From there, Kay moved into a systematic examination of Kimmie Uchima's relationship with Dale Matthias.
In spite of repeated objections by Ikeda and increasing resistance from Chrissie, a strange picture emerged. The stories of Kimmie Uchima's lengthy affair with Dale Matthias were false. Dale and Chrissie's marriage had been broken by Dale and not by Chrissie.
Chrissie flushed with anger, as she repeated what she said was her husband's totally unfounded accusation she was engaged in a homosexual relationship with Kimmie Uchima.
Kay pushed no further.
When Ikeda declined to again question his witness, Sid wrote a note and passed it to Kay. “He suddenly shows surprisingly good judgment. You did a fantastic job.” When the judge adjourned for the day, there was an audible sigh from the spectators.
***
WHOSE SIDE ARE THE JUDGES ON?
The morning editorial was accompanied by an ineptly drawn cartoon showing a grinning judge of indeterminate sex sentencing a uniformed and manacled policeman, while an unshaven thug with a dated submachine gun under his arm and a cigarette hanging from his lips lounged against the bench.
The letter page contained five letters strongly supporting the Chronicle's law and order stand.
I put the paper down to listen to Kay and Sid laying out their strategy for the day's session. I couldn't understand why Kay was being so pessimistic, and Sid seemed to be having trouble understanding it too.
“Judge Raines is driving Ikeda insane,” Kay said.
She doesn't have far to drive, I thought.
Sid shrugged. “There's not a thing he can do except to keep objecting.”
“That's the problem. Can you imagine what it must be like sitting up there all day and listening to that reedy voice of his saying 'I object' over and over again?”
“No I can't. But I'm not Lisa Raines. It doesn't seem to bother her at all. And every one of her rulings has been justified.”
“I know. But it still makes me uneasy. We've got the prosecution’s only material witness coming up this morning, and Ikeda's going to have a sound basis for objecting to some of the questions I'm going to ask. How's she going to react to that?”
Sid was unconvinced. “I don't think it's that important. Want me to take on Reggie Kaufman?”
“Maybe you should. A change of attorneys might quiet Ikeda down.”
“Did you see this morning's editorial and cartoon?” I asked.
Kay said she had. “That's part of the problem. The Ikedas are really goading Judge Raines.”
“But what difference does it make?”
“The difference is we're doing really well. We've given the jury another possible suspect to think about. We've neutralized Victorine. We have a whole series of witnesses who are going to testify on your behalf. We have an MD coming up who could very easily be the deciding factor. Things are looking very good for us—so far. But if a mistrial is declared, we're back to square one. Care to go through all of this again?”
I was quick to admit I wouldn't care to go through it all again. And I couldn't resist pointing out I wasn't exactly overjoyed at going through it even once.
Chapter 20
Lisa was amused.
Keiko Nishimura was angry.
Looking at the editorial and cartoon on the judge's desk, Keiko said, “My cousin wrote a nice long letter to the Chronicle explaining how our courts are doing the best job they possibly can, considering how little support they get from people. And old man Ikeda called him up and told him the letter wasn't fit to print.”
“I would think the readers would be getting pretty tired of having the same drum being beaten every day in the editorial pages,” Lisa said, as she folded the paper and handed it back to Keiko.
“They are. My cousin has already canceled his subscription, and he told Samson Ikeda in no uncertain terms why he was doing so.”
Lisa was not only amused at the furor the trial was producing, but was actually grateful in a way for Ikeda's courtroom antics. He didn't give her much time to think about anything else yesterday, she thought. But if he keeps it up, I'm going to have to file a complaint with the disciplinary counsel. I'll have to talk to him first, though. The thought caused her momentary annoyance.
The morning session of the trial began without any distractions from Ikeda. He was too engrossed in parading his star witness before the jury. The distractions came later, and mainly from Sid.
Reggie Kaufman was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt which revealed his casts. Probably Ikeda's doings, thought Sid. Anything to elicit sympathy from the jury.
