I tried to lighten him up.
“You know, I think everyone in the world should take polygraphs,” I said. Chris, however, was in no mood for jokes. He meant it.
Gil thought Chris’s polygraph idea was risky. “If the source is someone on the team,” he mused aloud, “don’t you think that person will leak the fact that we gave everyone a polygraph?”
I could see both sides. Sure, we needed to identify and isolate the culprit. Still, giving everyone polygraphs was just the kind of sensational, nasty development that was bound to get out. And if it did, we’d look like a bunch of paranoid jerks. I don’t think Gil was seriously considering it, but was trying to let Chris down gently.
Gil called a staff meeting in the conference room.
“I’m asking whoever it is to come forward and make a clean breast of it,” he said. “It can be done confidentially.” He spoke mildly, yet his words conveyed such sadness and disappointment I thought they might actually tweak a guilty conscience. When it was his turn to speak, though, Chris rejected the conciliatory approach.
“We’re going to have an investigation,” he ranted. “And I promise you, we’re going to find out which scumbag did this.”
I looked around the table. No one wore what I would call a guilty expression. But, then, what good attorney doesn’t have a poker face?
The leak and the suspicion that followed in its wake took their toll on the whole team. Speculation would settle on one person, and he’d be given the cold shoulder for a day or so. Then the onus would shift to another suspect. Chris just wouldn’t let the matter drop. Without consulting me, he’d engaged the informal assistance of Anthony Pellicano, the private eye who’d been volunteering his services to Fuhrman. He’d instructed Tony to “look for somebody close to Mark.” Which was dumb, because the last person who’d be the rat-fink was a friend of Mark’s. Far more likely, it was someone who held some grudge against Mark, or someone who was on the periphery of the case and wanted more of the limelight.
Not long afterward, Mark talked with Cheri Lewis. “Do you know Chris suspects you might be the leak?” he asked.
“Based on what?” she protested.
“I don’t know. That’s just what Chris told Pellicano.”
Cheri found Chris and confronted him head-on.
“I didn’t exactly say that,” Chris hedged. “I just told Tony to look at people who are close to Mark.”
“But that includes me,” Cheri complained. “Why on earth would you include me?”
“Well,” Chris replied with a sideways glance, “because I think you’re sleeping with him.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she gasped. “Why the hell would I jeopardize my career-with a married cop, no less? I demand to be given a polygraph!”
What a mess. Two of my closest friends, the people I most depended on to see this case through, were at each other’s throat. If the defense could see this, they’d be trading high fives for a solid hour. Maybe even Chris realized how out of control this thing had gotten, because he backed off. Eventually he and Cheri patched things up. But it was sickening to see deputy turn on deputy.
This may shock my critics, but I’m proud of the job I did with Mark Fuhrman-in spite of what would later reveal itself to be a time bomb ticking in my ear. I was under tremendous pressure; the structure of his direct had to be intricate and subtle. It required me to take him step-by-step through his role in the case, carefully layering beneath that superficial narrative the information that made it clear he couldn’t have framed Simpson. And I had to decide whether to bring out the Kathleen Bell allegations on direct. If I fronted them, we’d have to figure out a way to let the jury see that she wasn’t credible. And that would have to be done in a way that wouldn’t set Mark off. Fuhrman now had found ample grounds to mistrust everyone in the D.A.‘s office and was edgier than ever. A big part of my job became soothing him so that he wouldn’t flip out on the witness stand.
Chris’s disastrous mock cross complicated things considerably. I knew that Bailey would want to bring it up. I surely would, if I were him. It was also a fair bet that Ito would allow it. The problem was, I didn’t know for sure what had happened in the grand jury room; there was no transcript. At least, not a formal one. It was always possible that someone surreptitiously took notes and then, heaven shield us from horrors, slipped them to the defense. During a hearing after the Newsweek article appeared, Bailey had brought up the names of several deputies who I hadn’t even realized had been there. How he got that information, I don’t know. But it was one more indication that we had a traitor in our midst.
I called Chris into my office for a thorough debriefing. “So what exactly did you ask Fuhrman?” I said. But all Chris could remember for sure was that when he’d asked Fuhrman whether he’d used the slur in the past ten years, Fuhrman had denied it.
“No equivocation? Maybe he just couldn’t remember?” I asked hopefully.
“Nope,” Chris assured me. “He denied it completely and will not budge.”
I found it hard to believe that Mark had never uttered that word. Not after what I’d seen in the disability file. I did believe that he’d never said it to an African American, face-to-face. But never? Not over a beer? Not to his buddies? Not in private? That seemed unlikely to me. Could I get him to admit it? Judging from Chris’s experience with him, probably not. Perhaps I could get him to soften his denial to I don’t remember.” But a witness can be pushed only so far.
A prosecutor is in a tough position when she doesn’t fully believe her own witness. As I girded up for the encounter with Mark Fuhrman, I made a pact with myself: If I couldn’t shake him off his denial about the N-word, then I had an obligation to tell the jury that I had doubts about it. But I’d contrast it with that part of the testimony I was perfectly certain of: that he didn’t plant evidence.
At my request, Mark drew up a list of other cops on the scene who could help shore up his credibility. He’d looked over the Bundy crime-scene log and given us a few names, among them his partner, Brad Roberts. When I saw that name, I just shook my head and said to myself, He doesn’t get it.
Brad was a real good guy and a fine cop, but he couldn’t speak to the important issues of credibility. Brad had arrived at Bundy after Mark had, so he was in no position to attest to the fact that there had been only one glove between the bodies. Other cops who had been on the scene in advance of Fuhrman had already done that. Nor had Brad been with Mark when he’d found the glove at Rockingham.
About all Brad could say was that he, too, had seen what appeared to be a fingerprint on the gate at Bundy-not a good gambit since that putative print had never turned up. There was nothing he could offer our case, except to attest to his buddy’s being a straight-up guy. Just what we needed for this jury-a character reference from another white cop.
In preparation for his testimony, Mark showed up for our pretrial interview in the company of one of the most imposing men I’d ever seen in my life. Lieutenant Chuck Higbee, formerly of the LAPD, looked to be in his mid-fifties. He wore his hair in a buzz cut and stood about six-one. His T-shirt strained to cover his enormous shoulders and biceps. Higbee was a legend on the force, owing partly to his toughness but more to his willingness to lend a hand to cops in trouble. The LAPD had attached him to Fuhrman’s regular detail in the belief that he might exert a calming influence.
I extended my hand, and it was swallowed up by Higbee’s huge paw.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said. The voice was smooth, his manner buoyant, in contrast to his stolid appearance. Could I count on him as an ally?