“They paid you ten thousand dollars to fly out here and testify against your own brother, the only flesh and blood you have in this world.”
“I’d’ve done it for nothing.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I say. “I’ve seen a lot of hate in my life, Mr. Angelus, or whatever name it is you want to call yourself, what did you do, appropriate it from a lover …”
“Objection!” cries Moseby.
“… but never this much wrapped up in one person,” I rush on, even as Martinez is sustaining Moseby. “You must really hate yourself.” I throw my Sunday punch. “And what you are.”
“OBJECTION!”
“Withdrawn.” I walk back to my seat. A small victory, but a victory nevertheless. At least it’s another hook to hang an appeal on; and the moment that thought comes to me I stop because I realize where my thinking’s really at: that we’re already in the appeal process.
I can’t think that way—it would be a mortal blow to my defense. They’re innocent, I’ve been convinced of that from the start, it’s too late for doubts.
My eyes engage those of Paul, Mary Lou, Tommy. We’re all thinking the same thing.
“No further questions,” I tell the court.
“The prosecution rests, your honor.”
“
I DIDN’T KILL HIM,
man. You’ve got to believe me.”
Lone Wolf and I are sitting across the table from each other in the holding room located in the basement of the courthouse. The harsh overhead lights give Lone Wolf’s face a sinister cast, the shadows deep under his eyes which are almost lost in the darkness. A cadaver’s face. He still looks frightening now, but the bitter consequences of this morning’s appearance by his brother have him scared stiff. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen fear in him that he hasn’t been able to camouflage.
“I don’t have to believe you,” I say, shaking my head negatively. “Twelve people on the jury have to believe you.”
“Goddam man, I didn’t.” He hesitates. “You still believe that, don’t you?”
I think for a moment. I’ve got to be clear about that, I have to be honest with him.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m your lawyer. You’re getting the best defense I can give you.” I shake my head, like I’m trying to wake myself from a nightmare. “But for what it’s worth, yeh, I believe you. Right now I wish I didn’t, though.”
“Why? I mean I’m glad you still believe it but …”
“Because it’s going to make it harder to take if we don’t pull this off.”
“What are the odds?”
“Off the facts, eighty, maybe ninety percent. Off emotion … not as much.”
“Fifty-fifty?”
“Not right now.” I stand up. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ve got to overhaul my summation.”
The guard comes in, cuffs him. He turns to me as he’s led out.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Yes; but you also told me that your brother was dead.”
“He was.” He looks away. “To me.”
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY …”
All the world’s a stage. This one’s mine. The vaulted room, the judge seated up there in his black robes that go back to antiquity, the prosecution’s team waiting their turn, my partners in this case seated at our table, the defendants. Watching me, listening to me. Real life-and-death theatre. I’m pumped. The adrenaline’s flowing. There are lawyers that do this and dread it. Other lawyers won’t do it at all; they can’t handle the stress. And for some it’s mother’s milk, they thrive on it, it’s their life’s blood. The kings and queens of the courtroom, the cream.
“Somewhere in all the testimony you’ve heard, in all the evidence that’s been presented, there’s a small, pure kernel of truth. It’s like a vein of gold, you know it’s there but sometimes it’s hard to recognize, and harder to get to, to extract. You have to separate it from the stuff that looks like gold but isn’t, the stuff that can mislead you, send you down the wrong path, keep you from what it is you’re after. You are after the truth. You are not after vindication, you are not after payback, you are not after solving a problem for society. You are after the truth and you have to find it and be true to those findings, you can’t let how you feel or how society’s supposed to feel or what you think ‘should be’ get in the way of finding out the truth. You have to find out whether or not my client, Steven Jensen, this man sitting before you, killed another man.”
I’m the last defender to make summation. Tommy went first—we wanted to start with someone the jury would instinctively like, and his client, Goose, is the easiest to defend. Then Paul with the kid, the reversal of Tommy. Then Mary Lou.
I’m going last because it’s my case. I brought the others into this, I’m the one who has to make the final incision, free the umbilical. And I’m the star, the one the crowd comes to see, the one who’ll be on television. There’s ego involved, I don’t deny that, so what? I’ve earned it, it’s reality.
