Early that next morning, when I walked into the O’Reilly & Finney conference room where David, Tina and Neddy were waiting, Tina was the first to speak.
“What exactly did Kinga say to you yesterday?” she asked anxiously.
After I’d hung up with Neddy last night, she had given David and Tina a brief summary of Kinga’s revelations. Leaving out, of course, Kinga’s affair with Max. So why was Tina asking me to recount what Kinga had said?
“You must’ve really scared her,” Tina continued. “She left me a note last night telling me she had a family emergency and had to rush back to New York. Her mother’s been sick for quite some time, but I can’t help wondering if that was really the reason she left.”
Neddy and I shared a knowing glance.
“Well,” I said, joining them at a long conference table covered with boxes and documents, “like Neddy told you last night, she definitely heard a lot of the squabbles between you and Max about his affairs.”
Tina hung her head and massaged the back of her neck. “I’m just thankful that Kinga’s on my side,” Tina said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“She probably left town so she couldn’t be subpoenaed. Now she won’t have to testify about the way Max and I argued. I really owe her.”
Neddy’s eyes flashed me strict instructions not to touch that fairytale. Not that I had planned to.
Tina rubbed her eyes and turned to Neddy. “I was thinking about the things you said last night. I know you don’t believe it, but I guess I just blocked out the last fight I had with Max. Anyway, we weren’t arguing about his affairs. Well, at least not directly.”
“Then what exactly were you arguing about?” I asked.
“He’d promise to escort me to the Crystal Stairs fundraiser. I’d been planning the event all year. I was the chairperson. He’d said he would go and then called me up claiming he’d been called away on business. I was pretty upset.”
“Wait a minute,” David said, “why would he meet some woman at the same hotel where he knew you were having that fundraiser?”
“I never had a chance to tell him where the event was being held. Max never would’ve shown up there knowing I could possibly run into him. He wasn’t that much of a louse.”
Neddy looked at me. Oh yes the hell he was, her eyes said.
True to form, the lack of sound made Tina uncomfortable. “Yes, I was angry with Max about standing me up,” Tina said, eager to explain herself. “But not angry enough to kill him.”
“If Kinga’s called to testify, we’re fried,” David said dejectedly.
“No,” Tina said sharply, “we’re not fried, I’m fried.”
“Hold on,” Neddy said, standing up. When her brain got going, she liked to pace. She had to step around boxes, but she found a nice pathway on the far side of the room. “Based on everything we know at the moment, Julie doesn’t know anything about your final argument with Max. And there’s no reason for us to believe she’ll find out.”
“But Julie’s called almost everybody on her witness list,” I said. There’s no way she’s going to close the prosecution’s case without putting on some evidence that points to a motive.”
“Maybe she doesn’t have any,” Neddy said smiling. “I thought it was weird that she never expressly stated that Tina knew Max was screwing around in her opening statement or at the prelim. She talked about Max’s philandering, but she never once said Tina knew about it.”
Neddy rummaged through one of the boxes on the table and pulled out a legal pad filled with her handwritten trial notes. “I wrote down Julie’s opening statement almost word for word,” Neddy said, flipping through the pages. “There’s nothing in here.”
“Julie’s not that sloppy,” I insisted. “She wants to win this case. She’s been in the media constantly. We’re underestimating her. She’s got a big surprise in store for us. And anyway, it may not be that big of a stretch for the jury to infer that Tina knew.”
David suddenly sat up in his chair and turned to Tina. “When you and your husband were arguing that morning, it was on the telephone, right?”
“Yes,” Tina said.
“How did he respond?”
Tina looked confused. “What do you mean ‘how did he respond’?”
David impatiently drummed two fingers on the table. “Did he raise his voice? Did he scream back at you?”
“Yeah,” Tina said. “Max was as much of a hothead as I was. We were both yelling at each other.”
“And you also said he was basically up front with the women he dated. That they knew he was married, but chose to see him anyway.”
“Yes…” Tina said, not making the connection. I didn’t know where David was headed either.
“During that conversation, did you accuse him of being with a woman?”
“Well…yes.”
“And did he deny it?”
“Of course.”
David stood up and turned to Neddy. “I bet I know who Julie’s going to surprise us with.” He had a horrified look on his face. “There’re still a couple of secretaries from Max’s firm on Julie’s witness list who haven’t testified yet. What if Max was with one of them when he made that call to Tina?”
Tina’s mouth gaped open.
“If someone was with him, I’d bet good money that Julie knows who she is. And I’d bet double-to-nothing that Julie’s going to call her to testify about the angry screaming match she overheard Max having on the phone with Tina the day before he was murdered.”
CHAPTER 51
As we neared the end of the first week of testimony, we were no longer holding our collective breath, waiting for some classy vixen to stroll into the courtroom and recount Max and Tina’s final shouting match. Maybe David’s theory was wrong. I no longer had my fingers crossed for good luck, but I kept my legs tightly crisscrossed just in case.
