Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

“And…” Jaime began.

“And-it was memorable!” She lowered her eyes. “Don’t tell me you want details.”

“Ms. O’Toole. Please tell me you are not claiming that he stayed home that night.”

Her head bobbed. “Oh, but he did. He was in bed with me the whole night.”

“You say you were drinking.”

“That’s right,” she said, wary. “But I can handle my liquor. I wasn’t flat out or anything. I noticed who was in my bed with me.”

“You say you loved each other.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it true, you’d say anything to get Stefan out of trouble?”

“People who lie are weak. It’s cheap. I don’t like it.”

Stefan, sighing on Nina’s left, certainly knew that to be true.

Jaime knew the answer was unresponsive, but saw Erin had a lot of empathy going with the jury. Rather than alienate them by taking her to task, he said, “You wouldn’t lie even if someone’s life was at stake?”

“If I knew that person was innocent,” she said carefully, “I would be tempted.”

“So, whatever you say here is subject to that higher purpose.”

“I didn’t say I would do it,” she countered. “I don’t have to lie when I tell you Stefan’s basically an honorable person. Whatever they say about him that’s bad, it isn’t true. Somebody needed to come up here and say that. Speak in his defense. He never gets a break.”

“You would do anything to save him?”

“Anything?” She sounded disgusted. “I don’t have to. He’s innocent. He didn’t kill that poor woman. It’s easy enough to prove. I mean, I couldn’t have drunk that entire bottle by myself or I’d be dead.”

“Do you drink often?” Jaime asked.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“Say, three times a week.”

“Sure, if you include wine or beer in the equation.”

“She doesn’t give a damn how she comes off. What a woman,” Stefan said, voice brimming with admiration.

Yes, Nina thought, damn.

“I mean, with a meal, or at a barbecue. We like to socialize. Who doesn’t? Stefan’s a popular guy.”

“Erin’s the popular one,” Stefan murmured.

“How much would you say you drank that night?” Sandoval continued.

“Oh.” Wrinkles formed on her forehead. “Maybe four drinks?”

“Over what period of time?”

“Fast,” she said. “Maybe in an hour.”

“How much do you weigh, Ms. O’Toole?”

“I don’t have to say that here, in front of all these people, do I?”

“Answer the question,” Judge Salas insisted.

“I have to tell?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, I’m five feet three inches tall and I weigh, um, oh, this stinks. I weigh a hundred twenty. Okay, I weigh a hundred thirty-two. If you’re trying to establish that I ought to consider a diet, I admit it. I could stand to lose a few pounds, okay? You got me, copper.”

A few people on the jury tittered.

Jaime Sandoval brought a chart out. “I have here a chart put out by the DMV suggesting how many drinks a person of your height and weight can drink before being considered legally drunk. According to your own testimony, you were intoxicated.”

“But Mr. Sandoval,” Erin protested. “I never drove anywhere that night.”

“Please wait for a question,” the judge said, studying the chart.

“You were out of it that night, were you not, Ms. O’Toole?” Sandoval asked.

“I didn’t drive anywhere.”

“Does alcohol make you sleepy?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Were you sleepy that night?”

“Yes!” she said, triumphant. “We headed off to bed, and after a little bit, we went to sleep. Slept through ’til morning. Nobody went anywhere.”

“How many drinks would you say Mr. Wyatt consumed that night?”

“I can’t really tell you.”

Nina could see she really didn’t know what to say anymore. Was there a right answer? Erin O’Toole did not know.

“You can’t say or you won’t say, Ms. O’Toole?”

“I can’t.”

“Ms. O’Toole, is it fair to say you were dead drunk that night, and not really capable of knowing whether Mr. Wyatt left?”

“Not fair at all.”

“Are you aware that when Stefan Wyatt was arrested the next morning, a few hours after midnight, he was tested for alcohol?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“And that the test showed negligible amounts?”

For the first time, Erin looked toward Stefan. He looked guiltily back at her.

“He looked like he was downing beers. Several.”

“So you assumed he was drinking even though he wasn’t. And you thought he stayed home, that’s what you’ve said, isn’t it? In that case, how do you explain your signed statement to the police?” He waved it in her face. Then he marked it for identification and had her read from it (“I think maybe he went out for a while”), then he moved to have the statement admitted, and finally he started grilling her like a slab of fresh tuna at Trader Vic’s.

“I made a mistake signing that paper.”

“You were lying when you signed that paper? Or you’re lying now?”

She didn’t answer.

“Miss O’Toole?”

“I shouldn’t have signed it,” she said.

Jaime Sandoval smiled. “So you’ve said. Your witness,” he said to the defense.

“Let me handle this, please, Klaus,” Nina said, starting to stand, but the old man, suddenly spry, was on his feet and talking. “Ms. Wyatt,” he began.

“I’m not married,” Erin said in a soft voice. “My name is O’Toole.”

Stefan winced.

“Pardon me,” Klaus said, discomfited. “Hmm.”

Silence stopped everything cold until he remembered what he was doing. “You’ve described Stefan Wyatt as an ‘honorable’ man,” he said finally. “Will you tell the court why you would say that about him?”

“He’s decent and kind. He helps people when they’re in trouble. You can depend on him,” she said, foolishly adding, for the belated sake of exact accuracy, “usually.”

“How long have you known Stefan Wyatt?”

“Two and a half years.”

“In that time, has he ever been violent with you?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t hit you?”

“No.”

“Put his hands around your throat, or even threatened you, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Would you describe him as hot-tempered?”

“On the whole, no. He’s easygoing, like me.”

“As far as you know, did he ever know, or have even casual contact with the victim in this case, Miss, um…” Again, Klaus seemed to lose his thread.

“He didn’t know Christina Zhukovsky,” she said. “He would have mentioned her to me.” But although Erin tried hard, she was tired and her exhaustion showed. She had already made a full-steam effort and lost the race, and she knew it.

Klaus dragged the cross out for quite a while, but his points were few and far between, and whatever strength they had lost potency under the weight of the irrelevancies preceding them. Erin continued to testify like a little kid with one hand in the cookie jar, chocolate on her cheeks, and a big fat juicy lie on her lips. The jury appeared sympathetic but unconvinced.

Klaus returned to his seat with a nod to Nina that said, All’s well that ends well.

Stefan put a hand on her arm. “You have to love Mr. Pohlmann. He really knows his business, doesn’t he?” he said, punctuating his hopeful words with a desperate look. Nina was far too busy kicking herself for her weakness in attacking Klaus to say anything.

This whole fiasco was her fault. She could have steered Erin back to the truth. She would have asked her to talk more about their relationship, and why she felt it was necessary to do something, anything, to save this man she obviously still loved-but what was the point, thinking these things? It was too late.