Defense, p.28
Defense, page 28
“‘Who are you?’ I asked as gently as I could. She didn’t answer, not directly, not at first. She said, ‘I was in court today. He accused me of murder.’ I said, ‘You’re Michelle, aren’t you? You’re Denise Morel’s daughter?’” A look of uncertainty came into her eyes. “Did you accuse her of the murder?”
I nodded. “It may have been a mistake. Did she deny it?”
“She said she didn’t even know her mother was dead until she heard it from Myrna Albright’s mother.”
“Myrna Albright’s mother!” I exclaimed, incredulous. “She knew all the time where Michelle was! And I believed everything she told me,” I said with a bitter smile.
Alexandra tried to sympathize. “She was probably just trying to protect her.”
My elbows on the table, I rested my chin in my hands, and stared down at the hard wooden surface, as impenetrable as the wall of duplicity that had been built around this trial. “So she came to watch the trial out of curiosity?” I asked cynically.
“No, she said she came to find Myrna Albright. As soon as she heard what happened, she was certain Myrna had done it.”
“And just why did she think that?” I asked, raising my eyes.
“Because five years ago, Myrna told her that she would never have to worry about Johnny Morel again.”
“She told her she killed him?”
“That’s the way it sounded,” Alexandra said, starting to shiver. She folded her arms, clutching at herself as hard as she could.
“Are you all right? Let me get you something.”
“No, I’m all right,” she said, waving her hand in front of her. “God, I was really scared,” she said, rocking back and forth. “I kept hoping I’d hear you drive up. I had to leave her in the kitchen to call you. I didn’t want her to know. I was afraid she’d think I was calling the police.”
I was mystified. “Why would she think that?”
She sat still and leaned toward me. “Because I didn’t believe her! I didn’t believe anything she told me. And I think she knew it. It was the way she kept looking at me. There’s something evil about her, something I can’t explain. But I know it’s true!”
Moving my chair right next to hers, I put my arm around her shoulder. “When she left, did she say anything about where she was staying, where she was going? Anything at all?”
“No, except that she’d be in court again tomorrow.”
xxiii
If I slept at all that night it was never more than a few minutes at a time. I could not stop thinking about what had happened. Finding herself alone with Michelle had only intensified Alexandra’s belief that Michelle killed her mother and stepfather. It must have taken all her courage to sit there, talking politely with someone she thought was a murderer, waiting for me, wondering if I would arrive in time. Later she tried to laugh about it, but when she crawled into bed next to me she did not stop trembling until, out of sheer exhaustion, she fell asleep.
If Alexandra was right, if Denise Morel’s daughter had really done it, why would she want to see me? Why would she want me to know where she was? Even if she had wanted to watch the trial and see the last part of her scheme unfold, she could have done it without anyone knowing, or even suspecting, she was there. She had been there today, and as I glanced around the courtroom during my opening statement how many times must I have looked right at her? Why would she want to see me, unless what she had told Alexandra was the truth, that Myrna Albright had confessed to the murder of Johnny Morel and had now closed her own circle of revenge by killing Denise as well? It would not be long before I had all the answers I needed. She was to be there in the morning.
A little after four o’clock I gave up all hope of getting any more sleep. As quietly as I could, I slipped out of bed, showered, and shaved. Putting on a pair of khaki pants and a sweatshirt, I gathered up a pair of black dress shoes, a dark blue suit, white shirt, and tie. I would change in the office just before I went to court.
The streets were dark and deserted as I drove into town. My footsteps echoed through the underground garage as I walked toward the elevator, remembering how I had run in the opposite direction across the same gray concrete floor only hours before. After I had hung the suit on a hook behind my office door, I went to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee.
After the morning light broke from behind Mt. Hood and the city began to stir itself, I called Emma Gibbon at home. Alexandra was going to be in court to point out Michelle, and I did not want her to be there alone. At eight o’clock, Helen came in, stood for a moment watching me work, and then, without a word, picked up the empty coffee cup and disappeared. A few minutes later she returned, placed a full cup in front of me, and having learned how easily I lost track of time, said quietly, “I’ll buzz you at nine.”
“Better make it quarter till,” I said without looking up. “I need to be there early.”
Emma was waiting for me at the courthouse steps. We found Alexandra just outside the entrance to the courtroom. It was jammed to capacity.
“She isn’t here,” Alexandra said helplessly.
“Are you sure?” I asked, looking through the open doors, searching for someone who looked like the woman Alexandra had described.
“I’m sure,” she replied. “I was here when they opened the doors. I saw everyone who went in. She isn’t here.”
“Maybe she’s late,” I suggested. “We still have a few minutes. Stay here with Emma. If you see her, don’t do anything. Just tell Emma,” I whispered, bending close enough to kiss her on the forehead before I went into court.
Leopold Rifkin was sitting quietly at the counsel table, dressed in yet another suit that fit him perfectly and looked as if it had never been worn before. My eyes moved slowly from one end of each row of spectators to the other, hoping to find someone who looked familiar. Then, before I had finished, everyone was on their feet. The clerk had announced the opening of court; Sloper was on his way to the bench. Twisting around as I got up, I remained on my feet after everyone else sat down.