We were feeling even more confident following the morning break on Thursday, when Julie advised the judge that she planned to close the prosecution’s case the following day. Most of that morning had been taken up with housekeeping matters and the testimony of Carla Winston, a secretary from Montgomery’s firm who proudly testified that she had slept with Max for several months. We were on pins and needles for the bulk of her direct exam, but if she knew anything about Max and Tina’s big blowup, she wasn’t telling. The closest Julie got to establishing Tina’s knowledge of her husband’s affairs was the secretary’s claim that Tina once saw her and Max at lunch together, which Tina told us was a lie.
On cross, it didn’t take Neddy long to attack the secretary’s character and render her testimony useless.
“Please forgive me, Ms. Winston, but I can’t remember if the prosecution covered this with you. You did know Mr. Montgomery had a wife when you started sleeping with him, correct?”
“Yes,” she said through tightened lips.
“And you knew Mr. Montgomery’s wife, didn’t you?” Neddy was purposely repeating the word “wife” to morally distinguish Tina’s relationship with Max from that of the secretary’s.
“I knew her, but it wasn’t like we were friends or anything like that.” Winston seemed anxious to show that she did have some scruples. She was a good-looking, thirty-something brunette with obviously fake breasts on full display through her sheer, low-cut blouse. Max was certainly consistent about that physical trait, I thought.
During Julie’s direct examination, Winston had gloriously lapped up her fifteen minutes of fame. Now she looked like she wanted to crawl under a table.
“You did volunteer to help Mr. Montgomery’s wife with a charity auction a couple years ago, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But only because Max asked me to. The firm encourages us to get involved in charitable activities.”
“And you even had lunch with Mr. Montgomery’s wife to plan that fundraiser, correct?”
She gently tugged on the sleeve of her blouse, which produced a more expansive view of her bosom. “Yes, but
other people from the firm helped out, too.”
“And Mr. Montgomery’s wife bought you a Christmas present a few months after that fundraiser, didn’t she?”
Winston shuffled nervously, unhappy that Neddy was making her out to be a back-stabbing tramp. “The Christmas present was actually from both of them.”
“But Mr. Montgomery’s wife personally delivered it to you at your desk and thanked you for helping her with the fundraiser, right?”
“Yes,” she said meekly.
“And you never bothered to tell Mr. Montgomery’s wife that you were sleeping with her husband, did you?”
“No, of course not.”
Neddy moved closer to the witness box. “And, to your knowledge, no one else told Mr. Montgomery’s wife that you were sleeping with her husband, correct?”
“I guess not.”
“And do you think Mr. Montgomery’s wife would’ve bought you a Christmas present and personally delivered it to you if she’d known you’d been screwing her husband?”
Julie jumped out of her chair. “Objection. Calls for speculation. Argumentative. Badgering the witness. Irrelevant!”
“Okay, okay,” Judge Graciano said. “Sustained. You know better, counselor.”
Neddy was already on her way back to her seat. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. I have no further questions.”
I enjoyed the scornful looks the jurors were shooting toward the witness box as Winston sulked out of the courtroom.
At the end of the day, Neddy, Tina, David and I convened in our courthouse meeting room, feeling the possible taste of victory. So far, things looked fairly good. Oscar Lopez, the waiter at the Ritz Carlton, had crumbled under a tough cross-examination by Neddy. On direct he testified that he had seen Tina in the hallway outside room 502, but after Neddy finished bouncing him around like a ping-pong ball, he wasn’t even sure he had even been on the fifth floor. He also admitted to telling more than a couple of his coworkers that he wasn’t exactly sure Tina was carrying a knife. And by the time he stepped down from the witness stand, he was no longer certain whether the woman he saw was wearing a long dress or a short one. Neddy’s cross-examination definitely scored major points with the jury.
So far, Julie’s case was totally circumstantial. Other than Tina being at the hotel for a very good reason and her size-six feet, there was no other evidence linking her to Max’s murder.
Neddy glanced at her watch. It was close to five. Just as we were trying to decide whether to head back to the office or call it a day, we heard a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Neddy said.
Sandy, Julie’s voiceless sidekick, entered the room. “We just got word that our investigator located someone we’ve been trying to track down for several weeks. He’ll be our final witness. Here’s a motion to amend our witness list.”
She placed a document on the table and turned to leave.
Neddy scanned the motion and handed it to David. “Wait a minute!” Neddy shouted, standing up. “This last-minute ambush stuff is so typical of Julie. And she doesn’t even have the balls to come in here and tell us herself. I’ll be opposing your motion. You had just as much time as we did to identify your witnesses. This unfair surprise is prejudicial to my client.”
“Tell it to the judge,” Sandy said, and left.
David was still reading the document. “Who’s Garrett Bryson?” He had not bothered to look up at Tina. If he had, he would have noticed that her silky brown skin had turned a frightening ash white.
Neddy glared at Tina. “Well, who is he?”
Tina’s shoulders noticeably sagged as we all waited for her to respond. “He’s someone I used to be involved with,” she said finally.
Neddy had a hand on her hip. “And why does the prosecution want to call him as a witness?”
“He’ll be able to testify that I knew about Max’s affairs.”
“Aw Christ!” David said, obviously seeing Tina’s acquittal as well as his book deal evaporate.
