So he promised her. And they even shook pinkies on it, like a couple of ten-year-olds. And then he said good-night to her and took a cab home.
24
'The defense calls Samara Tannenbaum.'
With those words, Jaywalker began the day by breaking at least two of his own rules. First, he much preferred to call his client as his final witness. Not only would doing that have allowed him to build up the drama surrounding her appearance, it also would have permitted Samara to hear the testimony of any other defense witnesses before having to take the stand herself. The rule that requires wit nesses to remain outside the courtroom before testifying doesn't apply to defendants, for obvious reasons. Second, Jaywalker liked to let the jury know when they should expect no additional witnesses. It was an easy enough thing to do: all he had to do was say, 'The defense calls its only witness, Samara Tannenbaum,' or 'its final witness, Sa mara Tannenbaum.'
But the truth was, Jaywalker still wasn't sure whether or not he was going to put on anyone besides Samara. And that was because he hadn't yet decided whether to ask Samara about the discovery of the Seconal in her spice cabinet. He thought he believed her about that, but he couldn't be sure. And if the jurors were skeptical, the story would backfire and do more harm than good. Jaywalker had his investigator, Nicolo LeGrosso, standing by. Nicky had subpoenaed the records from the pharmacy that had filled the prescription. The order had been called in by a physician who, it turned out, didn't appear to exist. It had been picked up by someone who'd simply scrawled Samara's initials on the registry. The pharmacy was very nervous about having anyone testify, since under federal law they shouldn't have honored a phoned-in prescription for a controlled substance in the first place, let alone one from a nonexistent physician. And there was always the chance that if they sent the employee who'd collected the money and handed over the drugs, he or she might identify Samara as the recipient, rightly or wrongly. Were that to happen, there wouldn't be a hole in the floor big enough for Samara and Jaywalker to disappear into. So he was still on the fence about the whole Seconal thing and had been forced to break his own rule this time.
Even without a gradual buildup or an announcement that there will be nothing more to follow, the moment when a defendant rises and walks to the witness stand is a dramatic one. And if the charge happens to be murder, and the victim the husband of the accused, the word dramatic falls short of adequately describing it. Awesome comes closer; pivotal is no overstatement. Because this is the moment everyone's been waiting for. The lawyers, the judge, the court personnel, the media, the spectators and the jurors. Especially the jurors. Something about human na ture leads ordinary people who are fully capable of making a wide variety and staggering number of errors on the simplest of assignments to believe with iron-clad certainty that all they'll have to do is look at and listen to a defen dant, and they'll know in a heartbeat if they're hearing the truth or not.
What these jurors saw, as Samara raised her right hand and dutifully swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, was a woman who looked small, nervous and alone. A stunningly pretty woman, to be sure, but Jaywalker's own mental jury was still very much out on the question of whether that prettiness, in the end, would contribute to her salvation or prove to be her undoing.
She took her seat, not quite on the edge of the chair, but not so far back as to look relaxed. Just as Jaywalker had had her practice. She put her hands in her lap, out of sight and away from her face.
THE CLERK: Would you give your first name and last, and spell them for the record.
MS. TANNENBAUM: My name is Samara M. Tannenbaum. S-A-M-A-R-A T-A-N-N-E-N-B-A-U-M.
THE CLERK: What is your county of resi dence?
MS. TANNENBAUM: Manhattan.
THE COURT: You may inquire, Mr. Jay Walker.
MR. JAYWALKER: Thank you. How old are you,Samara?
MS. TANNENBAUM: I'm twenty-eight.
MR. JAYWALKER: Are you currently employed?
MS. TANNENBAUM: No.
MR. JAYWALKER: Have you been employed in the past?
MS. TANNENBAUM: Yes, starting when I was four teen.
These were softballs, grounders. They were only partly aimed to elicit information. Their real purpose was to warm Samara up, to give her a chance to find her voice and develop something of a rhythm. Jaywalker himself had been on the witness stand a fair amount back in his DEA days, and even a couple of times since. He knew it wasn't a particularly comfortable chair to sit in, as chairs went.
He also wanted the jurors to get to know Samara. Not just the Samara they'd read about, the dark-haired tabloid beauty with the checkered past, the Las Vegas gold digger who'd hit the jackpot, the spoiled trophy wife. He wanted them to know her as he knew her, and-if she could somehow work her magic with them the same way she'd worked it with him-to come to like her as he liked her. If a jury likes a defendant, especially a female defendant, they may end up convicting her, but they're going to have an awfully hard time doing so. On the other hand, if they take a dislike to her, it'll be easy, particularly for the women on the jury. Find that hard to believe? Ask Martha Stewart, why don't you?
So he went back to the beginning, Jaywalker did, back to when Samara Moss had been a child growing up outside of Prairie Creek, Indiana. Back to a time before she'd had a penny to her name. Back to before she'd ever dreamed that there was a world beyond the Midwest, a world with out cornfields and trailer parks and rusted-out pickup trucks. Back to before she'd ever even heard of Las Vegas or Barry Tannenbaum or New York City.
MR. JAYWALKER: Who raised you, Samara?
MS. TANNENBAUM: My mother, sort of.
MR. JAYWALKER: Did you know your father?
MS. TANNENBAUM: No, I never met him.
MR. JAYWALKER: What was your home like?
MS. TANNENBAUM: It was a half trailer that somebody had abandoned. It had no water or elec tric hookup. And it was missing the half with the bed room and bathroom.
MR. JAYWALKER: What did you use for a bath room?
MS. TANNENBAUM: In nice weather, we used the field out back. When it was too cold, a stove pot. It was my job to empty it each morning.
MR. JAYWALKER: What did you and your mother do for food?
MS. TANNENBAUM: When there was money, we bought it, like everyone else. When there wasn't, my mother used to have me beg for groceries outside the Kroger's, the nearest supermarket. Sometimes she'd give me a boost so I could climb up into the Dump ster they kept out back, see what I could find. Some times neighbors left food by the door of our trailer. There was a black family that lived up the road and did that whenever they could, even though they were dirt-poor themselves. Then, after a while, they moved away, and my mother started taking in men, over night guests. And they would give her money, five or ten dollars at a time.
MR. JAYWALKER: Where did they sleep?
MS. TANNENBAUM: On the sofa, with my mother.
MR. JAYWALKER: In the same room as you?
MS. TANNENBAUM: There was only one room. If the weather was okay, my mother would send me out in the field. If it was cold or rainy or snowy, she'd put me to bed on the floor, in the corner. Cover me up with a blanket and make me face the other way, so I couldn't see.
MR. JAYWALKER: Did you know what was going on?
MS. TANNENBAUM: I had ears. I could hear.
MR. JAYWALKER: How old were you?
MS. TANNENBAUM: Ten, eleven.
