His Name Is Ron (21 page)

Four detectives were on the scene that night, and each of the four would have had to decide, on the spot, to risk his career—indeed, risk a long prison sentence—in order to frame the “beloved” football has-been. To soften the impact of the expected attack on Fuhrman, the prosecution decided to call some of the other detectives first. Fuhrman's partner, Ron Phillips, testified for three days in a highly professional manner. Marcia used his appearance as an opportunity to introduce the bloody glove to the jurors.

Up in the D.A.'s office, before and after his testimony, Phillips befriended Kim. He nicknamed her “Kitten” and she, in friendly retaliation, called him “Puppy.” Kim was especially grateful for his honesty. Whether the news was good or bad, Ron Phillips could be counted on to give it to you straight.

We were becoming ever more aware that this was a case of the State of California versus the defendant, rather than the Goldmans and the Browns versus the killer. The prosecutors were not obligated by law to keep us informed of their strategies and tactics, but we wanted to be included in the process. We would hear bits and pieces about what was going to happen, but we were not in the decision-making loop. We were babes in the woods.

Bill Hodgman, Chris Darden, and others were generally available when we had questions or simply needed to talk. Marcia Clark, on the other hand, was more aloof and difficult to reach. We understood the pressure that she was under and tried to be patient. She promised us a regular Friday-afternoon update session, but often it was canceled or ignored. It was difficult not to feel a little resentment. There were many days in court when she never acknowledged our existence. Even if we were in the front row, she sometimes looked by or through us.

This upset Patti so much that she finally confronted Marcia. “I understand that you are busy,” Patti said, “and you have a lot of things on your mind. But we're here, not only for Ron, but for you also, to support you. Even if you can't talk to us, at least make eye contact and acknowledge that we are sitting here.”

Marcia apologized, and for a time things were better.

*   *   *

Tom Lange was a veteran detective who had investigated more than 250 homicides. He was remarkably composed and polite both during his direct testimony and subsequent cross-examination by Johnnie Cochran.

Cochran tried to attack on all sides, attempting to discredit Tom's evidence-gathering ability, as well as point to sloppiness on the part of the investigators. He also pointed out that Tom lives in Simi Valley, the largely white community where LAPD officers were found not guilty of charges resulting from the 1991 beating of Rodney King.

Tom responded sharply to Cochran's assertion that the police should have investigated the possibility that Nicole had been raped. Tom replied, “In my observations and my experience, sex was the last thing on the mind of this attacker.” Cochran tried to object, but Tom continued, “It was an overkill, a brutal overkill.”

The graphic words devastated Kim. Later she said, “I guess you have to hear those words to understand the brutality of the murders, but it hurts so much. The killer just kept at it and Ron could do nothing. The killer was relentless.”

Cochran persisted, searching for any scrap of information that could divert the jurors from the real issue of the trial. Digging into the paper bag that held Ron's slacks and shirt, he thought he found something of import that Tom had overlooked. He removed a small green piece of paper with a dramatic flourish worthy of Perry Mason, as if to say, “Aha! Detective Lange, and
what
do we have here?” One might have thought that he had suddenly discovered the murder weapon. He brandished the paper in Tom's face, demanding to know why the police had not booked it as evidence.

Patti squinted at the ominous green slip of paper in Cochran's hand and realized that it was her own grocery list! It dawned on her that when Kim had retrieved Ron's clothes from a storage box in our garage, she had simply, logically, stuffed them into a brown grocery bag. Patti, constitutionally unable to litter, always threw her shopping list into the grocery bag.

Patti was incredulous. She leaned over to Kim and whispered, “Kim, that's my grocery list!”

“You're kidding,” Kim replied.

Both of them started to laugh. Trying desperately not to make any noise, they clamped their hands over their mouths in a futile attempt to stifle their laughter. During one of the interminable sidebars, Patti caught Marcia's eye and mouthed the words, “It's mine.”

Chris saw their bodies shaking and raised an eyebrow. Through their giggles, Patti and Kim were able to tell him what Cochran had “discovered”—a
“secret document” with the code words: “low-fat cheese,” “pretzels,” “chicken,” and “fat-free ice cream.” Patti was sure that the paper also listed “bananas,” “turkey,” and “lettuce.”

Chris then asked Patti and Kim to leave the courtroom, which they did. At least in the hallway, they were able to laugh out loud.

This critical piece of “evidence” was treated with precision. It was placed into a white envelope, labeled “One piece of green paper with writing,” and returned to the shopping bag.

Humor turned to panic when Marcia informed Patti that she might be called as a witness to testify that the mysterious piece of green paper was, indeed, nothing more than her grocery list. Patti thought: This is so bizarre. I have to testify about bananas and lettuce?

Michael found it difficult to concentrate in school. His thoughts constantly revolved around Ron, and he never knew what would set them off. To combat this he developed a strategy of immersing himself in class discussions, constantly asking questions, taking notes, and trying to focus on what was going on around him instead of in downtown Los Angeles. If he let his mind wander for only a second or two, he was off somewhere in a world of his own, lost in his memories of Ron.

Realizing that he had to turn this nightmare into something positive, he decided to do his main research project on the media's effect on the judicial process. It was a yearlong endeavor that would culminate in a forty-five-minute presentation and an eighty-page report. His research went all the way back to the Lindbergh kidnapping case.

Plus, he had some special contacts.

By now we had close relationships with some members of the press horde that covered the trial on a daily basis. These reporters had to walk a very fine line. Their job was to remain objective, and not to take sides, so sometimes it was difficult to switch from talking to a friend to listening to their reports as professional journalists.

