Kill All the Judges (50 page)

She was starting to blink tears again. Abigail must have decided not to push her any more, she had what she needed. “Your witness.”

Wentworth was displeased when Arthur didn't snap his suspenders like usual when about to pitch into a lying witness. You could see it on his face, he wasn't confident, he was distracted. Wentworth didn't want to see a repeat of the bingo hall massacre in 1984, a limp cross, a rare loser.

Arthur liked to stand near the jury when he worked, to fraternize, but he took his time getting there, pausing to throw his first
question: “So you didn't know about the four-million-dollar gift to the groom from your father?”

“You're already on thin ice, Mr. Beauchamp.” Kroop wasn't wasting any time getting on him, which was good, would stoke the fires.

“I have no intention of mentioning the bribe, milord.” Touché. Kroop deserved it. Wentworth will never forgive him for that mortifying dressing down. “Is that right, Ms. LeGrand? ‘I knew zero about that,' you said.”

“Until I read it in the newspaper a couple of days ago.”

“So it was a deep, dark secret. You didn't know how the money was spent.”

“That's right.” Looking right at him; Shawn had told her to do that, look confident, convinced.

“And of course you didn't know how this dowry, as you call it, came into being, or who helped engineer it.”

“No.”

“How long have you known your counsel, Mr. Hamilton?”

She seemed taken aback by this shift. “Several years.” She looked for help from Shawn, but he only glowered at Arthur.

“You're looking at the tall gentleman in the blue suit on the counsel bench, Shawn Hamilton. He'd acted for your family on several matters?”

“Solicitor-client privilege, Mr. Beauchamp. Beware.”

Arthur ignored Kroop's backseat driving. “And they'd retained him on your behalf over several scrapes you got into, yes?”

“I had a hit-and-run a few years ago. There were no injuries.”

“A two-thousand-dollar fine and six-month driving suspension.”

“That's correct.”

“And he acted for you on a charge of assaulting a sales clerk.”

“I was acquitted of that.”

“Mr. Beauchamp, I will not allow you to establish bad character by eliciting a record of acquittals.”

“If her bad character hasn't been established by now, it never will.”

Kroop didn't fire back, he was distracted by activity at the door, Judge Ebbe returning late, taking up his spot beside Shawn Hamilton.

“Let us now talk about October 13, but please spare us more details of your intemperate romp with Mr. Brown.” Arthur was nestled in beside the jury now, next to the forewoman, Professor Glass. “We have the two of you in the maid's bed. While rising to use the toilet, you claim to have seen your husband watching from outside.”

“It was degrading. He was like a peeping tom.”

“A peeping tom prefers to stay hidden. He was looking right at you as you stood upright in your nakedness.”

“He wasn't making any bones about it.”

“And he didn't withdraw, didn't get off the chair, didn't budge. He remained there, you'll have us believe, as the clock ticked away, just watching. You claim you awoke Mr. Brown with shouts and expletives. Now surely in the stillness of the night, your cries carried to your husband.”

Hesitation. “I didn't say I was shouting. I was arguing with Cud, trying to push him back to bed.”

“And what was he saying?”

“Nothing. He just had this determined look.”

“Your husband would have seen Mr. Brown rising and dressing and going outside, yes? And still he didn't stir from his perch.”

“Yes, but Cudworth would have disappeared from his view. The stairs go down the other side.”

“Let's time this. You have Mr. Brown dragging himself drunkenly from bed, drunkenly looking for his clothes, drunkenly pulling on his pants–that must have been a test–and all the time, you were protesting, pleading, pushing, pulling. Without hindrance, a sober man would have used up two or three minutes. Agreed?”

“I have no experience dressing as a man.” She could counterpunch. Point for her. “He did this in an awful hurry.”

“In a
hurry
, madam?”

“He scrambled right out of there.”

“Oh, no doubt he scrambled. First if all, he scrambled for his underwear, yes?”

“His shorts? I guess so.”

“Yes, he was wearing those shorts on his arrest. And where in the room did he find them?”

“I can't remember. I think they were under the bed.”

“So he looked all over, then found them under the bed.”

“I suppose so.”

“And his other clothes had been flung all over the room, yes?”

