Bearing Witness (28 page)

I dashed over to the archway and grabbed the backpack. On the way back, I dug around and pulled out the roll of duct tape. Benny tore off a long strip and handed it to me. Then he leaned over Robb, shoved him onto his stomach, and yanked his arms behind his back, holding his wrists together.

I squatted next to him and wrapped the tape several turns. Benny let go of Robb's hands. They fell limply against his back.

Benny reached for the duct tape and tore off another long strip. He handed me the strip of tape, grabbed Robb by his hair, and pulled his head off the ground. “Say cheese.”

Benny looked over at me and nodded. I positioned the duct tape over Robb's mouth and wrapped it around his head twice.

When I was done, Benny leaned in close, still holding Robb's head by his hair. Robb's eyes were darting around in fear and pain.

“Pillsbury Jew Boy, eh?” Benny said. “Well, guess what, motherfucker? Fourth quarter just ended. Final score: Jew Boy one, Spider zero.”

Benny released his grip and Robb's head conked against the ground. He made a muffled groan.

We headed quickly toward the eastern end of the building, hoping that Robb and his men had entered, as we had, from the west side. I looked back as we reached a stairway. Off in the distance I saw two flashlights moving in our direction.

“Hurry,” I whispered.

We scrambled down the stairway toward the door at the bottom, pushed through it, ran down a short corridor, came to another door, pushed through it, and found ourselves standing on the sidewalk on Eighteenth Street. I looked back with a wince, expecting the door to burst open.

“This way,” Benny said, grabbing my arm and running toward Market Street. We jogged to the front of Union Station and the entrance to the Hyatt Hotel, where there were several cabs parked in a line. We hopped in the first one.

“Police station!” I shouted. “Hurry.”

“Yes, ma'am.” The cabbie shifted to Drive. The tires squealed as he pulled away from the curb.

We settled back, both of us breathing hard. After a moment, I turned to Benny. “How did you do that?”

“A hammer.”

“No, I mean the first time.”

“That was the other hammer. That big sucker. I snuck up behind him and threw it.” He pantomimed a hammer throw. “Right in the middle of his back. Whack!” He paused for a second and then smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Ahhh.”

“What?”

“His tools.”

“Whose?”

“The urologist's. They're back there.”

“Don't worry, Thor. We'll buy him some new ones.”

Chapter Thirty

They were all in the courtroom that morning.

Ruth Alpert was seated at my side, and next to her was Benny. Conrad Beckman, looking especially dour, was over at the defendant's table seated next to Kimberly Howard. The two of them were surrounded by the usual entourage, with Laurence Browning officiously shooting his cuffs.

Out in the gallery every seat was taken. Stanley Roth had the aisle position in the first row behind the barrier on the defendant's side. He was going over some point with an intent young spin doctor from the St. Louis office of the public relations firm of Hill/Dowling. This was Hill/Dowling's first appearance in the courtroom.
Fasten your seat belts, fellas
, I thought. The rest of those two rows were packed with executives from Beckman Engineering and attorneys and paralegals from Roth & Bowles.

My mother was in the courtroom today, along with Ruth's grown daughter Barbara. They were seated in the first row on the plaintiff's side. Next to them were Jacki and my five law student volunteers.

The press was here in force this morning, both print and broadcast. Their numbers had been swelling each day. For those following their reports on the trial, our side was slightly behind on points. The
Post-Dispatch
reporter had decreed Conrad Beckman's testimony yesterday “impressive” and “forceful.”

There were plenty of spectators in the gallery as well. The television accounts had been luring them into the courtroom in greater numbers each day.

And finally, there was a new group today: the law enforcement professionals. Jonathan Wolf was there, seated in the back row between two of his investigators, his crutches leaning against the bench next to him. I recognized a couple of FBI special agents, an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, an assistant U.S. attorney, and someone from the city prosecutor's office.

The only important people missing from the courtroom were my best witnesses: Gloria Muller, Harold Roth, and Herman Warnholtz—all dead. And Kurt Robb, of course. He was in lockup in the city jail on a variety of misdemeanor charges (trespass, assault) that would keep him on ice for another twenty-four hours. That ought to be enough time.

I glanced over at Benny. He looked wired this morning, and with good reason. Neither of us had slept a wink last night. I hadn't pulled an all-nighter since law school, but I was hanging in there so far. We'd left the police station at close to three in the morning. One of the cops drove us back to Union Station to retrieve our car. Sleep had been out of the question. There'd been just too much to do. Jacki, God bless her, had been a real trooper, as had my volunteers: they all came in at four-thirty in the morning to help assemble the exhibits, make the transparencies, and take care of the dozens of little tasks that needed to be ready before the trial resumed at ten o'clock this morning.

