Blood Royal Page 5

  She would cooperate with Hall, Trent, and whoever, that was a necessity, but when it came down to making a major decision on defense strategy, she would follow her own lead.

  A newspaper from a stack that sat on the bottom shelf of a liquor cabinet wiggled out enough from the motion of the car so she could read the screaming headline: NEW GUNFIGHTER IN TOWN.

  The subheading was Slow Trigger James Rides In.

  “Slow Trigger” referred to the fact that she had convinced juries that the reasonable provocation needed for a heat-of-passion defense could be abuse stretched out over a period of years rather than a sudden incident.

  Hall shoved the paper back inside. “Sorry, but we really need to keep up on all the news, don’t we?”

  “I was just thinking of the way trial lawyers in California would harangue the other side’s expert witnesses. They call them hired gunfighters who have come to town just to viciously destroy the poor victim’s case. Then there would be snide inferences that the expert was a member of the world’s oldest profession.”

  Hall raised his eyebrows. “Very undignified, isn’t it?”

  “Very effective. If you want to leave a negative impression in the mind of jurors, branding someone as a hired killer is rather a good way to do it.”

  * * *

  MARLOWE JAMES SURPRISED HALL—her appearance, voice, and body language were not what he had been expecting. He had had very definite ideas about what the American lawyer would look like. Around Trent’s chambers it was assumed that she would be a “ball-breaker,” a woman who “castrates the men around her to make sure that they pay for ten thousand years of feminine servitude,” Norton, a junior clerk, had hypothesized.

  Hall didn’t think in those terms, but the TV shows and movies cranked out by Hollywood featuring women lawyers had made him expect her to be excessively aggressive and assertive. At the least, he thought she would be so brisk and efficient, one would have the inclination to stand up and salute when she walked into the room, her stride quick and sure, the steel of her spiked heels ricocheting off marble walls. One had to consider who she was, after all. You wouldn’t expect a woman who had been tried for murdering her own husband to act like an ordinary person.

  It was an erroneous assumption, he knew, because the husband-killer Marlowe came to represent was not anything like that—the princess was known to be charming rather than assertive.

  Still, Marlowe James was a lawyer in the tough big-city American arenas and one would expect her to be, well, different from the refined princess.

  For certain, she wasn’t the proverbial ball-breaker, he thought. Not that there was anything soft about her. She left no doubt that she was a woman who knew her own mind, but she hadn’t displayed a tendency to flex her muscles with him. Rather, she came across as very professional, very businesslike, though perhaps a bit more of a mover and shaker than he personally felt comfortable with. She had a bit of that annoying bluntness Americans tend to display, but none of her dynamic traits made him feel any less that she was woman. He had become overly sensitive about female lawyers after he had been verbally chastised by one, a dynamic London barrister who offended his sense of dignity by referring to his private body parts, calling him a “prick” outside the courtroom during an argument over a case.

  Another factor in the good impression Marlowe made upon him was the fact she was appropriately dressed for a flight. He hated men and women who flew across oceans and continents in jogging outfits. He never boarded a plane dressed less formally than how he would show up at the office, and that meant a proper suit and tie. Marlowe was wearing a pants suit with comfortable shoes. Rather wisely she had a very small purse because she also carried a briefcase. He had seen female lawyers whose purses were almost as big as their briefcases and he wondered what they carried in them. He was not married and there were parts of womanhood that were as inexplicable as Stonehenge to him.

  Good tone to her body, he thought, not buffed like a telly star Trent represented, but a woman who kept her body in decent shape. He personally hated all forms of exercise, especially anything that would require him to go outdoors, and he kept his body trim by pushing away from the dinner table, grateful that his mother had raised him to stop eating before he got that full feeling.

  There was a tiny scar on her lip, on the right side, giving her lip a little bit of an unbalanced look, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of it. He wondered if she had gotten it from her husband—ex-husband, that is, very ex indeed, Hall thought.

  It puzzled him and everyone else in the office as to why the princess had gone “outside,” far outside, to hire an American woman to help defend her.

  What was in the princess’s mind?

  For that matter, what could have driven her to kill the Prince of Wales in front of millions of home viewers?

  Perhaps the royal lady was as bonkers as many people claimed.

  The INNS OF COURT

  8

  The limo carrying Marlowe and Philip Hall took them to Legal London, the area between the Thames and Holborn where the main courthouses and most attorney offices were located. Hall explained on the way that Trent’s “chambers” were in the oldest and most famous of the “inns of court,” those privileged old establishments where barristers gathered to share office space. The limo negotiated its way through a throng of reporters and into a private driveway. During the short walk from the car to the office building, bewigged, robed barristers going to and from court stared at her. She realized that she was on her way to being one of the most famous women on the planet.

  She exchanged a smile with a female barrister. “They wear wigs and robes, too,” she told Hall.

  “Really?” he said.

  The hardly audible, dry reply was the closest thing she’d experienced so far in terms of him having a sense of humor.

  Anthony Trent’s offices were mahogany and brass from another era, a time when Britannia had half the world under the Union Jack, and the cream from its colonies found its way to the table of the “Establishment,” that small core of wealthy British who owned just about everything in the country.

