October 1, 2016
8:36am
"Would you pass me the orange juice?" Veronica Echolls asked her husband.
"Course," replied Logan, handing her the carton between spoonfuls of his half of the grapefruit they had split. "I'm sorry for waking you. I just wish I didn't have to work on the weekends."
"Would you stop worrying about it already? I like getting up early on Saturdays, and the sooner you get done with this film, the sooner you can relax and have more time with me and the kids. By the way, I guess I must have been asleep already when you got back last night, so how did your meeting with Caroline go?"
"All things considered, not bad. She wasn't even home when I first got there, but the woman who lives in the apartment across from hers told me that she was out with a friend but would be back by 10:30, so I waited for her. When she finally got home, she was pretty pissed to see me, but she eventually calmed down. We talked for a while, and she said she'd be back at work first thing this morning."
"Well that's good news."
"You said it. I might actually finish this movie this decade. Speaking of which, how late are you going to let the boys sleep?"
"Oh, I figure I'll let them get up on their own time. That reminds me, Jerry called yesterday."
"What about?"
"He got an offer for you to appear on Letterman in December to promote your new film."
"Or I could just eat glass for much the same experience."
"Oh, come on. We can take the kids to New York. You know how they love the Natural History Museum, and they have a new show at the Planetarium, and—"
"That sounds wonderful, and I'd love nothing better than to go right now. But I don't see why I have to go on some vapid talkshow to get into the Planetarium."
"You don't, and if you don't want to do it, then you shouldn't do it." After a pause, Veronica continued, "you know, honey, if the movie business is making you so miserable, maybe it's time to just quit. I mean, if it's not making you happy—"
"You know, I've been thinking about that a lot myself lately. Maybe if I ever finish After the Storm, I should just pack it in. It's not like we don't have plenty of money, right?"
"What difference does that make? All our money obviously isn't making you happy."
"Can't argue with that."
"Logan, can I ask you something?"
"You can ask me anything, you know that."
"Do you know what would make you happy?"
"Oh, honey, that's easy. You make me happy. Jason and Stephen and Benji and Jenny make me happy. And it's not even that I really hate filmmaking, it's just that the kids are all growing up so fast, and I feel like I'm missing it."
"Then maybe you should quit. Or at least take a break for a few years."
"You know, I will do tha—" Just then, the doorbell rang. "Who could be at the door this early on a Saturday morning?"
"I don't know," answered Veronica, "but could you get it? You're dressed, after all," she finished, gesturing to the bathrobe she was wearing over her nightgown.
"Sure. Hopefully it's just someone I can get rid of."
As Logan walked to the front door, Veronica followed a little behind him, hanging back in the foyer. When Logan opened the door, he found two plainclothes policemen waiting for him, with two uniformed officers standing behind them.
"Well, what can I do for the LAPD this fine morning?" Logan asked with a plainly insincere grin.
"Logan Echolls?" asked one of the plainclothes officers.
"That's my name, don't take it in vain."
"Mr. Echolls, we have a warrant for your arrest."
"What?" shouted Veronica from with the house, as Logan stood there speechless. "What's the charge?" demanded Veronica.
"The murder of Caroline Bennett," answered the detective.
This time it was Veronica's turn to stand gobsmacked as Logan stuttered out "w-what?"
"Mr. Echolls, we're going to have to ask you to come with us," spoke up the other detective for the first time, taking Logan's arm to turn him around so that he could cuff his hands.
"Logan, don't say a word!" shouted Veronica. "Not one word! I'll call Charlie, I'll have him there before they even finish processing you. But don't say anything."
11:17am
"Docket number 179824, charge is murder in the second degree," called out the clerk at Logan's arraignment.
"Can I get a plea?" asked the judge.
"Not guilty," Logan called out.
"People have anything on bail?" asked the judge.
"People request remand," answered the LA county ADA.
"Your honor," replied Charles Berliner, the Echolls' attorney, "my client has ties to the community. He's expecting a baby in two months, for pity's sake—"
"His client is independently wealthy," cut in the ADA. "He owns homes and other properties in several foreign countries, including some that do not extradite to the United States."
"Mr. Echolls will be happy to surrender his passport. My client is looking forward to clearing his name."
"Turn over his passport? The man owns his own private jet, plus an ocean-going yacht."
This time it was Logan's turn to cut in: "what, you think I'm going to flee in my yacht? Your honor, this whole thing is crazy, I—"
"Mr. Berliner, control your client!" barked the judge. Logan fell silent.