For the first time Ikeda seemed to be conscious his portion of the trial was running overtime. He quickly took Reggie through his background and moved on to the day of the crime.
Reggie was nervous but handled the questions in a straightforward manner. The gist of his testimony was simple and clear. He had come to the office early that morning to catch up on the work which had piled up during his stay in the hospital.
By eleven he, Dale Matthias, Ron Crockett and some prospective clients—including one of his own clients—were the only ones in the building. All the clients left shortly afterwards, and a quarrel ensued between Ron and Dale over the former's handling of the prospective buyers. Even though he tried not to listen, Reggie could hear Dale's voice clearly but could not make out what Ron was saying in reply. He heard Dale tell Ron he was fired. There was a loud noise and, right after that, Ron left Dale's office and left the building almost immediately.
Reggie was embarrassed by what he had heard, and shortly afterwards also left for a doctor's appointment at 11:30. He returned to the office a few minutes after two o'clock. When he stepped through the front door, he saw Ron holding a golf club and standing over Dale's body.
Ikeda steered carefully around the scene. Sid had expected him to try leading Reggie into describing his feelings at that moment, but Ikeda made no attempt to do so. His questioning seemed directed solely toward making Reggie describe what he'd seen and heard.
At the end of Ikeda’s questioning, Lisa was surprised to see Sid step up to examine the witness. She knew Reggie Kaufman was probably the most important witness from the prosecution's viewpoint, yet Kay had turned his cross-examination over to Sid. That puzzled her.
She caught herself watching Sid perform. Kay did well in court. But there was an abruptness to her style. Sometimes she depressed the gas pedal too quickly. Other times the gears clashed as she shifted. Sid, on the other hand, was a smooth and skilled driver. He gave the impression of knowing where he was going, of having mapped out the route thoroughly beforehand, and of anticipating every twist in the road.
Lisa had to admit he looked good—very good, indeed
Reggie proved to be a willing character witness, and gave Ron an A-plus for character. “He's a real nice guy. And a good salesman, too.”
Sid exploited this surprisingly favorable attitude for all it was worth, thinking, I'd better make the most of this before I make him mad. Reggie performed like a trained circus pony, giving all the right responses on cue.
When Sid asked Reggie for an evaluation of Ron’s temperament, a question Kay had insisted he ask, Reggie waxed eloquent. “Like I said, you couldn’t ask for a nicer guy. I’ve never seen him lose his temper, and—believe me—there were plenty of reasons for everyone of us in the agency to blow off steam.” He continued in this vein for several moments, and Sid let him run with the bit in his mouth.
In the meantime, Lisa was watching Sid closely.
After having gotten Reggie to describe Ron Crockett as something of a paragon, Sid moved on to the hours between 11:30 and 2:00. Reluctantly, Reggie told about his accidental meeting with Willa after leaving the office. Even more reluctantly, he finally revealed the meeting hadn't been entirely accidental, and he went on to admitting he knew Willa “very well.” As he probed further, Sid expected objections from Ikeda, but none emerged.
Pressing harder, Sid began to uncover a ful
l-blown affair between the employee and the employer's wife. The jurors, including the bespectacled occupant of the back row, were all wide awake. Adultery was always an interesting topic. Adultery, which now appeared to have occurred even on the wedding day, was a mesmerizing one. Sid could almost feel Ikeda wanting to object. At one point, Sid turned to see if the prosecutor might possibly be sitting on his hands.
Lisa was listening to the unfolding story, and she wondered at her own differences, with much the same wonderment she had had back when she was a child. During the years with Jon, adultery had never even occurred to her. And here was a story, told almost casually, about a man and woman carrying on an affair virtually under the nose of the husband and even on the day of the wedding. It was a page torn out of Boccacio.
What had the woman thought, sleeping one night with her husband, and the next night with another man. At first repellent, the idea invaded, infected, spread and dominated her thinking. The sounds of the courtroom faded as she watched Sid and wondered how he looked naked.
