Steve Martini - Compelling Evidence

Talia is taking some pleasure in this testimony. Apparently these surprises to Nelson’s case are just the pick-me-up she needed. There is a lot of eye contact between Kim Palmer and Talia with each surprise revealed by the witness, like each is a little slap applied to Nelson’s face.

“Still,” says Nelson, “you must admit it is strange, rather unseemly, for a man and a married woman to check into a motel room together.” Nelson’s trying to salvage something, a concession at least of improper appearances.

“Raul’s name never went on the registration,” she says. “Somebody has a dirty mind.”

There’s a little laughter from the audience, smiles in the jury box.

Talia is looking at me, a broad grin, as if to say that Duane Nelson has more than he can handle in Kim Palmer.

“Besides,” says Kim, “Raul was perfectly safe.”

“Excuse me?” says Nelson.

“I don’t know how to say this,” she says. Nelson is looking at her, like a deer on the tracks, blinded and too late.

“He was partial to other men,” she says. “Like a gate with rusty hinges-he swung only one way.”

There’s open laughter from the jury box now. Acosta too is enjoying this. Nelson is not.

When Kim told me of Raul and his proclivities, we were prepping for her testimony. I didn’t know whether to believe her. She has a fanciful imagination, one of those inventive spirits to whom license is everything. Talia professed not to know. But I figured Raul was far enough away to make it unlikely that the police or the court would send someone to Rio to check this out.

In all, Talia’s sexual exploits are beginning to take on the fanciful tint of pixie dust. There is nothing so deadly to the stone-serious theories of prosecution as humor. Nelson has had enough. His is a losing cause with Kim Palmer. He gives her up and I pass on any redirect. It is unlikely that I will do any more damage than has already been done.

The court adjourns for the day. Kim is down off the stand, making no secret of her affection for Talia. The two women embrace openly ten feet from the jury box and the exiting jurors. To my amazement, I look up and see a third female enter this scene. She is shaking hands vigorously with Kim Palmer, then an embrace, introducing herself. It is Nikki, up from behind the railing. There is a camaraderie here, I think, a feeling among the distaff set that says that Kim Palmer has struck a blow for all women. While her testimony may not be fatal to Nelson’s case, it is sharp little jabs like these that combined with others can win a trial.

“You were wonderful,” says Nikki. She’s looking at Kim. I catch an admiring eye and a wink from my wife. I think she is beginning to feel renewed optimism, that maybe there is life after this case.

Skarpellos has barely had time to change his suit and he is back on the stand. This time I’m in his face from the start. Harry’s at the table taking notes. I make no bones about it; this witness is unfriendly. With Acosta’s indulgence, grudging as it is, Tony is labeled a hostile witness-giving me license to lead with my questions.

“This story,” I say. “This thing about Ben Potter telling you about some divorce plans, it didn’t actually happen, not the way you say, did it?”

“Absolutely, every word.” He is adamant.

“Did he ever tell you that he’d informed his wife about this? Did he ever come out and say point-blank that he had told Talia that he wanted a divorce?”

I’m treading on safe ground here. If he says anything but a simple “no,” I will confront him with a copy of the transcript from the deposition taken in my office.

He admits that Ben never told him that Talia knew of his plans for divorce. But then he tries to embellish, a little embroidery of speculation.

“Divorce is not something that a husband keeps from his wife. Not when he’s already shopping for a lawyer.” He volunteers this to the jury without any question being posed.

“Move to strike,” I say. “The witness is engaging in pure conjecture.”

“Sustained. The court reporter will strike the response of the witness. Mr. Skarpellos, just answer the questions that are asked.”

The Greek wipes his nose with a thumb and nods, all belligerence, like a street kid who’s just gotten a little snot knocked out of him.

“As far as you know, Mr. Skarpellos, based on your own personal knowledge, what you saw and heard, Ben Potter never told Talia Potter about any plans for a divorce, isn’t that true?”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s getting surly now.

“In the early going in this case, you loaned money to Mrs. Potter for her defense, didn’t you?”

“Damn right,” he says. “And she hasn’t paid me back yet.”

“Your Honor.” I’m looking to Acosta to jerk his chain one more time.

“Mr. Skarpellos. We have a small cell downstairs that we reserve for uncooperative witnesses. I do not want to have to tell you again.”

The Greek is drawing a deadly bead on him.

“How much did you lend Talia Potter in this case?” I ask him.

“I don’t know, seventy-five, eighty thousand.”

“Eighty thousand dollars?” I say.

He nods.

“No trifling amount,” I say. “You did this out of the generosity of your heart, and for no other reason?”

He looks at me bristling. He knows I have copies of the loan agreements he forced Talia to sign, the ones that post Ben’s share in the firm as collateral for these loans.

“I extended some money to her because her husband’s estate was all tied up. She needed the money to pay you,” he says.

He turns it around, makes it look as if I am some bloodsucker.

I smile at him and move away.

“You have a reputation in this town,” I say, “for being a shrewd businessman. These were not what you would call signature loans, were they? They were collateralized, secured by property held by the defendant, weren’t they?”

“You don’t give eighty thousand dollars away on good looks,” he says. He’s giving a single, beefy laugh for the benefit of the jury.

“And what collateral did you hold as security for these loans?”

“A note for Potter’s interest in the firm,” he says.

“A firm worth many millions of dollars,” I say, “and you extended a loan of eighty thousand. Some would call that more than shrewd, Mr. Skarpellos. Some might even call it predatory.”

“Call it what you want. She needed the money, and I gave it to her when no one else was there.”

I nod, making a face toward the jury, like “Maybe this is something only a loanshark can fully understand.”

“I suppose you lent her money because you thought she was innocent of these charges?”

“No,” he says. “I lent her money because she needed it.”

I’m pacing toward the jury as he says this, and I stop dead in my tracks, big eyes looking at them. A little mock surprise.

“So you believed that Talia Potter murdered your partner, that she killed one of your best friends, and you thought you would lend her a little money for her defense, just for kicks? Or was this a business proposition you simply couldn’t pass up, a once-in-a-lifetime deal that you had to get in on?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking. Things were going pretty fast.”

“Well, which is it, did you think she committed the crime or not?”

“Objection, calls for speculation on the part of the witness,” says Nelson.

He’s a little slow getting to this.

“No, it doesn’t,” I say. “I’m trying to find out the state of mind of this witness at the time he made these loans. What motivated him to give money to a woman who was charged with killing his partner.”