“Okay.”

“And he had to scramble around for them too. Then what–he scrambled out of there in his bare feet?”

“Well, no, he puts his socks and boots on.”

“Oh, I see, he was in such an awful hurry, he pulled on socks and boots?”

“I don't know what was in his mind.”

“Surely madam, what was in his mind was to grab all his clothes and get the hell out of there.”

No response. Kroop let the profanity pass, he seemed engrossed in this exchange. The boss was in a groove.

“And then he must drunkenly tromp down the stairs in his boots, making all manner of noise, and find his way around the house in the near darkness. Two more minutes, maybe three. And somehow after this amazing journey he arrives unobserved behind your husband's lookout. Is that what you'd have us believe?”

“That's what I believe.”

“Madam, I don't accept it, the jury doesn't accept it, and I'm sure you don't either.”

This was boomed out, and Florenza sat back. Arthur was way off base with that last blast, but Kroop was being unusually patient.

“During this entire interval, you claim to have been watching through the window?”

“Yes.”

“Watching your husband as he was staring at you naked at the window, is that what we are to believe?”

“You have to understand, Mr. Beauchamp, I was in an absolute daze. I was in shock. I couldn't move.” A shrug. “Maybe you had to be there.” Give her another half a point, but the boss was well ahead.

“You made no attempt to warn him.”

“Yes, because I didn't think he was going to come to any harm. At the worst, I thought Cudworth would yell at him, maybe, or just talk to him. I wasn't expecting him to do anything like this, even as drunk as he was. I wasn't expecting anything. I was just frozen there.”

“Frozen. And for the entire time apparently heedless of the call of nature that got you out of bed.”

She had no good answer to that, no memory of going to the can. She was looking increasingly uncomfortable as Arthur continued to work at her in his gently mocking way, throwing in asides about his more logical theory that Cud was awakened not by her but by a scream outside. And that it prompted him to get dressed and hightail it out of there. Kroop admonished him from giving evidence, but mildly. Wentworth suspected the judge wasn't exactly buying Florenza either.

Arthur got out of her that she threw her dress in the wash that night. She couldn't explain why. She was frozen, a mantra that by now verged on the foolish.

Was there a telephone in the maid's room? Yes. Arthur found it beyond comprehension that she didn't immediately call the police, her parents, a friend, anyone. He greeted with head-scratching confusion her attempts to explain why she hid in the wine cellar while Hank Chekoff hammered on the door. She was frozen, she wasn't thinking, she just hoped they'd go away.

When she did decide to call someone, it was Shawn Hamilton. “There were still policemen outside, I could hear them talking, and I took the phone into a little closed-off guest bedroom and called his home number.”

“This was at what time?”

“About five.”

“Five a.m. Two hours after Rafael fell to his death. You seem to have been frozen for a peculiarly long time, Ms. LeGrand. Did you consume any alcohol during this hiatus?”

“I'd quit hours ago. I was pretty sobered up.”

“Any sedatives, pills, drugs, anything that might have aided this frozen state?”

“I smoked a number. Marijuana.”

“And what effect did this number have on you?”

“Cooled me out a bit. That's when I phoned Shawn.”

“Not your father.”

“He wouldn't have answered.”

“And you got your lawyer out of bed?”

“Don't answer that question. Mr. Beauchamp, I've warned you once. Solicitor-client privilege.”

Arthur smiled up at Kroop like they were sharing a joke. The chief reddened a little when it dawned this was a silly issue. He harrumphed and said, “Carry on.”

“And what did you do as a result of talking to Mr. Hamilton?”

“He told me to stay put. I just lay down in the darkness and waited.”

Shawn, Donat, and their entourage–an extra lawyer, a doctor, two nurses–showed up forty minutes later, and the sickbed scenario was set up, which sounded pretty fishy, like a cover-up. “So at about seven a.m., when Sergeant Chekoff and his team showed up, you were in bed suddenly very sick, is that it?”

“I
was
sick. I was in very bad shape.”

“You'd stopped drinking many hours ago. What were you sick with?”

“I don't know. Worry. I just did what I was told to. I didn't say anything, I didn't argue. It wasn't my idea.”

