Homicide - A Year On The Killing Streets Part 50

"I agree," says the defense attorney. "I think the likelihood is I will not call her."

Gordy then announces his decision: Although she is lying to save her man, Sharon Henson will testify against him. The woman takes the stand after the lunch break and begins an ordeal that lasts well over an hour. If a man's freedom wasn't at issue, if a family wasn't seated in the gallery, praying for vengeance, Henson's performance in service of her boyfriend might count as comedy. Black velvet evening dress, pillbox hat, fur wrap-her appearance alone makes it difficult to take her testimony seriously. Conscious of her big moment in this drama, she takes the oath and crosses her legs in the witness box as if to mimic the femme fatales of every Grade B film noir. Even the jury begins to giggle.

"How old are you, ma'am?" asks Doan.

"Twenty-five."

"Do you know an individual by the name of Robert Frazier?"

"Yes, I do."

"Do you see that individual in the courtroom today?"

"Yes."

"Point him out, please."

The woman points to the defense table, then, for just a moment, smiles softly at the defendant. Frazier looks back impa.s.sively.

Doan establishes Sharon Henson's relations.h.i.+p with Frazier for the jury's benefit, then takes her back to the night of her party and the murder. In her statements to Garvey and the grand jury, Henson acknowledged that she had been drinking and using drugs, but she had unequivocally stated that Frazier had left the party late that evening and not returned until morning. Now, she is remembering something altogether different.

"Do you still consider yourself Mr. Frazier's girlfriend today?" asks Doan.

"Do I really have to answer that?"

"Yes," says Gordy. "Answer the question."

"Yes, I do."

"And during the time that Mr. Frazier has been incarcerated you have visited him at the jail, have you not?"

"Yes, I have."

"Now, how many times have you visited him there?"

"Three times."

Doan heaps it on, asking Henson to list the Valentine's Day gifts she received from Frazier before the murder. Then he turns abruptly to the issue of the .38 revolver that Frazier had given her to hold after the killing, the weapon that Frazier had taken back from her four days before Garvey and Kincaid showed up to interview her.

"And when he asked you for the weapon," says Doan, his voice even, "did he tell you why he wanted it?"

"Yes, he did."

"What did he say, ma'am?"

"That the police would be coming to talk to me, and he told them that I had the gun for him, but he didn't ask me for it."

"And?" asks Doan, looking up from his notes.

Sharon Henson glowers at the prosecutor before answering. "Not to give it to them," she says, then glances apologetically toward her boyfriend.

"He told you that the police would be coming looking for it. He didn't want you to give it to them?" asks Doan.

"I remember that, yeah."

So far, so good. Doan pushes on to the night of the party. He has the woman recite the guest list and the menu, and when she claims poor memory, Doan reminds her that they spoke only ten days earlier in his office.

"At that time, did you tell me that you had ham and cheese, collard greens, corn on the cob, lobster and wine?"

"Yes," she says, unperturbed.

Doan leads her into the events of the party: Frazier's arrival, his departure to pick up the lobster, his wardrobe on the night of the party.

"What was Mr. Frazier wearing?"

"Beige."

"Beige?"

"Beige," she repeats.

"He had beige slacks on?"

"Uh-huh."

"Beige s.h.i.+rt?"

"Uh-huh."

"Did he have a jacket that he was wearing?"

"Coat," she says.

"What kind of coat?" asks Doan.

"Beige," she says.

"Was he wearing anything else beige?"

The jury laughs. Henson glares at them.

"His hat?" asks Doan.

"It's like a golf cap."

"The kind with a brim around the front?" asks Doan.

"Snaps on it," she says, nodding in agreement.

Suddenly, Larry Doan turns the corner on Sharon Henson. He brings out her statement to the detectives as well as her grand jury statement.

"When you spoke to police, didn't you tell them he was wearing a black waist-length jacket?"

"I spoke to the police," she says, the change in Doan's voice making her wary.

"Ma'am, is the answer yes or no?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"Do you remember telling the grand jury what he was wearing?"

