Read Online No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Buckley
Tags: Fiction, LEGAL, Humorous, Legal Stories, Widows, Presidents' spouses, Trials (Murder), Attorney and client, First Ladies
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was quite trusting, actually. Then I got screwed by someone I trusted. So now I have no illusions about people. I not only expect the worst from them, I demand it. Is any White House staffer likely, on the stand—under oath—to derogate or otherwise cast doubt on the integrity of your coming out publicly against your husband on the issue of racial quotas?"
"Is that what you think of me?"
"The witness is directed to answer the question."
"No. Amazing as it may seem, I was speaking from the heart."
"It's not that often I get such principled clients."
Chapter 8
Three days before the start of jury selection, Boyce was filing his seventy-fourth pretrial motion—a personal record—this one to suppress the evidence of Beth's fingerprints on the Paul Revere spittoon on the grounds that her voluntary submission to fingerprinting by the FBI had constituted a "flagrant and unconscionable" violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search. It was a long shot, but Boyce was already in his mind mapping out pretrial motion number seventy-five, on the even more daring premise that the traces of French-made hand moisturizing cream in the fingerprints would unfairly bias jurors who felt that an American First Lady should use only American-made beauty products.
The TV was on. He watched with one eye.
"Good evening," said Perri Pettengill, wearing a clingy sweater and trademark eyeglasses, "and welcome to Hard Gavel. My guest tonight, one of America's great trial attorneys, Alan Crudman. Welcome."
Alan Crudman was in fact a fine attorney, one of the best, yet even in his late forties he still carried on like a twelve-year-old clamoring to be acknowledged as the smartest boy in class. In law school it was said of him that he had come out of his mother's womb with his hand raised. He had gotten acquitted some of the most loathsome human beings on the planet and yet, not content to shrug and say that he had simply been upholding the purity of law and rights guaranteed by the Constitution, insisted on going an unnecessary further step and proclaiming in front of cameras that his smirking client, shoes still sticky with his victims' blood, was "totally innocent." Even colleagues who hadn't lost a minute's sleep after a lifetime career of defending the dregs of humanity shook their heads in wonder at Alan Crudman's amazing protestations on behalf of his clients. Could he really have convinced himself of their innocence? Impossible. Too smart. It had to be more complicated: he had graduated to telling the big, big lies, daring God to challenge. This fooled no one, but the media ate it up. The television talk shows loved it. It got them callers galore. And Alan Crudman was never too busy to go on television, on any show, to comment about anything at all. If the Weather Channel invited him to go on to talk about the legal implications of a low-pressure system over Nebraska, he'd be there as long as they sent a limousine for him. A short man, he demanded big vehicles.
Crudman loathed Boyce Baylor for four deeply held philosophical reasons. One, Boyce had gotten more guilty people off than he had. Two, Boyce was richer. Three, Boyce was taller and better looking. Four, Beth MacMann had chosen him over her.
He had placed a call to Beth within an hour of hearing the news that she was a suspect in her husband's death—and she had not returned his call. This hadn't happened to Alan Crudman in two decades. Who did she think she was? So now he despised her as well. He lay awake at night pleasuring himself with visions of the jury foreman pronouncing, "Guilty!" He saw her stunned expression, saw them drag her off. Saw her in bright orange death prison garb, struggling as they inserted the needle, shouting, "Get me Alan Crudman!"
"Thank you, Perri. Always good to be here."
Perri disliked Alan Crudman for one deeply held philosophical reason. She had invited him on one of the early episodes of Hard Gavel
"Is that what you think of me?"
"The witness is directed to answer the question."
"No. Amazing as it may seem, I was speaking from the heart."
"It's not that often I get such principled clients."
Chapter 8
Three days before the start of jury selection, Boyce was filing his seventy-fourth pretrial motion—a personal record—this one to suppress the evidence of Beth's fingerprints on the Paul Revere spittoon on the grounds that her voluntary submission to fingerprinting by the FBI had constituted a "flagrant and unconscionable" violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search. It was a long shot, but Boyce was already in his mind mapping out pretrial motion number seventy-five, on the even more daring premise that the traces of French-made hand moisturizing cream in the fingerprints would unfairly bias jurors who felt that an American First Lady should use only American-made beauty products.
The TV was on. He watched with one eye.
"Good evening," said Perri Pettengill, wearing a clingy sweater and trademark eyeglasses, "and welcome to Hard Gavel. My guest tonight, one of America's great trial attorneys, Alan Crudman. Welcome."
Alan Crudman was in fact a fine attorney, one of the best, yet even in his late forties he still carried on like a twelve-year-old clamoring to be acknowledged as the smartest boy in class. In law school it was said of him that he had come out of his mother's womb with his hand raised. He had gotten acquitted some of the most loathsome human beings on the planet and yet, not content to shrug and say that he had simply been upholding the purity of law and rights guaranteed by the Constitution, insisted on going an unnecessary further step and proclaiming in front of cameras that his smirking client, shoes still sticky with his victims' blood, was "totally innocent." Even colleagues who hadn't lost a minute's sleep after a lifetime career of defending the dregs of humanity shook their heads in wonder at Alan Crudman's amazing protestations on behalf of his clients. Could he really have convinced himself of their innocence? Impossible. Too smart. It had to be more complicated: he had graduated to telling the big, big lies, daring God to challenge. This fooled no one, but the media ate it up. The television talk shows loved it. It got them callers galore. And Alan Crudman was never too busy to go on television, on any show, to comment about anything at all. If the Weather Channel invited him to go on to talk about the legal implications of a low-pressure system over Nebraska, he'd be there as long as they sent a limousine for him. A short man, he demanded big vehicles.
Crudman loathed Boyce Baylor for four deeply held philosophical reasons. One, Boyce had gotten more guilty people off than he had. Two, Boyce was richer. Three, Boyce was taller and better looking. Four, Beth MacMann had chosen him over her.
He had placed a call to Beth within an hour of hearing the news that she was a suspect in her husband's death—and she had not returned his call. This hadn't happened to Alan Crudman in two decades. Who did she think she was? So now he despised her as well. He lay awake at night pleasuring himself with visions of the jury foreman pronouncing, "Guilty!" He saw her stunned expression, saw them drag her off. Saw her in bright orange death prison garb, struggling as they inserted the needle, shouting, "Get me Alan Crudman!"
"Thank you, Perri. Always good to be here."
Perri disliked Alan Crudman for one deeply held philosophical reason. She had invited him on one of the early episodes of Hard Gavel
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