The Trials of Max Q, page 23
When order is restored, I begin to work the blackmail angle. “You mentioned that you didn’t know Laney long. When did you meet her?”
“I met Laney at a New Year’s Eve party in Las Vegas, the year before last,” Maxon says. In the middle of his statement he appears to become overwhelmed by emotion. He places his head in his hands and begins to sob.
We take a five-minute break to let Maxon get it back together. He is actually helping us more than I thought he would. He is making Laney seem human, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s coming from the man who supposedly is Drew Anderson’s “right hand man.”
When we restart his testimony, I try to insinuate that Laney attended that party in Las Vegas with the sole purpose of meeting up with Anderson, and in essence, putting her blackmail plan into motion. But Kerri objects, and soon Figliomini puts me out of the speculation business.
“During any of your many phone conversations with Laney, did she mention a plan to blackmail Drew Anderson?” I ask.
“She didn’t mention it, nor do I believe she had any intention to do so.”
“Do you think Drew Anderson murdered your close friend … Laney Bang?”
“No.”
Shep looks to be disgusted at my softball question, but I’m trying to protect Maxon from Kerri’s smorgasbord, especially now that he just opened a can of worms by declaring his love for the victim.
“Since you cared deeply for Laney, maybe you became jealous when she started sleeping with your boss. You had access to the house, which gave you opportunity—maybe you killed her.”
Kerri isn’t dumb enough to object to this. I am doing her job.
“Of course not!” Maxon rebuffs.
I smile. “I know you didn’t kill her. And I know this because you left with Amber Jazz at 11:00 p.m. for the Otesaga Hotel, and were still there at the time of Laney’s 911 call. In fact, the two of you were so boisterous in your room that numerous complaints were filed.”
Never a good sign when the highlight of the testimony is proving that your witness didn’t commit the crime.
“Are you aware of the video I played during my opening arguments, in which the defendant and victim engaged in sex?”
“I am.”
“Were you aware that Drew Anderson and Laney Bang were having an ongoing affair?”
“I don’t know that they were. The video could have been a one shot deal.”
“Fair enough. Then what was your reaction to your close friend being taped having sex with Drew Anderson?”
“What does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t mean he killed her,” Maxon says, his emotions still frayed.
“That wasn’t my question—how did it make you feel?”
“Laney had sex with many men. It was her job—sex wasn’t special to her. What we had was unique.”
“Here’s the thing about the video. I think Laney created it to blackmail your buddy Drew. You disagree. But you know who can break our tie—whoever the person was behind the camera.”
Maxon shrugs, as I continue, “What I notice in the video is that Laney appears to know where the camera is, yet Drew appears unaware that he is being filmed.”
Kerri objects. I offer to have the video replayed for the court to better explain my point. Figliomini informs me that the video is burned in everyone’s retinas, and therefore never needs to be replayed again.
“Could Laney have been the one to set up the camera? She was in the movie business and likely had picked up some knowledge about the tools of the trade along the way.”
“I have no idea, I guess it’s possible. But I doubt that she’d have the knowledge of the estate to be able to set up a hidden camera.”
“How about Drew—could he have set it up?”
“I doubt that.”
“And why is that?”
“For a couple of reasons. One, is that it would be too risky for him to make such a video—he would be putting his image in danger, and he would never risk losing Marissa.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“Drew is a techno-idiot. If it wasn’t for me, his clocks would have been blinking 12:00 for the last ten years.”
This gets a laugh from the gallery, and even a small smile from Drew.
“It sounds like you have some abilities when it comes to technology, and you also had expert knowledge of Anderson Estate, so I must ask you the question—did you make the video? Did you assist your close friend Laney in blackmailing Drew Anderson?”
“Of course not! I have been nothing but loyal to Drew, and I will continue to be when these trumped up charges are finally thrown out!”
“Let’s talk about this loyalty to the defendant. He called you at 6:19, fourteen minutes after Laney Bang called 911. What was that call about?”
“He instructed me to move our travel plans back a couple hours.”
“And what was his reason to do this?”
“He said he had something he needed to take care of.”
“Something he needed to take care of,” I repeat, letting the statement hang like a bad odor for the jury to get a good whiff of.
“It was my job to assist him, not to ask questions.”
“Did you assist him in cleaning up a murder scene?”
“No! It was nothing out of the ordinary—Drew changed plans all the time.”
“Oh, really. The man who this court has learned is so structured and regimented that he takes the same jogging route at the exact same time each morning, just whimsically changed his plans because something came up? Something certainly did come up. No further questions.”
Kerri declines her cross-examination at this time, but will likely call Maxon when the defense presents their case.
Maxon is shuddering like a wounded animal and glaring at me. I stare right back. He knows a lot more than he’s telling us, and I want to let him know that I’m going to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter 59
I wake up to the twangy lyrics of Johnny Cash singing “Wednesday Car.”
And speaking of cars, Shep and our security detail are currently waiting outside for me in one. But my first order of business is to coax Amber into clothing that even Ethel Lawson would have found prudish. She wants no part of the outfit, or testifying, and getting her into the vehicle for the trip to court is going to be like conning a cat into its cage for a trip to the vet. But I pull off the miracle daily double in less than half an hour, hoping it’s a good omen for her important testimony.
