ordered. ' 'Objection, leading' will do nicely. 'Objection, calls for speculation' wouldn't be bad either.'
'That's the one,' I agreed.
'Granted.'
I was pleased with my clever, lawyerly self for planting the notion that old Harry had heart trouble. So pleased that something didn't occur to me until I sank back into my chair. 'Your Honor, I withdraw the objection.'
'What?'
'Mr. Fiore has worked several years as a bartender. It is within his area of expertise to determine when a patron appears to be waiting for someone.'
Socolow looked at me in true amazement. The judge just shook his head. 'Mr. Fiore, you may answer the question.'
'Yeah, I suppose he did. I mean, he kept asking the time and looking toward the door.'
'And did there come a time when someone did appear and approach Mr. Bernhardt?' Socolow asked, without thanking me for my assistance.
'There sure did,' Fiore said, looking toward my client.
'And who was that?'
'A tall lady in a black dress. The lady sitting right there.' He nodded in Chrissy's direction, and Socolow pointed a bony finger at her. 'For the record, the witness has identified the defendant. Now, please describe what happened next.'
Fiore took about three minutes to tell his story. He had been clearing empty glasses from the bar and hadn't actually seen the defendant pull a gun, his view being partially blocked by the patrons at the bar. But he had heard the first shot, looked up and saw her pointing the gun at Bernhardt, heard the second shot and the third, and heard the man gasp, then slump against the bar. No, Bernhardt never fell from the barstool. Just leaned back into the bar, sort of pinned there, blood dripping down his guayabera.
There wasn't much to do on cross-examination. Oh, I had done my homework. I had sent Cindy, my multitalented secretary, to South Beach in her tightest T-shirt, the one that reads I'D
LIKE TO FUCK YOUR BRAINS OUT, BUT SOMEBODY BEAT ME TO IT. Cindy learned that Fiore had been fired from the Delano for drinking on the job. I could have asked whether he'd been sipping the Scotch that night. I could have asked how many women in black dresses had been at Paranoia that night. I could have asked if he'd seen a muzzle flash, and if not, I could have implied that someone else had shot Bernhardt. The problem, of course, was that Chrissy had shot him, and a hundred witnesses, both eyeball and forensic, could say so.
'No questions,' I said pleasantly, as if nothing could dent my confidence.
The witnesses strolled up, told their stories, and left quietly. Jacques Briere had been sitting at a table twenty feet from the bar. He was a free-lance talent scout playing host to a dozen models, photographers, hangers-on, and wannabees. He heard the first shot and turned around in time to see Chrissy squeeze off two more. One of his guests, the famous Italian photographer Anastasio, had watched Chrissy walk in from the front door and head for the bar. Socolow used Anastasio to demonstrate, at least implicitly, that Chrissy knew what she was doing, had planned it, and had walked a straight line, literally, to get the job done.
Anastasio hadn't actually seen Chrissy pull the gun. He was admiring her Charles Jourdan shoes and didn't notice anything amiss until after he heard the second shot, having mistaken the first for a champagne cork.
Several others testified, a blur of South Beach's party crowd. At night, in their club duds, they're a flashy group. Today, under the fluorescent lights, they looked pale and out of place. If they'd taken blood tests the night of the shooting, I'd bet none of them could have operated heavy machinery. Abe had discarded the worst of the Ecstasy-popping, cocaine-sniffing, heroin-smoking folks who thought they'd seen a chorus line of dancing hippos. He barely managed to haul in half a dozen citizens who could simultaneously put one hand on the Bible, another in the air, and say, 'I do.'
My old antagonist was piling it on thick, and I objected once on the grounds of cumulative testimony, but Judge Stanger overruled me. Abe was clever enough to draw one new fact from each witness. No, the woman didn't seem hysterical. Calm. Just shot the man, pop-pop-pop.
I kept my cross-examinations brief. Michelle Schiff, a makeup artist, had commented on Chrissy's placid demeanor as well as her tasteful use of eyeliner.
'On direct examination, you testified that Christina Bernhardt had no expression on her face when she apparently shot Mr. Bernhardt?' I said.
'That's right.'
'I wonder if you could be more precise.'
'I don't understand.'
'Well, we always have some expression on our face, don't we?'
Socolow bounded out of his chair. 'Objection, argumentative.' It was a silly objection to a silly question, and I figured Abe just wanted to stretch his legs.
'Overruled,' Judge Stanger said. 'You may answer the question, if you can.'
'I don't think I understand.'
'Let's try it this way,' I said. 'Ms. Bernhardt didn't look excited, did she?'
'No.'
'And she didn't look agitated?
'No.'
'Or angry?'
'No.'
'Happy?'
'No.'
One of the trial lawyer's tricks is to eliminate every snippet of evidence that could be harmful, in order to leave the impression that what is left is favorable. Sometimes it is a tedious task.
'Did she look intense?'
'Objection!' Socolow called out. 'Calls for speculation.'
'Overruled,' the judge said. 'The witness can testify as to her observations.'
I shot Socolow a dirty look. He was just trying to break the staccato rhythm of my cross.
'Did Ms. Bernhardt appear to be intense, to be focused on what she was doing?'
'Not really,' Michelle Schiff said.
'Then what was her expression?' I asked.
Michelle Schiff ran a hand through her hair, which was tinted the color of a copper penny. 'I don't know. Her eyes seemed blank. Her face was kind of dreamy. Her mouth was just a tiny bit open. I remember she wasn't wearing lip gloss, and in that light-'
'Blank,' I repeated, interrupting her before we sped off in another direction. 'Blank and dreamy. As if she were in a daze?'
'Yeah, I guess.'
'Or a trance?'
'Sort of.'
'Or hypnotized?'
'Your Honor!' Socolow stood so quickly he jostled a file, which crashed to the floor. 'Unless the witness is an expert on hypnosis-'
'Sustained. Move it along, Mr. Lassiter.'
I paused long enough for the jurors to turn and look at me. 'So, in summary, Ms. Bernhardt seemed to be in a daze or a trance when she walked by your table?'
'Yes. I said that.'
Actually, I had said that. But I wanted the jury to think she had. 'Nothing further,' I concluded.
24
