Chapter 20: The Circus Comes to Town

San Luis Obispo, California

November 26, 2001

“I fucking hate that we’re wasting two days of recording for this shit,” Jake said sourly at 7:45 AM on this Monday morning. He was putting the finishing touches on his outfit of three-piece suit, red tie, and black dress shoes.

“Me too, sweetie,” replied Laura, who was putting the finishing touches on her classy green business dress with fashionable high heels.

They had been going full steam ahead on the recording of Celia’s new CD for the past few weeks and were approaching the day of first airplay of the new Intemperance CD, but now they were being pretty much forced to put those things on hold and involve themselves in other business.

Today, more than thirteen months after Jenny Johansen had shot Jake Kingsley in the chest while trying to kill Laura Kingsley, the opening statements of her trial for attempted first degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a stolen firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm, violation of a restraining order, and burglary would begin. Johansen’s attorney, a public defender named Jerry Caswell, had offered several bargains for her to plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and be sentenced to five to ten years (with time served included, of course), but Maggie Baur, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case, had refused to accept such a plea, fulfilling a promise she had made to the Kingsleys when she had been assigned to prosecute the crazy bitch.

The media circus was now back in full swing. Reporters from everywhere were staked out at the SLO Superior Court building in San Luis Obispo city, eagerly trying to catch glimpses of the crazy bitch in question or the (even crazier, many thought) principals involved in the case. It was not quite up there with the OJ Simpson trial, especially since Judge Rachel Stamper was allowing no cameras in her courtroom, but it was in the same ballpark. And not only were the media now obsessed with the subject, it had also revitalized interest in the Kingsley’s divorce, especially when they were seen together, as they often were since a virtual army of pap and media people had invaded SLO county for the trial.

Neither one of the Kingsleys had any interest in attending the trial. They were content to just let the wheels of justice (such as they were) turn for them and only show up when they were required to testify (which both of them would be, probably in the second week). But Maggie Baur and her team had insisted that they at least attend the first day of jury selection, which had taken place three weeks ago now—it had taken that long to find a suitable panel to sit for the case—and the actual first day of the proceedings, which was today. “It’ll get your faces out there for the jurors,” Maggie told them. “It can help establish sympathy for you. Remember, we may be facing a hostile jury here.”

That was definitely an issue. In a strange reversal of the normal state of things in notorious trials, it had been the prosecution who had argued vehemently for a change of venue from San Luis Obispo County to Kern County, not the defense. Baur and team knew that Jake was not well-regarded by many of the occupants of his home county and had argued that, with all the publicity involving the case, it would be impossible for him and Laura to get a fair trial for their side of the story. Judge Stamper did not necessarily disagree, but pointed out that the publicity generated by the case was nationwide and that it would be unlikely that a suitable number of Kern County residents had not heard of the case to make much of a difference. The change of venue was denied.

Six hundred potential jurors had been brought in for jury selection. It had taken forever to whittle them down to twelve jurors and four alternates because most who had been questioned had flat out admitted that they had preconceived biases against Jake Kingsley in particular and his floozy wife in general. Many had advanced the opinion that any man who kept a transexual sex slave in his house, cheated on his taxes by making bogus donations to the police and schools, worshiped Satan, beat his wife, and snorted cocaine from ass cracks (all of which they were convinced was the absolute truth because they had “heard about it”) was a man who deserved to be shot. Many others advanced the opinion that any woman who actually desired and was obsessed with such a slimy character as Jake Kingsley had to be certifiably insane. Finally, they got a panel but Maggie Baur was not the least bit happy with it. She strongly suspected that most, if not all, of those who had been seated had just told the lawyers what they wanted to hear so they could participate and possibly cash in on the juror experience. This was exactly why she had wanted to move the trial to Bakersfield, where the residents would theoretically be more sympathetic to Jake’s cause.

They took Jake’s BMW to the courthouse (Charlie had gone back to being gay, had broken up with the waitress he had been boning, had returned to San Francisco, and no longer needed the vehicle to get around) and had to plow through the media circus to a secure area at the back of the courthouse. There, SLO deputies, who were responsible for courthouse security, directed them to a parking spot far away from the shouting, filming, camera snapping mob, and escorted the two of them inside.