My argument will be based on the timetable established by the state’s witnesses, principally Rita Gomez and Dr. Milton Grade, and the credibility of those witnesses, particularly Rita Gomez and, to a lesser extent, James Angelus, the turncoat brother.
Two big charts have been set up so they can be seen clearly from the jury box and the bench. One is a blowup of a map of the area, including the bar—the Dew Drop Inn—where the bikers picked Rita up, the area in the mountains where they took her (and where the body was later found), the motel where she worked and from which (according to her) they abducted Bartless and took him back to the mountains, and the road from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, route 14, where they filled their tanks and ate breakfast. The other chart is a timetable, from 2:00 A.M. until noon. It’s broken down into half-hour increments, with a blank drawn next to each time: 2:00, 2:30, etc. Between the two charts is a large mockup of a clock, with movable hands.
Slowly, carefully, I lead the jury through the chain of events as Rita Gomez told them; she’s the case. If we can show that what she said happened was impossible, within the timetable she herself established, we have an honest chance for acquittal.
“They left the bar at two o’clock,” I say. “Several witnesses, including Miss Gomez, have testified to that. So we can take that as a given.”
I go to the chart. Next to 2:00 I write ‘leave bar.’ I position the hands of the clock to 2:00.
“They drove up to here,” I continue, tracing the road that leads to the mountains, to the spot where she said they parked, where the body was later found. “The distance, according to this map which was prepared and authenticated by the state of New Mexico department of highways, is twenty-seven miles. It’s a windy road, you can’t drive it too fast. The speed limit is forty miles an hour. But let’s say they went faster. Let’s say they got up there in half an hour.” Next to 2:30, I write ‘arrive at alleged crime site.’
“By her own admission she had intercourse with each of them two times. Even with a minimum of foreplay; and I don’t think, ladies and gentlemen, that a fifteen-dollar-a-pop hooker engages in much foreplay,” I tell them, pausing for a minute, letting that dig at her character sink in, “even if it was straight, fast, dirty sex she had with them, that had to take at least another half an hour.” I pause again. “Now I’m really cutting against my client’s interest here, folks, by tightening up this timetable as I am, but I want to give her testimony every benefit of the doubt. So okay, half an hour for sex.”
I fill in the 3:00 blank, move the hands of the clock.
We work together, the jury and I, through that night, according to the testimony of the state’s star witness. How long it took them to get back to the motel. How long the sex and beer-drinking she said happened there took. How long Bartless was with them, arguing and fighting. How long it took to subdue him, to throw him and her in the car.
“The phantom car,” I state. “The car that never existed in any statements anyone made. The car that was never reported stolen or damaged. That was ever-so-conveniently there so the accused could use it to transport Richard Bartless up to the killing site.”
I pause.
“The nonexistent car. The car that never was. It was never there, ladies and gentlemen. You know that and I know that. It’s just another thread in the fabric of lies this witness has been weaving.”
The hands on the clock keep moving. The timetable on the chart is filled in. It’s dawn and we’re still back up on that mountain with Bartless, Rita, and the bikers.
“After the victim was violated,” I say, not dodging that, “after he was sexually assaulted, and we don’t dispute he was, the evidence says it and we agree to that: after that he was murdered. He was stabbed forty-seven times according to the coroner’s report. We don’t dispute that, either, that there were forty-seven stab wounds. And according to Rita Gomez, every couple of times the victim was stabbed, the knife that did it was heated until it was red-hot.” I shake my head at that. “They’re killing the guy but they want to cauterize the wounds. I don’t know about you, folks, but ritual or not it sounds like horse manure to me. But, the state’s star witness says it happened, so hypothetically we go along with it. Just hypothetically, because we don’t really believe it for a minute. Then they emasculate him. And then they hang around for awhile. According to Miss Gomez, at least fifteen or twenty minutes. And then they shoot him.”
