The Runaway Jury Part 12

Nicholas removed the tape and handed it to the Judge. "Keep it. I have another copy."

FITCH'S ROAST BEEF SANDWICH was interrupted when Konrad pecked on the door and uttered the words Fitch longed to hear: "The girl's on the phone."

He wiped his mouth and his goatee with the back of a hand, and grabbed the phone. "h.e.l.lo."

"Fitch baby," she said. "It's me, Marlee."

"Yes dear."

"Don't know the guy's name, but he's the goon you sent into Easter's apartment on Thursday, the nineteenth, eleven days ago, at 4:52 P.M P.M. to be exact." Fitch gasped for breath and coughed up specks of sandwich. He cursed silently and stood up straight. She continued, "It was just after I gave you the note about Nicholas wearing a gray golf shirt and starched khakis, you remember?"

"Yes," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Anyway, you later sent the goon into the courtroom, probably to look for me. It was last Wednesday, the twenty-fifth. Pretty stupid move because Easter recognized the man and he sent a note to the Judge, who also got an eyeful. Are you listening, Fitch?"

Listening, but not breathing. "Yes!" he snapped.

"Well, now the Judge knows the guy broke into Easter's apartment, and he's signed a warrant for the guy's arrest. So, get him out of town immediately or you're about to be embarra.s.sed. Maybe arrested yourself."

A hundred questions raced wildly through Fitch's brain, but he knew they wouldn't be answered. If Doyle somehow got recognized and taken in, and if he said too much, then, well, it was unthinkable. Breaking and entering was a felony anywhere on the planet, and Fitch had to move fast. "Anything else?" he said.

"No. That's all for now."

Doyle was supposed to be eating at a window table in a d.i.n.ky Vietnamese restaurant four blocks from the courthouse, but was in fact playing two-dollar blackjack at the Lucy Luck when the beeper erupted on his belt. It was Fitch, at the office. Three minutes later, Doyle was headed east on Highway 90, east because the Alabama state line was closer than Louisiana. Two hours later he was flying to Chicago.

It took Fitch an hour to dig and determine that no arrest warrant had been issued for Doyle Dunlap, nor for any unnamed person resembling him. This was of no comfort. The fact remained that Marlee knew they'd entered Easter's apartment.

But how did she know? That was the great and troubling question. Fitch yelled at Konrad and Pang behind locked doors. It would be three hours before they found the answer.

AT THREE-THIRTY, Monday, Judge Harkin called a halt to Dr. Kilvan's testimony and sent him home for the day. He announced to the surprised lawyers that there were a couple of serious matters involving the jury that had to be dealt with immediately. He sent the jurors back to their room and ordered all spectators out of the courtroom. Jip and Rasco herded them away, then locked the door.

Oliver McAdoo gently slid the briefcase under the table with his long left foot until the camera was aimed at the bench. Next to it were four other a.s.sorted satchels and cases, along with two large cardboard boxes filled with bulky depositions and other legal refuse. McAdoo was not sure what was about to happen, but he a.s.sumed, correctly, that Fitch would want to see it.

Judge Harkin cleared his throat and addressed the horde of lawyers watching him intently. "Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that some if not all of our jurors feel as if they're being watched and followed. I have clear proof that at least one of our jurors has been the victim of a break-in." He allowed this to sink in, and sink in it did. The lawyers were stunned, each side knowing full well it was innocent of any wrongdoing and immediately placing guilt where it belonged-at the other table.

"Now, I have two choices. I can declare a mistrial, or I can sequester the jury. I'm inclined to pursue the latter, as distasteful as it will be. Mr. Rohr?"

Rohr was slow to rise, and for a rare moment could think of little to say. "Uh, gee, Judge, we'd sure hate to see a mistrial. I mean, I'm certain that we've done nothing wrong." He glanced at the defense table as he said this. "Someone broke in on a juror?" he asked.

