Trick Question Page 17

  “Did you witness the argument?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did the defendant say anything to Dr. Valentine?”

  “He called Valentine a name which I took to be ‘blasphemer.’ I wasn’t completely sure because Cletus doesn’t speak that well.” Swincter gave a little sanctimonious snort and took off his glasses to polish them on his shirt.

  “Did Valentine tell you anything else about Cletus?”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Tubby interrupted.

  “Excited utterance, Your Honor. The statement was made by Dr. Valentine during a heated argument with the defendant.”

  “Overruled. You may answer the question.” Snedley turned toward the jury and nodded vigorously in agreement.

  “Whitney accused Cletus of taking drugs from the lab. You see, some items had turned up missing.” Swincter put his glasses back on his nose.

  “What in particular?”

  “Phenobarbital.”

  “No more questions,” the DA said.

  “No questions for Dr. Swincter on cross-examination, Your Honor.” Tubby felt Cletus straighten up next to him. “I do however plan to call him as a witness for the defense on direct.”

  “Very well. You may step down, Dr. Swincter, but you remain under subpoena.”

  Swincter made no effort to conceal his irritation as he left the stand.

  “That’s the state’s case, Your Honor. We rest.”

  And before you could say “Have mercy,” Judge Stifflemire had asked whether the defense was ready to commence.

  “Yes sir,” Tubby responded robustly, but that was not how he felt. This trial was moving much too quickly. And where the hell was Mickey O’Rourke? Couldn’t he at least lend some moral support? Rarely had he had such a feeling that his quiver was so empty.

  Tubby turned around to survey the prospects again and saw Cherrylynn enter the courtroom. She waved encouragingly and sat down near the back. The grieving widow, chiropractor Bennett, and Magenta Reilly all glared at him from their lairs here and there. Dr. Auchinschloss was chewing his nails.

  Mentally, Tubby flipped a coin. “As its first witness, the defense calls Mrs. Ruby Valentine,” he announced.

  The widow, dressed in a tight cobalt-blue suit with gold buttons, rose and walked down the aisle. She moved with dignity, nodding demurely at the judge as she approached the witness box.

  “Mrs. Valentine, my sympathies on your loss,” Tubby began. She just stared at him coldly and did not respond.

  “Yes, ahem. Mrs. Valentine, how long were you and your husband married?”

  “More than two years.”

  “You were a nurse when you met him, right?”

  “I still am.”

  “At Moskowitz?”

  “No, at St. Doloroso General.”

  “Did you ever go into Moskowitz lab?”

  “I used to, occasionally.”

  “To see your husband?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you have to ask directions to find his workplace?”

  “No, I knew my way around.”

  “Right,” Tubby said, smiling at the jury. “Mrs. Valentine, would you say you and your husband were happily married?”

  “Objection!” Snedley cried indignantly.

  “What’s your purpose, Mr. Dubonnet?” the judge asked.

  “To show other possible motives to kill the decedent.”

  “I didn’t kill my husband,” Mrs. Valentine wailed, and began sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Mrs. Valentine, please,” the judge comforted. He frowned at Tubby and shook his head. “Take a minute to compose yourself.”

  She kept crying.

  Tubby stared at the wall above her head and then dared to glance at the jury. He saw disapproval written on their faces. Quickly looking away, he saw Mickey O’Rourke slipping in the door and sliding onto the back bench beside Cherrylynn.

  “Mrs. Valentine,” Tubby resumed when she gasped for air, “who is Ira Bennett?”

  Boo hoo, boo hoo, the witness continued.

  In for a penny, in for a pound, Tubby told himself.

  “Isn’t it true that you and Ira Bennett had an affair that was going on at the time of your husband’s death – and is still ongoing?”

  “Yes, you vile man, but I didn’t kill Whitney. I loved him. He was just a hopeless philanderer,” Mrs. Valentine shrieked.

  “Your Honor,” both lawyers were yelling at the same time.

  The jury, thinking she had described the victim of a terrifying blood disease, grumbled among themselves.

  Stifflemire pounded his gavel until everybody shut up.

  Tubby saw Magenta run out of the back of the court room. He sank down beside Cletus, who was staring at him in disbelief.