We arrive at the courthouse just in time to witness the ritual of Max Q’s limo being greeted by adoring fans. We receive our usual razzing. It’s not hard to figure who the home team is.
Before entering, Amber has to stop and nervously smoke a cigarette. She uncomfortably tugs on her outfit, not used to so much clothing. Security is heavy, and the guards seem to take extra pleasure in patting Amber down and thoroughly searching the oversized handbag she carries with her. I’m just relieved they don’t find any contraband in it.
Once inside the courthouse, Amber tells us in colorful language that she needs to relieve herself. We allow her to use the bathroom with a guard stationed outside.
Just as I look at my watch for the fifth time and again ask Shep, “What is taking so long?” Amber Jazz appears out of the bathroom. She no longer wears the outfit of a 1950s housewife. She is dressed in a black latex mini-dress, zipped up the front. It is choker style around her neck, but provides a Lake Michigan-size opening between neck and chest to show off her famous assets. The south end of the dress barely covers the minimum requirements, and her shoes are six-inch spiked sandals laced up to the knee. She looks like, well … Amber Jazz.
She smiles mischievously with a cigarette hanging off her painted lips. I’m struck by the transformation.
“Get back in there and put on the clothes we gave you! Do you understand what is at stake here?” Shep erupts.
Amber grins. “No-can-do, honey. I ripped them up and flushed them. Talk about a crime … those clothes.”
Shep rips the lit cigarette out of Amber’s mouth. I can tell she burned her hand, but she doesn’t flinch.
“Let’s go!” she says, angrily grabbing Amber by the arm and pulling her to the courtroom like she’s her mother.
The courtroom is buzzing. By all accounts, the last week had been boring. People didn’t come to see a silly little legal trial. They came to see the Greatest Show on Earth. Following Ryan Maxon’s testimony, I put on numerous hotel staffers and guests from the Otesaga Hotel who were present on July 23 and 24. My goal was to once again prove Ryan Maxon had an airtight alibi, and more importantly, that Drew and Laney were the only ones on the estate at the time of the murder.
There were no fiery cross-exams from Kerri that have become the norm. She had no questions for the hotel staffers. For those in neighboring rooms who filed the noise complaints, Kerri’s only question was if they actually saw Ryan Maxon and Amber Jazz in that room. The answer was always no.
This process repeated over and over, and if you listened hard enough you could hear a yawn from the gallery
Next, I put on Mrs. Aoki. I wanted to prove that Drew never broke his regimented morning routine. I planned to back it up with the “dead cell phone” testimony. It would have been much more helpful testimony if the Aokis hadn’t decided to sell their story to The Skeleton Closet tabloid for ten thousand dollars. Kerri hammered that point home. The jury’s expression indicated that she did it quite well.
But today the room surges with excitement; the atmosphere is electric. Figliomini’s arrival briefly settles the room down. Shep stands and calls out the words that everyone’s been waiting for, “The people call Amber Jazz.”
She takes a slow, choreographed stroll to the stand, seemingly enjoying having all the eyes glued on her.
I have great confidence in Shep, who has been preparing Amber’s testimony for a month. I wish I could say the same about Amber.
Shep doesn’t even get to ask a question before we’re at the sidebar. Kerri is objecting to Amber’s choice of clothing, thinking it could sway the male jurors, and makes no secret that she believes this is an underhanded tactic orchestrated by me.
Figliomini is no fan of the clothing, or of his courtroom being used as a Vegas burlesque show. In rare acquiescence between lawyers, Shep and I agree with Kerri—we all want Amber to change clothing.
I momentarily think that everyone might be on the same page for the first time since the trial started, but no such luck. Figliomini asserts, “I’ve found with my teenage daughter that the more I fight her on the choice of clothing, the worse the situation becomes. If I ignore it, then it goes away. Also, I have no such confidence that Mr. Lawson or Ms. Shepherdson have any control whatsoever over their witnesses, so I think your conspiracy theory gives them too much credit. She wears whatever she has on, now let’s move this along.”
The Greatest Show on Earth resumes. Somebody cue the circus music.
Chapter 60
As we return to the prosecution table, I notice Mac and Ashley in the gallery. Ashley waves at me like an embarrassing mother at a Little League game.
Before Shep begins, I hand her a note. It reads: For the first question—ask Amber how she got her name. She looks strangely at me, but proceeds without questioning it.
She stands and begins what, at the very least, should be an entertaining examination. “Ms. Jazz, you have an interesting name—can you tell the court how you got it?”
Amber looks confident. “My father used to always use the phrase and all that jazz. When I made it big I wanted to remind that sorry excuse of a father that he couldn’t ever hold me down again. I originally wanted to be called Andall That Jazz, but Tyler Maddox thought Amber Jazz would be better.”