“I object, your honor.”
(What to? To what I'm thinking?)
She could hear Ikeda talking, but could make no sense out of what he was saying.
(That's not much different than any other time.)
Ikeda paused expectantly.
Kay was immobile. Her mind was racing. What in hell's going on? Why isn't Lisa sustaining Ikeda's objection? It's a perfectly legitimate one.
“Will the prosecutor please repeat his grounds for objecting.”
Ikeda was only too pleased to do so. “I made the representation that counsel is requesting from the witness a response which is entirely an opinion regarding the psychic aspects of the defendant's personality. I wish to make a strong representation that the witness has no expertise in the field of psychology.”
Lisa responded by leaning forward and addressing the court stenographer. “Please read the last few lines of testimony beginning with the question addressed to the witness.”
“Question: ‘Do you feel Ronald Crockett is capable of killing another human being?’
“Answer: ‘I don't see how he . . . ‘
“Prosecutor: ‘Objection your honor, counsel is . . .’”
“That's sufficient. Thank you.” Lisa said. “Objection sustained. The jury will ignore the question and the answer given by the witness.”
Kay gave an audible sigh. The questioning resumed.
My God, thought Lisa, What a judge I'm turning out to be. I'm so busy lusting after a man, I'm not even hearing what's going on. The least I can do is find someone who isn't married. And certainly someone who isn't married to a friend. Her eyes swept over the courtroom and came back to the defendant.
***
Reggie wasn't at all bad. He had plenty of good words for me—a lot more than I'd ever expected from him—a lot more than I would have had for him. Sure, his description of Dale chewing me out didn't help, and there was nothing reassuring about his description of me standing there over Dale's body with a bloody golf club in my hands. But he was telling the truth, all the way. And I was going to tell the same story when my turn came.
He wasn't anywhere near as objective when it came to describing Dale. But then, when you're sleeping with a man's wife, I guess it can color your views of the guy.
Sid really did a good job. He should have been a salesman.
Before Reggie finished describing Dale, it was clear he was a cheat, had a really terrible temper, and mistreated both his earlier and more recent wife. Reggie pulled out all the stops. He did everything but say that Dale deserved to have his head bashed in. I could see Ikeda wasn't terribly happy with his star witness.
When Sid shifted to questions about Dale's health, Reggie acted puzzled. He volunteered that Dale had been very sick the week before his death. Reggie had been out because of his own accident, but he knew Dale had also been absent from work. This gave him an opportunity to point out how anyone as miserly as Dale must have been very sick to have taken any time out.
Sid pushed him back to the health question.
“Could you describe how he looked when he came back to work on Monday.”
Reggie grinned. By then he was looking real relaxed. “I just came in for a few minutes that day and wasn't feeling any too good myself.” He held up his casts to emphasize his point. But he looked worse than I felt . . . like he had the worse kind of hangover. His eyes were swollen, and he kept hitting the aspirin bottle.”
“Did his condition improve during the week?”
“No. He seemed to get worse.” Reggie accompanied the statement with a vigorous shake of the head. “But I wasn't exactly chipper, myself.” He again held up his casts. “And I was busy trying to work with these on and trying to catch up with all the paper work piling up.”
“And how did he appear on the morning of his murder?”
Reggie paused and thought about his answer. “I saw him for just a minute when he came in about ten. His face was flushed. And when he took of the dark glasses he was wearing, I could see his eyes looked even more swollen than they'd been on Monday. He was a mess. I would have thought he had a hangover, but Dale didn’t drink to amount to anything.”
The last question Sid asked Reggie puzzled me, since it seemed to be asking for an answer running counter to what Kay had found out earlier from the officers who testified. She had seemed to be trying to show how Dale was asleep when he was killed, and now it looked as though Sid was trying to do the exact opposite. I glanced over at Ikeda when Sid asked it, and he seemed to be as puzzled as I was.
“Was Dale Matthias in the habit of napping at his desk during the day?”
