“During one shouting match did you ever say, ‘I could fucking kill you’?”
He blinked. “I’m not proud of that language.”
“Is that a ‘yes’?”
“Yes, but…”
“I just needed a yes or no answer. Thank you, sir.”
Maggie moved on like it was no big thing. She strolled back to our table, sifted through some notes to let the statement linger. But it was big.
Ellie Whelan knew it. She stood. “Hearsay, Judge. We’d request that the jury be admonished to ignore the witness’s statement.”
“Overruled. It’s not being used to prove the truth of the matter asserted.”
Maggie permitted herself the tiniest smile as she looked at some notes. “Doctor,” Maggie said, facing him again. “In addition to the arguments at the neighborhood association meetings, did you ever have an altercation with Mrs. Miller on her lawn?”
Maggie moved away from our table, began to pace in front of him.
The doctor paused. “Yes.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“I wouldn’t say we were fighting.”
Maggie stopped moving. “Were you shouting?”
“Yes.”
“About a week before her death?”
“Yes, but only because she came at me, screaming, when I walked my dog by her front lawn. Honestly, I’d never seen her like that.” He made a shocked face, as if remembering. “Even at the neighborhood meetings I’d never heard her raise her voice. But she verbally attacked me, and of course I had to defend myself.”
I wondered what had been going on with Amanda in the week before she died, when a woman who sounded like a calm, kind person went into a rage on her front lawn.
“Of course,” Maggie said, echoing the witness. “No further questions.”
Ellie Whelan led Dr. St. John through a series of softball questions meant to show what a perfect citizen he was. Then he was excused.
As he walked by Zavy, he stared, challenging Zavy to stare back, but Zavy dropped his gaze to his lap. The reporters scribbled furiously.
When the doctor was gone, I felt a certain weird sense coming over me, one I recognized as a feeling I often got at the end of a trial. At first, there was relief that it was nearly over. The other sense that always hit then was anxiety, because the whole thing would soon be turned over to the jury or judge, someone other than you. You were nearly done, and yet there was so much that had to happen, so much you couldn’t control.
“We’ll take a five-minute break before we have our closing arguments,” the judge said.
Reporters went in the hallway to call in their latest news. Meanwhile, my dad and Mayburn walked to me.
“We need to talk,” Mayburn said.
“What is it?”
“Something on Zavy.”
Right then, Martin walked up to us. I quickly introduced them.
“Mr. Bristol,” my dad said, “we were just about to update Izzy on some news.”
Maggie, Q and Valerie joined us.
“Okay for everyone to hear?” I asked Mayburn.
He hesitated, stared at Valerie for a moment, then nodded.
We all huddled up, and my father spoke.
Zavy Miller was really Xavier Jennings, he said. He had been arrested twice in New Orleans for sex with a minor. Both of the young women were in high school. Fifteen and sixteen years old.
No one said anything for a second.
“Was he convicted?” Martin asked.
My father looked at him. “I’m on that right now. I should know soon, but John here—” my dad gestured at Mayburn “—said you would need to know this as soon as possible.”
“Hell, yes,” Maggie said. “Zavy being arrested for having sex with minors means little in relation to whether he could’ve killed his wife, but it just goes to show the lazy police work on this case. We have to get an extension and see if we can put in evidence of his prior convictions.”
“Absolutely not.” Two strong words from Valerie. As if to test them out, she said it again. “Absolutely not.”
“Valerie…” Martin said. “Your father was innocent. If you are, too, we have to make sure we show everything that points that way. We may not be able to get Xavier’s crimes admitted—there are rules about past crimes coming in during a current trial—but we have to try. It goes to show that the police honed in on you. They didn’t look at the doctor, the nanny. They didn’t know about Zavy’s history.”
“If we show his history,” Valerie said, “then there is a chance his…relationship…with Layla might come out. Isn’t that right?”
What was their relationship?
“Yes,” Martin said. “If the city investigates, there’s a chance they could find out about it.”
“Then, no,” Valerie said. “The answer is no.”
Maggie tried to talk her into it, but Valerie was visibly upset. “I am trying to protect my daughter,” she whispered fiercely. “Doesn’t anyone understand?”
“I do.” It was my father. He looked at Valerie. “I understand.”
No one said anything for a moment, and we felt the weight of the eyes in the gallery.
“I’m not sure if this is anything,” my father said, leaning farther in so no one else could hear, “but I’ve been thinking about something else.” He reached in the pocket of his tan suit and pulled out a rolled-up sheet of paper. He opened it. “This is a blueprint of Amanda and Zavy’s house. With all the litigation about the zoning, it was readily available.” Without pausing, he told us how we might use it.
I felt like saying, This is crazy. We don’t know the whole story of our client. Or of the victim’s husband. We have to know the whole story before we decide anything!