I turn to my charts. “According to these diagrams, ladies and gentlemen, and my very conservative estimates, it’s between seven and seven-thirty in the morning and my client and Miss Gomez are still up on that mountain.” I fill in more blanks, move the clock hands. “By her own story it’s probably later, more like eight-thirty or nine, but I want this to be air-tight, I want her to have the benefit of every doubt. So okay, seven-thirty, no, make that seven. Still up here,” I say, pointing on the map, “up here in the Sangre de Cristos.”
We finish exploring the odyssey of Rita Gomez. They dump the body off the road, then they take her home, and then they threaten her, and two of them (including my client) have sex with her again. Then, finally, they leave.
I look at the chart. It’s nine o’clock.
“According to the state’s star witness’s own sworn testimony, they left her at nine in the morning. At the earliest. One could rationally say it was more like ten or eleven, following the chain of events we’ve just documented here. But we’re willing to accept nine. We won’t take even fifteen minutes of slack.”
I cross to the defense table, drink some water. My thirst is real. I gather a file, walk back to the jury box.
“There’s only one problem with this story. It didn’t happen. By the state’s star witness’s own testimony, it
couldn’t
have happened. According to her, at the same time that she, my client and the other motorcyclists, and Richard Bartless were all up here,” I’m pointing again to the murder site, using a yardstick, “physical evidence
proves
they were way down here.” I trace the yardstick along the black highway line on the map, down to Cerrillos. “Fifty miles away. An hour’s ride.”
I pause to let that sink in, glancing at Martinez. He’s looking at me with keen interest. It’s important that if I can’t get him on my side, so to speak, I at least guarantee his neutrality.
“Now just like the state’s,” I continue, “there are our witnesses. Witnesses who have sworn that my client and the others were with them at the time the state’s witness says the murder took place. Well okay, they have witnesses, we have witnesses, we throw it in your lap and let you decide which ones are telling the truth and which ones are lying. We could do that; that’s what the state is going to do.”
I tap the file of evidence on the jury-box bannister.
“But that’s not enough. I know what’s going on here, ladies and gentlemen, and so do you. I know that won’t be enough in this case, given the people who stand accused before you, given the ridiculous, terrible, and prejudicial coverage in the media, given the fast and loose way the state’s witnesses have played with the facts, have misrepresented the truth. So I’ve got real evidence here to prove what I’m saying.”
I pause for a moment.
“But before I produce that evidence,” I interject, “I must say one other thing. It’s not my job, or that of my co-counsel, to find out who
did
commit this crime. I’m not Perry Mason; I’m not going to pull the real criminal out of my hat. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to show you that my client is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Please keep that in the front of your minds at all times.”
I open the evidence file, take out the gasoline credit-card receipt. I hold it in front of them for a moment, then hand it to the foreman.
“I’d like each of you to take a good look at this and then pass it on. Take an especially good look at the day and date that’s imprinted on it. It’s not handwritten; it came out of a machine which, I’m sure you’ll recall, we had calibrated by two independent testing agencies, both of whom attested to its accuracy. We all know the date. Now look at the time. Look at it carefully. It says five-fifty-seven
A.M.
Think about that, ladies and gentlemen. Five-fifty-seven in the morning—the morning in question.”
I wait for the receipt to go full circle back to the foreman, who hands it to me. I put it back in the file.
“That’s not conjecture,” I say. “That’s a
fact
. There are other
facts
as well. You’re going to take these
facts
into that jury room with you tomorrow when you start deliberating. You’ll look at them, examine them closely. I know for a
fact
,” I continue, hammering the word home, “that you will, because you’re conscientious men and women.”
I put the file on the evidence table.
“The state’s entire case hinges on one thing and one thing only,” I say. “Rita Gomez. She’s their whole case. I don’t know … maybe everything did happen up there the way she said it did, but then again maybe it didn’t. Dozens of witnesses say the defendants weren’t there when she says they were. Dozens of witnesses say my client and the others never even laid eyes on the victim, but she says they did. Dozens of witnesses have testified, under oath, that Rita Gomez is a public drunk, that she was drunk the night in question. She herself has testified that she is a prostitute, that she engages in sex for money. And she has admitted that she’s lied. So the prosecution’s case rests solely on the testimony of a drunken prostitute who is also an admitted liar. A whore, a drunk, a liar. All wrapped up in one package.