The Runaway Jury Part 24

It was really a creation of Fitch's doc.u.ment people, two retired CIA boys who puttered around D.C. enjoying the mischief.

It was a faxed copy of a sinister-looking report on Leon Robilio. No source, no date, just four paragraphs under the ominous headline of CONFIDENTIAL MEMO CONFIDENTIAL MEMO. Hoppy read it quickly while chomping on french fries. Robilio was being paid half a million dollars to testify. Robilio had been fired from the Tobacco Focus Council for embezzling funds; had even been indicted, though charges were later dropped. Robilio had a history of psychiatric problems. Robilio had s.e.xually hara.s.sed two secretaries at the Council. Robilio's throat cancer had probably been caused by his alcoholism, and not by tobacco. Robilio was a notorious liar who hated the Council and was on a crusade of revenge.

"Wow," Hoppy said, showing a mouthful of potatoes.

"Mr. Cristano thought you should sneak this to your wife," Nitchman said. "She should show it only to those she can trust on the jury."

"Right about that," Hoppy said, quickly folding and stuffing it into a pocket. He looked around the crowded dining room as if he was completely guilty of something.

WORKING from law school yearbooks and the limited records the registrar would release, it was learned that Jeff Kerr enrolled as a first-year law student at Kansas in the fall of 1989. His unsmiling face appeared with the second-year cla.s.s in 1991, but there was no trace of him after that. He did not receive a law degree.

He played rugby for the law school team his second year. A team photo showed him arm in arm with two pals-Michael Dale and Tom Ratliff-both of whom had finished law school the following year. Dale was working for Legal Services in Des Moines. Ratliff was an a.s.sociate for a firm in Wichita. Investigators were sent to both places.

Dante arrived in Lawrence and was taken to the law school, where he confirmed the ident.i.ty of Kerr in the yearbooks. He spent an hour looking at faces from 1985 through 1994, and saw no female resembling the girl known as Marlee. It was a shot in the dark. Many law students skipped the picture taking. Yearbooks were soph.o.m.oric. These were serious young adults. Dante's work was nothing but a series of shots in the dark.

Late Monday, the investigator named Small found Tom Ratliff hard at work in his tiny window-less office at Wise & Watkins, a large firm in downtown Wichita. They agreed to meet in a bar in an hour.

Small talked to Fitch and gathered as much background as he could, or as much as Fitch would give him. Small was an ex-cop with two ex-wives. His t.i.tle was security specialist, which in Lawrence meant he did everything from motel watching to polygraph exams. He was not bright, and Fitch realized this immediately.

Ratliff arrived late and they ordered drinks. Small did his best to bluff and act knowledgeable. Ratliff was suspicious. He said little at first, which was what could be expected from a person unexpectedly asked by a stranger to talk about an old acquaintance.

"I haven't seen him in four years," Ratliff said.

"Have you talked to him?"

"No. Not a word. He dropped out of school after our second year."

"Were you close to him?"

"I knew him well our first year, but we were not the best of friends. He withdrew after that. Is he in trouble?"

"No. Not at all."

"Perhaps you should tell me why you're so interested."

Small recited in general terms what Fitch had told him to say, got most of it right and it was close to the truth. Jeff Kerr was a prospective juror in a large trial somewhere, and he, Small, had been hired by one of the parties to dig through his background.

"Where's the trial?" Ratliff asked.

"I can't say. But I a.s.sure you, none of this is illegal. You're a lawyer. You understand."

Indeed he did. Ratliff had spent most of his brief career slaving under a litigation partner. Jury research was a ch.o.r.e he'd already learned to hate. "How can I verify this?" he asked, like a real lawyer.

"I don't have the authority to divulge specifics about the trial. Let's do it like this. If I ask something which you think might be harmful to Kerr, then don't answer. Fair enough?"

"We'll give it a shot, okay? But if I get nervous, then I'm outta here."

"Fair enough. Why did he quit law school?"

Ratliff took a sip of his beer and tried to remember. "He was a good student, very bright. But after the first year, he suddenly hated the idea of being a lawyer. He clerked in a firm that summer, a big firm in Kansas City, and it soured him. Plus, he fell in love."

Fitch desperately wanted to know if there was a girl. "Who was the woman?" Small asked.

"Claire."

"Claire who?"

Another sip. "I can't remember right now."

"You knew her?"

