Compelling Evidence (20 page)

You were asked about the of death and you based your opinion on lividity, the fact that Dd had clotted in the body, and the length of time it took for h clotting. Now do you recall your testimony, doctor?"

"No, I'm sorry, I don't." Well, let me help you, doctor." Nelson opens the transcript to age marked by a large paper clip. "And I quote:

'counsel: Doctor Blumberg, how long would it take for to clot in the capillaries of the body following death? "DR. BLUMBERG: An hour to an hour and a half.' Do you remember now, doctor?" here is only strained silence from the witness box. And yet today you sit here and you tell us that in the present , it would not be possible for the victim to have bled in the ator because blood clots in the body within fifteen minutes death. Which is it, doctor‐an hour and a half or fifteen minutes? Or does it depend on which side is paying you?" Objection, Your Honor." Cheetam is on his feet, wailing in St. Withdraw the last question, Your Honor. I move to have the script in Panicker v. Smith marked for identification, Your or. Any objection, Mr. Cheetam?" heetarn drops into his seat, silent at the table, and shakes his At this he smiles a bit, a little mercantile grin. "I would think that the question of who Talia wants as her lawyer is a matter for Talia," I tell him. "Not as long as I'm paying die freight."

"A secured loan," I remind him. "Not if she's convicted. The law will not allow her to share in the assets of the deceased if she murdered him."

"Do you believe she did it?" 110h, I'm not judging her," he says. "This is business. I do have to look after the security for our loan."

"You forget that part of Ben's interest in the firm is Talia's community property. That's hers no matter what happens."

He makes a face, like

"This is piddling, peanuts not to be worried

about."

"She'll have a tough time spending it if she's convicted. But why should we argue," he says. "We have a mutual interest. I want to help the lady.

I assume you want to do the same." His arms are spread in a broad gesture of brotherly love‐and now there is the bearning grin. "If we, all three, benefit from the experience, so much the better." He reaches for one of his crooked cigars from a gold‐plated box on the desk, then leans back, reclining in his chair. I pray silently that he will not light it. "Let's get to it, Tony. What is it you want?"

"I want to make you an offer," he says. "First@ I think you should talk to Talia about taking the case."

"Why? Why me?"

"You're familiar with it. You've worked with Cheetarn closely. "Don't saddle me with that," I say. He laughs. "Well, the man's busy."

"No, the pope is busy. Gilbert Cheetarn is the bar's answer to Typhoid Mazy. You show him evidence and he says the hell with it. You give him leads that, if he followed them up, might blunt part of the prosecution's case, he drops them. If it isn't an ambulance, he won't pursue it."

"Well, it's all water under the bridge now," he says. "I think we agree Talia's fate in the preliminary hearing is pretty well sealed. The lady's going to trial."

Ron Brown's been carrying reports from the courtroom. These plus the blistering news accounts have led the Greek to this breathtaking conclusion.

173 "Besides," he says, "she was probably doomed from the beginning. I really don't think Gil's performance was a factor."

"Gil's performance was an embarrassment," I say. "He owes her the favor of taking her case if for no other reason than to provide her with the ironclad appeal of incompetent counsel. It would be a dead‐bang winner."

He laughs a little at Cheetam's expense. "Well, that's not going to happen," he says. "Gil's out of the picture. And I think we agree you're much better able to handle the defense."

4 "Maybe she wants somebody else," I say. "After all, I've been part of this circus."

"I don't think so." He says this with confidence, like he's been talking to an oracle. "You must know more than I do."

"Talk to her. She'll listen to you."

"Assuming I do. How do I get paid, if you're no longer going",@i' to extend her any credit?"

He smiles now, toothy and knavish, reaching for a match. "You're learning," he says. "Don't light that," I tell him. It's been a long day and I am tired of suffering fools. He makes a gesture of polite concession, dropping the match.",@ He continues to suck on the cold cigar. "I was getting to the money," he says. "I'm prepared to offer Talia $200,000, up front, cash for a relinquishment of any interest, @T, she might have in the firm. That'll carry the defense a long way.‐@i Well into appeals, if she needs them."

"Talking appeals already‐you must have a lot of confidence* in me."

He laughs, just a little. "Well, just seeing the down side."