Reporters Shoreen Maghame, Dan Abrams, and Cynthia McFadden fell into this category as well as Jane Kaplan, the booker for
Good Morning America
, and producer Shelley Ross, and of course Dominick Dunne and Barbara Walters. The press often gets a bad rap, but we found these individuals to be sensitive and honest. They were prisoners to this case, leaving family and friends to cover it. It was Cynthia McFadden who offered to help Michael with his research. One day she took him and his friend Alexa on a
tour of “Camp O. J.,” the massive gathering of news vans stationed outside the courthouse. All around, vendors hawked buttons, T-shirts, hats, and pins—the tackier, the better. The daily assortment of “crazies” was in attendance, some dressed in outrageous costumes, many exhibiting placards promoting all manner of religious, political, and socioeconomic viewpoints. It was overwhelming to Michael that this chaotic circus was a result of his brother being slain.

Michael tried to step outside himself as he viewed the scene. Finally, he smiled as he thought: If Ron had to go out, this is the way he would have wanted to go out. He went fighting. He went as a hero. No one here will ever forget his name, and a part of him would have liked that.

There was a great deal of tension in our household the evening of March 8. Kim, Patti, and I were in the family room. The defense, searching desperately for any minutiae that would divert the court's attention from the macabre truth, speculated that the “One piece of green paper with writing” indicated that Ron had gone grocery shopping after leaving work on June 12, thus casting doubt on the timeline that the prosecution had established. So Patti was indeed going to have to testify the next day. She was extremely nervous.

Patti is not comfortable in large groups. She does not like to speak in public, and we had to coax and cajole her to participate in the few interviews we had given. She definitely did not want to answer some arrogant defense attorney's questions in front of millions of viewers. While it would be foolish of the defense to try give her a rough time on the witness stand, she was still very anxious about having to testify.

“You have nothing to worry about,” I encouraged Patti. “All you are going to do is tell the truth, speak from your heart. You are not someone making up a story. You're not in a position where you have to worry about anything.”

This counsel did not help. The question that absorbed Patti's mind was: Which member of the “Scheme Team” was going to cross-examine her? We had grown to hate these men vehemently, and we assigned them nicknames and drew caricatures of them in our minds.

It was Kim who found a way to break the tension. She suddenly giggled and suggested that, for such an important witness, the defense team would obviously call on the abilities of the world-famous F. Lee “Flea” Bailey. Patti grimaced. Bailey, with his red face and bloodshot eyes, was always
chewing on something. Kim thought it was Altoids, a curiously strong mint breath freshener. Every few minutes, another handful of them went into his mouth. He was never without a thermos, and we wondered if it was loaded with booze. Kim rose to confront the witness. She stuck out her chest, puffed up her cheeks, and scratched the back of her head the way Bailey did. She popped a handful of imaginary Altoids into her mouth. With shaking hands she muttered, “Where's my thermos? Where's my thermos?”

“Get that poor guy a drink,” I said.

We were all laughing.

“But what if it's Cochran?” Patti asked.

“Ah,” Kim said. “Johnnie Cockroach.” With meticulous precision she pushed an imaginary chair back into place at an imaginary defense table. She smoothed an imaginary suit jacket, walked across the courtroom in a perfect imitation of the Cochran strut that we had learned to detest, and made a great show of smiling toward the bench. “Thank you very kindly, Your Honor,” she crooned. Then she turned toward the jury box, waving and blowing kisses. Only when she was assured that every eye in the imaginary courtroom was upon her, Kim pointed her finger at Patti and drawled, “Thank you very kindly, Mrs. Goldman, but did you really buy that
low-fat turkey
? Do you know what it
says about a person
to buy
low-fat turkey
?!”

I jumped to my feet and demanded, “Your Honor, we need a sidebar.”

After our laughter subsided, I suggested, “What about Barry ‘Schmuck'?”

Kim asked, “Remember in the movie
Big,
at the very end when Tom Hanks is walking home and he's in this big man's suit, and he starts to shrink back into a little boy?”

Patti nodded. “That's exactly what he looks like!” she agreed.

Kim tried to shrink down inside her clothes, to imitate Scheck's baggy, ill-fitting suit. She smirked and rolled her eyes condescendingly. Waving her hands in mock disbelief, staring through Patti as if she did not exist, she asked, “Did you or did you not testify,
Miss-us Goldman,
that you
always
put bananas on your grocery list? Is it your testimony that this is standard procedure in your household,
Miss-us Goldman
? Is that what you testified to on direct,
Miss-us Goldman
?”

Patti slunk down in her seat, as if she were properly chastised.

“Maybe it'll be ‘Ugly-Dougly,'” Patti said. She was referring to Carl Douglas, who had gained attention primarily from his cross-examination of Ron Shipp, and Kim now mimicked his ramrod posture beautifully. In a hissing voice, she demanded to know: “Did ya
lie
about the pretzels, Mrs. Goldman? Did ya
lie
about the fat-free ice cream, Mrs. Goldman? Did ya
lie
about the bananas, Mrs. Goldman? Don't ya always
lie
about those foodstuffs, Mrs. Goldman?!”

We found welcome relief in our laughter. At least for a few moments, the life force was back in our house.

Ron would have loved it.

FIFTEEN

Patti was very much aware that the entire world was watching this trial. She knew, too, that everyone was watching with special attention that day, March 9, awaiting the appearance of (except for the killer himself) the most controversial character in the “trial of the century.” However, just prior to Detective Mark Fuhrman taking the witness stand, private little Patti Goldman had to testify.

Her hands were sweating and her legs were shaking as she approached the witness stand. She did not even have the comfort of Kim's presence; as a witness herself who might for some unknown reason be recalled, Kim was not allowed to listen to Patti's “critical” testimony.