"That's what I said. I'll show you the proof in a moment. Mr. Cable?"

Sir Durr stood and b.u.t.toned his jacket right properly. "This is quite shocking, Your Honor."

"Certainly is."

"I'm really in no position to respond until I hear more," he said, returning the look of utter suspicion to the lawyers who were obviously guilty, the plaintiff's.

"Very well. Bring in juror number four, Stella Hulic," His Honor instructed Willis. Stella was stiff with fear and already pale by the time she reentered the courtroom.

"Please take a seat in the witness stand, Mrs. Hulic. This won't take but a minute." The Judge smiled with great a.s.surance and waved at the chair in the witness box. Stella shot wild looks in all directions as she sat down.

"Thank you. Now, Mrs. Hulic, I want to ask you just a few questions."

The courtroom was still and silent as the lawyers held their pens and ignored their sacred legal pads and waited for a great secret to be revealed. After four years of pretrial warfare, they knew virtually everything that every witness would say beforehand. The prospect of unrehea.r.s.ed statements coming from the witness stand was fascinating.

Surely she was about to reveal some heinous sin committed by the other side. She looked up pitifully at the Judge. Someone had smelled her breath and squealed on her.

"Did you go to Miami over the weekend?"

"Yes sir," she answered slowly.

"With your husband?"

"Yes." Cal had left the courtroom before lunch. He had deals to attend to.

"And what was the purpose of this visit?"

"To shop."

"Did anything unusual happen while you were there?"

She took a deep breath and looked at the eager lawyers packed around the long tables. Then she turned to Judge Harkin and said, "Yes sir."

"Please tell us what happened."

Her eyes watered, and the poor woman was about to lose control. Judge Harkin seized the moment, and said, "It's okay, Mrs. Hulic. You've done nothing wrong. Just tell us what happened."

She bit her lip and clenched her teeth. "We got in Friday night, to the hotel, and after we'd been there for two maybe three hours the phone rang, and it was some woman who told us that these men from the tobacco companies were following us. She said they had followed us from Biloxi, and they knew our flight numbers and everything. Said they'd follow us all weekend, might even try to bug our phones."

Rohr and his squad breathed in relief. One or two shot nasty looks at the other table, where Cable et al. were frozen.

"Did you see anybody following you?"

"Well, frankly, I never left the room. It upset me so. My husband Cal ventured out a few times, and he did see this one guy, some Cuban-looking man with a camera on the beach, then he saw the same guy on Sunday as we were checking out." It suddenly hit Stella that this was her exit, her one moment to appear so overcome she just couldn't continue. With little effort, the tears began to flow.

"Anything else, Mrs. Hulic?"

"No," she said, sobbing. "It's just awful. I can't keep ..." and the words were lost in anguish.

His Honor looked at the lawyers. "I'm going to excuse Mrs. Hulic, and replace her with alternate number one." A small wail went up from Stella, and with the poor woman in such misery it was impossible to argue that she should be kept. Sequestration was looming, and there was no way she could keep pace.

"You may return to the jury room, get your things, and go home. Thank you for your service, and I'm sorry this has happened."

"I'm so sorry," she managed to whisper, then rose from the witness chair and left the courtroom. Her departure was a blow for the defense. She'd been rated highly during selection, and after two weeks of nonstop observation the jury experts on both sides were of the near-unanimous opinion that she was not sympathetic to the plaintiff. She had smoked for twenty-four years, without once trying to stop.

Her replacement was a wild card, feared by both sides but especially by the defense.

"Bring in juror number two, Nicholas Easter," Harkin said to Willis, who was standing with the door open. As Easter was being called for, Gloria Lane and an a.s.sistant rolled a large TV/VCR to the center of the courtroom. The lawyers began chewing their pens, especially the defense.