  “No further questions,” he said, exhausted.

  “None here,” District Attorney Snedley agreed.

  “Five-minute recess,” Stifflemire announced. “Bailiff, help Mrs. Valentine back to her seat.”

  “I want to testify,” Cletus hissed in Tubby’s ear.

  “It’s a bad idea,” the lawyer whispered wearily. “We’ve talked about this already.”

  “I got a right. You ain’t doin’ shit. These people gonna hang me.”

  “We’ll see, Cletus. Just sit tight and let me get my thoughts together.” He turned around and waved at Mickey O’Rourke to come up. Reluctantly, Mickey arose and began to shuffle slowly forward. He looked at the chair beside Tubby like it might be full of snakes.

  “Counsel table, Mickey. You’ve been here before.”

  Mickey laughed, like it hurt him.

  “You sober?” Tubby asked.

  “Way too sober,” Mickey answered.

  “Well, you might as well take a witness. You can’t do any worse than me.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “You saw that jury, Mickey. I’ve alienated at least half of them. You have to make them forgive me.”

  “How?” Mickey pleaded.

  “You’ll do it. Just be yourself,” Tubby said encouragingly. “Juries pick up on things. If you stumble a little bit, they’ll probably sympathize. They may even figure out why. I really think you can help us, Mickey. Don’t you, Cletus?”

  Cletus was watching them both in horror. Tubby grinned back. “Just kidding, Cletus,” he said.

  “You’re nuttier than I am,” Busters moaned.

  “No doubt. Here come de judge.”

  Stifflemire took the bench and let everybody sit down again.

  “I see Mr. O’Rourke has joined us,” he said, peering over his spectacles.

  “Yes, Your Honor. My co-counsel will call the next witness. If I may just have a moment, Judge.”

  The judge told him to take two.

  “I think you should call Bennett, the chiropractor,” Tubby whispered. “Just ask him about his affair with Mrs. Valentine. He’s such a jerk, he’ll make Cletus seem like an angel by comparison. Who knows, you might get lucky and he’ll confess.”

  Mickey looked over his shoulder. “You mean the guy in the third row?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  Bennett, all 210 pounds of him, was scowling at the defense, breathing heavily like a bull anxious to crash out of the chutes.

  “No way,” Mickey said.

  “What do you mean, no way?”

  “He’s too hostile.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Mickey.”

  “My doctor told me to avoid conflict, Tubby. That’s how I’m going to get sober. I’m staying serene.”

  “Ah, man.” Tubby rubbed his forehead.

  “About ready, counselors?” the judge asked.

  “Almost, Judge,” Tubby said. His eyes roamed the room. Magenta hadn’t come back. Cross her off the list.

  “Well, look. How about Dr. Swincter? He’s smooth as ten-year-old Scotch, I mean owl shit. Ask him about his research with the deceased. Lead up to that last project. Let’s see what we learn.”

  “
Okay, I guess,” Mickey said. He fumbled with the knot in his wrinkled Tabasco tie.

  “Well, call the witness for Christ’s sake.”

  O’Rourke stood up shakily and held on to his chair with both hands.

  “Defense calls Dr. John Swincter,” he said in a low voice.

  “Randolph Swincter,” Tubby prompted.

  “Randolph,” O’Rourke corrected himself.

  “Maybe he’ll get into the swing of it as he goes along,” Tubby whispered to Cletus. “He’s been a top lawyer in his time.”

  Cletus was not responding.

  Swincter came forward again and composed himself in the witness box. He pursed his lips and looked disdainfully upon the defense team.

  “Dr. Swincter,” Mickey began, “tell me a little about the research you and Dr. Valentine did together.”

  “Surely,” Swincter said with confidence, turning toward the jury. “The purpose of our work has been disease, its roots, its causes, and…”

  Tubby tuned out. Songs began running through his mind. His fingers began drumming on the table. Cletus nudged him. Oh, what? Jesus, where to go from here?

  “What are we doing?” Cletus hissed.

  I didn’t go to law school, Tubby told himself. I’m really a tugboat captain. So hard to be an honest man in a chaotic world. Now where did I pick that up? He remembered vaguely where he was and nodded, reassuringly he hoped, to Cletus.

