Amazingly, Clyde has made bail yet again, with my unwitting assistance. When I was ordered to pay Lucille $2,000.00 a month for three months, she almost immediately put that money to good use. Not only did it help to keep her in drugs, but it benefited her lover as well. With the help of a competent lawyer – one of those individuals whose life work is to ensure that exemplary citizens such as Clyde are not unjustly incarcerated – Clyde’s bail has been lowered dramatically, his bond reduced to $30,000.00. This requires only $3,000.00 in cash, and Lucille is more than willing to help out. My PI tails her as she goes to cash one of her $2,000.00 support checks, and then follows her to Western Union, where she wires the money to Clyde. Clyde’s sister apparently comes up with the remaining $1,000.00, and once again the hyena is loose. Not long after that he will be busted again – this time for good. But for now, he is out.
I previously mentioned that I had dubbed Lucille’s attorney Lazlo, after Hunter S. Thompson’s erstwhile counselor. While the man certainly deserves the comparison – not to mention my disdain – I have come to the realization that my assessment is probably somewhat unfair to both the original Lazlo and Lucille’s lawyer. Although the original Lazlo could perhaps be forgiven somewhat for his bizarre antics (he was, after all, probably as drug-addled as Lucille is), his current incarnation has only his own lack of ethical standards to explain his behavior. And as a nod in the direction of fairness to him, perhaps the whole Thompson-esque nature of the trial itself encourages the comparison a bit more than is perhaps appropriate. Whatever the reasons, I think that the trial – if not my entire life – has descended into a form of “gonzo reality,” to which the late Thompson could easily relate. And Lucille’s Lazlo certainly seems to fit in quite well.
The custody hearing is to take place on Wednesday, March 6, 2002, in Harris County Court Number 311. Docket call is at nine in the morning.
Present at this call are myself, my attorney, her legal assistant, my parents, and my subpoenaed parties – who include a narcotics agent from central Texas, Lucille’s parole officer from Montgomery County, the Child Protective Services agent from Brazoria County, my private investigator, and the ad litem attorney, who was appointed to act on behalf of Carter. Also present are Lucille and her attorney, whom, as I explained earlier, I refer to as Lazlo.
We’ve been to mediation a couple of times, plus a dozen preliminary hearings, so I feel pretty well prepared for anything we’re about to face today. When we are called, the judge obviously sees that we – or at least I – mean business, considering my out-of-town subpoenaed guests. He asks us to stay, completes the docket, and schedules us to return for a full hearing at 1 PM.
I go to lunch at a nearby burger joint with my parents, attorney, and the narcotics agent to discuss the case. The agent tells us that he sat right next to Lucille in the courtroom, and since she didn’t know what he looked like, he got a close-up view without her being aware that he was observing her. He says that he can tell she is a meth freak by her skin and fingernails. I had sent the agent a friendly subpoena, to which he was more than happy to respond. He wants Clyde bad, but has been having problems catching him, and figures that his involvement in my divorce case might lead him to his elusive target.
During lunch the narcotics agent makes several phone calls to law enforcement in the area around my ranch, regarding one of Clyde’s previous arrests. He has quite an impressive history, the details of which I am learning about in bits and pieces. Not that I am remotely close, at this point, to having every piece of the puzzle; I will still be trying to figure it all out years later. But this particular arrest took place at a fast-food restaurant near College Station. Naturally, I didn’t know about it at the time it happened – just another one of many incidents I didn’t learn about until way after the fact.
Apparently, Clyde and Lucille had gotten into a fight about midnight, throwing food at each other. The details, cobbled together from a couple of different reports, sound like an episode of COPS. At one point after they began to argue, Lucille suddenly lifted the bun off of the top of the cheeseburger and pressed the rest of the sandwich into Clyde’s face. He retaliated by dumping a diet Coke over her head. The manager finally called the police once Lucille had wrestled Clyde to the floor, and appeared to be having some success in her bid to scratch his eyes out. The police report noted that the two were in a black Suburban, and that there was a baby asleep in the back and also a boy who looked to be four or five years old. Apparently the cop had arrested Clyde for domestic violence and had taken him to jail, but Lucille dropped the charges and got him out the next morning. The narc gives us this information so that my attorney can be prepared to question him about it when he gets on the stand.
After lunch, we go back to the courtroom and wait outside until 1 PM. Shortly before time to go in, my long-time friend Connie Bono shows up. We all enter the courtroom and sit down. Prior to the proceeding, Lazlo and Lucille had apparently been working on a plan to get the hearing postponed. Lucille tells the judge she is dismissing Lazlo as her attorney, and the judge says he’ll need a written document, so they write and sign one and present it to the Court. That done, Lazlo leaves the building. Lucille then requests a continuance, a postponement of the hearing. The judge asks my lawyer and the ad litem what they think, and the ad litem responds that because the child is in potential danger, he feels that the hearing must be held today. When the judge says in that case, we’re moving forward, I think for a moment that Lucille will yet try to squirm out of it by feigning a stroke or heart attack. But no, Lucille agrees to defend herself, and that’s when the fun begins. She is smiling and looking so smug; it’s obvious that she feels pretty sure she is getting off the hook again. Lucille immediately invokes “The Rule” – wherein everybody who is to testify has to leave the court so as to not hear the testimony of the others – as Lazlo always did. So everybody leaves. In my opinion, this is a stupid “protect the guilty” policy that should be done away with. But that’s probably worthy of a whole separate book. We call Lucille first. My lawyer asks her a string of questions, and she just sits there and lies about everything she is asked. The questions and the lies do not seem to be a big deal at the time, for we really just want to get to my witnesses.
