Free Death's Witness by Paul Batista Page B

disclosed that representation, the judge should declare a mistrial. The existence of the relationship between Hutchinson and Perini, Vincent Sorrentino said, must have been known to the prosecution and should have been disclosed to the defense. Julie reread the quotation from Vincent.
    It was, she sensed, one of those statements lawyers made which other people couldn’t really understand.
    More pieces of information about the day’s events at the trial were swarming onto her computer screen. Abruptly she left her desk and went to the small cubicle where Stan Wasserman had his office. He was elegantly bald, one of those well-shaped, Adlai Stevenson–type heads shining with intelligence. He had bulging, thoughtful eyes.
    P A U L B A T I S T A
    “Stan,” Julie said, “I can’t do this piece.”
    She handed him some of the wire service copy she had printed out of the computer. He didn’t read it—in fact, he already seemed to know what it was about.
    “I didn’t realize it had made its way to you.”
    “I’m just not comfortable working with it.”
    “I understand that, Julie. I’ll give it to one of the other guys.”
    Wasserman leaned forward. With delicate fingers he stroked his gleaming forehead.
    “Cassie wants to talk with you,” he said.

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    “Cassie?” Catherine Barnes was an author of three best-selling books. A Candice Bergen look-alike, at least in makeup, she did commentary on one of the network’s weekend news programs.
    Jealous rumors around the newsroom—and there were always jealous rumors there—had it that she had more than $3 million in royalties from those books socked away in Cayman Islands bank accounts. She specialized in reporting on criminal trials, particularly “mega” trials that lasted for months and involved famous defendants and high-profile lawyers. Julie had read somewhere that Cassie had a contract to write a book on the Fonseca trial. She was in her late forties, a woman with a southern accent who was once married to a millionaire magazine publisher. She lived in Manhattan and East Hampton. Her face appeared and reappeared in the society pages of the New York newspapers and the glossy surfaces of Vanity Fair . Julie had an innate, instinctive dislike of her, not because of her appearance or her success but because of her confection of a style. In truth, Cassie was a native of Toledo, not Atlanta. How had she developed a southern accent?
    Stan said, “She called me fifteen minutes ago, told me about the testimony today, and said she wanted to talk to you. She asked me if I could arrange it. I guess I’m becoming your gate-keeper.”
    “No,” Julie said flatly.
    “She just wants to know what you know about this Hutchinson character.”
    D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S
    “Stan, I’m paid to write the news, not to make it. Please ask her not to call me.”
    “I can’t stop her, Julie.” Stan Wasserman was stroking both eyebrows. “Besides, she’s fair.”
    “Then I’ll tell her I don’t want to talk to her.”
    “Can I ask why?”
    “Can’t you see?”
    “Not really.”
    “My privacy, Stan, for one thing.”
    “Anything else?”

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    “First, I start with her, then others follow. What I said to Tom, what Tom said to me…those things were for us…”
    “Certainly, Julie. I told her I thought you wouldn’t be enthu-siastic about this. I’ll try talking her down. But she may call you.
    She’s persistent. People in our business are supposed to be persistent.”
    “She’s not really in our business, Stan. She’s in another line of work. She’s in the who-do-you-know and who-do-you-kiss-and-tell field. She’s Dominick Dunne in Gucci shoes.”
    Stan stared at her. It was, Julie felt, a look of sympathy, patience, kindness, but then he said, too formally, as if rehearsed:
    “When I tell her that you won’t speak to her, Julie, we can be certain you won’t speak to anybody else, can’t we? Other people are going to try to reach you about this, you