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You wanted to see her because you wanted to kill her. Isn’t that right, Mr. Patino?”
“No.” Howie’s face was almost pleading with Tolletson to stop.
Tolletson turned bad cop again. “You wanted to kill your wife because she was pregnant with another man’s child. Isn’t that right, Mr. Patino?”
“No!”
From the gallery, a woman’s voice shouted, “Stop it!” I turned and saw it was Janet Patino. She had her hands pressed hard over her mouth, her eyes wide and wet. Fred and Lindsay put their arms around her.
Judge Wegland said, “I won’t have that kind of interruption here. If this is too much for you, please leave the courtroom. Otherwise, control yourself.”
Janet buried her face in her hands.
Tolletson did not let up. “You went to your house with the intent to kill your wife, didn’t you, Mr. Patino?”
Howie hesitated. “No.”
“When you confronted her, she told you your marriage was over. Isn’t that right?”
“I . . . don’t remember exactly.”
“And when she told you that, it made you mad, didn’t it?”
“There was . . . I was . . .”
“What were you, Mr. Patino?”
“Confused.”
“Angry?”
“Maybe some.”
“Maybe a lot?”
“Mostly I was crying.”
“Were you crying when you got the knife?”
Howie looked like he’d been slapped in the face. “No.”
“No what, Mr. Patino?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t what, Mr. Patino?”
“Knife.”
With an exasperated sigh, Tolletson said, “What about the knife? What are you hiding?”
I shot to my feet. “Your Honor, please!”
Wegland was unmoved by my emotion. “If you have an objection, state it, Mr. Denney.”
“All right,” I said. “This is just harassment, Your Honor, argumentative—”
“I withdraw the question,” Tolletson said.
“—intended to inflame the jury—”
“The question is withdrawn, Mr. Denney!” said the judge.
“—a blatant attempt—”
“Sit down!”
I sat down slowly. I wanted the jury to know I was outraged. I was hoping Tolletson had overstepped.
“Isn’t it true,” Tolletson said, “that you stabbed your wife repeatedly, then stabbed yourself to cover up the crime? Isn’t that true, Mr. Patino?”
The emotion of the moment seemed to engulf Howie like a poison gas paralyzing him.
“What is your answer, Mr. Patino?” said Tolletson.
“No . . .”
“No what, Mr. Patino?”
Howie looked at me, pleading with his eyes for me to do something.
“No what?” Tolletson repeated.
“I don’t remember.”
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Patino, that after stabbing and killing your wife, and after inflicting yourself with a wound, you made up a story about seeing the devil?”
“I . . . did . . .”
“You did make up such a story?”
“No, I mean . . .”
“What do you mean, Mr. Patino?”
“I saw . . .”
“What did you see, Mr. Patino?”
“The devil!”
There it was. If Howie was going to explode, this would be the moment. I realized I was gripping the sides of my chair like a roller-coaster seat.
“You saw the devil?”
“Yes.”
“Did he have a tail?”
“What?”
“I’m sure the jury is interested in what the devil looked like, Mr. Patino.”
“Objection,” I said.
“Overruled,” said the judge.
“Well, Mr. Patino? Describe the devil for us, will you?” Tolletson leaned against the lectern with his arms folded.
“I can’t.”
“You can�
��t because he wasn’t really there, was he?”
“I thought . . .”
“This is a product of your imagination, isn’t it?”
“No, I thought . . . I’m confused.”
“Of course you are. Because you’re making this up. Isn’t that right?”
Howie looked completely lost.
“Isn’t that right, Mr. Patino?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Benton Tolletson, gathering his notes and returning to his chair.
I did a double take. He was finished so soon? This was a gamble but a well-considered one. Tolletson was showing the jury that he didn’t need to spend any more time with the defendant, that he was obviously guilty, and his guilt should be clear to everyone.
He caught me unprepared. Judge Wegland asked, “Any redirect, Mr. Denney?” I had to decide whether to ask Howie more questions, to try to rehabilitate him.
I could leave things alone and hope the jury members were more sympathetic toward Howie than they were toward the prosecutor.
If I did ask some further questions, it was possible Tolletson would come back with some dynamite, maybe something he was holding back. He could have been sandbagging me.
“Mr. Denney?” asked the judge.
I heard myself say, “No more questions, Your Honor.” The examination of Howie Patino—and essentially the trial—was over.Judge Wegland set the next morning for closing arguments and recessed the court.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I SPENT A sleepless night at the Motel 6.
Nights before closing arguments are always like that for me. My mind is filled with thoughts about what I’m going to say, what I shouldn’t say, what happened during the trial that I may have overlooked, and whether I’m up to the task of speaking on behalf of a human being facing years in prison.
I was never one of those lawyers who could hold a courtroom spellbound by the pure power of his golden tongue. Mine was more of the aluminum variety. But I was adequate when I had the facts and the law on my side. This night I wasn’t sure about either. I tried to rehearse a little but gave up around eleven and tried to go to sleep.
At midnight I decided to go out for a drink.
Frisbee’s was unusually crowded, I thought. Maybe this was the social center of Hinton. This was what the people had to look forward to. Up here there was no Hollywood Bowl or Dodger Stadium, just the multiplex, 7-Eleven, and Frisbee’s.
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