My first courthouse appearance this morning had actually occurred much earlier. I knew that Judge Wagner usually got to court by seven-thirty. Accordingly, I was waiting at the entrance to the judges' parking area when she pulled up at 7:25 a.m. I handed her copies of the financial records we'd taken from the clocktower, along with copies of the newspaper articles from the other five cities. I explained what they were, and then I drove back to my office praying that she'd concur. At ten to nine, her clerk called to inform me that Her Honor would allow the audiotapes into evidence with a cautionary instruction to the jury. I traded high-fives with my trial team and went back to gathering the materials for court.

At ten-fifteen, the courtroom buzzer sounded. We stood as the side door opened and Judge Catherine Wagner swept into the room, her blond hair flowing behind her. She took her seat in the high-back leather chair behind the bench and turned toward the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “in a few minutes plaintiff's counsel is going to play an audiotape for you. It's an interview she conducted two nights ago with a man named Herman Warnholtz. At the time of the interview, Mr. Warnholtz was serving a life sentence for a vicious murder back in 1942. Mr. Warnholtz had terminal cancer at the time of the interview.” She paused. “He died several hours after the interview.”

I could hear a rush of whispers behind me. Her opening comments had ratcheted the courtroom tension several notches higher. I eyed the jurors. A few glanced at one another, but for the most part they sat with their arms crossed staring at the judge, their faces solemn.

“As a result,” Judge Wagner continued, “all we have are Mr. Warnholtz's unsworn statements. Even worse, Ms. Howard never had an opportunity to ask Mr. Warnholtz any questions.” She paused to smile. “We all know that Ms. Howard would have had some tough questions for him.”

A few of the jurors smiled and nodded. The others just sat there, their faces grim.

Judge Wagner frowned and shook her head. “But sometimes we have to try to deal with evidence that's less than ideal.” She gazed at the jurors. “What you're about to hear, ladies and gentlemen, is hearsay. You're going to hear a tape recording of a series of unsworn statements by a convicted murderer. I caution you to listen to this tape with a skeptical ear.” She studied the jurors for a moment and then gave them a reassuring smile. “I am confident that you will do that.” She turned to me. “Counsel?”

I stood. “Your Honor, we have a few exhibits that we'd like the jury to be able to see while they listen to the tape.”

Judge Wagner nodded and turned to the jury. “In the audiotape, you will hear Mr. Warnholtz explain that at the time of his arrest in 1955, he asked his brother to hide certain documents in the clocktower at Union Station.” She turned back to me. “Let's do that part now, Counsel.”

I glanced over at Benny. “Plaintiff calls Benjamin Goldberg to the stand.”

Benny stood and walked over to the witness box. As the clerk swore him in, I noted with relief that the shower, shave, and navy blue suit had him looking downright trustworthy.

I took him through the preliminaries—name, residence, occupation, etc.—and then had him describe our journey up and over the Grand Hall and into the clocktower. Benny was the perfect witness for this: he was, after all, an extremely articulate man with superb storytelling skills. The jury listened to him intently. Two jurors were actually leaning forward in their seats, enthralled by the tale.

“The safe was exactly where he said it would be,” Benny explained to the jury. “Five limestone blocks in from the left, three blocks up from the floor.”

“Tell the jury what happened next.”

“Well, he said on the tape that the combination to the safe was Hitler's birthday, which happens to be April 20, 1898. So we gave it a try.” He motioned with his hand, as if turning the combination knob. “Four…twenty…eighteen…ninety-eight.” He nodded. “Sure enough, it popped right open.”

I paused. The jurors were hanging on Benny's every word. There wasn't a sound in the courtroom.

“What was inside?” I asked.

“A large envelope.”

“Did you bring it with you today?”

Benny nodded. “Right over there,” he said, pointing at the package in front of Ruth Alpert.

As I moved toward the table to retrieve the envelope, I glanced toward the gallery. The spectators were spellbound. Stanley Roth looked ashen. I carried the envelope over to Benny and handed it to him. “Take a moment to examine the contents, Professor.”

He did.

“Can you identify them?”

He looked up with a confident nod. “These are the documents we found inside the safe.”

I turned to the judge. “Your Honor, we offer this envelope and its contents as Plaintiff's Group Exhibit Forty-eight.” I turned toward Kimberly. “I have an extra set here for defendant's counsel.” I walked over and handed them to Kimberly, who looked too dazed to say a thing.

“Any objection?” Judge Wagner asked her.

From the expression on Kimberly's face, I could tell she was trying to get her brain to shift out of neutral into first. It took a moment for the gears to mesh. “Yes,” she said uncertainly. “Hearsay. Lack of foundation.”