4 "Not a very generous offer, considering the fact that Ben' interest in the firrn is worth ten times that much," I tell him. I "Only if she can get it. And she may have to wait for yearsi This is cash on the barrel, today."

W The conversation degenerates into a debate over figures.

,' sound like two Arabs in the bazaar, the Greek holding up Fr hands in protest, me trying to barter him higher, feigning effort to sell something I have no authority to sell. I am inter in finding his bottom line. Talia may need to know. In three minutes I have dragged him pissing and moaning‐" $300,000. 1 think he will go farther, but I am growing tired this game. "I'll communicate your offer to my client, Tony. But I can't recommend it."

To this I get little slits of a look over pudgy cheeks from Skarpellos.

"Why not?"

"What's the interest worth, Tony? Two million? Hmm‐more? You know. I don't. Only an auditor can tell us. She'd be a fool to sell under these circumstances. You know that as well as I do."

"She'd be a bigger fool to go indigent. Does she really want the public defender representing her?"

"There are other alternatives," I say. "Like what?"

"Like a motion to the court to unfreeze Ben's assets for purposes of Talia's defense." This is a bluff, a legal shot of long odds, but one that Skarpellos has not considered. It takes the confidence out of his eyes. "Besides, assuming she invites me, and I do decide to take over the case, I might finance the action myself. I might take a little contingency in the firm for my efforts."

I can tell that the thought of me sitting at Ben's desk, a partner he hadn't counted on, is not one that rests well with the Greek. He laughs.

Like steam from a dying boiler, it is forced. "How would you finance it?" he asks. "You're on a shoe string."

"A second on the house. No big thing," I tell him. "You'd gamble that much?"

"Who knows. Maybe we'll find out."

"I thought you were learning," he says. "But I can tell. You have a lot to learn." His face is stem now. All the evil he can muster is focused in his eyes. "That would not be a smart move."

"Is that a threat, Tony? I can't tell."

He makes a face, like

"Take it any way you want." Then says: "Just a little advice."

"Ali. Well, then, I'll take it in the spirit in which it's offered." I give him a broad, shit‐eating grin. "I'll let you know Talia's decision when she's made it."

I get up and head for the door. "By the way," he says. "What made you so curious about the beneficiaries under Ben's will?"

I turn and give him a soulful look. "A little shot at me?" he says. He's miffed at my questions to Hazeltine. : "You're assuming I knew die answer to the question when asked it."

"I know you. You wouldn't ask if you didn't know."

"Maybe you don't know me well enough," I say. He nods. There is no warmth in this expression. The eyes it dead, cold, and there is a meanness in this face I have not ‐i‐.%; before.

CHAPTER 14.

I am

anticipating a disaster, a rout on the magnitude of Napoleon at Waterloo. Cheetam sits at the counsel table between Talia and me. We are waiting for the result of a week of preliminary hearing. The judge is in chambers putting the final touches on her order. "What do you think?"

says Cheetam. I give him a blank stare. If he can't see it for himself, I'm going to tell him. At the end of the prosecution's case he'd asked for an outright dismissal of all charges. Only because legal protocol required it did the court humor him, taking this motion under submission. That he could make such a motion under the circumstances tells me not only that Gilbert Cheetam lacks judgment, but that on a more basic plane, he is out of touch with reality. The submission to the court lasted three minutes, enough time for Nelson to make a brief argument; then O'Shaunasy gave the motion the back of her hand. Cheetam reaches over and touches Talia on the arm. "It'll just be a few minutes longer now," he says. Talia smiles politely, then looks past him to me, searching for a little sanity. The last day of hearing was the capper.

Cheetam tried to build on a foundation of sand‐Blumbcrg's earlier testimony. He pro‐ duced a janitor from the Emerald Tower, Reginald Townsend, who remembered cutting his hand, the day Ben was killed, on a jagged piece of broken glass. The man testified that he used the service elevator shortly after this and stated that he believed he may have dripped blood in the elevator. Lo and behold, the man's blood type‐the same as Potter's‐B‐negative. There was a satisfied grin in Cheetam's voice as he

"That's all, Your Honor. Your witness." Nelson zeroed in on the man. He asked whether Townsend7s' a doctor attend to the wound after his ride in the elevator. "It weren't that bad."

"Well, how much blood did you lose?"

