Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories Part 17

The courthouse will be cooler than my apartment-anything would be-and all my clients are canceling until the end of the heat wave. I don't blame them, either. I might as well do something useful. They have an on-call system, so I don't have to go every morning. And it's for Munic.i.p.al Court. That means even if I get a trial, it'll be somebody fighting a traffic violation, or petty theft, or a minor dope bust, something like that. It'll only take a few hours. I'll take a book with me and read in the jury room the rest of the time. Elizabeth will have done her civic duty and no one will know you diddled with the political system."

"What will you use for identification? I didn't get her a driver's license, and you don't look like a six-year-old blue-point Himalayan anyway."

"The last time I was a juror no one checked for identification. I showed up with a badge and they took my word for it. People try to get out. They don't try to get in. If you're worried, ask Bobby to make me a driver's license. He can get something out of his computer that I could flash in a pinch."

"That's breaking the law," Michael pointed out.

Faith rolled her eyes and took another sip of her iced tea.

"I'll only have to lie about my name. The rest of it is close enough. Elizabeth is a television actress-television commercials are the art form of the new generation-and I used to be a television actress. Would you rather explain why Elizabeth can't be a juror?"

"I'll get you something that will pa.s.s."

Faith nodded. She picked up her veggie burger and prepared to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

When the alarm went off on Monday morning, Faith awoke with a jerk that scattered Amy and Mac, her two domestic longhairs, from the bed. It took a few startled, puzzled seconds for her to remember why she had set it the night before.

"Jury duty," she muttered.

Mac stared at her, wild-eyed.

"It's for Elizabeth," she explained. "Michael's cat. A long story."

Amy headed for the kitchen, certain food would be forthcoming soon.

And Faith headed for the shower, not certain that it was going to do much good. The day was going to be another scorcher.

Even getting dressed and made-up required taking breaks in front of the wheezing window unit. She was damp before she left the building. With a book under her arm and a jacket over it, in case the courthouse was actually refrigerated, she dashed for her car, the one place in the world where the temperature was under her control.

Surely, jury duty would be better than another day in the heat.

She took Coldwater Canyon over the hill, past Ventura Boulevard and on to Victory Boulevard, where she turned left toward the government complex that included two courthouses, one Munic.i.p.al, one Superior. Following the directions on Elizabeth's summons, she found the jury parking lot. A young man glanced at the card and waved her through. He had waved at the car before, and he waved at the car after.

The new jurors were all arriving at the same time-and the line of cars moving slowly into the structure meant that they would all be late.

Faith parked between the two cars that had been with her coming in. She fell into step with the fiftyish man in a work s.h.i.+rt and jeans who emerged from one and the sixtyish woman in a cotton blouse and skirt who emerged from the other as all three walked briskly across the street and right, toward the building that housed the Munic.i.p.al Court.

There was another bottleneck just inside the door. Everyone had to pa.s.s through the metal detector. n.o.body set it off, and the guard seemed bored.

The herd moved as one to the jury room. Faith sat and waited for her name-Elizabeth's name, that is-to be called. Whoever had summoned them all clearly had done this before and knew they would all be late. The public address system came to life about half an hour after she arrived.

Faith sat and waited through the orientation, first listening to a clerk explain the routine, then watching a videotaped judge explain the system. She sat and waited through a long silence. The room felt uncomfortably like a bus terminal, and she didn't really feel like reading the paperback novel she had brought. But at least it was cool. And not too cold.

Shortly before noon, the speakers came to life again, and an amplified voice called out, "Munic.i.p.al Court will not be seating a jury today. Superior Court, however, needs jurors. At one thirty, the following prospective jurors will report for duty at the Superior Court building on the other side of the walkway. If your name is not called, you are dismissed for the day. Walter Ivey, Jane Guerin, Elizabeth Haver..."

Faith was picking up her things, getting ready to leave, when she realized unhappily that she was now Elizabeth Haver.

The voice gave directions to the courtroom.

As ordered, Faith reported to the Superior Court building after lunching in the crowded cafeteria. No one wanted to leave the area. It would have meant exposure to the heat.

The man and woman she had met in the parking structure were among the group in the hall waiting for the courtroom door to open.

"Bad luck," the woman said brightly, nodding at Faith. The woman had short white hair and wore heavy bifocals that reflected the light from the windows.

Faith nodded in return. She didn't really want to get caught in small talk. It would mean establis.h.i.+ng her ident.i.ty as Elizabeth Haver, and she wanted to keep the lies to a minimum.

It was almost two when the bailiff opened the door and motioned them all inside.

