Dark Moonlighting (11 page)

Sam looked utterly confused. “M-m-more than
one person? How could that be? Mister, I’m afraid I d-d-don’t know
what you’re talking about. I can tell ya that I didn’t see many
healers during my life. My mama and pappy couldn’t afford any fancy
health insurance.”

“All right, then when did you first meet
Richard,” Kelley asked, trying a new tactic.

“Who’s Richard?”

“Ah!” Kelley shouted in annoyance. He quickly
regained his composure after a stern look from Judge Yoest. “Let’s
start simple then. You said you went to a restaurant called
McGruffy’s for dinner. Isn’t it true that McGruffy’s isn’t really a
restaurant? Isn’t McGruffy’s actually just a dive bar that happens
to have a George Foreman Grill in the back?”

“Objection,” I said. “Leading the
witness.”

“Mr. Norton,” Kelley started again before
Judge Yoest could rule on the objection. “Could you describe what
type of establishment McGruffy’s is?”

“I d-d-don’t know whatcha mean,” my client
answered. “I took my pappy to McGruffy’s because he likes their
chicken w-w-wings. It’s just a good place to eat and sit a
spell.”

Kelley forgot his persona and turned to glare
at Sam Norton. His casual look dissolved into a rigid stance, and
the balled fists at his side began to shake slightly with rage.

“What kind of drink did you order?” the
opposing attorney demanded through clenched teeth.

“’Twas so long a-a-ago… I’m afraid I can’t
remember,” my client responded nervously.

“Did you order a beer?” Kelley demanded.

“Objection,” I said. “Asked and
answered.”

“Sustained,” Judge Yoest said.

“Did you order a whiskey?” Kelley
continued.

“Your Honor,” I said in disgust. “Again,
objection. Asked and answered.”

“Sustained,” Judge Yoest said as she warned
the prosecutor with a dirty look. “The prosecution will move
on.”

Kelley was past the tipping point now though,
and he was not to be dissuaded. “Did you order the
Code
Red
?” he screamed in Sam Norton’s face.

“What?” Sam asked

“For your drink! Did you order a
Mountain
Dew Code Red
?” Kelley clarified.

“Your Honor, this is completely—” I
began.

Judge Yoest interrupted me before I could
properly show my abhorrence. “Mr. Kelley, you are completely out of
line. If you do not move on from this line of questioning I will
hold you in contempt of court.”

Kelley did not respond, but rather ran his
hand across the top of his head and sighed in exasperation. He
paced back and forth in front of the witness stand as he struggled
to control his temper. He had attempted to elicit an angry reaction
from my client, but had only managed to push himself over the
edge.

Christina leaned over and whispered into my
ear, “He’s intense.”

“He’s under a lot of pressure,” I said. “He’s
having some personal trouble with his fake mistress.”

“Ah,” Christina responded as if my
explanation actually made sense to her.

“Mr. Norton, were you aware on the day of
your father’s death that he had purchased a life insurance policy
less than three weeks prior?” Kelley asked after partially
regaining his composure.

“N-n-no, sir. I never did pay too much
attention to the family’s finances. P-p-pappy always said I had
less sense about math than a raccoon in a badger hole.”

“How colorful,” the prosecutor said. “Would
it surprise you to learn that you were the sole beneficiary of that
life insurance policy?”

“Mole penitentiary of a life insurance
policy?” my client asked, struggling to make sense of the
words.

“You g-g-goddamn hick!” Kelley mocked.
“Nobody is that folksy you lying sack of shit! I’ll kill you!”

I made a token gesture to stand up and
intervene when Kelley lunged towards the witness stand and wrapped
his hands around Sam Norton’s throat. A pair of bailiffs had
restrained the frazzled prosecutor before I reached the melee. Sam,
who had submissively curled into a ball on the floor when he was
first attacked, whimpered pathetically as he cautiously reclaimed
his seat. Even though it was obvious to everyone present, Judge
Yoest announced for the record that Kelley was in contempt of
court. She ordered the bailiffs to escort him out, and futilely
banged her gavel as he screamed and struggled against his
captors.