“Your honor,” I said, trying to sound as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, “may I have a moment?”
Emma and Alexandra were just starting to walk away when I closed the door to the courtroom behind me. “Anything?” I asked, though the answer was already waiting in Alexandra’s eyes.
She shook her head. “No, she didn’t come.”
I had to get back into court, but Emma caught me by the arm. “Wait. There’s something else,” she said as she walked with me toward the door. “What if she never intended to come here today?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder to where Alexandra was still standing. “What if she turned up last night just to let you know she could get to you anytime she wanted?”
“Or get to Alexandra!” I said, realizing for the first time how vulnerable she had been, alone in that house with someone who may have already murdered two people.
Emma nodded. “I’ll have someone there tonight to watch the house.”
“Keep an eye on her, will you?” I asked as I turned away.
Judge Sloper watched me as I came back to the counsel table. With a wry smile on his weatherworn face, he asked: “Would now be a convenient time to start, Mr. Antonelli?”
“Sorry, your honor,” I said as I slid into my chair.
Then, with the workmanlike precision of an apprentice afraid that even the smallest mistake might ruin everything, Gilliland-O’Rourke put on the case for the prosecution. She began with the mechanics of death.
Denise Morel had been killed, according to the monotonous and occasionally brutal testimony of the coroner, by a single gunshot. Death was instantaneous, he reported. Nothing in the yawning emptiness of the coroner’s face suggested there was even a possibility that, despite his daily acquaintance with death, he had ever wondered what it was like to see a gun barrel pointed right at you and to know with more certainty than you have ever known anything, that in another moment you were going to die. Did Denise Morel think about trying to resist, about struggling for her life? Did she think about anything except the fear that must have been surging through her like a tidal wave of panic? These were not the questions the coroner had come to answer. They were not the kind of questions anyone thought about asking. Not in a court of law. Not in a place where everything has to be relevant, and relevance has nothing to do with the fear of death and the love of life. Not even when the charge is murder.
* * *
A parade of police officers and forensic-science experts followed the coroner. Denise Morel had been killed in the home of the defendant. There were no signs of forced entry, no sign that anyone other than the victim and the defendant had been there. The gun from which the fatal bullet had been fired was found next to the body. It belonged to Leopold Rifkin. It had been purchased by him. It was registered in his name.
Gilliland-O’Rourke spent three days on this, and during all that time I asked only three questions.
The first was: “The defendant’s fingerprints were not found on the gun, were they?”
The second was: “The defendant called 911 and requested both an ambulance and the police, did he not?”
The third was: “On the night of the murder, the defendant told you—told the police—that he was in the kitchen, making tea, when he heard a shot fired, did he not?”
Though I listened to every predictable word spoken by every witness called by the prosecution, it frequently took an act of will to concentrate on the meaning of what they said. There were other things on my mind, all of them, one way or another, tied to the unexpected visit by Denise Morel’s daughter.
We lived now with a strange sense of foreboding, as if we were under some sort of invisible siege. A car was parked every evening at the foot of the drive. We had a bodyguard and Alexandra had protection around the clock. Emma had arranged everything. We had all the security it was possible to have, and I had never been more aware of the presence of danger.
Alexandra became obsessed with finding out everything she could about Michelle, the girl she believed had killed first her stepfather, then her mother, and was now probably planning to kill me. When she asked to read it, I let her have the file on the trial of Johnny Morel.
“You really cut her to pieces, didn’t you?” she asked after she finished reading the handwritten outline I had sketched in advance of my cross-examination of the girl Johnny Morel had raped.
I had almost forgotten. “I was doing my job,” I replied without conviction.
Alexandra was relentless. She read everything there was to read about the trials and the deaths of Johnny and Denise Morel. Then, during the third day of the prosecution’s case, she telephoned Myrna Albright’s mother in British Columbia. She convinced her that she was a friend of Michelle’s from Montreal, and found out that Michelle had been living somewhere in Oregon since February or March. Instead of an address or a phone number, all she was able to get was a promise that the next time she heard from Michelle she would tell her Alexandra had called and give her the number she had left. For Alexandra it settled everything. If the girl had been here when her mother was murdered, the girl had murdered her.
Alexandra was certain, and I was almost convinced, but unless we found Michelle and could prove that she was really the killer, none of it mattered. Leopold Rifkin was on trial for his life, and every day the prosecution added more testimony to the weight of evidence against him.
* * *
On the fifth day, the prosecution called the owner of the gun store where Leopold Rifkin had supposedly purchased the murder weapon. Her hair pulled straight back from her temples in an attempt to look less provocatively feminine, Gilliland-O’Rourke began with the one question she wanted the jury to remember.
“Did the defendant, Leopold Rifkin, purchase a gun from you?”
Before the witness could begin to open his mouth, I was on my feet. “Objection. Leading the witness.”
She was not leading the witness. I knew it, and I was certain the judge knew it, but I did not know if she knew it.
It knocked her off stride. She did not know. She looked around at me and then up at the bench. “Your honor,” she began, doing everything she could to convey the impression that she had never lost control, “I’m only asking the witness—”
“Overruled,” Sloper said, without waiting for her to finish.