"Your honor," interjected the ADA again, "the fact remains that Mr. Echolls is a serious flight risk."
"The fact remains," shot back Berliner, "that the DA's office is trying to punish my client just for being successful."
"We're trying to punish him for murder."
"Well, maybe you should see if you can convict him first."
"Enough," cried the judge. "Look, the fact remains that we're dealing with a very serious crime here. Defendant is remanded without bail."
3:17pm
"I can't believe this is happening," groaned Logan, his face in his hands. "How long am I going to be in jail for?"
"I wish I could tell you, but it just depends on so many different factors," answered Charlie.
"Like whether I'm convicted?"
"That's not going to happen, and I'd like to introduce you to the people who are going to make sure of that," said Charlie. "Logan Echolls, meet Bill Caplan and Lisa Cortland. They're both senior associates at Preuss and Ridley, specializing in criminal law. They'll be directing your defense, and they're the best."
Logan stood and extended his hand. "Logan Echolls. Wish I could say it's a pleasure to meet you two, but, under the circumstances…."
"Perfectly understandable," replied Caplan, shaking Logan's hand after Cortland had. "Why don't we get right down to brass tacks?"
Just as they were all sitting back down, the door burst open and Veronica strode into the room. Her short blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a long black leather coat over a grey silk blouse and black slacks. The glow of pregnancy that had suffused her the last time Logan had seen her, that morning over breakfast, was muted now; instead her eyes shone with the fire of an erinys.
"Veronica, I swear, I didn't—"
"Logan," interrupted his wife as she stared him dead in the eye, "I know you didn't do it. What we need to worry about now is finding out who did."
"Actually, Mrs. Echolls," began Cortland, rising from her seat, "that's not what we need to worry about. We don't need to find out who did it, we only need to stop the prosecution from proving…." Cortland trailed off, wilting under Veronica's stare.
"That's where you're wrong, Miss…."
"Mrs. Echolls," interrupted Charlie, "let me introduce Lisa Cortland and Bill Caplan. They'll be heading up your husband's legal team."
"Well, Miss Cortland, Mr. Caplan, I'm sure you're both very good at your jobs," began Veronica with a polite nod, "but here's what you need to understand. It's not enough to get my husband acquitted. Because unless we can prove that he didn't do it, he'll still be guilty in the eyes of public opinion. I won't have that, not for his sake, and not for our children's sake. Secondly, there's no surer way to get him acquitted, or to just get the case dismissed, than finding the real killer. Lastly, there's a dead woman to think of, and even if the police are so unimaginative that they arrest my husband just because of what his father did, she still deserves justice."
"That's all very well, Mrs. Echolls, but I'm afraid the prosecution's case is a little more substantive than that," answered Caplan as he gestured to the box of manila folders on the small table.
"We had better get to it, then," answered Veronica, sitting down and beginning to look through the various police reports on the case.
"All right," began Caplan, "the police received a 911 call at 6:23 this morning from one Sarah Rodriguez. She's the vic's next-door neighbor. She said she was going out for her morning jog when she saw blood seeping out from under the vic's door. She bangs on the door, no answer, so she calls the police."
"Wait," Veronica cut in, "Logan, you said you talked to the next-door neighbor last night, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Did you catch her name?"
"Huh? Yeah, it was Sarah Rodriguez; I remember because, well, I guess she recognized me or something, because she asked me to sign the box of her Faust DVD, and I remember asking whom I should make it out to."
"The witness' statement confirms that," added Cortland, holding up another file. "Bill, do you want to go on?"
"Sure; cops arrive 6:31, break the door down, find the corpse of Caroline Bennett lying on the kitchen floor, right near the door. Officers first on the scene secure the area, call it in. CSU arrives 6:53, homicide detectives get there a few minutes after. CSU determines cause of death is blunt-force trauma to the back of the head, single blow, most likely from a stainless steel pepper grinder, of all things. Apparently it was part of a set the victim owned. Anyway, CSU also fixes time of death between 10:30 and 11:30 the night before—"
"Wait," Veronica interrupted him, "they based that on the body temp?"
"Uh, let me see, yeah, says here it was 30.6 degrees Celsius when they checked rectally at the scene—"
"Hang on, hang on," Logan interrupted him this time, "you're telling me they stuck a thermometer up the corpse' butt?"
"Logan," answered his wife, "how did you think they took a corpse' temperature?"
"I tried not to think about it, actually. Seriously, isn't there any other way to do it?"
