murder suspect, and Jill will show her no mercy. I presume anything Olivia says that is favorable to Andy will be made by Jill to seem like a cover-up when she makes her closing argument either the story of a woman concealing her own role in the murder of her child or the words of a woman who was duped by a man who wanted her money badly enough to kill her child for it. If Jill knows about the child who lives in Ohio, I have no indication of it.
Olivia begins to cry at Jill’s first hostile question.
“When I questioned you at Dr. Chapman’s hearing a couple of months ago,” Jill asks, holding a volume that contains her testimony, “you didn’t mention you were having an affair with him at the time he applied electric shock to your child, did you?”
Everyone, me included, seems to creep to the edge of our seats. Her voice trembling, Olivia says, “No, but I wasn’t asked.”
Jill, reminding me more and more of one of those old peasant women in Zorba the Greek in her black dress (all she needs is a black shawl for her head) booms from behind the podium, “And you didn’t mention that you were to receive at the time of your child’s death approximately two million dollars as a result of a malpractice settlement against your child’s doctor, did you?”
Olivia wipes her eyes with a tissue she has balled up in her right fist.
“No, I did not.”
Jill backs slightly away from the podium and says softly, “And you didn’t mention at the hearing that you had told your lover. Dr. Chapman, that there would be more than enough money for him to go back to school, did you?”
“We were talking about getting married and I was considering selling my business,” Olivia says, her voice becoming more defensive with each question.
Jill pauses for a moment to allow these answers to sink in on the jury. She makes a great show of thumbing through the transcript and then asks, “Mrs. Le Master, isn’t it true that you suggested to your lover that he use shock to try to stop your daughter’s self-abusive behavior?”
Seeing Jill turn to a specific page in the transcript, Olivia answers, “No other doctor had helped her.”
Coming around from behind the lectern as if to challenge Olivia to a fight, Jill says vehemently, “Your child died as a result of your lover’s help, didn’t she, Mrs. Le Master?”
Before Olivia can answer, I am on my feet objecting.
“She’s not qualified to answer that.”
“Sustained,” Judge Tamower says.
I sit down, knowing I could object to the form of all of these questions, since they amount to crossexamination, but I know Judge Tamower will allow Jill to treat Olivia as a hostile witness and ask leading questions, and I don’t want the jury to be any more aware of the distinction than they already are. I will have an opportunity to allow Olivia to explain her actions as much as she is able, but the damage has already been done. Anything that Olivia says will be filtered by the jury through her admissions. Now that she has whetted the jury’s appetite, Jill takes Olivia through her story from the beginning. It all sounds sordid now, each action suspect. Olivia comes across as though she had planned her daughter’s death for months. Against the backdrop of her initial admissions, her story that she fell in love with Andy rings hollow. Instead of a poignant and ultimately tragic interracial love story, the jury hears monosyllabic responses directed by Jill. I had hoped to convince the jury that Olivia seems ambivalent now because of Pam death. Instead, she is unconvincing because of what she has admitted she stood to gain.
“How do you plan to spend the money,” Jill asks sarcastically, now that she has taken Olivia through her story, ‘that you expect to receive from your daughter’s death?”
I am on my feet objecting, “She hasn’t received any money. Your Honor.”
“Sustained,” Judge Tamower says, her first words in twenty minutes.
“No more questions,” Jill says, sitting down with a grim smile on her face. It was the question she wanted to leave the jury with, not Olivia’s answer.
As I think about where to begin, it occurs to me that Jill has made the same erroneous assumption I had that Olivia and Andy are no longer sexually involved and has failed to follow up. But perhaps she hasn’t asked this question for a reason: she would be delighted to leave the jury with the impression that the affair is over. Olivia, I decide as I sit down, can’t be allowed to have it both ways. Either she must be shown to have manipulated Andy into helping her through an act of seduction or she still loves him, and as repugnant as that may be to a Southern jury, it will be consistent with Andy’s feelings when he testifies.
“Your witness, Mr. Page,” Judge Tarnower clucks impatiently from the bench. I get up again and begin the arduous chore of trying to rehabilitate Olivia’s answers, but, as I have feared, there is little I can ask Olivia that hasn’t already been compromised by her admissions. No matter what spin I give my questions, Andy still seems to be either a conspirator with her or a grossly incompetent professional. Maybe she doesn’t know how she feels about him, but I will point out to the jury that maybe after all this time she should. If Andy won’t turn on her, I sure as hell can when it comes to my closing argument.
“Mrs. Le Master, did I hear you say that you are uncertain,” I ask, feigning a genuine air of puzzlement, “about your present feelings for Dr. Chapman?”
If she has a clue where I am going, Olivia doesn’t act like it. Calmly, she recrosses her legs as if I had asked her what she had for breakfast.
“Although I know Pam’s death was an accident,” Olivia says calmly, “I can’t help but feel very confused about the way it happened. As I have said, I no longer think Dr. Chapman should have used shock.”
I lean my arms against the lectern as if I am suddenly wearied by her testimony. Dr. Chapman? She is talking about Andy as if she only met him a couple of times.
“Isn’t it a a fact you told me that it was you who seduced Dr. Chapman and not the other way around?”
Taken off guard, Olivia draws back in the chair as if I have tried to strike her.
“I don’t recall saying that,” she says, frowning. Her face colors slightly, and if I can see it, so can the jury. I am glad I can’t see Andy without turning my head, because I know if I do, I will see him going through the roof.
“Isn’t it a fact, Mrs. Le Master,” I say slowly, now clearer in my own mind about the effect Olivia wants to create,” ‘that you’ve had sex with my client as recently as last week?”
There are titillated gasps behind me. Olivia, visibly angry, can’t resist a look at Andy before saying, “That’s not true!”
To heighten the effect, I, too, turn and look at Andy, who seems as stricken as a father who has caught his teenaged daughter in her first act of deception. I turn back to Olivia and keep up the pressure.
“Is it your testimony that you haven’t had sexual intercourse with my client on five different occasions since he was originally charged in this case?”
Olivia knows she can’t retreat, and tears again well in her eyes as she cries in a choked, almost guttural, voice, “Of course not! I’ve talked to him on the telephone several times, but that’s all!”
I pause, wishing her steadily reddening face would burst into flames.
“Now isn’t it a fact that approximately fifteen years ago the Department of Human Services substantiated child abuse involving your son, whom you no longer have custody of?”
Prepared for this question, Olivia, as if on cue, bursts into tears again and recites the story she gave me yesterday. The jury seems more shocked than moved, a reaction I’ll take anytime. I sit down, and while Jill confers furiously with Kerr Bowman, Andy whispers furiously, “Why did you ask her all of that?”
When Jill tells Judge Tamower finally that she has no more questions, every eye in the courtroom watches Olivia leave the stand. I hedge my answer.
“You don’t think the jury should hear the truth?”
“You humiliated her!” he rages.
I try to keep from reacting in front of the jury. Only a man in love could worry about such a thing.
“Why should she be humiliated,” I ask, disingenuously, “if she’s telling the truth?”
Unwilling to respond, now that Yettie Lindsey is about to begin her testimony, Andy pulls back and sits rigidly in his chair. He knows what is coming. Even if he could talk me out of asking him what he has admitted as recently as last night, Jill Marymount will have to bring it up, and Andy is one criminal defendant I will not give the benefit