“Hell–—I mean–—heck no! He was too afraid he'd miss a customer and a fat commission to do any sleeping while he was in the office.”
I shook my head at the answer and kept wondering why Sid had even asked the question. Earlier, Kay had asked it of all the other agents when she interviewed them at the office, and they'd all told her Dale never did any napping at work. Maybe there was a reason for the question. Then again, maybe my attorneys had just screwed up on this one.
Ikeda's re-examination was comparatively brief. Essentially, it consisted of a rehash of Dale's quarrel with me and of the scene in Dale's office at two, but then he added something else.
Both Sid and Kay copied down the new element Ikeda introduced.
“Did you know the defendant socially?”
“I'd been out to coffee with him once or twice.”
“Have you ever been in his home?”
“No.”
“Has he ever been in your home?”
“No.”
“Would you say you knew him at all well outside of the workplace?”
Reggie shook his head for emphasis and said, “No.”
“No further questions, your honor.”
When asked if the defense was prepared to present its case, Kay stood up and requested an early recess for lunch. The judge granted her request.
As we got up to leave, I asked her. “How come?”
“Because we want to overwhelm the jury. We're going to run all the character witnesses by them, fast. They'll get the feeling all of Elima thinks you're a great guy.”
After having listened to Reggie, I was beginning to have the same feeling myself.
Chapter 21
Kay moved Annie Loh in first. Kay was fairly certain Annie would make a good impression on the jury and was completely convinced she had after the questioning ended.
The receptionist's description of Ron paralleled the one given by Reggie. But it was more thorough, without being effusive. If anything, Dale fared even worse in her hands than he had in Reggie's. She gave the impression of very reluctantly describing some of Dale's grosser defects. Kay gave her free rein.
When it came to Dale's health, Annie was very explicit. Dale had called in the previous week and told her he was violently ill and was going to see the doctor. He looked, according to Annie, like “Death war
med over” when he returned to work on Monday. And she insisted as the week went along he was getting steadily worse.
“He must have been really sick when he told me not to bother coming in on that Saturday,” she added on her own. Ikeda's cross-examination consisted entirely of questioning Annie regarding contacts with Ron outside the work place. Her answers followed the same lines as Reggie's. She knew Ron only at work. She'd never associated with him socially. She'd never been to his house. He'd never been to hers. Ikeda exploited every permutation and combination.
Kay found Lyle Kaupu difficult to restrain. His hostility toward Dale was open, adamant and unqualified. He left no doubt in anyone's mind that, as far as he was concerned, Elima had become a better place to live in now that Dale had passed on.
He was mostly noncommittal about Ron, and Kay didn't press the issue beyond getting him to say, “Yeah, he's a nice guy.”
Kay asked him if he had ever seen Dale playing golf.
Lyle snorted. “He was too fat and lazy to get out on the course. He talked a good game, though.”
“Did you ever see him using his clubs?”
“Sure. He used to putt a ball around in his office. That's the closest he ever came to the golf course.”
Asked about Dale's physical condition during the last days of his life, Lyle indicated he had been only slightly aware of Dale's illness, though he clearly remembered his absence, and commented it was the only time he could recall when sickness had kept Dale away from the office. He agreed Dale looked awful the week of his death. But he added, to the delight of the spectators, that Dale always looked awful.
Again Ikeda hit the same theme, and he again came up with the same answer. Lyle knew Ron Crockett as a fellow worker—period.
Joyce Joaquin obviously liked Ron and said so, elaborating on her own by adding he was one of the most easy going persons she had ever encountered. Her criticism of Dale was much more tempered than Lyle's had been. But, if anything, she was far more effective than any of the others in showing Dale to be an egotistical, unprincipled and selfish individual. Choosing her words carefully, she gave the clear impression her description of Dale was an objective evaluation of a thoroughly despicable personality and not simply an emotional attack upon someone no longer able to defend himself.
No Time for Death: A Yoshinobu Mystery Page 13