Bad Blood (5 page)

“Now, this is the actual photograph — the entire photograph — that you took at your lunch with Mrs. Quillian the terrible day she was killed, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And this enlargement, on the easel, that’s a close-up of her face made from this exact picture, am I right?”

“Yes, you are.”

“This smaller picture actually captures a bit more of the subject, of the entire scene, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes. You can see the restaurant awning behind Amanda’s head, and the little bistro table we were sitting at. Her coffee cup, the sunglasses on top of the menu. Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly.” Howell leaned on the edge of the witness stand and looked over Kate’s shoulder at the image. “There appears to be a ring on Mrs. Quillian’s finger, am I correct?”

I knew where Howell was going and I could have kicked myself for not pointing it out on my direct exam of Kate Meade. I intended to bring up the issue of the ring through the first cop on the scene and the Quillian housekeeper. Howell had taught me many years ago to gain the jury’s trust by introducing any weakness in a case through the state’s own witnesses, before the defense could expose them. I knew the ring was missing — stolen — by the time the police found Amanda’s body. It hadn’t occurred to me to introduce that fact through Kate.

“Now I know Ms. Cooper wouldn’t neglect to notice a fine piece of jewelry, but I don’t believe we’ve discussed this ring here today, have we, Mrs. Meade?”

“No. No, I wasn’t asked to.”

“Let me ask you then, do you recognize the ring Mrs. Quillian was wearing that day?”

“Yes. Yes, certainly.”

“Now, I know it’s big, and I know it’s brilliant, and I know it’s blue,” Mr. Triplicate said, smiling at the jurors as he turned his back on Kate Meade. “What kind of stone was in that ring, if you happen to know?”

“A sapphire, Mr. Howell. It was a sapphire ring.”

“And how many carats was it — or maybe I’m asking you to guess, in which case—”

“It’s not a guess. I was with Amanda when she went back to the Schlumberger salon to have it sized. Six carats. It was a six-carat sapphire.”

Howell let out a soft whistle as he stepped back. “So, that was her engagement ring?”

“No, no, it was not. Brendan couldn’t have afforded anything like that when he asked Amanda to marry him.”

“Well, do you know when she received the ring, or whether she bought it herself?”

“He gave it to her,” Kate said, dipping her head in the defendant’s direction.

“He? You mean Brendan? And when was that?”

“Two years ago. They had a tenth-anniversary party — Preston and I were there — and Brendan gave it to her then.”

Howell twisted his shoulders and smiled to the jurors to show them he liked that fact. “Did she wear it often?”

“Every day.”

“Was she wearing that ring when she stood up from this very table in the photograph and said good-bye to you on October third?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re aware, are you not, that when the police and the housekeeper found Mrs. Quillian’s body shortly after that — after your call to 911 — the ring was missing?”

“That’s right.”

Howell would want to argue to the jury that the serious anniversary gift was a sign that the Quillians had reconciled their differences in a sentimental, and expensive, manner. And he would use the theft of the ring by the killer to argue robbery as the motive for Amanda’s death. Mike Chapman referred to the over-the-top bauble as a guilt gift from the defendant, and he explained its disappearance as an obvious staging of the scene — the taking of a significant jewel and the superficial ransacking of drawers and tables near the victim’s body meant to encourage police to think first of a push-in robbery as the killer’s plan.

Howell was jumping from topic to topic now, rattling Kate Meade with the uncertainty of what direction he would next take.

“I’ll get back to that 911 call in a minute, but let me ask you a few more questions about the day you sent your daughter skating with Mr. Quillian.”

Kate stiffened again, I assumed at the second mention of her child in this public forum. “Your Honor, may I speak with my lawyer?” she asked, turning to Judge Gertz.

“Are you talking about Ms. Cooper? She’s not your lawyer, Mrs. Meade — she represents the state,” the judge said, trying to calm her. “Let’s finish your testimony and get you on your way.”

I clasped my hands together on the table, waiting for Lem’s warning to strike its target. Kate wanted to tell me something and I feared that my adversary knew exactly what it was.

“I’m talking about a day in February of last year, do you recall that?” Howell said softly but firmly.

