Juror #3 Read online

  I sat in court, trying to get my head around it. When Isaac Keet stood to present his opening statement, my hand slipped into my briefcase to rummage inside it. My right hand moved of its own volition like Thing, the disembodied hand that would send my mama into gales of laughter when we watched reruns of The Addams Family.

  The hand was hunting for a box of Nicorette gum in my bag, because I needed a shot of nicotine. I needed it bad. But there was nothing hidden in the recesses of my bag, since I’d nobly decided to swear off the gum.

  My client was giving me a quizzical look, which brought me back to the business at hand. I ceased digging in the briefcase and sat up straight in my chair, with my eyes glued to the DA’s back. To occupy my hands, I grasped a felt-tipped pen and uncapped it.

  Isaac Keet said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is what the evidence will show.”

  Beside me at the counsel table, Lee held a pen as well: a Montblanc fountain pen. He scrawled on a legal pad without looking down, then pushed the pad in front of me. It read: Vice cop dead? What will you do?

  Lee was echoing my thoughts. The same refrain had pounded in my head since Keet dropped the bomb on me outside the judge’s chambers. I was so shell-shocked by the news of my star witness’s demise, my mind was frozen in question mark mode.

  How would I launch a defense without my star witness? Detective Guion was an encyclopedia of information about the life and times of Monae Prince.

  That vice cop was my smoking gun. But he was dead. And dead men tell no tales.

  Forcing my attention to the DA, I tried to focus. He was describing the state’s charge against my client, and when he spoke Lee’s name, he wheeled around and pointed a finger at him.

  Lee was prepared. It’s an old prosecutor’s trick, confronting the accused with the finger of guilt. Lee raised his chin and stared calmly at Keet.

  Keet turned back to the jury. “The victim of the crime was Miss Monae Prince. Ladies and gentlemen, in the course of this trial, there are some difficult facts you’ll have to hear about Miss Prince.”

  I cut my eyes at Lee. He scrawled on the pad again: Suck the poison???

  It sounded like Keet was gearing up to suck the snakebite in opening statement. I had wondered how he would handle the issue of Monae Prince’s occupation. When preparing my own notes for opening statement, I’d tried to predict whether the district attorney would be forthcoming in front of the jury or whether he would play coy.

  Keet grasped the sides of the podium that faced the jury box. I could see the tendons in the back of his hands.

  “Miss Prince had been lured to the hotel room in Vicksburg—the hotel room of the defendant, Lee Greene—for a reason that will appall y’all, ladies and gentlemen. She was there because Lee Greene solicited her services for the purpose of prostitution.”

  “Objection,” I said, starting to rise. I had evidence to the contrary; the hooker was Cary Reynolds’s idea, not Lee’s. But Judge Ashley dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “Overruled. The defense will have its turn shortly, Ms. Bozarth.”

  I sat.

  Isaac Keet’s voice rolled out like spun silk as he continued his statement to the jury. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Monae was in the company of the defendant that night as a call girl. A prostitute for hire. But, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Prince wasn’t only a call girl. No, indeed.”

  I leaned forward, curious to hear what was coming. So did several of the jurors.

  “She was a young girl. Monae Prince was an adolescent, a girl of tender years. If life was always fair, Monae would have been living with a family who loved and cared for her. But life can be hard. She was a girl living in dire poverty, without protection or support of family. And she was only seventeen years old. Seventeen, ladies and gentlemen.”

  I kept my poker face intact when he beat the point home about Monae’s tender age because I knew better. At the time of her death, Monae Prince was old enough to vote and buy booze in Mississippi. The Vicksburg vice detective had said so.

  The dead Vicksburg cop.

  My mind started into overdrive again. How would I establish the evidence that the Vicksburg detective would have provided about the deceased’s background? I needed to tie her to the drug underworld. I’d been confident that we could prove that Ms. Prince was an enthusiastic consumer of illegal drugs. But with the vice detective dead and gone, who would contest the state’s position that Monae Prince was a helpless girl at Lee’s mercy?