More waiting, more listening to instructions.

And it dawned on Faith as the first twelve prospective jurors were questioned that if she were seated, and if she told them her name was Elizabeth Haver, she wouldn't simply be lying. She would be committing perjury-actually breaking the law. She thought about explaining to the bailiff that this was all a mistake, that she had to leave. She thought about suddenly becoming ill.

She imagined the cold eyes of the judge penetrating her heart.

There was no easy out, no way she could tell the truth without making things worse. Perjury it would have to be.

She tried to figure out from the questions what kind of crime the defendant was charged with. It had to be violent, and serious, or the judge wouldn't care so much which of the prospective jurors had recently been victimized.

The defendant was a woman, a grossly obese woman with a spiky halo of flaming red hair. She didn't look particularly violent, although she did look vaguely familiar. Faith had seen her face before. On television. She remembered the protruding blue eyes with the dark shadows beneath.

The voir dire questions that weren't about crime all seemed to do with belief in extrasensory perception.

The prosecutor was using his peremptory challenges to get rid of jurors who absolutely believed in psychic phenomena. The defense attorney was using hers to get rid of skeptics.

The judge was excusing people who said they had seen so much media coverage of the case that their minds were made up.

Faith remembered who the woman was. Molly Jupiter, billed as the World's Greatest Psychic. A few months earlier she had been arrested for the murder of Charles Bennis, operator of a psychic hotline that was advertised extensively on late-night television. Faith hadn't paid too much attention to the media coverage because too much had been happening in her own life at the time. All she remembered was the fat psychic, who had seemed even fatter on television, refusing to talk.

If Faith wanted to avoid this jury, all she had to do was tell them her mind was closed, one way or the other. Closed on psychic phenomena, certain the woman was a murderess.

Unfortunately, her mind was open on both. It was one thing to lie about her name, another to lie about her tolerance and sense of fair play.

At the end of the afternoon, Faith-now Elizabeth Haver-was one of twelve jurors sworn in to decide the case of Molly Jupiter.

Opening arguments were scheduled for ten the following morning.

Faith glumly trudged out of the courtroom.

The white-haired woman, also on the jury, caught her at the escalator.

"What do you think?" she asked. "By the way, my name is Jane."

"I think we shouldn't discuss it," Faith said. "And my name is-Elizabeth."

"Glad to meet you. You mentioned when the judge was asking questions that you're an actress. Might I have seen you in anything? You do look familiar." Jane seemed determined to strike up a conversation.

"Uh, no, I don't think so. I've been living on residuals, nothing recent."

Faith was almost glad to hit the heat. Walking from the courthouse to the parking structure left both women short of breath, ending all talk.

They waved goodbye as they reached their cars.

Turning the air conditioner to maximum cool restored Faith's good humor. She considered driving until morning, until it was time to return to court.

She went home because her cats were there. And she needed to confess her crime to Michael.

"Faith, you knew it would be perjury," he said when she called.

"I didn't think. Could I be prosecuted?"

"I don't know. Probably not-or at least not unless you cause a mistrial. Are you sure you want to go ahead?"

"Forward is easier than back."

"And it's in a good cause."

"I know. You read about all these lousy court decisions. Maybe I can do something right."

"Don't flatter yourself. The cause is staying out of the heat, and you know it."

Faith sniffed. "Partly true. Besides, I want to know what happened. This was a case that got some attention. I'll tell you about it just as soon as I can."

"Of course. You don't want to add misconduct to perjury."

"That's enough. I'll call you tomorrow."

The bottleneck at the door to the Superior Court building reached all the way down the stairs. Faith was perspiring heavily by the time the guards pa.s.sed her through the metal detector. And not in a good mood.

"Elizabeth!"

A hand tapped Faith's shoulder. Startled, she turned to see the juror named Jane, smiling at her.

"I was thinking about you last night," the older woman said. "What good experience this will be, if you're ever cast in a crime series."

Faith made a weak attempt to smile back.

"I suspect it isn't the same," she said, moving purposefully toward the escalator.

Jane scurried to catch up. "Well, we'll certainly find out, won't we?"

The crowd had thinned in the hall, but the escalator renewed the bottleneck.

Faith realized that she would be doomed to chat with Jane for the duration of the trial. She turned, calling on all her reserves of charm, and found a smile that was almost sincere.

"Yes, we surely will," she said.

She smiled through the wait in the hallway, smiled as the bailiff called them in, smiled as Jane kept talking.

Once seated in her spot as Juror Number Four, Faith began to study Molly Jupiter, who was having a whispered conversation with her attorney.