"Objection, your honor," says Polansky.

Gordy overrules him. "Yes or no?" says the judge.

"They might have asked me," she says bitterly. "I don't remember."

And so it goes for half an hour, with Doan reading from the transcripts and Sharon Henson claiming to remember nothing.

"Isn't it true, ma'am, that during the course of the party you had an argument with Mr. Frazier?"

"Yes."

"And after the argument he left your apartment?"

"No."

"He never left your apartment?"

"He left for about twenty minutes, yes."

"And when he came back, what did he do?"

"He continued to mingle with the guests."

"And he stayed the whole night. This is what you are telling the ladies and gentlemen of the jury?"

"Yeah," she says.

"And you want them to believe that, right?"

Polansky is on his feet with the objection.

"Overruled," says Gordy.

At which point Sharon Henson looks across the courtroom at Larry Doan and smiles sweetly. It's as if she actually believes she's destroying the state's case; in fact, she is turning all of Paul Polansky's lawyering to dust.

"Is that right, ma'am?" asks Doan. "You want them to believe that he stayed the whole night with you. Is that right?"

"Well he did."

"Is your memory of the events of the twenty-second of February clearer today than it would have been on March seventeenth or March tenth of this year?"

"March? No. Yes."

"Is it clearer today?" says Doan, showing his irritation.

"I mean, I have talked it over with the people that was at the party."

Doan looks at the jury, giving them an honest-to-G.o.d double take. "Okay," he says, shaking his head. "You talked to some people at the party, and that made your recollections clearer?"

"It made me see a few more things about that night that I didn't see that night or whatever."

"You mean like how long your boyfriend stayed at your apartment? You needed someone else to tell you how long your boyfriend stayed at your apartment?"

"Excuse me, sir," hisses the woman. "I was under the influence of drugs and alcohol that night."

"So how," asks Doan, saying each word slowly, "do you remember it now?"

At the defense table, Polansky sits with his hand to his forehead, presumably thinking about the case that might have been. Subtle strategies have suddenly been rendered obsolete by simple vaudeville. The Newport cigarettes, the unchecked hairs and the ghost of Vincent Booker-all of that is out the window now that Doan is blowing holes in Sharon Henson for the courtroom's amus.e.m.e.nt. At times, the jurors laugh so loudly that Gordy uses the gavel.

Outside the courtroom, Rich Garvey fidgets as Henson's time on the stand lengthens. Only when Doan emerges is the true scope of the victory made clear to him.

"What happened with Nee-Cee?" he asks the prosecutor as they walk down the third-floor corridor. "How'd she go over?"

Doan smiles as if he had a dorsal fin sticking through the back of his pinstripes. "I killed her. I destroyed her," he tells the detective. "There's blood all over the floor in there."

"She was terrible?"

"She was a f.u.c.king joke. The jury was laughing at her," says Doan, unable to conceal his delight. "I'm serious. I f.u.c.king murdered her."

From here forward, it is a downhill ride. If Sharon Henson had held to the truth, if she had been willing to give the state what she gave them in March, she could have counted herself as nothing worse than one piece of the circ.u.mstantial puzzle. Instead, she chose to perjure herself and as a result, she exists in every juror's mind as evidence of Robert Frazier's desperation.

On Monday, the testimony begins again with Rich Garvey's return to the stand and the blow-by-blow of the investigative steps that led to Frazier's arrest. On the cross-examination, Polansky works hard to emphasize his client's early cooperation in the probe, Frazier's willingness to come downtown and be interviewed without a lawyer. At one particularly telling moment, Polansky asks about the wounds from both knife and gun, suggesting that the use of two weapons indicates that two suspects are involved.

"How many years have you been a police officer?" he asks Garvey.

"Thirteen."

"And you've investigated many, many homicide cases either directly or-"

"That's right," says Garvey.

"Have you ever had a case where the victim died by a stab wound and gun wound and there was only one perpetrator?" asks Polansky.