Justify My Love: An Interracial Romance (BWWM)

by Caine, Candy

“So what? We’re opposing counsel. We’re bound to have a dialogue if we’re going to conduct the trial properly.”

  “Why are you being difficult?” Scott asked, trying to keep his voice low and calm.

  “I’m not. That’s your interpretation.”

  Scott let out a huge sigh. “All right, let’s just drop the entire subject. You’re talking to me now. I want you to take the following offer to your client.”

  “Did Blondie tell you what I said?”

  “Are you referring to Tara Berenson?”

  “If the description fits, yes.”

  “Yes, she told me exactly what you said. You can’t be serious?”

  “I assure you, I am—dead serious, because my client’s life depends on it,” Marnie said. “Obviously, you’re not taking me seriously or you’d be talking to me in person.”

  “What has gotten into you? I can hardly talk to you anymore.”

  “I don’t think you realize you haven’t been.”

  “When did you become possessed by a sharp-tongued she-devil? What’s happened to you, Marnie?”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, realizing he was getting nowhere and hung up.

  Tears stung Marnie’s eyes as she replaced the phone in its cradle. How had things between them gotten so far out of hand? “I can’t do this now,” she whispered, brushing her tears away. There were too many things she had to do and much too little time to do them in. She repaired her makeup and gathered her things before she walked into the conference room where Frank was sitting with Victor DeMarco.

  The next few hours were spent with Victor DeMarco laboriously going over his testimony. The decision to put him on the stand had been made. He wanted to testify because he felt it was his right to do so.

  “I’m not certain this is a wise move. You have lost your cool with us without being provoked. Can you imagine what damage you can do to your case if you explode in open court?” Marnie told him.

  “I’m well aware of that. I just want to tell the jury why I did it.”

  They went back and forth like this until Marnie and Frank agreed to allow him to testify. Even after doing so, Marnie still feared it would be a colossal mistake and help Scott win the case. When she and Frank were ready to depart, she cautioned DeMarco once more about not coming apart at the seams during the ADA’s harsh cross-examination.

  “Don’t let Scott Langley use your pain to his advantage.”

  “I’ll try to remain calm, remembering to speak slowly and take deep breaths.”

  “That’s probably a good plan of action. Get a good night’s sleep, as well.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he answered, his words wrapped in a blanket of sarcasm.

  “We’ll get through this as I promised you.” But will I? She wondered.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Scott didn’t even bother to give Marnie a nod the next day as she walked into court. She wasn’t expecting him to, though. When Berenson saw her, she whispered something into Scott’s ear as she casually placed her arm around his back. Whatever she said had made him laugh. Marnie hadn’t realized how much she missed that hearty laugh. However, if it had been at her expense…

  In a few minutes, the court would be called to order and everything that she had worked for with this trial would hinge on the outcome of her client’s testimony. She felt her insides churn. She’d never been sick, but there was always the first time for everything, or so she’d been told.

  She continued to reassure Victor and patted his hand. “Don’t forget that what you did was for Laura. You desired to end her suffering because you loved her. You were a good and courageous husband.”

  * * *

  Frank nodded in agreement with Marnie, however his thoughts were elsewhere. He hadn’t missed the snub Scott had given Marnie when she passed him to get to her chair. He knew they’d had words and had his doubts whether their relationship was going to survive the outcome of this trial. Turning around and looking at the spectators in the court, he noticed O’Connell in the reporters’ section scribbling away in his pad. He wanted to walk over to that sonofabitch and put him head first through a plate glass window.

  When the crucial moment came and Victor DeMarco slowly walked over to the witness chair, there was hardly a sound in the room. It was as if everyone seated in that courtroom had collectively held their breath.

  In the still of the courtroom, the court clerk’s voice boomed like a trumpet. “Raise your right hand and place your left on the Bible. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do.”

  “Please state your name for the court.”

  “Victor DeMarco.”

  “You may sit.”

  Marnie approached the witness stand and began to lead her client through the testimony they had practiced. Every so often, she would pause for emphasis. Every juror was carefully watching the man. In the end, they would either believe his sincerity or else assume he was an award-winning actor. With respect to the jurors’ attention spans, Marnie purposely kept the questioning short and finished when all the important points she wanted to present to the court had been touched on.

  “No further questions, your Honor,” Marnie said and returned to her seat, a silent prayer on her lips that DeMarco wouldn’t lose it.

  Scott slowly rose from his chair, closed his suit jacket and walked towards Victor DeMarco. He looked ready to begin his cross-examination reminding Marnie how a lion might look approaching a tethered animal. Her stomach took a nosedive. She swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising and tried to keep her mind focused.

  Scott began pleasantly enough, but she knew this was only a ruse to lull DeMarco into a false security. She had warned Victor DeMarco of this. “Don’t let your guard down, not for a moment. The ADA is not your friend.”

  “Mr. DeMarco, you loved your wife, didn’t you?”

  Victor DeMarco looked confused for the moment probably wondering why the prosecutor would ask such a ridiculous question.

  “Mr. DeMarco?”

  “Yes, I loved my wife…more than life itself.”