“Glad you two could make it,” said Maggie Baur when she met with them. She was in her mid-forties, quite attractive with a crop of short, meticulously styled fake blonde hair, and was dressed in a formal business dress with stockings. A pair of wire rimmed glasses made her look librarian-like, which was not a bad look for a female trial lawyer. Her resume was impressive. She had been working for the SLO DA’s office for fifteen years, after making the springboard jump from the SLO public defender’s office after putting in a few years there out of law school. Jake and Laura and Pauline were all impressed by her. Her specialty was major crimes, which included murder, attempted murder, robbery with a firearm, assaults on peace officers, and any assault in which a weapon of any kind was used. She had a conviction rate of greater than ninety percent when she took a case to trial and a very low plea bargain rate.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jake said, a hint of sourness in his tone.

“I know you two don’t want to be here,” Maggie told him without much sympathy. She had actually wanted the two of them to attend every single fucking day of the expected two month trial, the better to show the jurors that they were vested in the outcome, but Jake had flat out told her that was not going to happen. They were too busy and had no interest in sitting for eight hours a day for eight to nine weeks watching a bunch of boring blabbering. They agreed to attend the opening day of jury selection, the opening statements, the closing statements, and the verdict—aside from their subpoenaed individual testimony in the case. “It is important though and I appreciate you showing up.”

“We understand,” Jake said. “And we appreciate everything you’re doing for us—don’t get the impression that we don’t—it’s just that we’re so busy trying to get our music out into the world. We can’t let this whole thing distract us too much.”

“I understand as well,” she said, though, again, she did not seem all that sincere. To her, there was nothing more important that laying down impressions for a possibly hostile jury. How was it going to look to those sixteen morons when the two victims of the crime did not even bother to show up for the trial most of the time?

They were seated in the front row of the gallery, the first two people to be given seats. Over the next twenty minutes, another sixty-eight people were seated around them. Some were reporters. A few were sketch artists. Others were simply the curious who had managed to make their way into the venue by basically camping out. Many of them tried to question Jake and/or Laura about their sides of the story. Jake cut them off instantly saying they would have no comment whatsoever on the proceedings and were not in the mood for chatting. These statements would be printed in the papers and repeated on the televised newscasts at noon and five o’clock.

At 8:55 AM, Johansen was led into the courtroom by two uniformed and armed SLO sheriff deputies, one of them an older female nearing retirement who often attended Jake’s Pine Cove guitar sessions, the other a younger male who looked to Jake to be about fourteen years old (obviously a rookie putting in his required time in the jail and court system before hitting the actual streets). Johansen was not in handcuffs or chains of any kind. She was not wearing an orange or black jail outfit. Instead, she was dressed quite smartly in a pantsuit and blouse with sensible shoes, her hair neatly styled. She looked kind of like a matronly teacher or perhaps an appliance saleswoman. Her lawyer had asked for, and received approval for, her to dress in this manner for the trial to avoid causing preconceived notions to the jury.

Her Honor entered the courtroom exactly at 9:00 AM. All rose in honor of Her Honor when prompted by the deputy serving as bailiff. She walked to her bench and then sat down demurely. She then told them all that they may be seated. They were seated.

“Would you do her?” Jake whispered in his soon to be ex-wife’s ear, casting his eyes in the direction of the judge.

Laura considered for a moment. Her Honor was close to fifty years of age, but still attractive. She had long dirty blonde hair, an aristocratic nose, full lips, and piercing blue eyes. “Maybe ten years ago, as is,” Laura whispered back, “but if she kept the robe on, I’d hit it today.”

“Me too,” Jake agreed. “I ain’t never had me no superior court judge.”

Laura giggled in his ear and gave him a small kiss on the earlobe, an affection that did not go unnoticed (and later reported) by the reporters in the room.

