“Hello, Mr. Hanson. I believe you’re familiar with our procedures.”
“Indeed I am, Your Honor.” When Harriet Hill asks him if he swears totell the truth, he replies, “Indeed I do.” He climbs into the witnessbox and casually adjusts the microphone. He pours himself a glass ofwater and beams at the jury.
I’ve been waiting for this moment for weeks. I stand at the lectern. Ilet him bask in the spotlight.
“Good morning, Mr. Hanson.”
“Good morning, Mr. Daley,” he replies cheerfully. He told me he’ll beeighty-three on his next birthday. I should look so good.
“Would you please state your occupation for the record?”
“Yeah. I’m a private eye.”
“How long have you been a private investigator, Mr. Hanson?” Hecloses one eye and looks up, as if he’s running an imaginary calculatorin his head.
“I’ve been doing this since I was seventeen.” He nods.
“I guess that means I’ve been doing this for almost sixty-six years.”
“And you’ve been working in San Francisco the entire time?”
“Born and raised in the heart of North Beach. I played a little ballwith the DiMaggio boys when we were kids.” The accountant looksimpressed. If Joe DiMaggio was the Yankee Clipper, maybe Nick was theSan Francisco Dinghy.
“Mr. Hanson, did Elizabeth Holmes retain your services in the fall oflast year?”
“Yeah.” He talks out of the corner of his mouth, like Sean Connery.
“For what reason?”
“She wanted me to put a tail on her husband. She thought he wassleeping around.”
Just the tone I was hoping for. Polished. Professional. Dignified.
“Were you able to determine whether Mr. Holmes was in fact having anextramarital affair?”
He turns to the jury.
“Oh yeah.” He nods for emphasis.
“He was.”
“And how were you able to make this determination?”
“How do you think? I followed him all over town.”
The jurors are eating this up.
“And you found him with another woman?”
“Indeed I did.”
“Where was that?”
“In the woman’s apartment at the Golden Gateway Commons.”
“I see. And when was that?”
“On December first of last year.”
Skipper stands up. He’s seen enough.
“Your Honor, I must object to this entire line of questioning. Whatpossible relevance does this have to this case?”
“Your Honor,” I say, “Mr. Hanson was retained to investigate thepossibility that Mr. Holmes was having an affair. He has criticalinformation concerning his social life in December of last year. Theprosecution has suggested that Mr.
Friedman acted in a jealous rage because Mr. Holmes had rekindled hisrelationship with Ms. Kennedy. As we’re about to show you, Mr. Holmeshad terminated his relationship with Ms. Kennedy in early December.By the end of December, there was nothing for Mr. Friedman to becurious about.”
“Overruled.”
Skipper is sorry he said anything.
“Mr. Hanson,” I continue, “are you sure he was having a sexualrelationship with this woman?”
He reaches into his pocket.
“I can show you some pictures, if you’d like.”
Skipper leaps up.
“Your Honor,” he shouts.
Judge Chen turns to Nick.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Hanson.”
He pouts.
“I understand, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Hanson,” I continue, “were you able to identify the woman?”
He juts out his lower lip and nods at the jury.
“Oh yes. It was Diana Kennedy.”
“So, on December first, you saw Mr, Holmes and Ms. Kennedy engaging insex at Ms. Kennedy’s apartment?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. I don’t expect him to blush.
“And you reported this to Mrs. Holmes?”
“Indeed I did.”
“And what did she do?”
“She paid me.”
Judge Chen beats back a smile.
“Didn’t she also confront her husband with pictures you provided?” Iask.
“Yeah.” He frowns.
“I think she laid it on him pretty thick.”
I’ll bet she did.
“And did Mrs. Holmes ask you to do anything else?”
“Yeah. She wanted to be sure he stayed on the wagon, if you know whatI mean.”
He winks.
“I take it you mean that she wanted you to keep Mr. Holmes undersurveillance to be sure that he didn’t continue his relationship withMs. Kennedy?”
“Yeah. Or anybody else, for that matter.” He grins.
“Except for Mrs. Holmes, of course.”
“Of course. Mr. Hanson, did you continue to observe Mr. Holmes?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he ‘stay on the wagon,” as you’ve so eloquently put it?”
“Your Honor,” Skipper says.
“Sit down, Mr. Gates,” she replies.
Nick shakes his head.
“No, Mr. Daley,” he says.
“Sadly, Mr. Holmes fell off the wagon.”
More grins in the gallery. I can see how this guy writes mysteries inhis spare time.
“Oh, dear,” I deadpan.
“When exactly did he fall off the wagon, Mr.
Hanson?”
“On December twenty-eighth.”
“Would you mind telling us what happened?”
“Sure.” He clears his throat.
