Chapter 27
Paula Waters
On Monday morning when all the witnesses were supposed to appear to be sworn-in, Emilio Bellucci and Sandy Richmond were no-shows. Paula was only mildly upset about the development as neither of the witnesses were critical to her defense but Rutledge was very upset and he made his concerns known to the judge before voir dire started.
“Your Honor. Two of the State’s critical witnesses have disappeared over the last few days and did not show up to be sworn-in this morning. We may need to ask for a continuance so these witnesses can be located.”
Judge Anderson frowned. “Well, counselor. Haven’t you been keeping track of your witnesses?”
“Yes, we have, Your Honor. On Wednesday of last week both witnesses were contacted and reminded of their subpoena requiring them to appear this morning. Both of them said they would be here. On Friday we got word from defense counsel that these two witnesses were missing, so we immediately tried to locate them, but nobody seems to know where they are.”
The judge shrugged. “Well, I told you this was a solid trial date and there would be no continuances.”
“Judge. Sandy Richmond knows more about what happened in this case than any single witness. She was at the table when the murders took place. She, herself, ingested some of the poison. We need her testimony.”
“Then you should have done a better job keeping tabs on her.”
“Your Honor!” Rutledge pleaded.
“Your Honor,” Paula interjected. “Although Emilio Bellucci and Sandy Richmond have relevant knowledge of the facts in this case, neither is critical to the state’s case. There are numerous employees of Emilio’s Italian Restaurant who can testify as to what was going on before and after the murders and Sandy Richmond in deposition didn’t shed much light on who killed the victims in this case. If need be Mr. Rutledge can use deposition testimony, so we would oppose a continuance.”
“Mr. Black. What’s your position?” the judge asked.
“I would tend to agree with Ms. Waters,” Black said.
“So would I. Your motion to continue is denied,” the judge ruled. “In the meantime I suggest you get the fine detectives of the Dallas Police Department to find these witnesses. How hard could that be?”
“It could be that they are evading service, Your Honor.”
“Then perhaps we have the wrong party on trial here. Do you want to dismiss the charges?”
“No. Your Honor,” Rutledge replied quickly.
“Then we’ll begin voir dire at 1:00 p.m. The bailiff will give you your jury questionnaires to study until that time.”
The bailiff brought over a set of jury questionnaires to Paula and Rutledge. When they both had them in hand the bailiff started calling his morning docket. Paula looked at Jodie and smiled. “Let’s take these back to the office and work on them. It will be difficult to get any privacy around here with the press lurking about.”
Jodie nodded and they packed up their things and left the courtroom. The second they stepped in the hall they were mobbed by reporters.
“Why do you think these two witnesses didn’t show up today?” a reporter asked.
Paula shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Do you think they’ve been abducted?”
Paula smiled. “Yes, probably by aliens.”
Jodie laughed. “Oh, I can’t wait to see that headline in the tabloids.”
“How do you feel about your case? Do you think you will get a not guilty verdict?”
“Yes, absolutely. Ricardo had nothing to do with these murders.”
They got to the elevator and it mercifully opened immediately. They pushed their way in with a dozen reporters.
“Is it true that Sandy Richmond and Emilio Bellucci were having an affair?”
Paula looked at the reporter. “Is that true? Do you have evidence of that?”
“It’s a rumor circulating,” the reporter replied.
“I know nothing about that,” Paula replied, “and I seriously doubt it is true.”
The elevator door opened on the first floor and Paula and Jodie popped out of the crowd and moved hastily toward the exit.
“Do you think they ran off together?” the reporter pressed.
Paula didn’t answer as they were now outside the courthouse and walking quickly toward the parking garage.
“Do you think there is any truth to all that?” Jodie asked.
“I doubt it. I’m sure we’d have heard about an affair by now if it were true. We’ll ask Stan about it when we get to the office. He’s been trying to track Emilio down all weekend.”
When they got back to the office they went straight to Stan’s office. He looked surprised to see them.
“That was a quick trial.”
Paula smiled. “Yes, Rutledge dismissed the case since two of his key witnesses didn’t show up,” Paula teased.
“Yeah. Right.”
“He actually asked Rutledge if that’s what he wanted to do.”
“Really?” Stan said with a snicker.
“No. Actually the judge had a morning docket, so he gave us ‘til one to study the jury questionnaires.”
“Oh, good.”
“However, on the way back here a reporter asked if Emilio and Sandy Richmond were having an affair. Have you heard anything about that?”
Stan sighed deeply. “Well, actually it might be true.”
“What!” Paula exclaimed. “And I had to hear about it from a reporter.”
“I have learned a lot since you left on Friday, but I decided it would be better if you weren’t distracted by it.”
Paula opened her mouth but nothing came out. She just glared at Stan.
“Listen. There’s a strong possibility that Sandy Richmond is the murderer. She got a check from her insurance company for $5,000,000 on Wednesday. Eva Bellucci confirms that her husband was having an affair. Nobody knows who he was having the affair with, but it’s possible it was with Sandy Richmond which would explain why both are missing.”
“Oh, my God!” Paula exclaimed.
“Where did they go?” Jodie asked.
Stan shrugged. “I don’t know. Detective Besch is looking for them. He says they didn’t take a flight out of Love Field or DFW.”
As they were talking Maria’s voice came through on the intercom. “Detective Besch on line 3.”
“Speak of the devil,” Stan said putting them on speaker phone so Paula and Jodie could listen in. “Detective.”
