April Smith - Good Morning, Killer

“No.”

“Then who is their final witness?”

It was Margaret Forrester, and she had dressed for the occasion, in a tight-waisted black suit, black sheer hose and heels. The suit was not new, it had wide shoulder pads, but she looked intriguingly attractive, thick brown hair framing her cheekbones and one of her more dramatic creations — a choker of pink shells and purple stones — breaking up the black. Her nails were red. She sat up straight. She was the Thunder Queen.

Andrew did not return to the courtroom after the break so he did not hear her testimony, although he certainly would know what she was going to say.

Transcript of Proceedings page 205

FORRESTER: My job entails a lot of responsibility. I’m the widow of a police officer, and I have two small children at home, so I have to be thinking about a lot of things all day long. You have to be a “people person” and know a lot of rules and procedures and the way a police station operates.

RAUCH: In your job as police liaison with the FBI you worked with Special Agent Grey on the Santa Monica kidnapping. What was your experience?

FORRESTER: Difficult.

RAUCH: Difficult, how?

FORRESTER: She was demanding. Always wanting to do things her way. She had no understanding of how hard it is to do my job.

RAUCH: You’ve worked with FBI agents before.

FORRESTER: Yes.

RAUCH: Was Ana Grey any different?

FORRESTER: No offense to the nice people I’ve met at the Bureau, but Miss Grey had a chip on her shoulder. She thought she was better than you.

page 215

RAUCH: Was it common knowledge at the police station that Ana Grey and Andrew Berringer were dating?

FORRESTER: I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised.

JUDGE: He’s asking you if other people knew, not your personal reaction.

FORRESTER: Yes, Your Honor, it’s a fishbowl, everybody knows everything in a police department. I said I was shocked because Detective Berringer is such a quiet guy, a guy’s guy, and usually goes out with quiet women, but I wasn’t surprised because I’d seen Miss Grey get her fingers into anything she wanted.

Cross-Examination page 249

COUNTY: Mrs. Forrester, your late husband and Detective Berringer were good friends, correct?

FORRESTER: Best of buddies. They did everything together.

COUNTY: How was your husband killed, Mrs. Forrester?

FORRESTER: He was attacked by a gang.

COUNTY: And did you receive any payments on his death?

FORRESTER: He had life insurance.

COUNTY: What about his pension?

FORRESTER: We were denied any pension my husband accrued after eighteen years of service.

COUNTY: Why is that?

FORRESTER: They ruled that he did not die in the line of duty.

RAUCH: What is the purpose of this line of questioning?

COUNTY: The relationship between Detective Forrester and Detective Berringer goes to the attitude of this witness. Mrs. Forrester, did you have a sexual relationship with Detective Berringer?

FORRESTER: No! Of course not!

COUNTY: After your husband died?

FORRESTER: No.

JUDGE: Take it easy, Mrs. Forrester.

COUNTY: It would be understandable that you would seek comfort with someone who knew you well, almost as well as your husband.

RAUCH: He is berating this witness.

JUDGE: Go on.

COUNTY: Do you recall an incident in the parking lot of the police station during which you were very upset because of an altercation with a dry cleaner?

FORRESTER: He was extremely rude to me.

COUNTY: The dry cleaner was rude and you were angry and you encountered Ana Grey.

FORRESTER: I don’t remember any of that.

COUNTY: You dropped your dry cleaning, and she picked it up. Do you remember the incident?

FORRESTER: I’m not sure.

COUNTY: Is it true in the parking lot, when you were very upset about the dry cleaner who told you never to come back to his shop, you told Ana Grey that Detective Berringer was sleeping with Officer Sylvia Oberbeck?

FORRESTER: I thought she should know. Anyway, like the other gentleman said, it was “common knowledge,” I was not letting the cat out of the bag.

COUNTY: I see. You were only repeating what everybody knew.

FORRESTER: That’s right.

COUNTY: And did you also tell Special Agent Grey what everybody knew, which was that after your husband died, you had an affair with Detective Berringer, and that he would ultimately leave her as he had left you?

FORRESTER: No! Absolutely not! That is an insult, you are attacking me, you are attacking me and nobody is doing anything about it.

JUDGE: We’ll take a fifteen-minute recess.

COUNTY: Your Honor, I’m almost done, and then we can wrap it up for the day.

JUDGE: Do you think you can answer the questions, Mrs. Forrester?

COUNTY: Didn’t you say to Ana Grey, of Andrew Berringer and Officer Oberbeck, “I slept with him before that bitch,” or words to that effect?

JUDGE: Mrs. Forrester? Answer the question.

FORRESTER: She’s lying, she’s a liar, she is out to get me and I have no idea why.

COUNTY: Really? I think that statement should be reversed because, Mrs. Forrester, aren’t you the one who told the investigating officers Ana Grey shot Andrew Berringer? Aren’t you the one who first pointed the finger at Ana Grey?

FORRESTER: They asked if I had any thoughts on the subject.

COUNTY: You had “thoughts.”

FORRESTER: Yes, I did.

COUNTY: But no facts.

FORRESTER: I knew.

COUNTY: Were you there at the time of the shooting?

FORRESTER: No.

COUNTY: Did you have any direct knowledge of the shooting?

FORRESTER: No, I didn’t.

COUNTY: Then you couldn’t know. You guessed, is that right? You conjectured. You wished. You were jealous. You wanted revenge because this big strapping handsome detective was finished with you, and his current squeeze was Ana Grey. You told the police not out of knowledge but spite, is that correct?

RAUCH: I’m sorry, we have to stop—

COUNTY: That doesn’t make you a very objective source about Special Agent Grey’s behavior, does it?

JUDGE: I think this witness has had enough, Mr. County.

We stood in the corridor. The upturned car was gone, and traffic was jammed up as usual in the late afternoon. Devon’s cell kept ringing and he kept ignoring it. The two other attorneys were talking on their phones down the hall.

“The prosecution’s case was overwhelming,” I said. “The judge did not buy ours.”

“Don’t worry, the jury will. This was just practice.”

“Practice!”

“We know a lot more about their witnesses. We know how Andrew comes across in the courtroom—”

One of the young attorneys interrupted in a hurry. “Devon? Breaking news.”

“What’s up?”

“They found a body.”

I almost laughed. This, after all, was the criminal defense attorney’s gruesome stock and trade. Bodies here, bodies there. Must mean another client!

“Teenage girl,” he was saying, “in a park in Mar Vista. The crime scene guy is saying sexual assault.”

The door to the courtroom opened slowly, and Judge McIntyre and his twin came out and our little group stepped back.

“Good evening, Judge,” said Devon, and his associates echoed the courtesy.

“Good evening,” said the judge. Dressed in street clothes now, he looked like any number of anonymous older men who wear hats and go about their business with a certain air, a burden of knowledge, that says they may have had experiences that belong to a different time and place, but they have understood those experiences in a way that we, still in the midst of life, have not.

Slowly, Judge McIntyre led his twin by the hand. His brother, it was now apparent from the lopsided shuffle and darting eyes, was mentally retarded and needed guidance through the world.