  The office furniture was aged, heavy hardwood, cut in colonial jungles during the time Britannica ruled the sea and the sun never set on the British Empire. The bookcases were filled with elderly volumes that conveyed a sense that they were both old and authoritative. It was hard for Marlowe to imagine any modern judge overturning the precedents in legal texts as venerable as those she saw in Trent’s office.

  Passing by furnishings that took her to a grander age, she was disappointed to see through an open door a modern computer bay with a data-entry clerk fast at work. Scribes with quills and ink pots would have fit the ambience more.

  Hall led her to a conference room. Several things struck her the moment she walked in—the scent of fine cigar smoke, a fainter wisp of brandy, a mahogany conference table solid enough to be used as the bowsprit on a battleship … and six people who were careful to keep their disapproval behind fragile masks of civility.

  Five men and a woman were seated at the table. The men stood as she entered the room. Hall started the introductions.

  “Marlowe James, may I present Anthony Trent.”

  Trent had thick, combed-back black hair that came almost to a point at the front of his head, heavy eyebrows, and a patrician nose. His suit was as conservative as Philip Hall’s, but the wool was of the finest, a smooth, almost slick midnight blue with a barely visible black stripe. His shirt was starched white, French-cuffed with gold links, and his tie was blue-and-gold-striped, displaying the colors of one of the snooty British public schools.

  Marlowe had expected a Type A personality, the character trait almost universally expected of trial attorneys, but her first impression was of a man who commanded by force of personality rather than snapping jaws. Her second impression was that subtle arrogance that sometimes comes along with wealth and success. Trent was commander in chief in his chambers—his countenance was apprai
sing, his smile and handshake were professional but lacked warmth.

  “May I present Lord Finfall.”

  Lord Finfall was a white-haired elder statesman in a medium-gray heavy worsted suit that was woven to last the ages.

  Trent said, “His Lordship is the Honorable Lord Chief Justice, retired. He brings to our team a half a century of judicial experience and leadership.”

  Lord Finfall shook hands, giving a rough heavy paw that Marlowe guessed from the calluses she felt had seen some gardening recently. He appeared to be in his seventies. His jowls had begun to droop and liver spots blotted the delicate pale skin on his hands and face. She assumed that a Lord Chief Justice was something akin to Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. And that the “Lord” part made him a peer of the realm. She wondered if he had been brought out of retirement to throw his great prestige behind the defense. He was definitely Yesterday, while Trent was Today.

  “Helen Catters. Helen is a barrister by profession and is on the Board of the London Family Council. She brings to us her experience and reputation in handling family matters in court, a very important skill, since our client, the princess, is well known for her concern for the two princes.”

  “A pleasure,” Helen Catters said. Catters did not stand up, nor offer to shake hands.

  A divorce lawyer with a social worker background, Marlowe guessed, or something akin to it. Catters looked to be in her early fifties, Marlowe thought, a rather plain, large-busted, thick-waisted woman with dark brown hair who probably tended to blend into the background at social events except when her opinion was solicited on family matters.

  Dr. Duncan McMann introduced himself with a Scottish growl. McMann was a big man, bull-necked, with a flat, broad face and sandy hair that was already turning gray even though Marlowe guessed his age at around the same as hers.

  “Dr. McMann is a psychiatrist and teaches at the University of Edinburgh,” Trent said. “He is one of the most distinguished forensic psychiatrists in Britain. He is also able to give us the northern view on the matter.”

  Marlowe nodded, trying to look suitably impressed. She instantly evaluated him in terms of his jury appeal as an expert witness and didn’t like his demeanor—he had that casual arrogance of doctors who let you know that someday you’ll be dying and will need them. “Northern view,” she guessed, was the Scottish view, a not-too-difficult presumption since Scotland was to the north.

  Lawrence Dewey introduced himself and shook hands.

  “Larry is with Bartlett’s, the best public relations firm in Britain,” Trent said. “He’s also a solicitor, and has taken leave to join our team.”

  Dewey appeared to be in his fifties, a slender man with narrow, pinched features, creating the impression of an inquisitive bird.

  “And this distinguished gentleman is Sir Fredic Nelson. Sir Fredic is the princess’s solicitor and he is the instructing solicitor in this matter.”

  Sir Fredic looked very much the wealthy, successful corporate attorney Marlowe took him to be. Corporate attorneys worked on the business side of law, representing major entities, battles of titans against each other and battles of titans against little people. It was not an area of law practice she, as a street lawyer, could relate to.

  Anthony Trent said, “And of course you have already met Philip, who will be assisting me in the trial. Won’t you have a seat, Miss James?”

  Trent showed her to a seat at the opposite head of the table from where he had been seated.

  “Please call me Marlowe.”

  “Of course. We are all on a first-name basis here,” Trent said. “And with Lord Finfall and Sir Fredic, we use both their first names.”

  There was a polite laugh around the table. Trent took his seat at the end of the table opposite Marlowe and Philip took a seat at his right side.

  There was a silence as the seven people stared at her.

  She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “I take it I have the hot seat.”

  There were polite chuckles from Dewey and McMann. Helen Catters coughed with what was probably a bit of a laugh.