“Stan. We haven’t found our witnesses yet but we did find Sandy Richmond’s car abandoned in a Wal-Mart parking lot.”
“How long had it been there?”
“The store manager said he noticed it there Thursday night and when it hadn’t moved by Saturday morning he called his wrecker service to come pick it up. I just heard about it this morning.”
“Any sign of foul play?” Stan asked.
“No. The car was locked and there was no personal property left inside or in the trunk. It looks like she was either abducted right after she parked or she met someone there and they went off in another car.”
“Any idea where she is now?”
“No. We checked all the airports, bus stations, rental car agencies and even Amtrak but there’s no record of either one of them leaving the city. If they are together they probably took Emilio’s car so we have an APB out on it.”
“Is there any evidence that they are together?”
“No. Just a hunch. There is a rumor circulating that they were having an affair, but we don’t have any actual confirmation of that.”
“We’ve heard that too and Eva confirms that both she and her husband were having extramarital affairs. Apparently they’ve had an open marriage for some time.”
“Really? She didn’t mention that to me.”
“Well, she only admitted it to me the other day when I pressed her on the subject.”
“Well, if you hear from them, call me.”
“I will. Thanks De
tective.”
Stan hung up and looked at Paula and Jodie.
“What are we going to do?” Paula asked.
“Nothing,” Stan replied. “We don’t know what the significance of all this is. That’s why I wasn’t going to worry you with it. You just need to stick with our current game plan.”
“But what if Sandy Richmond did it?”
“It doesn’t matter whether the jury thinks Wilkinson and Hunt did it or Sandy Richmond. Our game plan remains the same—prove Ricardo wasn’t involved and was set up. I assure you Rutledge won’t bring any of this up because it will just confuse the jury and give us more reasonable doubt.”
“Why don’t we bring it up?”
“Because if Emilio is involved we’d immediately have a conflict of interest and the judge would have to declare a mistrial.”
Paula’s face paled. “Oh, my God. What a nightmare this case is turning out to be.”
Stan nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t worry about any of that now. If you stick to our game plan we’ll be fine and the jury will still find Emilio innocent.”
Paula nodded. “Come on, Jodie. We’ve got a lot of work to do analyzing the jury questionnaires,” she said turning to leave. “If you want to help, we’ll be in the library.”
Stan frowned. “I doubt I’ll be any help. With this kind of case picking a jury is pretty much a crap shoot. I think I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”
Stan and Paula differed dramatically on how to pick a jury. Stan didn’t think the make-up of a jury mattered that much as long as the jurors who were picked were good honest people. Paula, on the other hand, thought picking a jury was a science and it was extremely important to consider every prospective juror very carefully. Paula nodded and they left. On the way to the library they stopped and got coffee. When they got to the library they spread out the jury questionnaires on the conference table and started working.
“So, what kind of jurors do we want?” Paula asked.
Jodie thought a moment. “Blue collar workers. They will sympathize with Ricardo, don’t you think?”
“Probably. Women too,” Paula suggested. “They’ll be less tolerant of anyone involved in organized crime whereas some men admire mobsters.”
“Lower income people and persons who have gone through bankruptcy. They’ll sympathize with Ricardo’s financial situation,” Jodie argued.
“So we don’t want professionals or high income males. We want medium to lower income male or female.”
“Okay. Let’s take a look then,” Jodie said picking up the first questionnaire. “Glenda Mathis, homemaker, age 33, husband is a Doctor, has a B.A. in education.”
“Hmm. I’d put her in the maybe pile.”
“Okay, John Rockingham, mason, union member, three children, wife is a hair dresser.”
Paula thought a moment. “Nah. He probably makes good money and union members have historically been friendly to the mob.”
“Then that’s a negative,” Jodie said making a new pile.
For the next two hours they went through all the questionnaires until Stan walked in with a sack full of sandwiches from the café downstairs.
“Oh, great. I’m famished,” Jodie said depositing the last questionnaire in the appropriate pile.
They all sat back taking a break to eat. Maria brought in drinks and she joined them.
“Well, no more news on our missing witnesses,” Stan advised.
“How can we not bring up the fact that Sandy Richmond had five million reasons to kill her husband?”
“Because, if we address that issue it brings up the question of whether Emilio was a co-conspirator and then we’d have a conflict of interest.”
“Maybe we should just address that issue and make the court declare a mistrial. That would get our client a postponement.”
“Must I remind you that the person who was funding Ricardo’s defense is gone. I doubt he’ll be sending us any more checks for Ricardo’s defense.”
Paula frowned. “Hmm. Good point.”
“If the trial is not going well we can bring up Sandy Richmond’s disappearance and the five million dollars at the last moment. We won’t mention Emilio and hopefully his possible involvement won’t come up.”
“Right. Rutledge won’t want to touch that with a ten foot pole. I just hope this doesn’t all backfire on us.”
“Me too,” Stan agreed.
When Paula and Jodie got back to court the jury selection began and by the end of the day they’d only picked five jurors. That night as Paula reviewed her trial notebook and thought about the new developments over the past few days she wondered if Stan wasn’t right in this case. It was impossible to know how anybody would react to the facts of the case. It wasn’t the type of case that demographics really mattered. The next day she shifted her focus to find the jurors who seemed most circumspect and open minded. At 4:11 p.m. on Tuesday the last juror was seated and the court recessed for the day.