She was used to deciding things quickly. “Just a few minutes,”
she answered immediately.
Without moving any closer to the witness, Loescher stepped away from the jury box until she was standing directly in front of her. “Please,” she cautioned, “take your time. Try to be as precise as you can. When you say ‘a few minutes,’ how many minutes do you mean?”
While she worked for Quincy Griswald, Sharon Arnold had been in court as often as the judge, sitting below him on the opposite side of the bench from the witness stand, a model of administrative efficiency. She was not used to explaining herself to anyone, and she could not quite hide her annoyance.
“Well, I don’t know-five minutes, ten minutes-something like that.”
Loescher took two steps closer, raised her head, and gave the witness a glance that was like a warning shot across the bow. This was not Griswald’s courtroom and she was a witness in a murder case, not a pampered judicial assistant who could make a lawyer’s life miserable anytime she chose to do so.
“Please consider your answer carefully,” she said, taking another step toward her. “Would you say it was closer to five minutes or ten?”
Arnold recrossed her legs and began to fidget with her hands.
She sucked in the sides of her cheeks and struck a pensive pose.
“I had to go all the way back down the hallway to the elevator. I remember it took a long time to get there. Then the office door was locked of course, and I had to unlock that. The folder was in the file drawer of the judge’s desk. Then I locked the door and… I suppose it must have been closer to ten minutes before I got to the garage and found him, lying there, all that blood all over him…”
Now in control, Loescher moved back to her preferred position next to the jury and led her witness through the story she wanted her to tell. She had found Quincy Griswald bathed in blood and knew as soon as she saw him that he was dead. She dropped the file she had been sent back to get and ran screaming into the courthouse. Two uniformed security officers followed her back to the garage and the body she had been the first to find.
I was far more interested in what she had not seen than in what she had.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” I asked as soon as it was my turn to examine the witness. Smiling at Sharon Arnold, I stood behind Danny, my hand on his shoulder.
“No, I don’t think so.”
My hand fell away from his shoulder and I moved slowly to the front of the counsel table. Gripping the edge behind me, I leaned back against it, one foot crossed over the other.
“You didn’t see him in the garage when you first found Judge Griswald?” I asked casually.
“No.”
“You didn’t see him anywhere in the garage when you went back there with the two officers?”
“No.”
“You didn’t see him anywhere in the courthouse, lurking around, when you were first leaving with Judge Griswald?”
“No.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I stared down at my shoes.
“You’ve never seen him before today, have you?” I asked, glancing at her from under my brow.
“No, I don’t think so.”
I lifted my head higher. “Can you think of anyone who would have wanted Judge Griswald dead?”
It was automatic, the other side of the insistence that we never speak ill of the dead: the blind assurance that despite the fact that someone killed them, no one could possibly have wanted it to happen.
“No, of course not.”
I raised my eyebrows, then lowered my head and walked the few steps to the jury box.
“You’re aware, are you not,” I asked, turning suddenly toward her, “that a lot of people-including Quincy Griswald-wanted Calvin Jeffries dead?”
“Your honor!” Loescher shouted as she sprang from her chair.
I held up my hand before Bingham could open his mouth. “I’ll rephrase the question. You worked very closely with Judge Griswald, didn’t you?” I held her eyes in mine and refused to let go.
“Yes, I did, for four years.”
“And in the course of that time-working that close together-
you came to know quite a lot about him, didn’t you?”
She did not hesitate. “Yes.”
“And you knew quite a lot about the way he felt about other people, including other judges, didn’t you?”
Loescher was still on her feet, watching intently. Bingham had both arms on the bench, peering down at the witness.
“Yes.”
“And he didn’t like Calvin Jeffries, did he? He didn’t like him one bit, did he?”
“Your honor?” Loescher insisted.
His eyes still on the witness, Bingham held up his hand. “No, I’ll allow it.”
“No, he didn’t like him.” I started to ask the next question, but she was not finished with her answer. “I think he was a little afraid of him, to tell you the truth.”
“Afraid of him? In what way?”
“Intimidated might be a better way to put it. Judge Jeffries seemed to have that effect on a lot of people.”
“So he wasn’t sorry, shall we say, when Calvin Jeffries was murdered?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” she replied, quick to correct the impression she was afraid she might have left.
“He wasn’t grief-stricken when Calvin Jeffries was dead?”
She did not want to answer and was content to let her silence speak for itself.
Cassandra Loescher had sat down. She tapped the erasure end of a pencil while she watched, ready to object again.
“You worked for Judge Griswald a little more than four years, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So you weren’t with him twelve years ago when he handled a criminal case in which the defendant was Elliott Winston, were you?”
“Your honor-relevance?” Loescher inquired, turning up her hands.
“It’s relevant to the defense’s theory of the case, your honor,”
I said, as if that were any answer at all.
“And beyond the question of relevance, your honor,” Loescher went on, “it’s beyond the scope of direct examination.”
Bingham looked at me. “Your honor, the prosecution established the employment connection between the witness and the victim. I’m simply exploring the scope of the relationship.”
“Then please do it as quickly as possible and then move on to something else.”
“During the time you did work for him,” I asked her, “did you ever hear him mention the name Elliott Winston?”
She thought about it for a moment. “No, I don’t recall that he did.”
“You’re sure?”
“Was he the one who Judge Jeffries’s wife was married to?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
A knowing smile crept over her mouth. “He did say something once, but not about him, not directly, that is. He was angry with Judge Jeffries about something. I don’t know what. And he said he wondered if Jeffries’s wife would have married him if she’d known he was as crazy as her first husband was. That’s when I think he used that name-Elliott Winston.”
“So he thought Elliott Winston was crazy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I assumed it was just a figure of speech.”
I had no more questions, and Cassandra Loescher had nothing she wanted to ask on redirect. Sharon Arnold was excused and the prosecution called its next witness, one of the security guards who had gone with her back to where Griswald’s body had first been discovered. Short and to the point, his testimony added little to what had already been said. Certain he was dead, but afraid to touch the body, Arnold had left it to the guard to check for a pulse. The second guard followed the first and except to ask them each whether they had seen the defendant at the scene, I did not bother to cross-examine either one of them. Loescher ended the first day of testimony by calling the police photographer who had taken pictures of the body. Over my objection, the photos were entered into evidence and the jury was shown the graphic obscenities of a violent death.