Durwood Cable pretended to be preoccupied with other matters on the table, but the only question on his mind was, What has Fitch done now? Before the trial, Fitch directed everything; the composition of the defense team, the selection of expert witnesses, the hiring of jury consultants, the actual investigation of all prospective jurors. He handled the delicate communications with the client, Pynex, and he watched the plaintiff's lawyers like a hawk. But most of what Fitch did after the trial began was quite secretive. Cable didn't want to know. He took the high road and tried the case. Let Fitch play in the gutter and try to win it.

Easter sat in the witness chair and crossed his legs. If he was scared or nervous, he didn't show it. The Judge asked him about the mysterious man who'd been following him, and Easter gave specific times and places where he'd seen the man. And he explained in perfect detail what happened last Wednesday when he glanced across the courtroom and saw the same man sitting out there, on the third row.

He then described the security measures he'd taken in his apartment, and he took the videotape from Judge Harkin. He inserted it in the VCR, and the lawyers sat on the edge of their seats. He ran the tape, all nine and a half minutes of it, and when it stopped he sat again in the witness chair and confirmed the ident.i.ty of the intruder-it was the same man who'd been following him, the same guy who'd shown up in court last Wednesday.

Fitch couldn't see the d.a.m.ned monitor through his hidden camera because bigfoot McAdoo or some other klutz had kicked the briefcase under the table. But Fitch heard every word Easter said, and he could close his eyes and see precisely what was happening in the courtroom. A severe headache was forming at the base of his skull. He gulped aspirin and washed it down with mineral water. He'd love to ask Easter a simple question: For one concerned enough about security to install hidden cameras, why didn't you install an alarm system on your door? But the question occurred to no one but himself.

His Honor said, "I can also verify that the man in the video was in this courtroom last Wednesday." But the man in the video was now long gone. Doyle was safely tucked away in Chicago when the courtroom saw him enter the apartment and slink around as if he'd never get caught.

"You may return to the jury room, Mr. Easter."

AN HOUR Pa.s.sED as the lawyers made their rather feeble and unprepared arguments for and against sequestration. Once things warmed up, allegations of wrongdoing began to fly back and forth, with the defense catching the most flak. Both sides knew things they couldn't prove and thus couldn't say, so the accusations were left somewhat broad.

The jurors got a full report from Nicholas, an embellished account of everything that happened both in court and in the video. In his haste, Judge Harkin had failed to prohibit Nicholas from discussing the matter with his colleagues. It was an omission Nicholas had immediately caught, and he couldn't wait to structure the story to suit himself. He also took the liberty of explaining Stella's rapid departure. She'd left them in tears.

Fitch narrowly averted two minor strokes as he stomped around his office, rubbing his neck and his temples and tugging at his goatee and demanding impossible answers from Konrad, Swanson, and Pang. In addition to those three, he had young Holly, and Joe Boy, a local private eye with incredibly soft feet, and Dante, a black ex-cop from D.C., and Dubaz, another Coast boy with a lengthy record. And he had four people in the office with Konrad, another dozen he could summon to Biloxi within three hours, and loads of lawyers and jury consultants. Fitch had lots of people, and they cost lots of money, but he d.a.m.ned sure didn't send anyone to Miami over the weekend to watch Stella and Cal shop.

A Cuban? With a camera? Fitch actually threw a phonebook against a wall as he repeated this.

"What if it's the girl?" asked Pang, raising his head slowly after lowering it to miss the phonebook.

"What girl?"

"Marlee. Hulic said the phone call came from a girl." Pang's composure was a sharp contrast to his boss's explosiveness. Fitch froze in mid-step, then sat for a moment in his chair. He took another aspirin and drank more mineral water, and finally said, "I think you're right."

And he was. The Cuban was a two-bit "security consultant" Marlee found in the Yellow Pages. She'd paid him two hundred dollars to look suspicious, not a difficult task, and to get caught with a camera as the Hulics left the hotel.