I call my PI next. My lawyer questions him about the surveillance and he produces only one of the videotapes. But what a video! Filmed outside Lucille’s townhome, it shows Lucille’s five-year-old son Damien, and her forty-year-old retarded brother, playing outside – unsupervised – in the street for quite a long time. They are playing with a water hose, and at one point, the young boy pulls the retarded man’s pants off and sticks his head in his crotch, and then in his backside, which is beyond disgusting.
The judge immediately stops the tape and the hearing. He asks the PI how long ago the tape was made, and the investigator tells him it was about a month ago. The judge lectures the PI about how he should have immediately turned this evidence over to the police or CPS. The PI explains that immediately after he filmed this, he contacted my attorney and me on the golf course at Hermann Park and asked us to come immediately, which we did. He tells the judge that we looked at the tape, after which my attorney took it and said she would handle the matter. For fifteen minutes, the judge lectures all of us about how bad this was.
For all practical purposes, the hearing is over right then. I suppose we could have rested, but I want to drive the point home. After my lawyer is done, Lucille, acting as her own lawyer, tries to ask my PI a bunch of questions, but my lawyer keeps objecting, and the judge sustains pretty much every one of the objections. Finally, Lucille seems to realize that she is getting nowhere, and states that she has no more questions.
I call the narcotics agent next. My lawyer asks him about his qualifications including his familiarity with meth labs, and generally establishes that he knows what he is talking about. She asks him detailed questions about what was found on my ranch, and he describes everything. After my lawyer is finished, Lucille cross-examines him. She asks him why my father and I weren’t suspects. He tells her that in the beginning, everyone was a suspect, including my father and me. She asks him why we are no longer suspects. He tells her that the suspects had to be at the ranch every day, or nearly every day, to water the marijuana, and that the meth was being manufactured several times per week – but that my father was only at the ranch once a week, and I was only at the ranch about once a month.
She asks him what his qualifications are for determining that there was a meth lab; he states that he’s been in law enforcement for over twenty years, and that he has uncovered over 1,500 meth labs. Eventually, she sees that her efforts to discredit his testimony are ridiculous, and she quits asking him questions.
Next, we call her probation officer to the stand. My lawyer asks him all of the pertinent questions about his qualifications, then about the problems he had documented with Lucille. He states that Lucille had continually failed the court-ordered drug tests by showing positive for amphetamines and methamphetamines. Further, he states that the drug tests also revealed the presence of a masking agent, which meant she knew the tests were going to be positive, and had adulterated the samples in order to cover her continued drug use.
So then Lucille cross-examines him. She asks details about the drug testing and tries to get him to talk about the difference between amphetamines and Ritalin as it appears on a drug test. The ad litem objects, and there is a discussion about this. Lucille explains that her son Damien took Ritalin, and the ad litem asks her if she has a prescription for it. She then drops the issue, and the parole officer leaves the stand.
This process lasts until about 4:30 in the afternoon. My lawyer finally says that we have no more witnesses. Just when it looks as if it is over, Lucille points at me and demands, “Doesn’t HE have to take the stand?” The judge tells her she can call me if she wants to, so she does.
Her first question is open-ended, and plainly accusatory, but it is soon to backfire. She says, “I understand that CPS has investigated you. Could you explain that to me?”
And I say, “Yes, I can. You and your mother called CPS on me on two consecutive dates. When the CPS case worker came to my house, she checked out Carter, met with me, the nanny and my attorney, and we showed her the videotape from earlier where your son Damien was sucking your retarded brother’s cock, balls, and ass. After the case worker excused herself to the bathroom, vomited, and regained her composure, she came out and told us that she believed the problem was with you.”
If you think such a damning rejoinder would put a stop to her questioning, then you obviously do not know Lucille. The next question she asks is, “Have you ever had an affair with Connie Bono?” whereupon she pulls out some pictures that SHE took of Connie and me, posing arm in arm. But before I can say no, both the ad litem and my attorney object, and the objection is sustained. She asks me if I have ever been drunk – objection; objection sustained. She asks me if I had ever used illegal drugs – objection; objection sustained. She asks me if I am gay – objection; objection sustained. She asks about half a dozen half-baked, half-thought-out questions, obviously scraping the bottom of the barrel, and each time, my attorneys object to the relevance. Ultimately, all of their objections are sustained.
After I get off the stand, the judge announces that he has made a ruling. He says that I should be the sole-conservator, that Lucille can see him only with adequate supervision. Since Carter is with her today, the judge gives her until 7 PM to get him to my house.
In keeping with her juvenile, vindictive behavior pattern, she brings him to my house wearing only one of his good shoes. I find myself saying – not for the first time, nor the last – “God, am I glad to be getting her out of my life!”
But of course, she will never really be out of my life.