"Sure there is," answered Veronica, "sometimes, particularly if it's a case where there are signs that the person had sex beforehand, they don't want to disturb that evidence, so they'll make an incision in the abdomen and put the thermometer in there."
"Why did I ask that question?"
"Look, I hate to interrupt you two," cut in Caplan, "but do you want me to continue here or what?"
"Wait, I'm sorry," replied Veronica somewhat sheepishly, "but what about other signs? I mean, body temperature can be manipulated—"
"I know," answered Caplan. After a pause, he continued, "I, you know, I read your father's book, I know—you know, actually, I read it because my crim law professor recommended it to me, and—anyway, I know about the Lilly Kane case and everything. But I already checked: the police report says the body was in full rigor by the time it was found, which suggests that—"
"It was at least six hours or so since the body died," finished Veronica.
"That's the thrust of the prosecution's case," answered Caplan. "Their witness, Rodriguez, says she saw Mr. Echolls leaving right around 11:30—"
"Wait, hang on," cut in Logan, "that's true, I did leave around 11:30, but I didn't see her again on my way out, and her apartment door was closed. How could she have seen me?"
"In the statement she gave to the police, she told them that she first heard you ringing the vic's doorbell around 10:30, and when she saw who you were, she got really excited and—"
"We covered that part already, she asked me to sign her copy of Faust, she told me that Caroline would be home around 11:00, but then she went back into her apartment and I didn't see her again."
"Right, if you'll just let me finish, she told the police that she was so excited to meet you, I mean, apparently Bennett had told her that she was working for you, but she didn't really believe it, and she says she was so excited that she spent the entire time looking out at you through the peephole in her door, and she remembered that you left just around 11:30, because she remembered checking the time to see if it was too late to call her mother to tell her about having seen you and gotten your autograph," concluded Caplan.
"So just to be clear, that's their entire case?" asked Veronica. "They put the time of death between 10:30 and 11:30, and they've got a witness who puts my husband and Bennett going into her apartment together around 11:00, and then Logan coming out alone around 11:30."
"Well," answered Caplan, "Rodriguez also said that she heard your husband and the victim arguing, both out in the hall and after they'd gone into the apartment."
"It doesn't make any sense," Logan all but yelled. "Yeah, I got there around 10:30, Caroline got there at 11:00, yeah, I left alone at 11:30, and yeah, Caroline and I were arguing, but she was alive when I left. I mean, why would I have wanted to kill her? I was trying to get her to come back to work so I could finish my film, which I can hardly do now that she's dead!"
At this point, Cortland spoke up: "Uh, Mrs. Echolls, maybe you'd like to leave the room for a few minutes? The prosecution does have a theory about motive, but it's, well, given your condition…." At this, she gestured vaguely toward Veronica's middle. Charlie, who had known the Echollses for many years, just rolled his eyes at the suggestion.
"Don't worry about my condition, let's just hear it." Veronica answered.
"Mr. Echolls," Cortland tried again.
"Look," answered Logan, "I want her here, so enough already."
"Alright," conceded Cortland. "While they were examining her apartment, the police checked the victim's answering machine message. There was one message, left at 10:46, according to the machine, by one Jodie Lurmann. She was the friend Bennett was out with. After they parted company that evening, Lurmann apparently decided she had something more to say. Do you want me to read the transcript of the message?"
"Yes, already," answered Logan.
"Okay: 'Carol, it's Jodie. I've been thinking about what we were discussing, and I should have said this months ago, but I really think you've been making a terrible mistake. First of all, he's a married man, and second of all, you work for him. And you know how in all the interviews he's given, he always says he likes to use unknown actors, and that he doesn't use the same actors twice, and listen to why he says: 'actors are to drama what paint is to painting. As soon as an actor becomes a celebrity, people stop seeing the character and start seeing the celebrity.' Seriously, like paint, can you believe that? So he clearly has no respect for you; you're just a means to an end for him. He doesn't really care about you at all; all you are to him is an instrument to make his precious movie and an instrument to get him off. And look, I didn't want to bring this up, but you know what they say, like father like son. I just think you should end this thing now. Look, anyway, I know you probably think it's not any of my business, but I had to say this.' Anyway," continued Cortland once she had finished reading the message, "that's the motive they're working with now."
Logan sat there agape for another moment before turning to his wife and gasping out, "it's not true, I swear, I—"
"I know it's not true," answered Veronica, "I trust you."
To be continued….