But then I had a flash of realization. Was this a trait of mine—needing to know everything about a situation before making a decision? It seemed so. And that trait had made me thorough, but it also held me back sometimes. Like when Sam came back to town. I wanted everything neat and tidy before I could say, Okay, let’s do this again. Let’s be us again. Maybe I just needed to jump in sometimes, when I didn’t know it all, but I knew it felt right; when I felt I needed to be a lawyer; when there wasn’t time for the whole story.
I looked at Valerie as my father explained what he thought. I met her eyes, which asked me, What should we do? She trusted me, I could see that. She was looking to me for guidance, and this was my job.
“I think you’ve got something here,” I said to my dad. I turned and put my hand on Valerie’s wrist. “Let Maggie do this.”
“I don’t think…” But Valerie’s words died away. Still, she looked at me for help, for me to guide her, which is what I’d been hired to do.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Maggie can do it. We recall Zavy to the stand. Like my dad said, we won’t touch the arrests in Louisiana. We won’t go anywhere near his relationship with Layla or even his wife. We’ll just use this.” I pointed to the blueprint. “That should add to the reasonable doubt. If there is any reasonable doubt, the jury will have to acquit you. But it shouldn’t be enough to trigger an investigation against Zavy, if that’s what’s worrying you. You need to get out of this murder charge, but you don’t want to shed too much light on Zavy. Because it could shed light on your daughter. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Maggie has the skill and the finesse. Let her use it.”
Valerie hesitated. Then she nodded.
“Mags,” I said, “let’s do it.”
70
We convinced the judge that we needed to recall Zavy for very brief testimony. He took the stand and was sworn in once again. The questioning of a victim’s family members or that of a plaintiff was ground that we needed to tread lightly. The jury was likely feeling sympathetic toward Zavy Miller. If we verbally beat up on him in an effort to cast doubt on the state’s case, the jury might become defensive on his behalf. They might want to cast a guilty verdict just to prove a point.
Maggie adjusted the collar of her teal blouse. She asked a few simple questions of Zavy, clarifying some of his earlier testimony.
After a few more softballs, she turned to the notes she’d taken from a discussion with my father. “Sir, you said that your wife was very weak on the night of her death, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You wanted her to go to the hospital, but she wouldn’t go, right?”
“Yes.”
“And when you found her collapsed, she was in your living room, correct?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where she was when the ambulance arrived, right?”
“Yes.”
I could hear my dad’s voice. If a woman was that dizzy and weak, why would she be in the living room? Why wouldn’t she be in bed? It was a tricky line of questioning, but we had to show, anywhere we could, that the cops and the state hadn’t put the whole picture together. They’d jumped to conclusions and then shoved the facts toward their version of the events.
“Sir, you said on direct that you were in the bedroom, but when your wife didn’t return, you went looking for her. Is that what you testified to?”
“Yes.”
“And did you tell the police this?”
“Yes.”
“Why was your wife in the living room?”
He shrugged. “She was going to get something in the kitchen, and—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but let me ask you something. What was she looking to retrieve in the kitchen?”
“I…” He paused, seemed to be thinking. “I don’t recall.”
“Something to eat?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so. We’d eaten that Mexican food.”
“Did the police ask you why she was going to the kitchen?”
“No.”
“If she was so ill, so weak and dizzy, why didn’t you retrieve the item from the kitchen that she needed?”
“I don’t recall.”
“And if she went to retrieve something in the kitchen, why was she found in the living room?”
“Well, if you’d let me finish my answer before, I would have told you.”
He was irritated. And he was showing it to the jury. Irritation is one of those emotions that can present themselves differently on various people and more importantly, it can be interpreted in very different ways.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said to Zavy. “I’ll let you finish your answer, but let’s back up a moment. Just so I’m sure I understand…” She handed him a document. “Sir, do you know what this is?”
He studied it. “It looks like a blueprint of my house.”
“Objection,” Ellie Whelan said, standing. “We’ve never seen this exhibit.”
The judge looked at Maggie for a response.
“We just obtained the blueprint today. I’ll be laying the foundation for it through Mr. Miller’s testimony.”
“Continue,” the judge said.
Ellie sat, looking nervous. She and Tania had no clue where we were going with this testimony.
Maggie looked back at Zavy. “Does this accurately represent the dimensions of your home, and the location of the various rooms of your residence?”
“Yes.”
She asked him a few other questions, then handed out the extra copies that the law clerk had made to the judge and state’s attorneys. “Mr. Miller, please finish your answer about why Amanda was in the living room.”
“It’s rather simple. I think she stopped in that room, maybe to turn off the lights or something.”
“Was she near a light when you found her?”
“No.”
“Did the police ask you why she had gone into the living room?”
A pause. “No.”
“Looking at the blueprint, where is the master bedroom?”
He pointed at a large room at the top-right of the blueprint. Maggie asked him to turn it so the jury could see.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Q scowl. It was the kind of exhibit he would have loved to flash on the courtroom wall, but there hadn’t been time to scan the blueprint.
“This is the kitchen, correct?” Maggie said, pointing to a room at the bottom left. “Yes.”