“Mrs. Holmes told me Mr. Holmes was going to attend a dinner at theFairmont. On a couple of occasions, he’d met Ms. Kennedy there. Hehad a favorite room in the tower where they used to go for, uh,recreational purposes.” He glances at the judge.
“When I heard he was going to be at the Fairmont, I got a room acrossthe street at the Mark Hopkins. It had a direct view into the roomwhere Mr. Holmes liked to hang out. I ordered room service, set up mytelescope and telephoto camera, and waited. At eleven-forty-five, hecame back to the room with a woman. It was hard to tell what was goingon because it was dark.”
“But you could see that Mr. Holmes was in the room with a woman.”
“Oh yeah.”
“And you’re sure the woman was not Mrs. Holmes?”
“I’m sure about that. I was talking to Mrs. Holmes on my cellularphone the entire time. She wasn’t very happy about it.”
“What were Mr. Holmes and the woman doing in the hotel room?”
He looks at the judge.
“Am I allowed to say this in court, Your Honor?” he asks innocently.
“Please be discreet,” she says.
“But you must be truthful, of course.”
“Of course, Your Honor.” He shrugs and looks at me.
“For lack of a better term, Mr. Daley, Mr. Holmes and the woman wereengaging in oral sex.”
I stand at the lectern. I try not to move a muscle until the roar diesdown.
Judge Chen pounds her gavel. Skipper shouts his objections. I look atthe jurors. They’re all smiling.
Judge Chen points her gavel at me and says, “Mr. Daley, you’ve madeyour point.
Can we move along, please?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” I turn back to Nick.
“Mr. Hanson, were you able to identify the woman in the room with Mr.Holmes?”
“No. Like I said, it was pretty dark. She left quickly. I ran acrossthe street to try to identify her, but by the time I got up theelevators, she had already left.”
Somehow, I have trouble imagining Nick running anywhere.
“Can you describe the woman?”
“Yes. Young. Slender. Long hair.”
“Long hair?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Mr. Hanson, you’re aware that Diana Kennedy had short hair, aren’tyou?”
“Indeed I am.”
“So, what did you conclude?”
“I concluded the woman in the room was not Diana Kennedy.”
I glance at Rosie.
“Mr. Hanson, did Mrs. Holmes ask you to follow Mr. Holmes during theentire month of December last year?”
“Yeah. I was on him like a glove.”
“And from December first through December twenty-eighth, did you eversee Mr.
Holmes and Ms. Kennedy together, other than at work?”
“No.”
“Did you take any nights off during that period?”
“No. For what Mrs. Holmes was paying me, I would have stayed up forsix months straight.”
“And you never saw Mr. Holmes and Ms. Kennedy together?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Skipper says wearily.
“Asked and answered.”
“Sustained.”
“No further questions.”
Skipper’s crossexamination ends quickly. First, he questions Nick’seyesight.
It’s twenty-fifteen. He question? how Nick could have been able todetermine that Bob and the woman were having oral sex in a dark room.Nick replies that he has a very powerful telephoto lens and offers todescribe their every move in intimate detail. Skipper decides not topursue it. He questions Nick’s stamina.
He suggests that an eighty-two-year-old man may not be able to stay upall night watching Bob Holmes for an entire month. This irritates theretired bus driver on the jury. Nick explains that he and his threesons and four grandsons work in shifts. Unbeknownst to Bob Holmes,there was a set of Hanson eyes on him virtually every waking moment inthe month of December. Another set of Hanson eyes chased DianaKennedy. Skipper sits down. He knows the jury is entranced with thisdiminutive PI. After five minutes, Nick marches triumphantly down thecenter aisle and out of the courtroom. As soon as he’s out the door,Judge Chen turns to me and says, “This might be a good time for a shortbreak.”
Rosie and Joel are all smiles in the consultation room.
“Cherish the moment,” Rosie says.
“You may never get a chance to examine him again.”
Joel shakes his head.
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“We’ve got some good momentum now,” I say.
“Let’s keep pushing.”
chapter 48
TOEING THE PARTY LINE
“Defense attorney Michael Daley is expected to call several witnesseswho were at the Simpson and Gates offices on the night two attorneysdied.”
—news center 4 LEGAL ANALYST morton goldberg. wednesday, april 8.
Jeff Tucker slithers to the stand after lunch. I stand right in frontof him.
“You used to work at the Simpson and Gates firm, didn’t you, Mr.Tucker?”
“Yes. Currently, I am general counsel of First Bank.”
“I see. And was your bank involved in the sale of Russo Internationalthat was supposed to close on December thirty-first?”
“Yes. We were one of Mr. Russo’s lenders.”
“Were you going to have a continuing relationship with Mr. Russo’scompany?”