“Is the prosecution prepared to continue its
cross-examination,” Judge Yoest asked Alexandra even before Kelley
had been dragged from the courtroom. “Prosecution?” she asked again
to get the young woman’s attention.

Alexandra, who had been understandably
distracted by her colleague kicking and screaming his way out the
door, snapped back to attention as she realized that Yoest was
talking to her. “What? Yes, Your Honor. Sorry. Um, the prosecution
has no further questions for this witness.”

“Very well, the witness may step down,” Judge
Yoest said with relief. “Let’s take an early lunch, shall we? One
hour.”

Yoest banged her gavel and quickly fled to
her chambers. The confused jury was led from the courtroom as
furious conversations broke out in the gallery. The local
television news reporters bumped into each other as they raced
outside to file their stories. Most of the rest of the crowd stayed
seated as they were too obsessed with the events of the day to drag
themselves away. I stood calmly from the table and placed my
folders and notes into my briefcase.

“I usually eat lunch in the cafeteria,” I
said to Christina as she watched the strange display. “You’re
welcome to join me.”

Christina reacted quickly to my offer, but
still had to jog to keep up with my pace. A few of the spectators
shouted questions at me, but I ignored them as I pushed my way out
the door and into the hallway.

“I know you said the triple D case was going
to be exciting,” Christina started. “But I had no idea it would be
this interesting. Did you?”

“Did I know the lead prosecutor was going to
snap, have a complete mental collapse and attempt to murder my
client?” I questioned sarcastically. “No, that was unusual. What
did you want to ask?”

“Huh?”

“Before the trial started, you said you
wanted to ask me a question.”

“Oh, right. I just wanted to see if you knew
that Norton wasn’t crazy.”

Her simple statement stopped me in my tracks.
I glanced left and right to make sure no one had overheard our
conversation. Christina’s face was expressionless, and it seemed
that she did not realize what a profound statement she had just
made.

“What makes you say that?” I asked
carefully.

“Norton was born and raised in upstate New
York. His family didn’t move to Georgia until he was thirteen years
old, and they only spent three years there before moving up to
Illinois. There’s no reason he should have such a thick southern
accent. Also, his fake alternate personality doesn’t have the same
accent even though the dissociative identify disorder supposedly
first manifested when he was a child. Also, that’s the worst
southern accent I’ve ever heard. It sounded like a mix of bad
cultural stereotypes that failed to take into account the complex
vernacular of any of the regional southern accents. He sounded like
Foghorn Leghorn,” she listed. “Plus, when you asked fake Richard to
speak to Sam he was able to transition immediately without any sort
of trigger.”

I had been planning on lying to Christina and
telling her that I believed Norton was truly crazy. Her explanation
proved that she had ample brains to match her cleavage. I kicked
myself for underestimating her intelligence on the sole basis of
her awkward social skills. I made a mental note to research her
background more thoroughly when I had the chance.

“That’s the evidence from the trial that
confirmed your hypothesis,” I countered. “You said you knew he was
faking before we got started this morning.”

“His medical records showed no indication of
sexual abuse or any other traumatic childhood event that would have
lead to the split personalities,” Christina responded without
missing a beat. “After looking at your notes and the evidence, it
was obvious that the most rational explanation was that Mr. Norton
committed a premeditated murder to get his father’s life insurance
payout. He bungled it, probably because he’s not very smart as
shown by the performance he put on today, and developed this story
to try to get acquitted. Although, given my earlier evidence that
Norton isn’t very bright, I have to believe that you coached him
significantly.”

“I did,” I admitted, impressed by her
reasoning.

“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Christina
stated. “You should have been smart enough to notice the gaping
hole in your argument. In your story the fake Richard personality
only manifests if there’s a threat to Sam. You haven’t presented a
trigger that would have allowed the fake Richard personality to
emerge and commit a brutal murder.”