THE ELEVEN JURORS and three alternates were rea.s.sembled in the courtroom. Stella's empty chair on the first row was filled by Phillip Savelle, a forty-eight-year-old misfit neither side had been able to read. He described himself as a self-employed tree surgeon, but no record of this profession had been found on the Gulf Coast for the past five years. He was also an avant-garde gla.s.sblower whose forte was brightly colored, shapeless creations to which he gave obscure aquatic and marine names and occasionally exhibited at tiny, neglected galleries in Greenwich Village. He boasted of being an expert sailor, and had in fact once built his own ketch, which he sailed to Honduras where it sank in calm waters. At times he fancied himself an archaeologist, and after the boat dropped he spent eleven months in a Honduran prison for illegal excavations.

He was single, agnostic, a graduate of Grinnell, a nonsmoker. Savelle scared the h.e.l.l out of every lawyer in the courtroom.

Judge Harkin apologized for what he was about to do. Sequestration of a jury was a rare, radical event, made necessary by extraordinary circ.u.mstances, and almost always used in sensational murder cases. But he had no choice in this case. There had been unauthorized contact. There was no reason to believe it would cease, regardless of his warnings. He didn't like it one bit, and he was very sorry for the hardship it would cause, but his job at this point was to guarantee a fair trial.

He explained that months earlier he had developed a contingency plan for this very moment. The county had reserved a block of rooms at a nearby, unnamed motel. Security would be increased. He had a list of rules which he would cover with them. The trial was now entering its second full week of testimony, and he would push the lawyers hard to finish as soon as possible.

The fourteen jurors were to leave, go home, pack, get their affairs in order, and report to court the next morning prepared to spend the next two weeks sequestered.

There were no immediate reactions from the panel; they were too stunned. Only Nicholas Easter thought it was funny.

Fourteen.

Because of Jerry's fondness for beer and gambling and football and rowdiness in general, Nicholas suggested they meet at a casino Monday night to celebrate their last few hours of freedom. Jerry thought it was a wonderful idea. As the two left the courthouse, they toyed with the idea of inviting a few of their colleagues. The idea sounded good, but it didn't work. Herman was out of the question. Lonnie Shaver left hurriedly, quite agitated and not speaking to anyone. Savelle was new and unknown, and apparently the kind of guy you'd keep at a distance. That left Herrera, Nap the Colonel, and they simply weren't up to it. They were about to spend two weeks locked up with him.

Jerry invited Sylvia Taylor-Tatum, the Poodle. The two were becoming friends of a sort. She was divorced for the second time, and Jerry was about to be divorced for the first. Since Jerry knew all the casinos along the Coast, he suggested they meet at a new one called The Diplomat. It had a sports bar with a large screen, cheap drinks, a little privacy, and c.o.c.ktail waitresses with long legs and skimpy outfits.

When Nicholas arrived at eight, Poodle was already there, holding a table in the crowded bar, sipping a draft beer and smiling pleasantly, something she never did inside the courthouse. Her flowing curly hair was pulled back. She wore tight faded jeans, a bulky sweater, and red cowboy boots. Still far from pretty, she looked much better in a bar than in the jury box.

Sylvia had the dark, sad, worldly eyes of a woman beaten by life, and Nicholas was determined to dig as fast and as deep as possible before Fernandez arrived. He ordered another round, and dispensed with the chitchat. "Are you married?" he asked, knowing she wasn't. The first marriage had occurred when she was nineteen, had produced twin boys, now twenty. One worked offsh.o.r.e on an oil rig, the other was a junior in college. Very opposite. Husband One left after five years, and she raised the boys herself. "What about you?" she asked.

"No. Technically I'm still a student, but I'm working now."

Husband Two was an older man, and thankfully they produced no children. The marriage lasted seven years, then he traded her in for a newer model. She vowed to never marry again. The Bears kicked off to the Packers and Sylvia watched the game with interest. She loved football because her boys had been all-conference picks in high school.