Kate seemed suddenly drained of all color, her jaw again locked tightly in place. “Yes.”

“Did you go to the Quillian home for the purpose of picking Sara up after the skating party, at about five o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Objection, Your Honor. May we approach?”

Artie Tramm led Kate off the stand as Howell and I walked before the judge and I whispered the reasons for my objection.

“This is beyond the scope of my direct. Way beyond. There’s no reason to bring the Meade children or a spin around the ice into this.”

“I gave you a lot of latitude on direct, didn’t I, Alex?” Gertz asked.

“I’ll get right to it, Your Honor,” Howell said. “It’s not about the little girl. It’s about a conversation this witness had with my client and his wife. Ms. Cooper brought some of those out on her case. I’d say it’s relevant, it’s probative, and it’s admissible.”

“Step back. Let’s see where you’re going with this.”

Artie Tramm walked up behind us and spoke to Gertz over my shoulder. “This gonna be much longer, Judge? The witness isn’t feeling too good. Maybe it’s the heat or something. You don’t want her getting sick in the courtroom.”

“Keep it moving. We’ll break for lunch as soon as Lem is done with her.”

Kate reluctantly climbed the two steps to the stand, and I perched on the edge of my seat, ready to interrupt if the cross went off subject.

“Now, your memory of events of a year and a half ago, would you say that’s as good as your memory of events of five years ago?”

She dropped her head. “Yes.”

“Were you alone when you went to the Quillian home the day of the skating event?”

“No. I was with my two little girls and their nanny.”

“Was Amanda there?”

“No, no. She had gone on a museum trip to Vienna.”

“You knew she was out of the country when you called Brendan to ask your little favor, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did your nanny and the children stay on there with you and Mr. Quillian?”

“No.” I could barely hear the word. “She took them to a movie.”

“But you chose to remain?”

No answer.

“Did you stay at the Quillian home?”

Kate Meade was having a meltdown before my very eyes. I’d asked her about every one of her conversations with Brendan Quillian, and she had not remembered — or not offered to me — the details of this one.

“Yes. To talk about Amanda.”

I glanced across at Lem. He was standing next to his client, one hand resting on his shoulder, the other jabbing through the air at Kate Meade. He had his most serious expression on display as he savored his moment, the witness pinned to the ropes as Howell made it clear to the jury that he was fighting for his client’s life.

“Did you indeed talk about your best friend, Amanda Quillian, that early evening?”

She swallowed hard and coughed to clear her throat. “Yes, we did.”

“By the way, in which room did you have this discussion?”

She coughed again. “Brendan’s den. On the second floor of the house.”

Howell paused, letting go of Quillian and taking a few steps closer to the witness stand. He poured a cup of water from my pitcher — Kate had not touched the one in front of her — and held it out to her. “You seem parched, dry, thirsty, perhaps. May I give you this?”

She pushed his arm away and shook her head from side to side. The internal butterflies seemed to be multiplying at a furious pace in my gut. Kate Meade, Brendan Quillian, and Lem Howell knew facts that I did not.

“Did you ask my client for something to drink that evening?”

Kate looked at Brendan with contempt, almost sneering at him in full view of the jury. “I did.”

“And what did you drink?”

“Wine. Too much red wine.”

“Did there come a time when your conversation stopped?”

“Yes.”

“Is that when you left, Mrs. Meade? Is that when you left Brendan’s home?”

Artie Tramm moved closer to the stand. It looked as if my witness was going to faint.

“Did you leave the Quillians’ house after your chat with my client, to go home to your ill husband and your precious little girls?”

“Not immediately.”

“You remember what you did next?”

“I was drunk, Mr. Howell. I can hardly remember—”

“I’m relying on the fact that you told all of us today what a very good memory you have, Mrs. Meade. Isn’t that when you—”

Kate clamped a hand on the railing in front of her and raised her voice. “He — he took advantage of me — of my condition, Mr. Howell.”

“Would you tell these good people, please.” Lem stood behind me, sweeping his left arm in a wide arc across the front of the jury box. “Isn’t that when you quite voluntarily engaged in an act of sexual intercourse with Brendan Quillian, the husband of your lifelong best friend?”