I smiled as I looked her over. “I’m aware of
the oversight, but I can guarantee you that it’s not going to
matter. Presenting an argument passionately is not the same as
intelligently or logically. However, when the jury is particularly
stupid, it’s just as effective. Luckily for us defense attorneys,
jurors are usually stupid. They didn’t sail through high school,
earn a bachelor’s degree with little effort and then study law for
a few years like you or I. We are the intellectual elite, and
you’ll learn pretty quickly that the twelve people in the box don’t
think like you do. Jurors want to be dazzled with DNA, forensics
and shocking testimony. Give them a good story, even one as
far-fetched as split personalities, and they’ll eat it up.”

“But that’s not ethical,” she argued as if
speaking to one of her law professors. “There’s a difference
between presenting a rational defense and completely making up a
story.”

“Is there?” I questioned. “My job is to get
my client off by any means necessary. Even if he’s clearly guilty
and I have to make up a ludicrous story, that’s my role in the
justice system. If we start half-assessing our defenses than it’s a
slippery slope. If we stop helping the clearly guilty, then why not
the probably guilty? Why bother with trials at all if defense
attorneys aren’t going to give 100% to get their clients acquitted.
The entire justice system becomes irrelevant in that scenario.”

Christina did not need time to think over her
response. “That argument isn’t logical.”

“No, but it’s passionate,” I said with a
grin. “I am quite serious though. I’d much rather have a thousand
Sam Norton’s go free than one innocent man go to prison or death
row because I didn’t do my duty.”

“Would you like to have dinner with me
tonight?” Christina asked, suddenly shifting the conversation.

“But… we haven’t even had lunch yet,” I
argued. I glanced down at her largely exposed chest and then back
to her eyes. “Yeah, sure. Dinner sounds good.”

“There’s an Italian place not far from my
apartment that’s pretty good,” she said.

I quivered at the thought of sitting at an
Italian restaurant as baskets of garlic bread were passed around my
head. Of all the old wives’ tales about vampires, the garlic thing
is one of the few that is actually true. A handful of normal humans
are allergic to an amino acid contained in garlic called allicin.
Vampires suffer from an exacerbated form of this allergy because of
the virus raging throughout or bodies. I was never able to discover
the cause of this extreme reaction. If I was exposed to even a
small amount of garlic my skin would develop an itchy rash and then
begin to blister. As such, it was difficult for me to properly
conduct tests on the substance.

“No!” I answered a little too forcefully. “I
know a great Chinese place instead.”

Things had calmed down considerably in the
courtroom when we got back from lunch. Judge Yoest personally
apologized to my client, who continued the shy schoolboy act that I
knew the jury was eating up. Having no need to draw out the
proceedings, I closed my case. My closing arguments were brilliant
and highlighted the fascinating and debilitating disease that my
client did not actually have. Alexandra, clearly overwhelmed by
being suddenly thrust to the front of the prosecution’s team,
stumbled through her arguments. She called on the jury to look at
the facts of the case with basic common sense. The jurors lacked
the skill set needed to heed her advice. They came back in less
than two hours with the verdict I had anticipated. Sam/Richard
Norton was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or
defect.

“T-t-thanks so much, Mr. Whittier,” Norton
said to me after court was adjourned. He extended his right hand
towards me.

“No problem,” I said. I ignored his hand and
quickly put my materials into my briefcase.

“I g-g-guess I can tell you now,” he started
as a cruel grin spread across his face. When he spoke again his
accent and mannerisms had completely changed. “That it was all a
lie. I murdered that old bastard for the money, and you helped me
get away scot-free.”

“Well d-d-duh,” I mocked him. “Why do you
think I spent so much time these last few weeks going over your
testimony? I was helping you hone your craft. Frankly, you’re a
pretty shitty actor.”

Norton was taken aback by my lack of being
taken aback. The grin fell from his face, and he looked
monumentally disappointed that I was not shocked by his revelation.
He turned towards Christina but found her as glassy-eyed and
unemotional as she ever was.

“Hey, don’t feel too bad. At least the jury
bought it,” I reassured him. “By the way, about that life insurance
policy… the firm is real touchy about late payments. Be sure to
take care of my legal fees just as soon as you get the check in the
mail at whatever mental hospital they stick you in. Oh, and be sure
to tell Napoleon I said hello,” I finished with a nod of my
head.