  Isaac Keet was wrapping up. He paced in front of the jury box, and said, “I see that some of y’all have been glancing over at the defendant, taking a look. And I suspect I know what’s going through some of your minds this morning.”

  He stopped pacing. He stepped right up to the jury box and grasped the railing. “I know that some of you may find this unthinkable. You see the defendant sitting there in that fine new suit, holding a fancy writing pen. His pen costs more than my shoes, you know that?”

  “Objection.” I shot up from my seat. “Mr. Keet’s comments are irrelevant and outside the scope of the evidence.”

  “Sustained,” the judge said.

  As I took my seat, I could hear Lee beside me, breathing rapidly. His blood pressure must have spiked.

  Isaac Keet waved off my objection like a buzzing horsefly. “As I was saying: you’re asking yourselves a pertinent question. Why would a prosperous, educated man from a good family callously cause the death of a poor teenage girl? Well, I have the answer. Ladies and gentlemen, some people in our society suffer from a disease of entitlement. There’s a word for it: ‘affluenza.’ Lee Greene had a bad case of affluenza—and young Monae Prince died as a result.”

  As Keet turned away from the jury box and walked beside the counsel table, his eyes were twinkling. He had the nerve to wink.

  Oh, I knew what he was communicating. He’d stolen a march on me. I had scoffed at him less than an hour earlier, mocking the state’s inability to produce a motive for the killing.

  Affluenza.

  Well, so much for my motive argument. I took my felt-tipped pen and struck a paragraph from my own opening statement.

  Chapter 47

  MY TURN.

  The judge’s voice split the air in the crowded courtroom: “Ms. Bozarth, the defense may now address the jury with opening statement or reserve it for the beginning of defendant’s case.”

  He made my ears ring. I’d learned that Judge Ashley was nearly deaf in one ear. But stubbornness made him resist the use of his hearing aid on most occasions. As a result, he tended to speak at a high volume.

  I rose. “If it please the court.”

  He leaned back in his high-backed leather chair. “You may proceed.”

  Clutching the manila folder that held the printed pages of my opening statement, I walked to the podium, casting a sharp eye on the jury of seven women and five men. I hoped my outward expression was serene, because my brain was frantic. And the pages of my presentation to the jury, which had been pristine an hour prior, were marked with so many slashes of red ink, it looked like someone had hemorrhaged on it.

  When I had crafted the opening statement on Sunday night, I’d planned to attack the state’s case without revealing what the details of the defense would be. That’s what Suzanne had advised.

  It’s a tactical plan, she had said, blowing a cloud of Marlboro smoke in my office at the Ben Franklin. Don’t reveal your cards.

  I’d followed Suzanne’s advice to the letter, because Suzanne had thirty years of courtroom experience. Plus, she did a lot of gambling at the Mississippi riverfront casinos.

  I shot a glance at the courtroom gallery, looking in vain for my partner. With a flash of panic, I wondered again: where the hell was Suzanne Greene?

  Spreading the ink-slaughtered pages out on the podium, I smiled at the twelve people in the jury box.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to thank you in advance for your service in the trial. My client and I know that jury service involves
a sacrifice, and Lee Greene and I appreciate y’all doing your civic duty.”

  A woman in the front row nodded. That was good; it was a start, anyway. I saw her eyes slide to my right, sneaking a look past my shoulder. She was probably checking Lee out.

  It didn’t necessarily hurt to have a good-looking client wearing a well-cut suit. If we were lucky, a couple of women on the jury would develop a crush on Lee during the trial. That could be his “get out of jail free” card.

  I spoke in a sober tone as I talked to the jury about the deceased, Monae Prince. Instead of serving up bombshells, I skimmed the surface of her seamy background. After all, with the detective lying in the county morgue, I wasn’t yet certain how much of Monae Prince’s seedy life would get into evidence.

  I was treading lightly, soft-pedaling the prostitution angle. So it startled me when I heard the DA slam his chair into the railing behind the counsel table.

  I jumped and turned with a jerk. Isaac Keet was on his feet, his wooden chair tipped backward at a dangerous angle.

  “Objection!” he shouted. Even the deaf judge winced at the noise.