  “What project were you working on at the time of Dr. Valentine’s death?” he heard Mickey inquire.

  “Pinpointing the edema that reacts to protyestran…” Swincter discoursed on.

  A hand grabbed Tubby’s shoulder and shook it. He jerked around, thinking it was that pesky client of his again, but he beheld Flowers’s excited face on the other side of the rail. He thrust a thick manuscript of some kind, fastened with a blue spiral binder, into Tubby’s hands.

  “Found it in Swincter’s microwave,” he whispered to Tubby.

  Tubby stared at what he held in his hands. The title glowed through its clear plastic cover: “Cardiac Toxicity of Endflu as the Cause of Two Deaths.”

  What the heck is this? Tubby asked himself. He looked up and found Mickey standing over him in distress.

  “I’ve run out of questions,” he confided to Tubby.

  “Ask him what this is,” Tubby suggested.

  O’Rourke took the document and looked it over curiously. Then he spun around and raised the manuscript high in the air above his head.

  “Dr. Swincter,” he demanded, “what the heck is this?”

  Swincter put his hands out as if to ward off a blow.

  Then he covered his face with them and began sobbing.

  O’Rourke jumped back to the counsel table.

  “What did I do?” he screeched at Tubby in confusion.

  “It was in the microwave,” Tubby prompted desperately.

  “Your Honor,” O’Rourke blundered on. “We have reason to believe Dr. Swincter was endeavoring to microwave this, um, document.”

  Judge Stifflemire looked puzzled but intrigued.

  “So continue,” he suggested, over Swincter’s moaning.

  “Yes, Your Honor. And the question is, I repeat, what the heck is this?”

  Swincter’s sobs turned to shrieks of laughter. He faced the jury.

  “Microwave? Microwave? Why didn’t I burn it like they’ve burned my lab? It’s the inquiring scientific mind, you see. So what would you have done? My God, I’m not a monster.” Swincter blew his nose. “Stupid, yes, but I assure you they made me do it.”

  Who made him do what? groped Tubby, his mind no longer razor-sharp. In the courtroom stunned perplexity; then cries of “W’uz up?” and “No way!” rocked the hall.

  Pandemonium reigned.

  CHAPTER 31

  The hastily organized celebration that afternoon was at Mike’s Bar. The defense was all accounted for, as well as Raisin Partlow and Trina Tessier, both of whom Tubby had enthusiastically telephoned as soon as the jury was discharged. And as soon as he had made a triumphant speech to the reporters crowded on the majestic courthouse steps. The rain had stopped and the sun was out, giving the cameras a perfect light for the evening news. Tubby had even invited Denise DiMaggio, but she said she was stuck at Swan’s Gym. He suggested maybe he would come grab her for dinner later and they could celebrate her victory over her uncle. Inside, he wanted to make amends for suspecting her of being a bad client. Denise said that would be just great.

  “Barq’s all around,” Tubby yelled in deference to Mickey’s shot at sobriety.

  “Make mine a Tequila Sunrise,” Cherrylynn shouted out, and ignored Tubby’s reproachful look.

  “I don’t think I’ve quite got it figured out,” Mickey admitted.

  “Shhh,” Tubby whispered. “Never let anyone hear you say that.” He hoisted his glass.

  “A toast to Mickey F. Lee Nizer Johnnie Cochran O’Rourke,” he proclaimed.

  “Hear hear.” Flowers joined in. “And his masterful trick question: What the heck is this?”

  They drank. Fats Domino came on the jukebox and started his sly walk up Blueberry Hill.

  “What the heck was it, Mickey?” Raisin Partlow asked, having a little bit of a mean streak.

  “Allow me to explain,” Tubby interjected diplomatically. “Having received the district attorney’s personal apologies, I can fill you in with the greatest detail.”

  “Please do,” Raisin said. “Bartender, make my Barq’s a bourbon and water.”

