“He did.”
“And we know that Trevor was there, correct?”
“For six months Trevor was there very often. He didn’t seem to spend much time writing music. At least Jimmy was working, so to speak.”
“And Trevor knew there was lots of cash in the house?”
“He must have. Brad often gave him cash for what Brad called walking-around money.”
“But when Detective Halsey asked you who you thought did this the only name you mentioned was Juan Suarez, is that right?”
“It’s the only name I thought of at the time.”
“Let me see if I understand, Mrs. Richardson.” Raquel’s voice was very subdued, but utterly distinct. “The police asked you if you had any idea who killed your husband. And the only name you gave them was Juan Suarez.”
“That’s right. He was the man I thought murdered my husband.”
“And you thought of his name not because you had any real information that Mr. Suarez killed your husband but because he had been your lover, right?”
“Not right.”
“And you gave the police Mr. Suarez’s name because you thought he was your husband’s lover, right?”
“Not right, Ms. Rematti. Not even close. I gave them the name because I believed, and still believe, that Juan Suarez murdered my husband.”
“But you didn’t see him kill your husband, isn’t that right?”
“I never said that.”
“You never heard Juan Suarez threaten your husband, correct?”
“I never heard that.”
“You never saw Juan Suarez hit or push your husband, correct?”
“No, I never saw that.”
“Your husband never told you he feared Juan Suarez, correct?”
“No, he never said that.” She sipped water. “But Brad did tell me that he was very surprised that Juan insisted on being paid for the drugs he provided to Brad. He thought that with all the money we paid Juan Suarez it was odd that Juan was such a high-priced drug dealer.”
Raquel Rematti knew that she had to keep this quiet, unrelenting process going and that she could not react to Joan Richardson’s words.
“You testified to the Grand Jury before Mr. Suarez was indicted, isn’t that right?”
“I did.”
“And you never once mentioned to the Grand Jury, in five hundred pages of testimony, that Juan Suarez sold drugs to your husband?”
“No one asked, Ms. Rematti. You just did.”
“And you didn’t tell the prosecution that, did you?”
“No.”
“You get to decide what is important and what isn’t, Ms. Richardson, isn’t that right?”
“I haven’t been able to decide anything in a long time.”
“Do you know what the truth is?”
“Certainly. The truth is that your client killed my husband.”
“And the jury should believe you, correct, Ms. Richardson?”
“I can’t tell them what to do.”
“And they should believe you even though you are a liar, right?”
“I’m telling the truth today.”
Raquel’s voice was not angry or loud: it was patient and driving even though she knew she was dealing with a difficult and defiant witness. Just three feet to Raquel’s left was a large screen, in effect an oversize notepad, that rested on an easel; it had been used by Margaret Harding during her opening statement. With a Sharpie magic marker, Harding had written: Follow the timeline, follow the money. During the break after the openings, Raquel had moved the easel to the side so that the jurors couldn’t see it. It was not good to let the jurors absorb, even unconsciously, the message written on the screen.
Almost seamlessly, like a magician eliding to the next magic, Raquel turned the easel toward the jury. She lifted the big page on which Harding had written her words. Raquel now had a clean sheet, a tabula rasa that was visible to Joan Richardson and the jury.
“Ms. Richardson,” Raquel said, “do you see this screen?”
“Of course.”
“What word am I writing at the top of the page?”
“The word Lies.”
“Let’s fill in the empty space under Lies. First, you lied when you told Detective Halsey that you were alone in your Fifth Avenue apartment on the day Brad Richardson was killed, correct?”
“I didn’t tell him the truth.”
“You lied?”
“I lied.”
“So watch what I’m writing here, Mrs. Richardson: Lie 1: Lied to police. Can you read that?”
“Your handwriting isn’t too clear. But, yes, I see it.”
“And you lied to the Grand Jury when you told them you were alone that day. So we have Lie 2: Lied to the Grand Jury.”
“I regretted that and I corrected it.”
“And you were under oath both times, isn’t that right?”
“It is.”
“So which Joan Richardson should we believe? The liar who spoke the first lie? Or the liar who said the second lie?”
“I corrected the lie.”
“You are under oath today, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And the jury should believe that you’ve been telling the truth now.”
“That’s correct.”
“And that’s because you took an oath in front of them? An oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
Raquel held up her right hand, as if she, too, were swearing.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Was there something different about the oath when you testified to the Grand Jury? Which part of the oath did the clerk leave out when he asked you to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“It was the same oath, Ms. Rematti.”
“Yet you lied to those people, yes or no?”
“Most of what I said was the truth.”
“Tell us. How is it that the jurors facing you today are supposed to know when you speak the truth and when you don’t? Do you have some sort of signal?”
“Objection,” Margaret Harding said, knowing what the judge’s response would be.
Judge Conley spoke into her microphone without looking at Harding: “Overruled. This is cross-examination. You’ll have the opportunity for re-direct, Ms. Harding.”
Raquel, still at the easel and with the big magic marker in her hand, said, “Let’s get back to the lies we know about. Before the Grand Jury you never mentioned the name Jimmy, the drug dealer, did you?”
“No.”
Raquel said as she wrote Lie 3: No Jimmy, “And you told Ms. Harding yesterday that you didn’t mention Jimmy because you were concerned about Brad’s reputation, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“His reputation? You care about his reputation? And yet you’ve told the world that Brad Richardson was a drug user, that he was bisexual, that he had boy toys like Trevor Palmer to whom he gave what you called ‘walking-around money,’ that he had an affair with Mr. Suarez, that he kept hundreds of thousands of dollars on display in his bedroom, and that he spent his time with drug hustlers and rough trade. And you want this jury to believe that at the Grand Jury, when you were under oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you were concerned that if you mentioned Jimmy the world would know Brad Richardson used cocaine?”
“That was my concern.”
“Wasn’t your concern that you didn’t want to place too many people in the house with Brad Richardson in the twenty-four hours before his death?”
“That isn’t so.”
“Really, Ms. Richardson? Isn’t it true that if anyone reads the five hundred pages of your Grand Jury testimony the only person you mention being in the house in the forty-eight hours before your husband was killed was Juan Suarez? Isn’t that true?”
“I didn’t remember anyone else.”
“And you didn’t remember Jimmy?”
“Apparently I didn’t.”
“And you didn’t remember Trevor Palmer?”
“It’s hard for me ever to think about Trevor Palmer.”