  “What?” I snapped.

  Keet stepped away from the counsel table. “Your Honor, I will not stand silently by while she maligns that poor dead child.”

  I shook my head in amazement. “What are you talking about? All I said was that she engaged in prostitution. You already said so yourself. You told the jury she was a hooker in your opening statement.”

  “Hooker?” His nostrils flared. “Your Honor, did you hear the terminology Ms. Bozarth is using? It is offensive.”

  Judge Ashley scratched at his receding hairline. “Mr. Keet,” he began, but the DA cut him off.

  Advancing in my direction, Keet said, “I told this jury that the defendant—your client, who is so appreciative of the jury’s service on his behalf—lured the murder victim into an act of prostitution.”

  Keet was an arm’s length away from me—and from the jury. My face burned; I could feel the blood flushing my cheeks. I turned to the judge. “Judge Ashley, the defense requests that you tell Mr. Keet to sit down.”

  The judge tugged at his deaf ear. “Let’s all settle down. Tensions are running high. Mr. Keet, your objection is overruled.”

  I watched as Keet strode back to his counsel table. As he straightened his chair, he fixed my client with a look of pure disgust. Lee cringed slightly in his seat, as if he’d been threatened.

  Sweet Jesus.

  Turning back to the jury, I took a breath and said, “The evidence will show that my client did not solicit the deceased. He did not lure her to his hotel room in Vicksburg. She appeared without his prior knowledge. The defense will provide uncontroverted testimony that Monae Prince had been contacted by another individual, without my client’s knowledge or consent.”

  I paused in confusion for a moment. Hadn’t I intended to avoid revealing the defense evidence? Isaac Keet’s theatrics were getting me flustered.

  It was time to transition, to build up a contrasting image for the jury’s benefit: Lee Greene, Mr. Wonderful.

  “Y’all may not have heard much about my client, Lee Greene. He’s from over in Jackson, where he practices corporate law with one of the leading firms in our state capital. Lee grew up just outside Jackson, on a piece of land that’s been in the Greene family for nearly two hundred years. He got his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Ole Miss. Graduated with high honors.”

  I paced to the left, to make sure I was engaging all of the jurors. “But in addition to a distinguished legal career, Lee Greene is also committed to public service. He’s a lifelong member of the Calvary Presbyterian Church, he’s a member and officer of his Rotary group, and he’s also a leading supporter of and fund-raiser for the charitable organization in Mississippi that is building homes and schools in poverty-stricken areas of Nicaragua. A school currently under construction there will bear his family name. And he devotes countless hours of volunteer work to the Humane Society of Barnes County, caring for abandoned animals.”

  I paused, turning to look at Lee, hoping the jurors would follow my lead. He was wearing a saintly, benevolent expression. Glancing back at the jury box, I saw yet another woman look at him with approval.

  I continued, my voice firm. “Clearly, as you will see, Lee Greene is not a man who would commit the lurid crime with which he is charged.”

  “Objection.”

  This time, Isaac Keet didn’t shout, didn’t shove his chair. When I turned my head, he was leaning against the railing with his arms crossed.

  “Your Honor,” he said, in a voice that was deadly calm, “I’m going to have to ask that Ruby Bozarth be censured.”

  I was so shocked that I sputtered, and it took a few seconds before I could respond clearly. “What on earth are you talking about? Your Honor, I object to the DA’s continual interruptions. There is no basis for this, none at all.”

  Keet went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Ruby Bozarth is an officer of the court—and yet she knows that what she is telling the jury is untrue.”

  I clenched my fists and stuffed them into my pockets. “What are you even talking about?”

  “Her supposed presentation of the defendant as a clean-cut paragon who’d never do anything wrong? Never hurt a living soul? Ms. Bozarth, please! Your Honor, it’s well known that defense attorney Ruby Bozarth refused to marry defendant Lee Greene because of his sexual proclivities.”

  I gasped. I opened my mouth to speak, then snapped it shut. Exactly how should I respond to Keet’s scandalous statement?

  Because, after all—it was the truth.

  Judge Ashley cupped his hand around his ear. “What’s that you say?”

