out answers or documents the jury is likely to hear or see anyway.
Melinda Tupton took us through the courtship and marriage, Peter’s early jobs with the Department of Environmental Resources and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Then came the opening with the Everglades Society, an executive, policy-making position with public exposure. He leaped at it. This was his destiny.
“He loved the natural beauty of the Glades, its incredible variety of plant and animal life. He studied its history. Sometimes he would use Indian terms or call it by the name the Spanish explorers used, El Laguna del Espiritu Santo, the Lagoon of the Holy Spirit.”
‘This was getting a tad too mystical for my tastes. And was it my imagination, or did Melinda Tupton look straight at Gloria Morales when speaking Spanish with perfect intonation? Oh brother, this one was slick.
The widow told us how Tupton had prepared position papers for congressional investigative teams. He fought the sugarcane barons whose fertilizer drained into the great slough and who tampered with its water level through vast irrigation. He battled the developers and the froggers and the hunters and the macho off-road vehicle rednecks and everyone else whose vision was so crabbed they only saw the River of Grass as their own personal playground or cesspool.
“Peter discovered the source of the mercury pollution in the Glades,” she said proudly. “It comes from local garbage incinerators and is carried to the west by the prevailing breezes, then dumped into the saw grass in afternoon thunderstorms. Peter wanted to preserve the natural habitat for all the animals and to preserve the water supply for the millions of us”-she turned toward the jury box-“for all of us who live here.”
Then we learned about the wildlife her husband loved so much. Patterson had already played the television- interview tape, so the images of the hawksbill turtle and the seaside sparrow were fresh in the jurors’ minds. Melinda Tupton droned on about nocturnal opossums and pink flamingos and tiny fiddler crabs. She described how to tell the difference between the American crocodile with its long, narrow snout and olive-green color and the alligator with its blunt nose and black back.
“Peter loved the animals so much. Even the mosquitoes…”
Oh give me a break, lady.
Patterson let her keep going for a while, then got down to business. “Referring to Plaintiff’s Exhibit Twelve, Mrs. Tupton, can you identify this document?”
Patterson handed a one-page letter to the witness. “Yes, that’s a letter from Mr. Florio to my husband, threatening to sue him if he didn’t stop making trouble-that’s what the letter says, ‘making trouble’-for him with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Collier County Commission. It’s called a SLAPP suit, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and…”
Next to me, Nicky Florio’s thick neck was threatening to burst out of his white-on-white shirt. I had to shoosh him, so I could hear the witness.
“…it’s what happens when a rich company files a frivolous suit to silence its opposition.”
“Objection!” Sometimes, I don’t heed my own advice. “Your Honor, the question was whether the witness could identify the document. That didn’t call for her opinion of the character of an unfiled lawsuit.”
“Sustained.” Dixie Lee leaned toward the witness and gently admonished her, “Please just answer the question, Mrs. Tupton.”
Score one for our side.
Patterson took the letter back and replaced it on the clerk’s desk. He shuffled some note cards, found what he wanted, and asked, “Did there come a time when Mr. Tupton had a meeting with Mr. Florio?”
“Yes, they had lunch one day to discuss Peter’s opposition to Mr. Florio’s planned project in the Everglades.”
“And when did this occur?”
“Sometime in July. About two weeks before Peter’s death.”
Oh brother. Here it comes, the stock option, or what Patterson will call a bribe, if he gets the chance. I was leaning forward in my heavy walnut chair.
“What transpired at this meet-”
“Objection!” I was on my feet in world-record time. “Unless it is established that Mrs. Tupton was present, the question is improper.”
Judge Boulton didn’t even look at Patterson before ruling. “Sustained.”
Score two for our side.
“Did Mr. Florio offer your husband anything at this meeting?”
“Objection, leading.” I was still standing, moving closer to the bench, as if my voice would reach the judge’s ears quicker.
“Sustained.”
On a roll now. Hey, I’m getting good at this.
“Did your husband tell you what transpired-”
“Objection, hearsay.”
“Sustained.”
Patterson paused and riffled through more of his note cards. There was no way he could get what he wanted into evidence. Apparently, there were no witnesses to the meeting, no documents that would reflect the conversation. Other than making me look a little frantic to keep out some evidence, Patterson had dug a dry well.
Patterson cleared his throat. “Now, Mrs. Tupton, did there come a time that your husband went to the Florio house for a party?”
“Yes, Sunday, August ninth.”
“Did you go along?”
“No. I was volunteering at the hospital that day.”
Ouch. She probably discovered a cure for cancer during her lunch break.
“Mrs. Tupton, do you miss your husband?”
I didn’t need to hear the answers. Direct examination is pre-ordained. I could write the script. Every day. The house is so empty without him.
Her eyes glistened. “So very much. Everywhere I look, in his study, in his workshop, there are so many reminders of him.”
“Why did your husband go to the home of a man who was threatening to sue him?”
Because my husband was a saint. He’d try to talk the devil out of his pitchfork.
“Because Peter was always willing to talk. He believed that he could reason with Mr. Florio. He took along photographs and a videotape of the animal life in the Everglades. All the studies about the aquifer, the water table, everything.”
“Was your husband a drinker?”
No, unless you count when he offered a toast to Mother Teresa at a charity dinner.
“No, sir. Once in a while, he’d have a glass of wine with dinner, that’s all.”
“When is the last time you spoke to your husband?”
Before he left for the party, and I left to scrub the floors of the ICU, he gave me a kiss and told me how much I meant to him.
“When he called me at the hospital from the Florios’ house.”
Huh?
I had taken her deposition, and she never mentioned a phone call. Of course, I hadn’t asked…
“And what did your husband say to you?”
“He-”
“Objection! Hearsay, Your Honor.” No way I was going to get sandbagged.
With a look of pure tranquility, H.T. Patterson turned to the judge. “May we approach the bench, Your Honor?”
Dixie Lee Boulton waved us up. The court reporter, a dazed-looking young woman who chewed gum relentlessly, brought her little machine to the side of the bench away from the jury. The judge leaned our way, both of us straining to get close. “What is it, Mr. Patterson?” the judge whispered. “Sure sounds like hearsay to me.”