“This is the case of the State of California versus Jennifer Johansen,” said Judge Stamper. “Ms. Johansen stands accused of attempted first degree murder of Laura Kingsley, of assault with a deadly weapon upon Jacob Kingsley, of illegal possession of a firearm in a public place, of possession of a stolen firearm, of violation of a permanent restraining order, and of burglary, specifically, the entry of a building with the intent to commit a felony—namely, the first degree murder of Ms. Kingsley. Ms. Johansen has pled not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges. We will commence with opening statements in the proceedings. Ms. Baur? Would you like to begin your opening statement to the jury?”

Ms. Baur was absolutely ecstatic to begin her opening statement. She spent the next two hours outlining her case against Jennifer Johansen. Johansen had indisputably entered the Oceano Alpha-Beta grocery store with the intent to murder Laura Kingsley. She had admitted this in interrogation. They had security camera footage of her pointing a gun at Laura Kingsley and pulling the trigger, her intention, also admitted in interrogation, to shoot her in the head. Instead, Jake Kingsley, having recognized the defendant from an earlier stalking incident in which the defendant had threatened Mr. Kingsley’s girlfriend at the time and had then attempted to kidnap her, was able to put himself between the gun and his current wife, nearly costing him his life. She then spoke about the degree of planning for the crime the defendant engaged in, planning that included buying a stolen firearm, driving to Oceano, and attempting to gain access to the Kingsley property so she could kill Ms. Kingsley there. Having failed at that, foiled by the Kingsleys’ security measures, she then stalked the Kingsleys, ultimately following them to the grocery store on that fateful day. Baur then showed the jurors and the audience a few clips of the videos they would be watching in full at some point. They watched as the actual confrontation took place in the feminine hygiene aisle (Jake and Laura both had a strong chill as they watched this), they watched as Johansen sat in an interrogation room and said, “yes, I went there to kill Laura Kingsley and set Jake free,” they watched as her car drove up to the Kingsley’s gate and then turned around.

“This is an open and shut case we have here,” Baur told them all after the videos. “We have a full confession from the defendant. We have video of the event itself. He have documentation of pre-planning and elusive behavior by the defendant to keep from getting caught. Now, the defense is going to claim that the defendant was insane at the time of the crime and is therefore not legally responsible for her actions. And Ms. Johansen does indeed have a clear and documented history of mental health disease. But we will prove that at the time of the crime Ms. Johansen knew right from wrong and she knew that what she was planning to do was wrong in the eyes of the law and society. We will have two independent psychiatrists testify to her mental state at the time and that she should be held accountable for her actions. And after we have done all that and the defense submits their arguments, we will put the decision in your hands.”

They had a one hour recess for lunch after Baur’s opening statement. Jake and Laura both took the opportunity to use the restroom and have a beer and a burger at a café across the street from the courtroom. Several of the reporters and paparazzi followed them over but they had to settle for only getting pictures. Neither of them even gave so much as a “no comment” to the shouted questions.

When court was reconvened, Public Defender Jerry Caswell began his spiel. Caswell was a short man in his early thirties. He was balding and tried (quite badly) to cover it up with a combover. His suit was off the rack and ill-fitting on him. His tie did not match his jacket and was much too long, with the end hanging over his belt and covering the upper part of his groin. He had a thin, almost feminine voice and a slight lisp. Jake wondered if he might be gay (not that there was anything wrong with that) but then concluded that he probably was not. He had a wedding ring on and he had even worse fashion sense than Phil, the singer, who was indisputably the least fashion conscious gay man of all time.

Caswell explained that he disputed nothing that Ms. Baur had presented and he and his team (his team was two rookie paralegals) had, in fact, stipulated that the facts that the prosecution was going to present occurred as described. The only exception in effect for the defense was the state of his client’s sanity at the time of the shooting. He had a total of three independent psychiatrists (“one more than the prosecution has,” he made a point to mention) who were unanimous in their opinion that the defendant was insane during the planning and implementation of the shooting that took place. He then took a few jabs at Jake and Laura, bringing up the rumors about domestic violence, enslavement of a Venezuelan transexual, the worship of Satan, and rampant drug use with possible ties to the infamous cartels of Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico.