“No. Our loans were being paid off. We were delighted with theresult.”
“Mr. Tucker, you visited with Mr. Russo at Simpson and Gates in theearly evening of December thirtieth, didn’t you?”
“Yes. My superiors asked me to check on the deal. I had no reason tobelieve it wasn’t going to close.”
“Did Mr. Russo appear upset to you?”
This prompts a grin.
“Mr. Russo always appeared upset to me. He was particularly nervousthat night.”
“Was he happy about the deal?”
“No. He wanted to keep his company. He thought he could manage itback to profitability.”
“So, Mr. Russo didn’t really want to close the deal.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Let’s not argue about semantics, Mr. Tucker. Isn’t it fair to saythat Mr.
Russo was unhappy about selling his father’s company and that you haddoubts as/to whether the deal would close?”
“That’s fair.”
That pretty much covers it.
“Mr. Tucker, did you talk to Mr. Holmes about the deal that night?”
“Briefly. He was very agitated. He said he couldn’t predict whatVince Russo would do.”
“It’s possible that Russo pulled the plug before he disappeared, isn’tit?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s even possible Russo killed Bob Holmes and Diana Kennedy,isn’t it?”
“Objection. Speculative. No foundation.”
“Sustained.”
“No further questions.” I’ve made my point.
The parade continues throughout the afternoon. Ed Ehrlich swears thatthe deal was going to close. He assures us the city was 100 percentbehind the deal.
Clan Morris is even more reassuring than Ehrlich. And far morepolished. Morris tells us he was certain that the deal was going toclose.
“The only way it wouldn’t have closed,” he says, “was if Vince Russochanged his mind.”
“Is it possible that he did so?”
“Anything’s possible, Mr. Daley.”
That’s as far as I get before Judge Chen sustains Skipper’sobjection.
The afternoon concludes with testimony from Jack Frazier, who agreeswith everyone who preceded him that Russo was going to close the deal,come hell or high water.
“Mr. Frazier,” I say, “isn’t it true that you negotiated aforty-million- dollar reduction in the purchase price at the lastminute?”
“Yes.”
“And wasn’t Mr. Russo quite upset about it?”
Frazier looks at his attorney, Martin Glass, who is sitting in thegallery.
“Yes,” he replies.
“He was quite upset. At one point, he stormed out of the conferenceroom. He made quite a scene. He interrupted a cocktail party forMr.
Gates.” He nods sheepishly at Skipper, whose face is impassive.
“So it’s possible Mr. Russo may have been so upset he decided toterminate the deal?”
He shakes his head.
“I’m not sure. I mean, I guess so. But the fact is, I really don’tknow. He seemed ready to close the last time I saw him.”
“And when was that?”
“Around one o’clock.”
“And what time did you leave?”
“Around one-thirty-five. Mr. Morris and I left together. We weretalking about business.”
“Where did you and Mr. Morris go?”
“We went home.”
There’s nothing more that I can do.
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Joel is beside himself in the consultation room at the end of the day.The trial is nearing its conclusion and he is wearing down.
“I thought the idea was to make them believe it was a suicide,” hesays.
“If that doesn’t work, I thought we were going to blame Russo. Why areyou fucking around?”
I’m exhausted. My patience is short.
“All we can do with these witnesses is to ask them to speculate aboutwhat happened that night. The other side has the right to object. Wehave to do everything indirectly. We can’t just ask them if they thinkBob committed suicide. We have to give them a bunch of reasons why Bobwould have been suicidal. I think we’ve shown the jury that Bob had alot on his mind: a divorce, a deal that was going to implode, agirlfriend who was leaving him and a bonus that he wasn’t going to get.That’s as far as we can go.”
Rosie interjects in a calmer tone, “We have the same problem withRusso. Nobody saw him do anything. His fingerprints weren’t on thegun. There’s no evidence connecting him to the scene. All we can dois show he had opportunity and perhaps a lot of motive. That may beenough to get us to reasonable doubt and get an acquittal.”
Joel slumps back into his chair. He stares at the gray steel table. Hechews on his lower lip.
“That’s really all we’re trying to do at this point, isn’t it? We’retrying to punch holes in their case to generate enough doubt in enoughmembers of the jury to get me off.”
He’s hit the nail right on the head.
“I want to testify,” he says emphatically.
“I want to set the record straight once and for all.”
Rosie and I look at each other.
“Let’s see how things go in the next few days,” I say gently.
“We don’t have to make a decision until we’ve finished with the otherwitnesses.”
Rosie and I sit in her office at eight o’clock the same evening. She’sfinishing her cashew chicken. I’m drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper. I’mjust not hungry these days.
“You think Joel is starting to crack?” she asks.