  “You were high school sweethearts, were you not?”

  “Yes…”

  “And when she took ill, you took care of her, bringing her to the best of doctors and hospitals. It wasn’t a problem being the CEO of a large corporation.”

  “Your Honor, does the counselor have a question for the witness?” Marnie shot to her feet, asking.

  “Mr. Langley?”

  “I do have a question, your Honor. “Were you able to pay for all this expensive care for your wife?”

  “Yes. We had excellent medical coverage.”

  “What about life insurance? Was your wife insured?”

  “We both were.”

  “So she was worth more dead than alive?” Scott said looking at the jurors, most sitting upright in their seats, eyes glued, waiting for the answer.

  “As was I.”

  “But you didn’t have a money-draining illness, did you?”

  “No.”

  “The medical insurance plan covering your wife’s treatment had a ceiling, though, didn’t it?”

  DeMarco’s eyes were narrowing. His hands were in constant motion. He picked at a cuticle. Marnie knew he was trying to contain himself and watched the jurors. They sensed something was coming as well.

  “Well, Mr. DeMarco? Were you aware that the insurance no longer covered the in-home care for your wife?”

  “Yes,” DeMarco replied quietly.

  The judge instructed him to speak up.

  “Yes!” The vein on the side of his head had begun to throb.

  “Of course you did, because you had to liquidate two of your companies to pay for her care. Isn’t that correct, Mr. DeMarco?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the longer your wife lived, the more costly her illness?”

  DeMarco slapped
his thigh. “I didn’t care about that. I would have given everything I owned to have her well again.”

  “How admirable of you. The defense has made a point of maintaining that you were told your wife could have lingered for months. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you had weeks, maybe months more of a financial drain to look forward to. Isn’t that why you brutally shot your wife?”

  The question was like a guided missile directly hitting the target. Victor DeMarco seemed tongue-tied.

  “A man who will do anything to save his wife, doesn’t turn around and shoot her, now does he, Mr. DeMarco?” Scott drove on relentlessly. “Is that what a loving and devoted husband does? Well, does he?”

  Marnie was poised to object on the grounds of badgering the witness. Just as she began to object, Victor DeMarco stood up and shouted, “Yes! When his wife is in such agony that every breath she takes hurts. Yes! He does! When she begs him over and over again, pleading for release. Yes! He does! When there is no other remedy.” His voice was shrill and loud, yet filled with such emotion, it touched many hearts. He realized he was standing and sat down.

  Marnie’s heart began to thud. She was worried about his outburst until she saw several of the jurors nod in agreement. She was also surprised the judge hadn’t intervened.

  Through clenched teeth he continued. “Watching her die each day by degrees, seeing her flesh melt away from her wasted body, what could I do? I felt devastated and so helpless. I could not make her pain go away or even loosen its strangling grip on her. I watched her in torment, day in and day out. Neither prayer nor faith was comforting. I no longer had any confidence in the doctors, for they aren’t gods, or their medicines, charms. In case you haven’t figured it out,” he spat bitterly, “the cancer usually wins.”

  “Your Honor…” Scott tried to interject in order to halt DeMarco’s rambling speech.

  “He’s answering your question, Counselor.”

  “I begged the nurse to increase the dosage of her pain killers. You know what she told me? ‘If I do, it will kill her.’ Can you imagine that?” he said, his voice sprinkled with nervous laughter. “No, it was better to let her die slowly and suffer more. That way no one could be libeled in a lawsuit. Tell me, where’s the morality in that? It’s better to be lawful, but not humane. We treat sick animals better. So, because I put her out of her misery, I became a murderer. Well, you know something, I would do it again. And so would you, had she been your wife,” he slammed the side of the bench and covered his eyes with his hand.

  Every eye in the courtroom was on the sobbing man as the judge called for a recess. Victor DeMarco was led out of the courtroom with Marnie by his side.

  “I’m so sorry,” Victor DeMarco said.

  “Don’t be. You spoke your heart. Your testimony was powerful. It certainly moved every heart in that courtroom, which is exactly what we wanted. Many of the jurors were crying. Hopefully it will prevent the jury from bringing in a guilty charge to first degree murder.”

  “Why didn’t the judge stop me?”

  “Aside from the fact you were replying to the prosecutor’s question, the judge is also a human being.”

  The bailiff appeared and told them that the judge was ready to reconvene.

  “Let’s go, Victor, it’s time to rest our case,” Marnie said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Right after Marnie told the court the defense rested, Judge Hewitt recessed until the following morning when the closing arguments would be heard.

  * * *

  Scott had wanted to get Victor DeMarco to explode. Too bad it worked adversely. Instead of making himself look like a murderer, his moving and emotional outpouring made him more sympathetic. Scott blamed part of this on Hewitt. He let the man ramble on when he should have shut him down. Now Scott had to focus on damage control.

  He could present Marnie with a new plea bargain. But, would she go for a lesser plea now? Probably not after DeMarco had apparently won the hearts and minds of the jurors. She’d gamble on going for all or nothing. He knew he would. To win a guilty verdict he had to remind the jury that this case was about murder. His closing argument had to be a gem.