“What the fuck does any of that have to do with whether the bitch was crazy or not when she shot me?” he whispered to Laura.

“He’s trying to paint you as evil to sway the jurors,” Laura whispered back. “And most, if not all of them, already don’t like us.”

Baur held her tongue as Caswell spewed this but when he started talking about rumored orgies and even—this seemed the worst accusation of all—marijuana use up at the house on the cliff (one of the propane delivery drivers was prepared to testify that he had smelled marijuana once when delivering his product) she stood up and voiced an objection. “The victims of this crime are not on trial here,” she told the judge, “the defendant is. If the defense is going to be insanity, what does the personal life of Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley have to do with that? Mr. Caswell is spouting out ridiculous, unproven rumors as if they were facts. And even if they were facts, they would still be irrelevant to the defense. We object to this entire line of testimony.”

“I will sustain the objection for now,” Judge Stamper ruled after a moment’s thought. “We will schedule a hearing at a future date if the defense is planning to offer testimony regarding the victims’ character and personal life.”

Caswell frowned, and was quite obviously butt-hurt by Her Honor’s remarks, but he mentioned no more about the Kingsleys and their lifestyle. He rambled on for another forty-five minutes, just basically reiterating again and again that he had some shrinks (one more than the prosecution did) who would testify that Johansen was insane at the time of the shooting and then he kind of just petered out. It was, by then, almost three o’clock.

“All right, I think that will be enough for this first day,” Judge Stamper told them. “Is the prosecution prepared to call its first witness tomorrow morning?”

“We are, Your Honor,” Baur said.

“Very well,” she said. “We will reconvene at nine o’clock tomorrow. Court is dismissed.” She banged her gavel.

“All rise,” said the bailiff. They all rose and Her Honor strolled out of the courtroom.

“Let’s blow this scene,” Jake said.

“A-fucking-men,” Laura told him.

The next day, while Maggie Baur was eliciting the testimony of Jeffery Grimley, the first SLO county sheriff’s deputy on scene at Jake’s shooting, Jake, Laura, and Celia were in the recording studio, Jake laying down some lead guitar tracks for Celia’s song Don’t Let it Show while Celia sang and Laura played the sax and Little Stevie put down the rhythm guitar to support him. All had read in the morning news about how Laura and Jake had showed up together at the first day of trial, had seemed quite companionable with each other, and how Laura had even kissed him on the ear after a whispered conversation, prompting a smile from the greasy singer. It was reported again that all indications were that the two of them were still living together and that Celia Valdez was staying with them as well. There was also a summary of the opening statements, which was heavily slanted in favor of the defense. The allegations and rumors (except for the transexual slave thing—the media knew not to go there) of Jake’s various failings were also gleefully repeated for maybe the thirtieth time in the last three years.

“It’s a fuckin’ shitshow,” Jake said whenever anyone commented on it. That was all he had to say on the subject.

The nationwide news on the Jenny Johansen trial did, however, serve one piece of advantage to KVA Records and all it stood for. City by City, Intemperance’s first promotional tune from Never Say Never, had hit the public airwaves in album version that very day, starting with the commute hours on the East Coast. By the time it was commute hours on the West Coast three hours later, the song was already the number one requested in the nation on both the hard rocks and the progressive rocks. Part of this drive was undoubtedly because of Intemp fans knowing that the lead singer had been shot by a crazy bitch and that said crazy bitch was now facing justice for the act. And the fact that the semi-unplugged version had been playing on those same radio stations for weeks also contributed, just as Jake had known it would (though Aristocrat would never admit this). The album itself, including the widely advertised vinyl version, would be released for sale on December 11^th.

“How long do you think it will take us to go Gold?” asked Nerdly after reporting that he had heard City on the radio twice during his drive to The Campus. Gold was five hundred thousand copies sold.

“Two days for Gold,” Jake predicted, causing Nerdly to raise his eyebrows. Jake then doubled down. “A week for Platinum.”

“No way,” Nerdly said.

“Care to wager on it?” Jake asked.

“How much?” Nerdly asked.

“A case of Macallan sixteen-year-old single malt against a case of whatever you want,” Jake said.