"I knew who she was. Claire worked at a bar in downtown Lawrence, a college hangout favored by law students. I think that's where she met Jeff."

"Could you describe her?"

"Why? I thought this was about Jeff."

"I was asked to get a description of his girlfriend in law school. That's all I know." Small shrugged as if he couldn't help it.

They studied each other for a bit. What the h.e.l.l, thought Ratliff. He'd never see these people again. Jeff and Claire were distant memories anyway.

"Average height, about five six. Slender. Dark hair, brown eyes, pretty girl, all the bells and whistles."

"Was she a student?"

"I'm not sure. I think maybe she had been. Maybe a grad student."

"At KU?"

"I don't know."

"What was the name of the hangout?"

"Mulligan's, downtown."

Small knew it well. At times he went there himself to drown his worries and admire the college girls. "I've knocked back a few at Mulligan's," he said.

"Yeah. I miss it," Ratliff said wistfully.

"What did he do after he dropped out?"

"I'm not sure. I heard that he and Claire left town, but I never heard from him again."

Small thanked him and asked if he could call him at the office if he had more questions. Ratliff said he was awfully busy, but give it a try.

Small's boss in Lawrence had a friend who knew the guy who'd owned Mulligan's for fifteen years. The advantages of a small town. Employment records weren't exactly confidential, especially for the owner of a bar who reported fewer than half of his cash sales. Her name was Claire Clement.

FITCH RUBBED his stubby hands together with glee as he took the news. He loved the chase. Marlee was now Claire, a woman with a past who'd worked hard to cover it up.

"Know thine enemy," he said aloud to his walls. The first rule of warfare.

Twenty-four.

The numbers returned with a vengeance Monday afternoon. The messenger was an economist, a man trained to look at the life of Jacob Wood and put a concise dollar figure on it. His name was Dr. Art Kallison, a retired professor from a private school in Oregon no one had heard of. The math was not complicated, and Dr. Kallison had obviously seen a courtroom before. He knew how to testify, how to keep the figures simple. He placed them on a chalkboard with a neat hand.

When he died at fifty-one, Jacob Wood's base salary was $40,000 a year, plus a retirement plan funded by his employer, plus other benefits. a.s.suming he would live and work until the age of sixty-five, Kallison placed his lost future earnings at $720,000. The law also allowed the factoring of inflation into this projection, and this upped the total to $1,180,000. Then the law required that this total be reduced to its present value, a concept that muddied the water a bit. Here, Kallison delivered a quick, friendly lecture to the jury on present value. The money might be worth $1,180,000 if paid out over fifteen years, but for purposes of the lawsuit he had to determine what it was worth at the moment. Thus, it had to be discounted. His new figure was $835,000.

He did a superb job of a.s.suring the jury that this figure dealt only with lost salary. He was an economist, quite untrained to place a value on the noneconomic value of one's life. His job had nothing to do with the pain and suffering Mr. Wood endured as he died; had nothing to do with the loss his family had endured.

A young defense lawyer named Felix Mason uttered his first word of the trial. He was one of Cable's partners, a specialist in economic forecasts, and, unfortunately for him, his only appearance would be brief. He began his cross-examination of Dr. Kallison by asking him how many times a year he testified. "That's all I do these days. I've retired from teaching," Kallison answered. He took the question in every trial.

"Are you being paid to testify?" Mason asked. The question was as tired as the answer.

"Yes. I'm paid to be here. Same as you."

"How much?"

"Five thousand dollars for consultation and testimony." No doubt among the lawyers that Kallison was by far the cheapest expert of the trial.

Mason had a problem with the rate of inflation Kallison used in his calculations, and they haggled over the historical rise of the consumer price index for thirty minutes. If Mason scored a point, no one noticed. He wanted Kallison to agree that a more reasonable figure for Mr. Wood's lost wages would be $680,000.

It really didn't matter. Rohr and his blue-ribbon pack of trial lawyers would take either number. Lost wages were merely the starting point. Rohr would add to it pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of companionship, and a few incidentals such as the cost of Mr. Wood's medical care and the price of his funeral. Then Rohr would go for the gold. He would show the jury how much cash Pynex owned and would ask them for a large chunk of it as punitive damages.

With an hour to go, Rohr proudly announced to the court that "The plaintiff will call its last witness. Mrs. Celeste Wood."