Shep looks at me and shrugs. I jot down notes as if there were some hidden meaning in the answer. I turn and smile at Mac—another theory of Macademia left in tatters. For the record, her real name is Courtney Hamilton and she grew up in Wichita, Kansas, before she got on a bus to LA on her sixteenth birthday. She was going to be famous, but I’m not sure she had this in mind when she bought that bus ticket.
Shep gets back to business. “Please describe your relationship with the victim.”
“She was my mom,” Amber replies. One real question and already she is off the script. Good luck, Shep.
Shep surprisingly goes with the flow. “As in the woman who gave birth to you?”
“She was the person who raised me, showed me how to survive in this world, picked me up when I was down and loved me when nobody else would. Laney Bang was my mom—it has nothing to do with giving birth.”
On the whole, I find myself pleasantly surprised by Amber’s oratory skills. After two questions, I had expected five F-bombs and an incoherent call for alcohol. But she sounds clear, concise, and yes, sober. I see a tear roll down her heavily made-up face. Add sympathetic to the witness résumé.
“Mothers and daughters often tell each other things that they wouldn’t tell anyone else. Did you and your mom have these type of talks?”
“We told each other everything.”
“In that case, did Laney tell you about the affair she was having with Drew Anderson?”
“Objection—speculation—leading!”
“Sustained.”
“Did Laney tell you of an affair she had with Drew Anderson?” Shep reshapes the question to please the court.
“It wasn’t like it was some dirty secret or something, if that’s what you mean. Dirty, maybe, but not a secret.”
“So it wasn’t just a one time fling, as the defense contends?”
“It was an ‘anytime they could get their hands on each other’ thing.”
This gets a rise from the gallery. I glance at Drew, and then Marissa. Both are emotionless. I can’t tell if it’s being well coached or they have ice in their veins.
We know Amber has a short shelf-life, so it’s important to get her off the stand as swiftly as possible—connect an affair to our blackmail motive and then depart. So far so good.
Shep introduces travel itineraries into evidence. It details Laney and Drew having separate publicity engagements in the same city on the same day. On New Year’s Day, he was in Phoenix to watch his alma mater, Florida State, play the Fiesta Bowl, while Laney was doing a promotional visit in Scottsdale. There are then about ten more coincidental trips between January and June.
“They also had dalliances closer to home, isn’t that right?” Shep asks.
“They would usually go to Laney’s secret place in the city. But they’d also hook up in hotels all over Manhattan.”
“Hotels sound risky. Was Laney afraid of being spotted?”
“Laney could care less—she wasn’t the one who was living a double life. He’s the one who shoulda been worried.”
“Yet he kept seeing her.”
“He couldn’t quit her—she was his drug. You can always tell when you got a guy hooked— they keep gettin’ riskier and riskier.”
When it comes to drugs, everyone in the courtroom would agree that Amber is an expert witness.
“Was Drew Anderson willing to take such a risk, as to have Laney at his house in Cooperstown?”
“All the time.”
Shep feigns surprise. “So July 23 wasn’t her first trip to Anderson Estate?”
“It was one of their favorite spots—he said his wife never liked coming to Cooperstown. Called it Sticksville. So it was safe. They spent many weekends up here last spring and summer.”
I almost smile at what Amber just unknowingly did. The jury might take personally the slight on Cooperstown. I’ve only lived here for a short time, but it’s impossible not to notice the civic pride and distaste for “city-types.” Ironically, I learned this home court advantage tactic from Marissa.
Shep and Amber appear to have found a comfort zone. Although, I’m not sure how anyone wearing latex and six inch heels can find comfort on any level.
“Tell me, Amber, about the night of April 16 of this year?”
“Laney and I went to the Four Seasons hotel in the city to meet up with Drew.”
“We found no record of this. Did you check in under your own names, or did you use aliases?”
“None of the above—the room belonged to a friend of Drew’s, and I guess he gave him the key card or something.”
“So on this occasion, you just didn’t hear second hand about this affair like some of their other rendezvous. You actually witnessed it?”
Amber twinkles a sly smile. “I didn’t witness it, honey—I was part of it!”
Gasps. Gavel. More gasps. Gavel.
When order is restored, Amber proudly explains the French import called the ménage à trois. “Drew loved to watch me and Laney with each other. But it wasn’t about sex with him, it was about power.”
“How do you know that?”
“He loved to degrade us and make us submissive to him. He was into all sorts of freaky stuff like spankings and tying us up. You know, bondage and stuff like that,” Amber casually states like it’s mainstream bedroom decorum.
I view the jury, the majority of them are cringing like they just ate a bad taco. Not sure which side that favors. But I think it’s a good thing that we cut out some of the “even freakier” stuff that came up during our preparation.
“In regard to this event that took place on April 16 at the Four Seasons, can you tell me the name of Drew’s friend who loaned him the room?”
“His friend James. He lived at the Four Seasons when he was in the city.”
“What was James’ full name?”
“James Lansdale.”
I look to the seats behind the defense table where Lansdale normally sits, but he’s missing today. Good move on his part. You don’t become a billionaire by being stupid. Amber also clarifies that Lansdale wasn’t present for the encounter, which thankfully removes a really disturbing image from my mind.