Jerry arrived in a rush, casting wary glances behind him before apologizing for being late. He gulped down the first beer in a matter of seconds, and explained that he thought he was being followed. Poodle scoffed at this, and offered the opinion that right now every member of the jury was jerking at the neck, certain that shadows were not far behind.

"Forget the jury," Jerry said. "I think it's my wife."

"Your wife?" said Nicholas.

"Yeah. I think she's got some private snoop trailing me."

"You should look forward to being sequestered," Nicholas said.

"Oh I am," Jerry said, winking at Poodle.

He had five hundred dollars on the Packers, plus six points, but the bet was only for the combined score in the first half. He'd place another bet at half-time. Any pro or college game offered an amazing array of bets, he explained to the two novices seated with him, virtually none of which had anything to do with the ultimate winner. Jerry sometimes bet on who'd fumble first, who'd make the first field goal, who'd throw the most interceptions. He watched the game with the edginess of a man wagering money he could ill afford to lose. He drank four draft beers in the first quarter. Nicholas and Sylvia fell quickly behind.

In the gaps of Jerry's incessant chatter about football and the art of successful betting, Nicholas made a few awkward forays into the subject of the trial, without success. Sequestration was a sore subject, and since they had not yet experienced it there was little to say. The day's testimony had been painful enough to sit through, and the thought of rehashing Dr. Kilvan's opinions during leisure seemed cruel. Nor was there interest in the bigger picture. Sylvia in particular was disgusted by a simple inquiry into the general concept of liability.

MRS. GRIMES had been ushered from the courtroom and was in the atrium when Judge Harkin announced his rules for sequestration. As she drove Herman home he explained that he'd be spending the next two weeks in a motel room, on strange turf, without her around. Shortly after they reached their house, she had Judge Harkin on the phone, and gave him an earful of her thoughts on these most recent developments. Her husband was blind, she reminded him more than once, and he needed special a.s.sistance. Herman sat on the sofa, drinking his one beer of the day and fuming at his wife's intrusion.

Judge Harkin quickly found middle ground. He would allow Mrs. Grimes to stay with Herman in his room at the motel. She could eat breakfast and dinner with Herman, and care for him, but she had to avoid contact with the other jurors. Also, she could no longer watch the trial because it was imperative that she not be able to discuss it with Herman. This didn't sit well with Mrs. Grimes, one of the few spectators who'd heard every word so far. And, though she didn't reveal this to His Honor, or to Herman, she had already developed some rather strong opinions about the case. The Judge was firm. Herman was furious. But Mrs. Grimes prevailed, and set off to the bedroom to begin packing.

LONNIE SHAVER did a week's work Monday night at the office. After numerous attempts, he found George Teaker at home in Charlotte, and explained that the jury was about to be locked away for the duration of the trial. He was scheduled to talk to Taunton later in the week, and he was worried about being inaccessible. He explained that the Judge was prohibiting any direct phone calls to and from the motel room, and it would be impossible to correspond again until after the trial. Teaker was sympathetic, and as the conversation progressed he expressed somber concerns about the outcome of the trial.

"Our people in New York think an adverse verdict could send shock waves through the retail economy, especially in our business. G.o.d knows where insurance rates will go."

"I'll do what I can," Lonnie promised.

"Surely the jury isn't serious about a big verdict, is it?"

"Hard to tell right now. We're halfway through the plaintiff's case, it's just too early."

"You've gotta protect us on this, Lonnie. I know it puts you in the bull's-eye, but, d.a.m.n, you just happen to be there, know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I understand. I'll do what I can."

"We're counting on you up here. Hang in there."

THE CONFRONTATION with Fitch was brief and went nowhere. Durwood Cable waited until almost nine, Monday night, when the offices were still busy with trial preparation and a late, catered dinner was being completed in the conference room. He asked Fitch to step into his office. Fitch obliged, though he wanted to leave and return to the dime store.