  Chapter 48

  “YOUR HONOR, MAY we approach the bench?” I struggled to regain my composure in addressing the judge.

  Judge Ashley invited us up with a wave. As I walked the short distance to the bench, my ears hummed like a beehive. If I didn’t settle down, I might end up as deaf as the judge.

  Keet was waiting for me. He had the nerve to smile as I approached. “What’s the matter, Ms. Bozarth? You’re red as a beet.”

  The bees in my ears hummed with an angry buzz. “Your Honor, the defense requests a mistrial.”

  Judge Ashley’s brow furrowed. “Beg pardon? Did someone say mistrial?”

  Isaac Keet laughed out loud. “Now who’s got the thin skin?”

  The judge inclined his good ear in my direction. “Ms. Bozarth, did you say you want a mistrial?”

  “Your Honor, the district attorney’s untoward comments—which are irrelevant and immaterial—are highly prejudicial to my client.”

  Keet smiled again. “But are they true?”

  I could feel the blood in my face; I suspected that I was, as Keet claimed, red as a beet. And as for his objectionable comment: how could I deny it? I had, in fact, broken off my engagement with Lee Greene due to his sexual proclivities.

  In a furious whisper, I said to Keet: “How dare you inject my personal life into this case, in the presence of the jury?”

  Keet bent his head and spoke softly into my ear. “When you’ve been around a while, you’ll learn a thing or two about trial practice. For example: all’s fair in love and war, as the saying goes.”

  Judge Ashley leaned toward us. “Can y’all speak up?”

  Keet raised his voice. “Your Honor, the defense has informed me in the past that the state’s case is baseless and flawed because we cannot, in Ms. Bozarth’s opinion, show a motive for the crime. The State of Mississippi has a duty to let the jury know the defendant’s mind-set. His elitist, misogynistic temperament is at issue in this case. Maybe Ms. Bozarth can’t recognize it because she shares his elitist background.”

  He looked over for my reaction. But he’d revealed he didn’t know his opponent as well as he thought. Because I’d learned how to fight off bullies at an early age.

  I lifted my chin and addressed the judge. “I request the court
instruct the DA and the jury that this prosecution is about facts, hard evidence, and not gossip and innuendo.” I shot Keet a glare. “You, sir, should be disciplined.”

  He grinned. “I’m frightened.”

  While we wrangled at the bench, the elderly bailiff and young Deputy Brockes sat at the bailiff’s desk at the far end of the bench. The old bailiff nudged Brockes, and they spoke in whispers. Deputy Brockes hid a smile with his hand.

  I wanted to snap. Apparently, we were providing entertainment for the courthouse staff.

  Looking back at the judge, I spoke firmly. “Judge, I need a ruling on my request for mistrial.”

  The judge made a face. “Are you sure you want to do that, Ms. Bozarth? We’ve got the doggone jury already seated. Me and Isaac, we’ve come in from Vicksburg for this special setting. Do you really want it reset? To start the process all over again? It might be another year, maybe longer, before I can fit it into my calendar.”

  At the mention of the jury, I glanced over to gauge their reaction to the drama that was taking place. Three of the jurors looked bored. A couple were exchanging looks of impatience.

  And one woman on the jury was casting sympathetic, longing eyes at Lee Greene.

  Maybe a mistrial wasn’t such a good idea.

  The main door to the courtroom creaked open and closed with a bang. Many heads turned to see the county sheriff, Patrick Stark, walk into court, accompanied by Potts, the nosy deputy whom I’d encountered in the hallway. Deputy Potts lingered by the door, but Sheriff Stark marched to the bench, his boots treading heavily on the tiled floor.

  “I need to talk to you, Your Honor.”

  The judge looked astounded by the interruption. “What?”

  The sheriff walked up to the empty witness stand and sat on the wooden seat. “Judge, I’ve got to take my deputy out of here.”

  “What’s that? Who?”

  Sheriff Stark edged closer and set his elbow on the bench. “My deputy.”

  “Who’s your deputy?”

  “Young fellow assisting your bailiff over there: Deputy Brockes. I got to take him away.”