It was reflexive, like ducking a punch, or striking back when you didn’t duck fast enough. A tight smile of nervous resentment flashed across her closed mouth.
“Did the defendant, Leopold Rifkin, purchase a gun from you?” she asked again, wheeling back on the witness and glaring at him as if she had forgotten he was a witness for the prosecution.
His name was Harry Bruce. Overweight and balding, with small eyes that protruded from under the loose folds of his eyelids, he had the quick, abbreviated speech and the doubtful, questioning glance of the chronically uncertain. The sudden vehemence of Gilliland-O’Rourke’s question left him momentarily speechless.
“Well, did he or didn’t he?” she asked sharply. She caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she smiled. “Take your time. Just answer the question. Did you sell a gun to the defendant, Leopold Rifkin?”
“Yes,” he replied, exhaling the breath he had been holding.
“Now, I’m going to ask the clerk to hand you a document. Is this the registration form that was used in conjunction with that sale?”
He glanced at it and said it was.
“And would you please read the signature, the name of the person who purchased the gun?”
“Leopold Rifkin.”
“And do you see that person—the person who purchased the gun—in the courtroom today?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, nodding rapidly.
“And would you point him out, please?”
Without hesitation, he looked in our direction and extended his arm. “That’s him, sitting at the end of the table.”
It was routine, all of it. And it was a major mistake. She had not known. He had never told her. And she had not figured it out on her own, even though, as I now realized, I had practically told her myself in my opening statement. It was the price of inexperience.
“How do you know Leopold Rifkin purchased a gun from you?” I asked on cross-examination.
He was not sure what I meant. “How do I know?” he asked, his eyes darting around the courtroom.
“Yes. How do you know?”
He still did not understand. He looked down at the registration form in his hand. He looked up and held it out. “His name is on the registration. He signed it.”
“So that’s how you know?”
“Yes,” he said, grinning.
“It isn’t because you actually remember him? Actually remember him coming in and buying the gun?”
Now he understood. “Oh, I see. No, I wouldn’t remember him. Not like that. It was months ago, and I have a lot of customers.”
“But a minute ago you pointed to the defendant and said he was the person who bought the gun?”
“Yes.”
“But now you don’t remember him?”
He started to answer, but I cut him off. “And as a matter of fact you told an investigator employed by me that you did not recognize Leopold Rifkin, didn’t you? Even when she showed you a picture of him.”
“That’s right,” he said quickly, jerking himself forward in the witness chair, eager to explain. “I didn’t recognize his picture. But his signature is on the form—his name—so that man sitting next to you must be the one I sold the gun to, right?”
I stared hard at him. “No, that’s not right. If you never saw him before, couldn’t recognize him from his picture, couldn’t even remember a face as unforgettable as that,” I cried, pointing suddenly to Leopold Rifkin, “isn’t it possible that someone else might have signed his name? That someone else might have forged his name? That someone you never saw before signed a name that wasn’t his?”
He was following every word, like a snake mesmerized by the rhythm of a sound it cannot resist. Before he realized I had nothing more to ask him, I turned away. “No more questions, your honor.”
Gilliland-O’Rourke tried to pretend that nothing had happened and that he was the most credible eyewitness ever to testify in a court of law. With an instinct for the essential that experience could never teach, she asked him only one question.
“Tell us, please, after everything you’ve just been asked, do you now, at this moment, have any doubt, any doubt at all, that the person to whom you sold the gun, the gun that was used to murder Denise Morel, is the defendant, Leopold Rifkin?”
It was like asking a priest if he believed in the resurrection of Christ; the evidence of the senses had nothing to do with it.
“No,” he insisted, “no doubt at all.”
Gilliland-O’Rourke had finished with the mechanics of death; she began with the motives for murder.
* * *
The limit has not yet been reached on the number of times the story of an older man and a younger woman can be told to the rapt attention of a self-consciously censorious jury of twelve. But if the story of Leopold Rifkin’s alleged infatuation and supposed seduction of Denise Morel was compelling, it was clear that the witnesses through whom the story was told were not known for their devotion to the truth.
They looked presentable enough, in their simple dresses and just enough makeup to give the impression they never needed it, but they could not conceal everything about themselves. With the sympathy ordinarily reserved for the victims of crime, Gilliland-O’Rourke had each of them describe the series of misfortunes that had led them into the prisons and county jails where they had become acquainted with Denise Morel.
It was the same story told three times over. Each of them had come from a broken home, been sexually abused, lived on the streets, become an addict before their sixteenth birthday, and served time for the possession of narcotics, small acts of thievery, and frequent acts of prostitution. It was the same dreary, depressing tale of the vast anonymous docket of the criminal courts. But it was a story the members of the jury had not heard before, at least not from women with nervous mouths and frightened eyes, women who had lived the desperate degradation and the degrading despair they had known only in cheap novels and B movies. Caught between their natural feelings of aversion and their deeper, and better, instincts of compassion, they listened with sometimes open-mouthed attention to what these women said Denise Morel had told them about her relationship with Leopold Rifkin.