  Anthony Trent smiled, exposing thousands of dollars’ worth of caps and a bleached-white smile. “Well, we are a bit curious about you, I must admit. As you know, Her Highness did not consult with us prior to hiring you. Frankly, we found out about it from the media.” He didn’t have to spell out what a breach of protocol that was.

  “I was a bit surprised myself, to say the least. A friend of hers married to an American had read about the cases I’ve handled and recommended me.”

  “We understand you recently tried a case in Savannah, Georgia, in which you applied your defense theory. Something called the slow trigger,” Sir Fredic said. Despite what he probably thought was a neutral tone, Marlowe easily picked up a negative attitude underlining it.

  “Slow trigger is what the American news media has come to call it. I don’t have a name for it, but it seems to commonly pop up in the cases I’ve handled where abused women killed their husbands. Rather than a legal theory, it’s a fact pattern that arises from the cases.”

  “You’ll have to familiarize us with the theory,” Trent said. “I’m afraid those of us in the justice business in the old country are not as progressive as you Americans are.”

  Trent’s tone again was neutral, but she knew he was being both condescending and deceitful. He was a good attorney, handling one of the most famous legal cases in history—and his client had reached across the ocean to hire another attorney. He had to be shitting bricks since the news broke that the princess had hired an infamous American trial attorney. What did the princess tell him? Did she make it clear that Marlowe was lead counsel? Marlowe didn’t need a crystal ball to realize that the princess had certainly not told Trent that he was to be second chair. If she had, Philip Hall would not have referred to Trent as lead counsel.

  She also didn’t need a fortune-teller to realize that from the moment the news broke that the princess had hired her, Trent and his team had been frantically researching her, that they already knew everything about her, from her bra size to the color of her toenail paint. They not only already knew her trial strategy, but no doubt had been playing a game of devil’s advocate to see how many holes they could punch in it.

  She played along with the charade, knowing also that she had been hustled from the airport so they could talk to her before she had a chance to express her theories to the press: Trent and his cohorts wanted to make sure they censored out anything that did not please them.

  “I understand Britain and America have similar laws concerning homicide defenses and mitigation,” she said.

  Lord Finfall snorted. “Of course we do. You Americans got your legal system from Britain. Most of the present foundation of the laws on homicide are centuries old, many even go back to Roman times.”

  Marlowe smiled and nodded. What an old ass he was. “And as you all know, I’m sure better than me, a mitigating defense for murder, to reduce it to manslaughter, is what we call heat of passion, not really in reference to romantic passion, but used in the sense of a sudden, violent anger. The law understands that some people are reasonably provoked into reacting violently to an emotional situation. One issue always present is the reasonableness of the provocation—was the victim’s actions such that we can understand the defendant’s reaction to it? Traditionally, the real key to the defense is not whether the provocation itself was of a nature to justify—juries often find the provocation justified when it involves emotional responses to situations like spousal abuse, infidelity, cruel insults, and the like.”

  As she spoke, it occurred to her that not only were the judge and attorneys already well briefed on the defense—it had to be on their minds from the moment they were hired—but that even the two members of the team who were not attorneys had to be knowledgeable about mitigating premeditated murder down to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Marriages were hotbeds of emotion and it would be a rare spousal killing where mitigati
ng murder down to manslaughter was not at least considered. Often, instead of mitigation, juries had found the abused defendant not guilty. So why the pretense at ignorance and the hostility not only toward her but the concept that the princess was an abused spouse? She went on.

  “We all understand that if you step into your bedroom and find your spouse in bed with another person, a jury would probably find that a reasonable person could fly into a murderous rage, grab a gun, and pull the trigger. Back home, we call this a Texas divorce.”

  Hall was the only one who smiled. He looked the stuffiest, but Marlowe decided he was definitely the nicest.

  “In my experience, the real key to the defense is the time between the provocation and the lethal blow. The law says that the deadly blow must be delivered in close time proximity to the provocation, hence the expression a sudden heat of passion. There are no precise time limits, each case is judged on its own merits, but the courts have universally tried to limit the time between the provocation and the killing, with many courts getting offended if it’s more than a matter of a few minutes. The easy cases are those with provocation and almost instantaneous reaction—you walk into the bedroom, find your spouse in bed with someone, and you grab a gun, or you’re in a bar and someone says something insulting to your companion and you swing a beer bottle.

  “The tough cases are those in which there is a greater length of time between the provocation and the killing. You find your spouse in bed with another person, you leave the house, go to a gun shop, buy a gun, and come back and start shooting. To find heat of passion, the courts prefer that you react at the moment of the provocation. If you run into the kitchen and grab a knife, or to the den for a shotgun, those cases are also often winnable. But if you go for a drive to think about it, if you have time to cool off, or leave to buy a weapon, the courts say you are no longer reacting under heat of passion.

  “So the amount of time between the provocation and pulling the trigger—or the stabbing, bludgeoning, choking, or however the lethal blow is delivered—is crucial. That’s where the cases that even have adequate provocation are commonly lost—you have to be provoked, you have to pull the trigger while you’re still in the grip of powerful emotions from the incident.”