Cool & Lam 15 - Beware the Curves

Endicott consented to marry the decedent, Karl Endicott, the defendant Ansel had not been content to be a good loser, but had continued to hope against hope that he would be able to break up the home, notwithstanding the fact that he was in the employ of Karl Endicott, notwithstanding the fact that Endicott had trusted him to go on his most confidential missions. Ansel , as a snake in the grass, had waited, biding his time—
    Barney Quinn was on his feet interrupting. He said he didn’t want to interrupt but this was not the time for an argument. This was only an opening statement in which the district attorney was entitled to show what he expected to prove—not to engage in a lot of dramatics, not to try and impress his “soulful personality” on the jurors.
    Judge Lawton got mad. Mortimer Irvine got mad. The judge rebuked Barney for the manner in which he had made his objection. The judge rebuked Irvine for abusing the privilege of the opening statement. Then the judge sustained the objection.
    Irvine didn’t do so good when he got mad. He lost some of his suave assurance. He had a savage, sarcastic streak in his character. The way I sized him up from that moment on he wasn’t a fighter. When the going got tough he didn’t wade in and slug. He circled around the edges and sniped.
    Irvine went on. He said he expected to show that Ansel had returned from an expedition which he had voluntarily undertaken and for which he had received a bonus of twenty thousand dollars. He expected to show that within minutes of his arrival at the airport, Ansel had placed a telephone call. The telephone call had been to the residence of Karl Carver Endicott, but it had been a person-to-person call and the records would show that he had specifically stated he wished to talk only with Mrs. Endicott, and with no one else if she was not present.
    Irvine went on to state that he expected to show Ansel had gone to the house. To the defendant’s surprise the person who had answered the door had been Karl Carver Endicott. Endicott had invited the defendant to an upstairs room. Within a matter of minutes thereafter, Karl Carver Endicott had been dead, and Elizabeth Endicott had been a widow. Thereafter, Ansel had resorted to flight. He had remained in hiding, moving in the shadows, keeping from the clutches of the law only by reason of the fact that he was supposed to be dead. During that long waiting period, he had surreptitiously continued to meet Elizabeth Endicott.
    Finally, when police had an inkling of the true facts, they had baited a trap and into that trap had walked the guilty pair—Elizabeth Endicott, the widow, who had been consorting with her husband’s murderer even before the body of her husband was cold in death, and John Dittmar Ansel , the defendant in the case, who had repaid the opportunities for advancement Karl Carver Endicott had given him by a .38 bullet fired into the back of Endicott’s head.
    Irvine sat down amidst a hushed courtroom. One or two of the younger feminine members of the jury looked at John Dittmar Ansel with revulsion stamped all over their faces.
    Court took the noon recess.
    “He’s your baby,” I told Barney Quinn. “He can’t stand the in-fighting. It musses up his good looks. Get in there and play rough. Don’t let him get away with that stuff about betraying the interests of his employer. Make an opening statement of your own right after court convenes. Tell the jurors that Endicott deliberately sent Ansel on a suicide trip, that he baited his trap with twenty thousand dollars, but was so ruthless he didn’t even pay the twenty thousand in advance. It was only to be paid when the men returned, after having completed the impossible mission.”
    “But a defense lawyer shouldn't make his opening statement until he is ready to start putting on his case,” Quinn said.
    “Then you may not have any case to put on,” I warned. “Right now you don't dare to put the defendant on the stand, and before you get done you probably won't dare to put Elizabeth Endicott on the stand. Tell them what you expect to prove, and pull out all the stops. Irvine talked about the loyalty due an employer from an employee. Tell them about the other side of the picture. Tell them about the man who sits smugly in an office and deliberately sends another man to his death, so that he can marry the man’s sweetheart.”
    “The Court will rebuke me,” Quinn said.
    “The Court rebuked Irvine ,” I told