“Okay,” Nerdly said. “I will require a case of 1990 Burgundy from the Clos de la Roche vineyards in France, brought to my door, of course.”

“You’re on.”

“The wager does include both aspects of the prediction, correct?”

“That we go Gold by day two and Platinum by one week?”

“Correct,” Nerdly said.

“You’re on,” Jake repeated.

Jake would end up winning that case of Macallan by more than two hundred thousand on Gold and more than three hundred thousand on Platinum. On the day of release for sale, while Maggie Baur was questioning Steve Trower, the paramedic who had decompressed Jake’s chest after he was shot and had likely saved his life, Never Say Never sold more than 380,000 thousand copies across the United States and Canada. On the second day, another 360,000 were sold. By the first week, 1.3 million copies of the CD and more than 80,000 of the vinyl copies had been sold.

“I’ll take that Scotch whenever you’re ready to deliver it,” Jake told Nerdly with a smile as they went to work on the morning of December 19.

“I’ll have it to you by Friday,” Nerdly said, though he was quite good natured about it. After all, he was one of the four KVA owners who would receive a fourth of that income next quarter.

The trial was taking longer than predicted. Jake was not called to testify about what had happened to him until December 20. Once again, he put on his suit and tie and showed up at the courtroom. This time he was held in a staging area with Laura—who they said may or may not have to give her testimony today, depending on how long Jake took—outside of the courtroom. They spent the idle time talking to each other about Celia’s new album, whether or not to try to get a pool contractor to their house to see what could be done (Caydee really wanted a pool at the house—so did Meghan and Laura) and what Elsa might be making for dinner that night. Jake was finally called in at 10:15. He took his place on the witness stand—Laura was not allowed to watch his testimony—and was sworn in. He, the accuser, then faced his assailant from ten feet away. She looked at him with dreamy eyes and smiled but said nothing.

After declaring that he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Maggie Baur began asking him questions that they had already rehearsed and that she already knew the answers to. He told the whole truth as she led him through his first contacts with Jennifer Johansen back in 1989 when she had sent him a letter telling how it was written in the stars that they would be together and that she would liberate him from Helen Brody, the flight instructor he was publicly dating at the time. For more than forty-five minutes they talked of his relationship with Helen and how Johansen had basically destroyed it. He spoke of installing the security system that, in his opinion, had undoubtedly saved Helen’s life.

“Objection! Speculation!” Caswell barked after Jake was asked if he thought Johansen had meant to kill Helen that day. But he was not able to object in time and Jake was able to answer for all to hear.

“Yes, I do,” he said plainly, hiding a smile.

“Sustained,” Judge Stamper said, the first time she had sustained one of the twenty-seven objections that Caswell had made so far. “The jury will disregard that question and Mr. Kingsley’s answer.”

But it did not matter that she agreed with Caswell. Baur had scored a very valuable point. It was hard for your average juror to disregard testimony about handcuffs, a gun, duct tape, and a blowtorch when it involved the defendant creeping around on Jake’s former girlfriend’s property. Especially when it had already been established that the defendant had sent Jake a drawing of what Helen would look like after such an encounter (Caswell had objected to that too, but that piece of evidence was ruled by Her Honor to be quite relevant to the accusation at hand).

They broke for lunch at that point. Jake was not allowed to communicate with his wife (soon to be ex-wife) so he had to eat in the courthouse cafeteria while a deputy kept an eye on him. The food was not bad, he found, as he chowed on a Monte Cristo sandwich from the grill, but he was a bit bummed he could not score a beer.

After lunch, he finished up his examination by Maggie Baur. She walked him through the entire day of the shooting. He explained about how he had just flown in from Los Angeles and was tired and how Laura offered to go to the store for him. He talked of her scatterbrained habit of not fully understanding his shopping list requests and having to call him for clarification. Maggie was particularly ecstatic about this. It painted Jake and Laura as your typical married couple, no different than most of the jurors. He then talked about his reluctance to venture down the feminine hygiene aisle. This rang home with every single one of the jurors, male and female alike (which was why Maggie had asked him to explain it in detail). Jake did a good job of making the discussion humorous, even getting the jurors to chuckle.