“And this is the living room.” She drew her finger from the kitchen to the other side of the house, the bottom right.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Miller, you testified that your wife was weak and dizzy, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Asked and answered,” Ellie Whelan said.
“Sustained.”
“She was so ill, you wanted her to go to the emergency room,” Maggie said.
“Yes.”
“Asked and answered,” Ellie said, but Maggie just moved on.
“She was so ill that you went to the pharmacy to get her some medicines you hoped could treat her.”
“Yes.”
“Did the medicines you purchase have any effect?”
“Like I said before, she seemed a little better at first.”
“But you said her weakness and dizziness seemed to come and go, correct? So she continued to be ill.”
“Objection,” Ellie Whelan said. “What is meant here by ‘ill’? This isn’t a medical witness.”
“No, it’s not,” Maggie said, facing the judge. “There is no medical witness because Amanda Miller was not afforded medical attention that evening, a fact the detectives did not investigate. I’m simply asking Mr. Miller for his layman’s impression on his wife’s health, since he is the only witness to that.”
“Counsel is misstating the evidence,” Ellie said.
“Overruled,” the judge said. He looked at Maggie “Be careful, counsel. Do not make statements about testimony not in evidence.”
“Thank you, Judge.” She looked back at Zavy. “Mr. Miller, you told us your wife stumbled that night, right?”
“Yes.”
“Was that typical for her?”
“Not at all.”
“She was dizzy.”
“Yes.”
“She was very weak.”
“Yes.”
“Asked and answered,” Ellie said in an irritated voice.
“Move it along, counsel,” the judge said.
Maggie didn’t blink. “But you left her alone to go to the pharmacy.”
He paused, as if realizing maybe that hadn’t been the smartest move. “Yes,” he said.
“She was still ill when you got home.”
“She said the Tylenol helped.”
“And yet after that, she still experienced dizziness.”
“Yes.”
“She still experienced weakness.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know why she was in the living room when you found her.”
“No.”
“Thank you, sir. Nothing further.”
71
Ellie was passionate and fiery as she started her closing argument. “Who are they kidding?” she said to the jury, her voice rising. She pointed at Valerie. “This woman killed Amanda Miller. Poisoned her. And then her legal team comes in here and insinuates that Amanda might have killed herself. Or that her neighbor killed her. Or that the nanny killed her. Or that her husband didn’t get her enough medical care. Who are they kidding?” Ellie threw up her hands and snorted with a look of disgust.
I had to admit, viewing her purely as one litigator to another, Ellie Whelan was doing a kick-ass job so far.
“Do we really believe that Dr. St. John killed his neighbor over a property feud? That’s ridiculous.” She shook her head. “And do we really believe that just because someone like the nanny, Ms. Zowinski, has a criminal record that she would kill her boss? That she would murder a woman whom she liked very much, and whom she saw as a devoted mother, and whom she worked with for years?”
I tried to catch Valerie’s eye, but she was too focused on Ellie. Meanwhile, my mind started racing away from the argument, thinking about everything we’d lea
rned lately. I tuned back in when Maggie got up to do her closing. She was as passionate as Ellie had been.
“They ask, ‘Who are we kidding?’ Well, who are they kidding? They have not proven their case and they know it.” She stalked in front of the jury, meeting each of their eyes, pulling them in. “I notice they didn’t mention the concept of reasonable doubt. Well, I’d like to talk about it. It’s very, very important in this case. In any criminal case.
“What is reasonable doubt? You won’t get jury instruction on it. You know why? Because it can’t be defined. You know it when you see it. You know it when you feel it.” She stopped in front of the jury box, right in the middle. “And we all feel it in this case.” She paused and took a breath.
“The cops, though?” she said. “They sure didn’t feel any doubt. They thought they had their perpetrator. And granted, that is the cops’ job. We give them salaries so they will find the bad guys in our society. But that pressure can cause tunnel vision. A nice woman in the Gold Coast was murdered. The public was crying to find out who did it. The cops decided it was Valerie Solara. Then they ignored other suspects that they knew about. Tunnel vision is a known phenomenon in criminal justice, and it happened in this case.”
She started pacing again. “Let’s talk about Valerie Solara. Valerie loved her friend. Very much. Everyone you heard from told you that. Now, did Valerie once, when faced with the grief of losing her husband, make an inappropriate advance toward Mr. Miller, her friend’s husband? Yes. Fine. But how in the world do we get from that mistake…” She made a gesture with her forefinger and thumb to show what a small thing it was. “To this?” She waved her arms around the courtroom. “If a small mistake like that can lead you to being tried for murder, then we all better be very, very careful about our mistakes in this life.”
Maggie went on, reviewing the testimony and nitpicking every bit of it until it seemed the state had almost no evidence against Valerie Solara. But my focus was fading again, because I kept trying to piece it all together. Was Maggie right that Zavy having been arrested for sex with minors meant little in relation to whether he could’ve killed his wife? If there was a chance he had, why wouldn’t Valerie simply want to say so? Was it really to protect her daughter? Or was she somehow giving consent to Zavy’s relationship with Layla?
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