  * * *

  Tara Berenson knew DeMarco’s outburst unsettled Scott. She didn’t think he still felt confident in his ability to obtain a guilty verdict. With this as well as her own desires in mind, she intended to do her damnedest to raise his morale and drove to his apartment later that evening with a bag of Chinese takeout.

  “Tara, what are you doing here?”

  “If I had told you, it wouldn’t have been a surprise. First food, and then we work on your closing.”

  Before Scott could utter another word, she walked passed him and went inside, putting the food on the kitchen table. “Got two glasses, something to put in them and a couple of plates?”

  Tara seemed to know when he needed some human interaction. In the last week or so since he and Marnie have been on the outs, she seemed to sense when he needed to talk. And tonight, he probably would have sulked and not bothered to eat. He was glad she’d come.

  * * *

  Marnie should have been in high spirits when she got home. After all, the trial was going as well as she could have wished. And yet, she felt so empty and, of course, alone. She couldn’t dismiss the probability she’d finally lost Scott. She put the blame squarely on the damn trial and all the stress it had wrought. What budding relationship could withstand all that? She tried to console herself with the notion it was probably all for the best. If it hadn’t happened now, it could have happened when there might have been more at stake. Too bad she didn’t believe her own rhetoric. If only she could expunge from her mind how cozy Scott looked with that woman…

  That night, despite the fact her personal life was once again in the toilet, Marnie forced herself to focus on her closing argument. After DeMarco’s outburst in court, she rewrote parts of it. By the time she fell into a fitful sleep, she had it nearly memorized.

  Marnie opened her eyes to a gray day that matched her mood. Dark storm clouds crowded the sky as somber as the thoughts that occupied her mind. She had dreamed of Scott and that Berenson woman. It was as much an eye opener as it was a nightmare. She sensed the other woman had planned to make her move on Scott long before she and he had had their first words. Dreams often bring out what only the subconscious knows. The signs had been picked up and recorded on a memory chip. Now it was that chip which seemed to mercilessly play over and over in her mind.

  She told herself to snap out of it. Scott was only a man. What was it that her mother always used to say? “The oceans are filled with fish. Don’t get your hook stuck in one and allow him to break your heart.” But another one of her favorite sayings was, “Marry for money, the green will help make the love grow.” The thought of her parents and their dysfunctional union was an excellent reason not to put much credence in her mother’s advice. Then again, at the rate she was faring with her own relationships, she had no right to criticize.

  Getting to court earlier than usual, she tried to ignore Scott and Tara’s entrance. Merely knowing they were together was enough to set her on edge. Seeing them together was enough to cause an implosion.

  Marnie watched and listened as Scott presented his summation. It was good and to the point and he had the jury listening to his every word. She’d have to reverse the spell he’d cast over them. Get them to understand it was the taking of a life, but for the right reasons. She had to make them see and feel Victor DeMarco’s pain once again prior to his actions.

  Just as Scott was finishing, Frank slid his yellow pad across to Marnie. On it were written three words in large block letters: GO FOR IT. It was the best morale boost that she could have asked for. She turned and nodded to him. He replied giving her a thumbs up gesture.

  When DeMarco whispered, “Good luck,” she smiled and patted his hand. She stood, walked over to the jury and began to speak. The nervousness seemed to melt away as s
he began her rehearsed closing. It was a special knack to be able to look spontaneous and unrehearsed as you spoke to the jury. Marnie had that knack, though she hardly realized it.

  “…Walk a mile in my client’s shoes. Feel his pain, his anguish as he watched his wife die slowly before his eyes, an agonizing death. Know what torment brought him to that terrible precipice. It was love in the end that forced him over. Love for the woman who had shared his life’s dreams. If after doing all that, you still cannot understand why Victor DeMarco had to do what he did, then you must agree with my worthy opponent and find him guilty. And I pray you never find yourself in such a situation. No one should ever have to break the law to ease the suffering of a loved one. However, if you can understand please acquit my client and send a loud message to our lawmakers that our laws concerning the terminally ill need amending. Thank you.”

  “Mr. Langley, you may begin your rebuttal,” Hewitt said, as Scott stood to address the jury one last time.

  “You had the jury in your hands,” Frank wrote on the yellow pad. “Great job!”

  “Their verdict will tell me whether or not I did,” was Marnie’s reply.

  When Scott sat down again, the judge began to charge the jury. “You have heard all the evidence. It is now my duty to instruct you as to the law that applies to this case.”

  By the time the judge sent the jury off to begin their deliberation, nearly a full hour had passed. Marnie knew that no matter how completely and diligently the judge’s instructions were, the jury might ask for more clarification later on, especially with a difficult case such as this one.

  “I’m surprised that Hewitt began deliberations today and not tomorrow morning.”

  “Perhaps he foresees a long one and wanted to get the ball rolling.”

  “It’s plausible.”

  “I’ve got to get back to the office. I’ll probably see you tomorrow,” Frank said to Marnie as he got up.

  “I’ll walk you to the elevator. I could use a cup of coffee—no, lots of coffee.”

  Frank laughed. “Keep me in touch. You did real good, kid.”