And that led to his spotting of Johansen as he was shopping. He testified that he took one look at her and instantly knew what she was there for.

“What did you do next?” asked Baur.

“I left my cart and ran as fast as I could to find my wife,” he said. “I got to her first. And, for the first time in my life, I entered the feminine hygiene aisle.”

Another chuckle from the jury.

The rest wrapped up pretty quick. He told of pushing his wife to the side just as Johansen raised the gun to Laura’s forehead.

“Was your intent to step in front of the bullet?” Baur asked.

“It happened pretty fast,” Jake said. “My intent was definitely to keep my wife from being killed. That was foremost in my mind. The thought that she might shoot me did not even cross my mind but I’m glad it worked out that way. Both of us are alive because of what I did. I’m not a widower. My daughter still has a mother and a father.”

“Were you prepared to die to protect your wife?” Baur asked him quietly.

“Objection!” barked Caswell. “Irrelevant!”

“Sustained,” Stamper sighed.

But Jake answered anyway and scored another big point. “Yes,” he said. “I certainly was.”

Baur briefly walked him through the rest of the day, only glossing over the medical care by the paramedics, the helicopter ride, and his injuries. The cops and paramedics had already testified about what had happened at the scene and the doctors and nurses would testify about his injuries later on. She then ended her examination of Jake Kingsley and let Caswell have a crack at him.

Caswell tried to score a point of his own but he was not nearly as good at it as Baur. He got shot down before the gate could even open.

“Mr. Kingsley,” he said. “You have been accused a number of times of domestic violence, is this correct?”

Baur stood immediately. “Objection!” she shouted, shaking her head in disgust. “Mr. Kingsley’s reputation in the media is completely irrelevant to the defendant’s claim of insanity. I thought we had worked this one out!”

“Sustained!” Judge Stamper said angrily, her eyes glaring at the PD. “Mr. Caswell. We have already ruled that the personal life and the public reputation of Jacob and Laura Kingsley have no bearing on your defense. If you attempt to cross-examine along this line one more time I will sanction you and you will be held in contempt of court. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said meekly.

“Very well,” she said. “Now, do you have any relevant questions for Mr. Kingsley, or should we dismiss him?”

“No further questions for Mr. Kingsley,” he said, his eyes cast down.

Laura’s testimony came the next day. Baur spent two hours walking through her version of the events (Jake was allowed to watch because he had already offered his testimony). Her version of the events pretty much lined up with his. She had heard the tale of Jenny Johansen but did not remember her name and had no idea of what she looked like. To her, it had just been another episode from her husband’s rather colorful past.

“So,” Baur asked her, “if Jake would not have intervened, would you have sensed any degree of danger when Ms. Johansen approached you?”

“Objection!” barked Caswell. “Calls for speculation.”

“I disagree,” said the judge. “Overruled. Please answer the question, Ms. Kingsley.”

“Unless she actually had the gun in her hand when she walked up to me, I would have had no idea who she was or that she was a danger to me. She could have quite easily pulled that gun out and shot me in the head before I even knew something was wrong.”

Caswell did not cross-examine Laura Kingsley. He was no Clarence Darrow or Johnie Cochran (quite obviously), but even he could see that there were no points to be scored by trying to rattle a cute redhead who had almost been killed by his crazy-ass client.

The vinyl records were all sold out by the time both the court and the band broke for Christmas. The holidays added a bit of awkwardness to the Kingsley household. As per tradition when it was doable, Mom and Dad Kingsley were driving up to spend the holidays with their son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. That meant they would be staying in the house, knowing what the relationship between their son, daughter-in-law, and the beautiful Venezuelan singer was all about. Celia had stayed in the house with them on one past Christmas, but the parents had not known about the relationship at that time (though they did learn about it during that visit). When Jake, Laura, and the Nerdlys had flown to Cypress on Caydee and Kelvin’s birthday at the beginning of December, Celia had diplomatically stayed home. But now, with the Christmas visit, the relationship was going to be very much in their faces.