“Tell me what he knows,” Neddy said, grabbing a legal pad and sitting back down.
I thought Tina was going to cry, but she didn’t. “He knows that I was unhappy in my marriage.”
“How long were you seeing him?”
“About a year. But that was almost three years ago.”
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“We’re going to oppose the prosecution’s motion,” Neddy said, “but I doubt we’ll prevail. If the witness has some relevant information, there’s no way the judge is going to exclude it.” She briefly closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We need you to tell us everything you can about your relationship with this guy.”
For the next hour, Tina took a grilling from her own attorneys. We asked for times, dates, and places. We also asked if there’d been any other men in her life. Tina assured us Bryson was the only one.
She described Bryson as one of Max’s male groupies—men who wanted his power and wealth but had no practical means to attain it for themselves. Hanging onto Max’s coattail was the closest they would ever get to his millions. Most times, Tina and Bryson met at his condo in Carson. Bryson claimed to be a real estate developer, but a flashy business card with his picture on it was the only sign Tina ever saw of that. He clearly envied Max and sleeping with his wife was a way to soothe his jealousy.
“Did you love him?” Neddy asked.
Tina laughed sarcastically. “No, not really. But sleeping with Garrett was my way of getting back at Max. Garrett was also good—very good—at making me feel like a million bucks. In and out of bed.” She didn’t seem at all embarrassed about discussing her own sexuality.
“Wait a minute, this might not be such a bad thing,” David said looking at Neddy. “If she were seeing another man, maybe she didn’t care what her husband was doing. We can argue that she went out and had her own affair. That she wasn’t some angry, scorned woman with a motive to kill.”
Neddy wasn’t impressed with David’s theory. She grimaced and looked sternly at Tina. “When we first met with you, we asked you to be completely honest with us. And you weren’t. First you neglected to tell us about that argument you had with Max the day before he died. Now this.” Neddy had been fuming ever since Sandy walked out of the room. I realized now that she was angrier at Tina than at the prosecution.
“We can’t do our best work when you’re not honest with us,” she continued. “Surprises like this could really hurt your case. What if I’d made an opening statement claiming there was no evidence that you knew about your husband’s affairs? That would’ve killed my credibility, and instead of viewing you as a sympathetic, cheated-on wife, the jury would’ve looked at both you and me as liars.” Neddy bit down on her lip. “Is there anything else we need to know about this Garret Bryson?”
“Yes.” Tina dropped her head so low it almost touched the table. “I told Garrett I wanted to kill Max for cheating on me.”
CHAPTER 52
When we returned to court the next morning, Julie was decked out for victory. Her beige tailored suit was complemented by a girly, light pink blouse with ruffles at the neck and wrists. Her hair was in a youthful ponytail now, accented with pearl barrettes that matched a larger pearl lapel pin. She was wearing a sweet-smelling perfume, probably musk oil. Whatever it was, she had used too much of it.
The morning started with Neddy and Julie squaring off over what we viewed as the prosecution’s last-minute sabotage attempt.
“I understand that we have a motion to address before bringing the jury in,” Judge Graciano said, staring down at us from her perch.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Neddy began. “The defense opposes the prosecution’s motion to amend its witness list. Ms. Killabrew failed to notify us of this witness in a timely manner. This unfair surprise will be extremely prejudicial to my client as we’ve had no time to prepare for the cross-examination of Mr. Bryson.”
The judge turned to Julie. “This is quite late, Ms. Ki
llabrew,” she said. “Are you telling me you just discovered this gentleman’s existence?”
This was the first time I saw panic on Julie’s face. So she was human. “No, Your Honor, we knew of Mr. Bryson’s existence and the fact that he might have relevant information, but we did not know of his whereabouts. Frankly, Your Honor, I think he was trying to dodge our subpoena, and he managed to do so for quite a while. But his testimony is very important. It goes directly to the defendant’s motive.”
The judge paused to mull over the predicament.
Julie was probably lying but we had no way of proving it. This was a premeditated tactic to end her case with a bang. Testimony from a surprise witness at the end of her case was Julie’s modus operandi.
Judge Graciano usually didn’t need a lot of time to make a decision. She also liked to err in favor of the defendant. It looked as if she were leaning toward excluding Bryson’s testimony.
Julie must have realized this. “Your Honor,” she said sweetly, “I have a suggestion that might remedy this problem. “Even though the defense team had all last night to prepare for the cross of Mr. Bryson, I wouldn’t object to taking a recess to give them more time to gear up for his examination.”
I knew Neddy was saying a silent prayer. We needed the judge to exclude Bryson’s testimony. A recess wouldn’t do us any good. Tina had already told us everything we needed to know about Mr. Gigolo. We’d been up all night working on his cross.
The judge finally made her decision. “I’m going to allow Mr. Bryson to testify,” she said warily. She turned to Neddy. “Would the defense team like to take a recess to prepare for the cross?”
“Just a second, Your Honor,” Neddy said, hurrying over to huddle with David and me. “What do you think,” she whispered, “should we take the time?”
“The jury’s already getting antsy,” I said. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“I agree,” David said.
Every Reasonable Doubt Page 25