The woman could have gone straight from the courtroom to the Renaissance Fair. She was wearing several layers of dark blue cotton, including a blouse, a long ruffled skirt, and an equally long sleeveless vest. Her pudgy hands were clasped in front of her in a manner that seemed to Faith too relaxed for the circ.u.mstances. She searched for signs of tension.

As if sensing Faith's attention, the woman glanced at her, focused the protruding eyes for a moment, eyes that seemed even a deeper blue this morning, nodded, and returned to her conversation. The attorney, whose beige tailored suit offered a striking contrast to her client's dress, didn't seem to notice the s.h.i.+ft in attention.

"All rise," the bailiff called.

The judge, a dark-haired woman with a friendly face, entered and took her place. She greeted the jurors, called for the opening arguments, and the trial was underway.

The prosecutor was a young black man who looked barely out of law school.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," he began, looking each of them in the eyes, one at a time. "The defendant is charged with brutally murdering her former employer, a man who had built her professional career. Because of the nature of the crime, I will have to describe acts and show photographs that will offend some of you. Let me apologize in advance. But there is no other way."

The prosecutor proceeded to tell them how Charles Bennis had advertised in several magazines catering to those with an interest in the occult, looking for someone who could be billed as the World's Greatest Psychic. He auditioned close to a hundred psychics before hiring Molly Jupiter.

Bennis set her up as star of her own psychic hotline, complete with infomercials on late night cable. The money poured in. Then Molly Jupiter decided she wanted to be in business for herself. Bennis threatened to sue. He was bludgeoned to death two days later.

A piece of skin matching Molly Jupiter's DNA was found under Bennis's fingernails, the defendant had a scratch on her arm, and she had no alibi for the time of the murder.

"Circ.u.mstantial evidence, yes," the prosecutor said. "But circ.u.mstantial evidence can be convincing. Think of the light inside your refrigerator. How do you know it goes out when you close the door? Can you see it? No. You know there is a light switch, and you believe that the door hits the light switch when it closes, and the light goes out. Circ.u.mstantial evidence. But you have no doubt that the light goes out."

Molly Jupiter sat quietly, looking at her hands, as the prosecutor dramatized the story. Faith wondered again if she were truly that calm, even as the prosecutor had the jury seeing the fat woman as a murderous refrigerator door.

The defense attorney's statement was short.

"Much of what you have heard is true," she said. "One thing is not. Molly Jupiter did not commit the murder. This is a case of mistaken ident.i.ty. The police arrested the wrong psychic. The real perpetrator was not Molly Jupiter but her cousin, Melinda Parris, who was pa.s.sed over originally for the t.i.tle of World's Greatest Psychic, and then pa.s.sed over a second time, when Molly left the hotline. Molly Jupiter was framed. What you will hear is circ.u.mstantial evidence. Nothing places Molly Jupiter at the crime because she wasn't there. Someone cut off the victim's light. But it wasn't Molly Jupiter."

The defense attorney looked each of them in the eyes, just as her counterpart had previously.

Reasonable doubt, Faith thought. All she has to do is convince one of us that there is a reasonable doubt. A case of mistaken refrigerator doors.

At the end of the opening statements, the judge ordered a lunch break.

"Do you mind if I join you, Elizabeth?"

"Not at all, Jane." Faith sighed. It was going to be a long trial.

The a.s.sistant district attorney took four days to present his case. First he established a motive, calling several witnesses to testify that Molly Jupiter had been struggling to survive when she had answered the ad, that Charles Bennis had saved her from certain bankruptcy, and that there had been loud, ugly arguments when she wanted to leave the hotline and go out on her own. Two psychics who worked the hotline confirmed that threats on both sides escalated when Bennis said he would sue Jupiter for everything she was worth if she started a competing service.

During cross-examination, both psychics admitted that they had trouble imagining Molly Jupiter as a murderess.

Then the a.s.sistant district attorney called the coroner and showed the promised photographs of the bludgeoned body. He was right. They were ugly. Faith was more disturbed by them than she had expected to be.

There was also a photograph of Molly Jupiter's arm, showing what appeared to be a partly healed scratch.

The circ.u.mstantial evidence tying Molly Jupiter to the crime scene was mostly built around the DNA. When cross-examined, the DNA expert had to admit that sometimes first cousins were genetically close enough to confuse the issue. No one had checked Melinda Parris's DNA.

There was a lot of hypothesizing about Jupiter going to Bennis's house on the pretext of settling differences, most of which the defense attorney objected to and the jury was told to ignore.