“Overruled.”

I looked at Benny and then the judge. “No further questions.”

“Any cross-examination?” Judge Wagner asked.

As Kimberly rose and moved toward the podium, I saw Conrad Beckman grab the set of documents and pull them in front of him. He slowly leafed through them. For the first time in the trial, there was a look of concern on his face.

“
Professor
Goldberg,” Kimberly said, having regained some of her spunk, “let's get this straight. You are a professor of law, correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He was the essence of polite humility.

“And as a professor of law you
study
the law, correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you
write
about law, correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you
instruct
law students in the law, correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Then perhaps you can instruct us, Professor. Last night, when you and Miss Gold were gallivanting around the clock tower, were the two of you—one a
professor
of law, the other a
lawyer
—were the two of you
violating
any laws?”

Benny gave her a sheepish grin. “Probably.”

“
Probably
? Come now, Professor. Remember back to first-year property. I believe what you and Miss Gold committed last night is called ‘trespass,' isn't it?”

Benny raised his eyebrows and nodded. “I believe you are correct.”

“And while you and your cohort were in there
trespassing
, I believe you testified that you started chopping away at the mortar and tearing out bricks and otherwise
destroying
private property, Professor. That violated
another
law, correct?”

Benny nodded. “You're probably correct, Ms. Howard.”

“As a matter of fact, indeed”—and here she paused to smirk—“as a matter of
law
, the only proper thing to have done if you really thought there might be something up there in that clock tower was to go to the police, correct? Go to the police, file a report, and ask them to search the clock tower. Correct?”

Benny shook his head. “Nope.”

“No?”

He nodded. “Too risky.”

I caught my breath.

Kimberly gave him an exaggerated look of puzzlement. “Too risky?”

I crossed my fingers. I knew exactly what Benny was doing: dangling the bait. Kimberly had been trained, as I'd been trained, to ignore that bait, to change the line of questioning, to move on, to never ask that next logical question, to never utter that most dangerous word in all of cross-examination. But even the most rigorous training can't overcome instinct, as I'd discovered on more than one unhappy occasion.

Kimberly stared at Benny as she moved back to the end of the jury box. Her position would force Benny to look at the jurors when he answered her next question.

“Too risky to go the police?” she repeated, her tone heavy with sarcasm.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Here we go. Come on, Kimberly
.

“Why?” she asked.

Yes
!

Benny shrugged. “Because every time Rachel found a witness with incriminating evidence against your client, that witness died. Gloria Muller knew bad things about your client, and someone killed Gloria Muller with a shotgun. Harold Roth knew bad things about your client, and someone shot Harold Roth between the eyes. And Herman Warnholtz certainly knew bad things about your client, and now Herman Warnholtz is dead.” He nodded his head thoughtfully, doing his Jimmy Stewart number. “You're right about that police report, Ms. Howard. We could have made one, but that wouldn't guarantee a search warrant, and even if the cops decided to get one, it might take a couple of days and the word might leak out before then. Frankly, Miss Howard, I was worried that anyone who was willing to kill people to keep out evidence against Mr. Beckman wouldn't hesitate to destroy these records”—he lifted up the manila envelope—“if we gave them half a chance. As a matter of fact, it turned out that we
were
being followed inside Union Station that night. When Rachel came down out of the clocktower—”

“
Stop
!” Conrad Beckman roared.

The courtroom was silent. Beckman was standing at counsel's table, one handing grasping the sheaf of financial records from the safe, his face scarlet, his eyes burning with rage.

“Counsel,” he snapped at Kimberly.

She hurried over to the table. He grabbed her by the shoulder and started whispering to her furiously.

After a moment, Judge Wagner said, “Ms. Howard?”

Kimberly looked over apologetically. “Just a moment, Your Honor.” She turned back to Beckman, who immediately started in again.

“Ms. Howard,” Judge Wagner repeated, this time more forcefully. “
Now
.”

Kimberly nodded at Beckman and turned to the judge. “Your Honor, may we approach?”

Judge Wagner gave her a stern look. “Quickly.”

I followed Kimberly up to the bench. The judge stared at her with displeasure as we waited for the court reporter to join us with her shorthand machine.

When the court reporter had her machine set up, the judge shook her head at Kimberly and said, “Put a muzzle on your client, Ms. Howard, or I'll hold him in contempt.”

“I apologize, Your Honor. Mr. Beckman is somewhat upset.”

Judge Wagner gave her a withering look. “So am I.”

“Judge,” Kimberly said, “we'd like to settle the case right now. We're prepared to make a substantial offer.”

Judge Wagner looked at me. I shrugged. “Your Honor, they made a substantial offer last night. My client turned it down.”