"Oliq it were just a nick. A little thing." He says this 7=, holding up two fingers to show the length of the wound, half inch, as if he classifies anything less than a dozen stitches a nick. "I see, and you remember this nick, this little thing, nearly months later, and you can sit here and tell this court with 6rqvrl@,@ that this wound, from which you apparently lost a single MT blood in the elevator, occurred on the day that Benjamin 0"", was murdered?"

2k

"Uh‐huh. But I lost more blood than that. I held my hand V@ towel,"

said Townsend. "Have you always had this gift?"

The man looked at Nelson with a vacant stare. "This ability to recall minute details and precise dates ws)l; after the eventt' "Oh, well, that'll be a day none of us is likely to forget." was shaking his head as if to emphasize the momentous of the events of that day. "I see. You equate this nick, as you call it, on your hand the day that Mr. Potter was murdered?"

"That's it," he said, happy for some help. "Ali remember you remember things when somethin' like that happen. Like v, President Kennedy got hisself killed, I remember I was mama ... 19

4 "Tell me, Mr. Townsend, how did Mr. Cheetarn come to cover this injury that you suffered? Did you come to him ‐.wo him about it, or did he come to you and ask about it?"

"Well, it weren't him." Townsend was now pointing, his out straight like an arrow, at Cheetam. "No sir, Mr. *OTMT., didn't come to me."

Cheetam was reclining in his chair, nibbling on the ‐4@ end of a pencil, smiling glibly at the dead end Nelson Moll' raced up. "It were the other fellah, that one back there." Like a ‐A*, i I in a shifting wind, Townsend's arm had swung out MITTMIN ience, taking a bead on Ron Brown, who tried to huddle and a heavy‐set woman seated in the row in front of him. e one with the fancy pen," said Townsend. elson's eyes followed the pointing finger like a guided misbrown was caught in the act, spear‐chucker in hand, gold to the yellow pad propped on his lap. Your Honor, may we ask Mr. Brown, Mr. Cheetam's associto stand for a moment."

"Shaunasy did not have to speak. Brown was up, shifting his his shoulders sagging, his features lost in shadows as his head g low, away from the beams of the overhead canister lights. That's him." Mr. Brown approached you?" Yes sir. He the one that talked to me. He talk to all of us." Objection, Your Honor, hearsay." Were you present when Mr. Brown talked to the others, did hear what he said to themt' I object, Your Honor."

Let's hear what the witness has to say." O'Shaunasy waits ee if Townsend will overcome the inference of secondhand rmation. Oh sure, he talk to all of us at once. The building manager get ogether. He say one of the lawyers in the building want to talk s." Townsend was all smiles now, trying to be as helpful as sible. Overruled." heetam was fuming, angry not so much with the court and its ng as with Brown and his lack of finesse in dealing with the d help. What did he say when he talked to all of you?"

He ask us if any of us see anything the day Mr. Porter shot." Did any of you see anything?" No, except for Willie. He seed a lot."

Willie?" Yeah, he seed Mr. Porter after the shot." Ah." Nelson nods.

"Willie's the janitor who discovered the Y?11 Uh‐huh." elson was becoming more charitable, his manner more easy, that he was making headway with the witness. What else did Mr. Brown ask you?" : "He asked us if anybody ever got hurt, cut or like that, .1AT‐J used the service elevator."

"He asked this question of all of you?"

"Uh‐huh."

"And you said yes?"

"Yeah, me and Bill and Rosie and Manual."

"There were four of you?" Nelson's question rose.an s:61PW from beginning to end. Cheetam's pencil lay on the table, the, eraser end chewed *)oil

"Uh‐huh."

"Then what happened?"

"He took us up to his office."

"You and Bill and Rosie and Manual?"

"Yes sir."

"Then what happened?"

"They had a lady there, a nurse, she took our

blood. "She took your blood?"

"Uh‐huh. With a big needle. And they say they would get ‐T711 to us."

"And did they?"

"Just me," said Townsend. "Mat gendeman"‐he ‐iwsr,77toward Brown‐‐‐‐@'he get back to me."

Cheetam and Brown must have thought they'd hit the 1111111 lode when Townsend's blood type came back. "Did, Mr. Brown say why he only wanted to talk to you?"

"No sir."

"And what did he say when he finally got back to you?"

"He ask me when I

hurt myself and how I done it."

"And did you tell him?"

"Uh‐huh. Just, like I tell you today."