“Whose was it?”

“Shawn's.”

Kroop threw up his hands. “Solicitor-client privilege!”

“Privilege does not adhere to deceitful schemes, milord. This young lady has been dancing to tunes of her puppeteer for the last five months.”

Arthur's tactic of lobbing the occasional curveball at Shawn Hamilton finally paid off. He was on his feet, red-faced, in a rare fury. “Milord, I must be allowed the right to object.”

This deflected Kroop from his original target, and he erupted. “You have no business before this court! Sit down!”

Arthur continued unflustered. “Sick with worry, then, is that it? Worry about what? Your unloved husband's consignment to the afterlife? The perils facing your drug-dealing lover? Or your own skin?”

“All of those, Mr. Beauchamp. For one thing, I was worried I could be wrongly suspected. No one told me Astrid Leich had seen it. And yes, I was upset at my husband's death, you'd have to have the soul of a slug not to be. And yes…” Drawing a great breath. “Yes, I was afraid for Cud Brown, tremendously afraid. I couldn't believe he'd done this, he was in terrible trouble.” Overdramatized, only one point.

“Poor Cud. The man you were smitten with. Smitten, you said.”

“Something very deep happened between us.”

“Love at first sight, is that what we have here?”

“Call it that if you like. Call it infatuation.”

“How remarkable. And it carries on to this day?”

“I continue to have strong feelings for him, I can't deny that.” A glance at Cud, but it didn't hold, and she dropped her eyes. Cud was a blank, you had no idea what he was thinking. Felicity was gripping his hand, asserting her right of possession.

“And while he was on bail, did you seek him out to express those feelings?”

“No.”

“No phone calls? No love notes?”

“I have been acting on advice, Mr. Beauchamp.”

Arthur looked long and hard at Shawn. “Yes, I can imagine.”

Hamilton had retreated behind his wooden mask, but Wentworth saw rancour in his eyes. Ebbe, though, was enjoying this.

“I believe it's generally known, Ms. LeGrand, that in your youthful years you had a habit of running away from home.” Another quick shift, deflecting her from the prepared script.

“A few times. You had to know my situation…I don't want to get into it.”

“Once to join a cult in Oregon, from which you were rescued and deprogrammed.
Deprogrammed
, madam.” Getting lots of juice from that word, letting the jury know she was susceptible to fantastical beliefs.

“The media made a lot out of a simple religious experience.”

“Another time, you ran off to Mexico.”

“I was seventeen, Mr. Beauchamp. I was restless, immature, and all the other illnesses of youth.” A good answer, she'd quickly adjusted to this new line of attack. Point for her.

“While in Mexico, on a farm near Guadalajara, you were arrested on serious drug charges.”

“I was arrested as an accessory, but I wasn't really, I was just…there.”

“Just there? A shed full of pot, cocaine triple-wrapped in feed sacks, ecstasy from a lab in Mexico City. Visitors coming by, smugglers with money. And you only stood by and watched?” A tone of utter disbelief, but she stuck to her story that she played no role.

Kroop asked where this was going, and Arthur urged patience. Carlos Espinoza, Carlos the Mexican, that's where this was going.
For six months she'd cohabited with Carlos at this drug depot, which was run so lackadaisically that Wentworth wondered how they expected not to get busted. Maybe they weren't paying the
Federales
enough. The LeGrands more than made up for that, probably to someone high up. Flo was deported after two weeks in the cooler.

Arthur showed her a photo of Carlos, the one where he was handcuffed to a grinning cop. “A dashing buccaneer, a cunning risk taker, two escapes to his credit. Handsome fellow. One could see why you were so drawn to him.”

“Well, I was. He was the first man I loved.”

“First love. And what happened to this admirable chap?”

“He took the whole blame. He exonerated me, everyone else. He paid for it, did five years.”

“And did you correspond during that time?” He turned to Wentworth, who made a show of pulling a file folder from his briefcase. Flo darted an anxious look at Shawn as Arthur put his glasses on and picked through the various folded letters. This was a decisive moment: could Florenza be seduced into believing some of her prison letters had been intercepted? Mexican jails were notorious for undelivered mail.