  “The mystery report, which fell into our hands courtesy of the skill of Sanre Fueres, revealed a connection between Endflu, which everyone knows is an extremely popular cold medicine, and Mascatell, a drug I never heard of but that many women take for menstrual pain. Taken together, the two drugs can cause a change in the rhythm of the heart that might result in unconsciousness or permanent damage. Valentine, with Swincter’s help, discovered that this was the cause of death of Mrs. Wascomb, who wrecked her car on Lake Pontchartrain, and also the lady from Texas who died in the taxicab.”

  “I’ve taken Mascatell,” Cherrylynn said, aghast.

  “Lots of women do,” Tubby said. “Lucky you never had a cold at the same time. No telling how many people may have died or had a severe reaction to it. The rumor at this point is that the people who manufacture Endflu learned about the research – maybe from Swincter or Valentine or, who knows, even Auchinschloss – and paid a visit to the lab. They tried to put a lid on the research, probably by offering money. This would explain Swincter’s bank account. It seems Valentine refused to bury his research, so they killed him. Cold, huh? The police were still interrogating Swincter when I left, so I don’t know the whole story yet.”

  “Dr. Valentine was a brave man,” Cherrylynn said.

  “Not so brave,” Trina Tessier said. “As I read the report, there is a simple modification of the Endflu formula that renders it harmless when taken with Mascatell. Except for one small problem, Petroflex Pharmaceuticals could have easily corrected the product.”

  “What was the problem?” Cherrylynn asked.

  “Dr. Valentine had patented the improved drug. He very likely was going to charge the Endflu people a hefty royalty for using it.”

  “That patent should really belong to Moskowitz lab, Valentine’s employer,” Tubby pointed out.

  “I couldn’t agree more, counselor,” Tessier said. “We’re certainly not going to let Ruby Valentine get rich. I’m going to suggest to Dean Auchinschloss that the school retain you to get that patent back for us. As the senior researcher now, I expect my recommendation will carry some weight. That patent could literally be worth billions of dollars.”

  “I’ll certainly do my best to help,” Tubby said immediately.

  “Phone call for Dr. Tessier,” Larry intoned from the bar.

  “Damn!” Trina exclaimed. “Excuse me, but I’m on call. Somebody probably needs a liver section.” She got up and crossed the room to the wooden telephone booth
.

  “She’s sure a hardworking lady,” Tubby said, watching her leave. He was fond of new clients who promised to pay him.

  “Who did the actual murder?” Cherrylynn wanted to know.

  “The police think Swincter did,” Tubby said. “But he may have had an accomplice at Endflu.”

  “Did I mention,” Flowers said in a low voice for Tubby’s ears, “that when I went over to Swincter’s house I saw Trina coming out of the back door?”

  “Before you found the report in the kitchen?” Tubby asked, frowning.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s Cletus?” Cherrylynn asked.

  “He’s out of jail,” Mickey said. “He told me he just wanted to go home. He also said we should beware – the full story hasn’t been told.”

  “I wish you had brought him over here,” Tubby said.

  “I tried,” Mickey explained. “But he said Mr. Dubonnet is a lunatic.”

  “Really?” Tubby asked, trying not to look crestfallen.

  “I’m afraid so, Tubby. But he also said I was a drunk.”

  “Go figure,” Raisin said.

  Trina came back with a happy expression.

  “I don’t have to go,” she said. “It was just Dean Auchinschloss with some news. Dr. Swincter had some kind of stroke or seizure at the police station. He’s in a coma. They took him to New Orleans General.”

  “Did he confess to the murder?”

  “Not quite,” Tessier said. “He mentioned Oscar Flick, who runs the regional Petroflex office. He’s been around for years, and I can’t believe he’s involved in anything like that. Swincter claims the actual murder was committed by some guy he calls ‘Walter’ who he says worked for Flick.

  “Funny thing,” Tessier continued, “Swincter even tried to pin something on me. The twerp told the police that I knew this Walter and could identify him too. He’s either lying or very confused. I certainly don’t remember meeting any Walter.”

  “When does Swincter say you met him?” Tubby asked.

  “Wait. He says you met him too, Tubby – the first day you came to the lab. Do you remember meeting any man there?”

  A memory of strong cologne passed through Tubby’s mind. He recalled a tall man in the hallway, a man he might have seen in the courtroom this very morning.