The jury had been given no warning that the plaintiff was almost finished. A burden was suddenly lifted. The sluggish air of the late afternoon was immediately lighter. Several jurors couldn't conceal smiles. Several more lost their frowns. Their chairs rocked as they came to life.

Tonight would be their seventh in sequestration. According to Nicholas' latest theory, the defense would take no more than three days. They did the math. They could be home by the weekend!

In the three weeks she'd been sitting silently at the table, with hordes of lawyers around her, Celeste Wood had barely uttered a whisper. She'd shown an amazing ability to ignore the lawyers, ignore the faces of the jurors, and stare straight ahead with a blank face at the witnesses. She'd worn every shade of black and gray dress, always with black hose and black shoes.

Jerry had dubbed her Widow Wood during the first week.

She was now fifty-five, the same age her husband would have been but for the lung cancer. She was very thin, diminutive, with short gray hair. She worked for a regional library and had raised three children. Family portraits were pa.s.sed to the jury.

Celeste had given her deposition a year earlier, and she had been rehea.r.s.ed by the professional handlers Rohr had brought in. She was under control, nervous but not fidgety, and determined to show no emotion. After all, her husband had been dead for four years.

She and Rohr walked through their script without a flaw. She talked of her life with Jacob, how happy they'd been, the early years, the kids, then the grandchildren, their dreams of retirement. A few b.u.mps in the road but nothing serious, nothing until he got sick. He had wanted to quit smoking so badly, had tried many times with little success. The addiction was just too powerful.

Celeste was sympathetic without working too hard for it. Her voice never wavered. Rohr had guessed, correctly, that false tears might not be well received by the jury. She didn't cry easily anyway.

Cable pa.s.sed on any cross-examination. What could he ask her? He rose and with a sad countenance and humble air, said simply, "Your Honor, we have no questions for this witness."

Fitch had a bunch of questions for the witness, but he couldn't get them asked in open court. After a proper grieving period, in fact it was over a year after the funeral, Celeste had started seeing a divorced man who was seven years younger. According to good sources, they were planning a quiet wedding as soon as the trial was over. Fitch knew that Rohr himself had ordered her not to get married until after the trial.

The jury wouldn't hear this in the courtroom, but Fitch was working on a plan to sneak it through the back door.

"The plaintiff rests," Rohr announced after he'd seated Celeste at the table. The lawyers on both sides clutched one another and huddled into small groups of serious whispering.

Judge Harkin studied some of the clutter on his bench, then he looked at his weary jury. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have good news and bad. The good news is obvious. The plaintiff has rested, and we're more than halfway finished. The defense is expected to call fewer witnesses than the plaintiff. The bad news is that we're required at this point in the trial to argue a bunch of motions. We'll do that tomorrow, probably all day. I'm sorry, but we have no choice."

Nicholas raised his hand. Harkin looked at him for a few seconds, then managed to say, "Yes, Mr. Easter?"

"You mean we have to sit around the motel all day tomorrow?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I don't understand why."

The lawyers unclutched and stopped their tiny conferences and gawked at Easter. It was rare for a juror to speak in open court.

"Because we have a list of things to do outside the presence of the jury."

"Oh, I understand that. But why do we have to sit around?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I can think of a lot of things. We could charter a big boat, go for a ride in the Gulf, fish if we want to."

"I can't ask the taxpayers of this county to pay for that, Mr. Easter."

"I thought we were taxpayers."

"The answer is no. I'm sorry."

"Forget the taxpayers. I'm sure these lawyers here wouldn't mind pa.s.sing the plate. Look, ask each side to put up a thousand dollars. We can charter a huge boat and have a wonderful time."

Though Cable and Rohr both reacted at the same instant, Rohr managed to speak first as he jumped to his feet. "We'd be more than happy to pay half, Your Honor."

"It's a great idea, Judge!" Cable added quickly, and loudly.

Harkin raised both hands, palms out. "Hold it," he said. Then he rubbed his temples and searched his brain for a precedent. Of course there was none. No rule or law prohibiting it. No conflicts of interest.

Loreen Duke tapped Nicholas on the arm and whispered something in his ear.

His Honor said, "Well, I've certainly never heard of this. It seems to fall into the discretionary category. Mr. Rohr?"

"It's harmless, Your Honor. Each side pays half. No problem."

"Mr. Cable?"

"I can think of no statute or rule of procedure which would prevent it. I agree with Mr. Rohr. If both sides split the cost, what's the harm?"