Devlin’s next witness is Barbara King, David’s executive assistant at HWI. Barbara is a tall, attractive woman in her early sixties with perfectly coiffed white hair. Barbara walks with authority to the jury box and looks directly at the jurors as she puts her hand on the Bible and promises to tell the truth. Although some businessmen enjoy having a young bimbo as their assistant, the smart move for someone as highly placed as David is to have a mature, no-nonsense woman running his office. That Barbara King is such a woman comes across quickly.
“Ms. King, by whom are you employed?” Devlin asks.
“Hanson World Industries,” Barbara answers crisply.
“Until June of this year, what was your title, and who was your immediate superior?”
“My title was executive assistant to the general counsel. I worked directly under David Hanson.”
“And since June?”
“When Mr. Hanson took a leave of absence, I kept my title but began reporting to Mr. Kratz.”
“How long had you been Mr. Hanson’s executive assistant?”
“For ten years, since our previous general counsel retired.”
“Over the course of the decade during which you worked for Mr. Hanson, did you become familiar with his routines and procedures?”
“Yes.”
“Did you manage his schedule?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember Thursday, May the thirty-first, of this year?”
“With the help of my calendar, yes.”
Devlin has a printout of the calendar marked as an exhibit. He hands it to Barbara King. He has her testify to David’s schedule. It was a busy day that started at 8:00 a.m. He had three back-to-back meetings, followed by a long phone call to outside counsel and a shorter call to Edwin. At 11:15, David had a light snack brought into his office from the executive dining room. He placed two more calls while he ate, then left the office at 11:50.
“It sounds like Mr. Hanson’s days were tightly scheduled,” Devlin says.
“That’s correct.”
“And as his executive assistant, you knew with whom he was meeting, and when, and who he was talking to on the phone?”
“Correct.”
“But he left his afternoon open?”
“Correct.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
For the first time, Barbara shifts in her seat, glances at David.
“No.”
“Did he always take off in the afternoons without telling you where he was going, like he did the afternoon Jennifer Yamura was murdered?”
“No.”
“Did he often do that?”
“No.”
“This was not a typical occurrence, then?”
“Correct.”
“Mrs. King, let me ask you directly. Was David Hanson in the office any time after 11:50 on May the thirty-first of this year?”
“No.”
“And if he told the police who arrested him that he was in the office all afternoon, that would have been a lie?”
Barbara pauses before answering. “It would have been incorrect.”
“Would it have been a lie? Since he had to have known where he was, and since he wasn’t in the office, his telling the police that he was in the office had to have been a lie, correct?”
I object, and the judge sustains me. Devlin is beating a dead horse. Everyone in the courtroom knows David lied to the police about where he was at the time of Jennifer Yamura’s death.
When my time comes to question Barbara King, I walk toward the witness box with a smile. “Good morning,” I begin. Mrs. King wishes me a good morning in return. “It seems like the prosecution was trying to make the point that it was unusual for Mr. Hanson to leave the office in the afternoon without telling you where he was going.” Walker could object to my statement, but he’s clearly reluctant to do so on my very first question. “Although it wasn’t Mr. Hanson’s everyday practice to do this, did he in fact clear out of the office from time to time?”
“Yes.”
“And when he did this, would he tell you where he was going?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
At this, Barbara King pauses for only the second time in her testimony. “No.”
“Let me ask you frankly. Did you, as Mr. Hanson’s executive assistant for ten years, suspect he was having an affair?”
“Of course.”
“So when he left the office that day and didn’t return, it didn’t surprise you?”
“No.”
“And the other times he was out of the office, a woman who turned out to be his lover didn’t end up dead?”
“Certainly not.”
I ask whether David is the only high-ranking executive she’s worked for at HWI over the years who performed this disappearing trick. Devlin’s objection is sustained, but my point is made. Lots of alpha businessmen have calendars with empty afternoons.
Devlin is on his feet the instant I’m seated. “Mrs. King, the defense is claiming that Mr. Hanson was not with Ms. Yamura the afternoon she died. If he wasn’t at the office, where else could he have been? Who else would he be with but with his lover, Jennifer Yamura?”
At this, Barbara King blanches. She looks quickly at David, then me, then past both of us into the spectator benches. Devlin doesn’t catch this because he is facing the jury with a smug look plastered on his face. He doesn’t see whom Barbara King glances at in the gallery. I don’t need to see. I know who it is.
Devlin’s next witness is Albert Mays, one of the managers of the garage in David’s office building. As he did with Barbara King, Devlin moves quickly through Mays’s testimony, establishing that David pulled into the garage at 7:45 a.m. the day Jennifer was killed and didn’t leave until 6:20 that night. He returned to the garage four-plus hours later, at 10:40 p.m., and his car remained there until the next afternoon. I pretend to pay little attention to his testimony, again trying to convey to the jury that I think it’s unimportant. When Devlin is finished with direct, I act as though I’m unsure whether even to bother with any cross. Then I turn to the jury, shrug, and ask the witness just two questions.
“So if I understand the import of your testimony, Mr. Hanson was likely somewhere in the city of Philadelphia at the time of Ms. Yamura’s murder?”
“Uh, I suppose so.”
“Just like a million other people?”
Walker objects, and I withdraw the question.