The Deal by Sabin Willett

Author:Sabin Willett [Willett, Sabin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82274-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Friday came. In 8b, O’Hanlon began the sketch of Shepard. Poor Hester DeSantis was one of the first witnesses he called for this purpose. The witness stand was the very last place on earth this old, somewhat stooped lady, with white hair pulled into a tight bun, wanted to be. It was plain to every eye in the room that even after three months, she had not recovered from the shock of the death of her employer of almost thirty years. She barely whispered, and every juror, full of sympathy, craned forward to hear her.

“Mrs. DeSantis,” said O’Hanlon, “I want to draw your attention to a meeting that took place in Mr. Whitaker’s office between Mr. Whitaker and the defendant one afternoon in mid-March. Do you recall such a meeting?”

And he had to encourage her when she nodded gamely, too shy to speak, reminding her to answer audibly. “Yes, yes, sir,” she said.

“Your desk was just outside Mr. Whitaker’s door, was it not?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And would you see people as they entered and left his office?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“On the afternoon of—March eighteenth, I think it was, tell the jury what you saw and heard.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir. He”—her voice was still barely more than a whisper—“Mr. Shepard, I mean, came in to see Mr. Whitaker. He didn’t ask or knock. He just burst in. Sir. Then there was a lot of shouting, and … he left.”

Shepard was at Mulcahy’s ear. “John,” Mulcahy whispered, “sit still and shut up.”

Up front the questioning proceeded. “Mrs. DeSantis, what did you hear the defendant say?”

She looked around uncertainly. “Should I say the, the words … here?” She inquired of the judge. He smiled back at her kindly.

“Yes, Mrs. DeSantis,” Judge Grosso said gently, “you should say the words.”

“He said Mr. Whitaker was a gutless … a …” She began to whisper. Mulcahy cringed. This kind of witness is deadly. “A gutless prick. I’m sorry. That was what he said. And he used other foul language of that kind, sir.” She reddened and looked up apologetically at the judge again. It was clear to Mulcahy that everyone in the room was sure she was telling the truth. She went on, under O’Hanlon’s questioning, to describe Shepard’s yelling about a partnership vote and Whitaker’s betrayal.

“Mrs. DeSantis,” asked O’Hanlon, “please describe the tone of voice.”

“Oh, yes. He was shouting. Shouting at Mr. Whitaker. All the girls heard him.”

The dutiful student in Mulcahy thought of objecting to what all the girls heard. But there really was no point. The prosecutor went on, “Did he say anything else?”

“Yes,” she said, with gathered conviction. “He said, ‘I won’t ever forget this, Sam,’ and then he walked out and slammed the door.”

“ ‘I won’t ever forget this’?” O’Hanlon asked. He never was quite able to hear the answers he liked the first time through.

“Yes, sir, ‘I won’t ever forget this, Sam.’ That was what he said.”

O’Hanlon nodded. Then, as though it were an afterthought, he said, “Oh, Mrs. DeSantis, did he say anything to you?”

She blushed again.

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