“The sign on the door still says
LADIES
, doesn’t it?” I asked Mike.

The four stalls behind me were empty in the dingy gray-tiled bathroom around the corner from my eighth-floor office. I had filled a sink with ice-cold water and was splashing it on my face while he watched.

“I just came in to make sure you hadn’t flushed yourself out of the building. What the hell’s taking you so long?”

“I needed a quiet place to think. No Monday-morning quarterbacks, no phone calls from the boss, no excuses from Kate Meade. I’m trying to cool down.”

“It’s like a hot box in here.”

“I’m adjusting my temper, not my body heat. Keep that woman away from me or I’ll kill her.”

Judge Gertz had recessed the proceedings for lunch and I was trying to regroup after the shock of Meade’s testimony. I dried off and picked up my pale yellow suit jacket from the wooden table below the mirror.

“I thought broads don’t sweat.”

“We don’t. I
perspired
. I sat in front of those jurors while my star witness was eviscerated in silken-smooth form by Lem Howell, turned crimson from the top of my scalp to the soles of my feet, and willed the tears I was holding back not to fall so that they trickled out through every pore of my body instead.”

“I got lunch sitting on your desk. C’mon.”

“I’m too nauseous to eat.”

I had waited in the courtroom until the judge declared a recess and Artie Tramm had cleared it of all spectators. I called my paralegal, Maxine, from my cell phone and asked her to send Mike up with Mercer Wallace, the six-foot-six first-grade detective who was Mike’s closest friend and former partner.

They had flanked me as I walked down the long corridor to the elevator, past the more aggressive members of the press corps who wanted my reaction to the testimony.

I obeyed Mercer’s direction to walk on without turning my head, ignoring the questions reporters tossed at me about Kate Meade and whether the shocking information would affect the rest of my case.

“Hey, Alex — you look like you just got hit by a Mack truck. You call that leading off with your best shot or what?” one reporter yelled out as he tried, with no luck, to thrust a microphone past Mercer’s arm, while another asked if I expected to keep things as lively as this every day of the trial.

Mike opened the door of the restroom and walked me the short distance to my office. My secretary, Laura, would screen my calls while I’d try to regroup with the advice of the two detectives, who had as much experience in the courtroom as I did.

Mercer was standing in the doorway talking to Laura but grabbed my arm as I walked by. “I’ve got Kate in the conference room down the hall. You’ve got to see her.”

“What I really have to do is revise my strategy for the afternoon. This witness blew up in my face, taking her dignity — and all her credibility — with her. Lem stuck it to me right before we started this morning, and now I’ve got to think about the wisdom of using any of Amanda’s other friends on the stand. I need to get some forensics before this jury today. I’ve got to make them understand what a brutal killing this was. Kate Meade can take a hike.”

I picked up the phone and dialed the medical examiner’s office.

“You’ve got to calm her down, Coop,” Mike said. “You can’t just let her walk out the door to the wolves.”

I shook a finger at him. “I should take lessons in etiquette and interpersonal relationships from you? Forget it. You deal with her. You be the diplomat for a change.”

Jerome Genco, the pathologist who had autopsied Amanda Quillian, came on the line. “Sorry to do this to you, Jerry, but I need you in one hour. You’re going to have to testify this afternoon.”

“You told me next week. I have it on my calendar for Thursday.”

“Is there a body on the table?”

“No. I’m working up some frozen slides—”

“Jerry, I’ve got to have you today. Max is sending a patrol car from the Fifth Precinct to pick you up — lights and sirens. Put the slides back on ice and save me, okay? You’re going on right after the first cop who found the body.”

I hung up and headed for the file cabinet that held the rest of the medical evidence.

“Alex,” Mercer said, “Kate’s your witness. She’ll be wailing all afternoon.”

“A little time for reflection might be good for her conscience. I’ll put Genco on first and then you have to help me figure out something else that will make a strong impression before the end of the day.”

“Don’t be stubborn, now. She’s hysterical and she’s scared to death. Can’t even imagine facing her husband tonight.”

“She should have thought about that before she gave it up to Brendan Quillian.”