Compelling Evidence (24 page)

Increasingly, if they stayed for more than a single night, their attention turned from Carmen to her daughter. Given her nearly constant state of inebriation, Carmen did not notice these advances toward Talia until a few months later, when Talia, her body taking on the rounded curves of womanhood, was comered alone in the house by one of her mother's male friends. Carmen walked in, unexpected and surprisingly sober, to find Talia half naked, her clothes torn, huddled under the sheets, Struggling with one of Carmen's former bed mates.

CHAPTER 17.

knew

it," she says. "I knew this would happen." Nikki is seething. I've come to her over dinner, my invitation, at Zeek's, to get I name on the line for a loan, money to finance Talia's case. More Is eye it is Talia's face I see 1 0 ‐.7 table of patrons. But I am not certain that even the serene ambience of this A glass tumbler, Johnnie Walker, a double on the rocks. "Are you sure you don't want a drink?" I ask her. "You've got gall to ask," she says. But Nikki's not talking About a cocktail. She's piping me aboard the good ship wrath, V@ a cruise in heavy seas. She's pissed that I can even ask for I 17‐Mease on the house. Her right hand claws the linen tablecloth C‐'the side of her plate. Her piercing gray eyes are penetrating L soui. ' I suppose she's asked you to do this?"

The "she" in Nikki's question is Talia, but I play obtuse. "Who?"

I am innocence, with questioning eyes. "The bitch‐the birnbo‐‐your client." She drops these napalm between clenched teeth. An older woman in a fox stole, molting tails locked in oi;i;"i sharp teeth about her shoulders, is now looking at us M. 1‐11, next table. "No," I say.

"Nobody asked me to do this. I'm doing it it's good business. The case is worth some money."

"Well excuse me, Lee Iacocca," she says. She pauses r,', moment to pick up her fork, to play with hey salad. say not' "This is not what I want to hear. "I can't refinance without your signature."

"Ah."

The answer she wanted. "Well, then, you can't Impt, Now she is eating, enjoying her salad. Like this little spite was just the seasoning it needed. I explain that I will advance the costs of defense, but in so, I will take a note secured by Talia's interest in the fir m‐. isn't personal, Nikki, it's business," I tell her. "Business? Well, that covers a multitude of sins, MIPMWI "You think I tied to you'!‐‐my tone is level and lowdeceived you when I got into the case. I told you I was

'it' in. That was true. I didn't ask for it. I said I wasn't lead I wasn't. Everything I told you was true."

I play upon Cheetarn as the disaster, as if Nikki cares. pulled out‐thank God," I say. "But now I've got more It, case than anyone else.

It would take another lawyer six it] to come up to speed."

"I see. Nobody else can do it like you. I suppose she s

"Ac@ on you

too."

"I suppose," I say. "Like any other client faced with ii chamber."

This puts a sober expression on Nikki's face. She considered the stakes before. Even in her current state death by cyanide gas is wholly disproportionate to her revenge. "Listen," I say, "you don't want to help out, I two

"M just have to get it someplace else." I'm chumming the This thing with Talia is hard on Nikki. I would not I! had any other choice. She sees this, my plea for money Tlk' a former lover, as if I am purposefully pouring salt into ‐1 1 J* #1 01 wound‐rubbing her nose in my earlier affair. There's a long, painful pause, awkward for Nikki as she shifts gears a little. "How much would you need," she asks, "for this defense of yours?"

"A hundred‐maybe seventy‐five thousand if I watch it. It would carry the defense to the end of the case." I tell her that Harry and I are taking only partial fees until it's over. The truth is, I haven't talked to Harry about this. I figure I'll catch him with his head in a bottle one night and get an ironclad commitment that he'll be my Keenan counsel. "I can collect the balance when it's over, out of the partnership interest.

I'll pay off the second. Believe me," I say, "I'll take a on the case."

PITYIOUUT11 take a premium?"

"I will,"

"And you think that makes a difference to me? You bring me here, to this place." Her arms are rising in a gesture to the surroundings, along with the volume of her voice. Hairy little beasts are bristling at me again, from around the neck pocked with age spots. Its owner is turning to look at Nikki. My eyes are pleading with her: "Not so loud."

"You take me here to this cavem of intrigue." She is dripping rml sarcasm. "You bring me here not to talk'about us, about our 13mos'. but to discuss‐‐business." She makes it sound like a bad CM4 like it ought to have four letters. "That wasn't the only reason. I wanted to talk about us too."

"Yes, but first things first, huh?"

I'm only digging myself in deeper. "Did you ever bring her here?" she asks. I wonder whether to play stupid one more time, to give her a FM'@,

"Who?" at least for appearances. I look at the little foxes Ms think better of it. "No," I say. "That's something, I suppose."

I'm chugging Johnnie Walker now and flagging the waitress i )@ more. "I don't know why I'm surprised," she says. "It's all you ever through eleven years of marriage, your career, your There it is, the "13‐word"

again, bursting from her lips a little bomb. "It's all that ever mattered."

"It's not true Nikki. You mattered, Sarah mattered. But somewe got @fi the track." I am never good at this. This verbal intimacy that women seem to get off on. I consider for a moment offering her money, a return on investment in the house, from my take in the cas6@ But I am afr, that she will be offended. I try putting a face on it. "We will treat my earnings from this case as community pr@ erty. It's only fair, We're using community property to fina@ the case, our joint interest in the house."

"Ever the lawyer.' she says, "If s always another deal. If were half the husband you are a lawyer we'd be living togree Hell, we'd be in love."

Nikki has a way of capturing the truth and dumping it on head like a pail of Arctic Ocean water. "There's a long, sober silence while she pokes around her S, with her fork. Then she looks up at me. "I wowt take any mcl) If you want my signature, I will give it to you‐because you it," she says, "and for no other reason than that."

I sit there looking at her, the shame written mi my eyes. I gotten what I have come for, but she has taken everything a large measure of self‐respect. "How is she paying you?" she asks. "By the hour" I say.

"But I may put a cap on it."

"Generous," she says. "OK, no cap."

"Do what you think is right:' "If I did that, I wouldn't be hem, asking you for thssay. She seems taken aback by this. Surprised, perhaps, that I realize it. "I will hold the costs down" I tell her. I've already disf with thoughts of an investigator, except for Bowman. Hai@,' I will do most of the gumshoe ourselves. In the months befi trial we will chase loose leads and go after the facts that C‐4 ran from. "Do you have an agreement with her on fees'yet?"

J", "We haven't nailed it down."

"Were you waiting for my ‐signature?" she asks. This ‐V , rhetorical than real, but before I realize this I make a lit@ of concession. She's laughing at me now, inside, behind the mask t14' expression. I can see it in the little wrinkles around her ey, figures Taw s playing me for a fool. Maybe she wants to f to laugh when if s over. I don't know. I am having a hq., reading this woman I lived with for eleven years, the mother of my child. our dinner has come, braised rack of lamb. The waiter is removing our salad plates. "I'm famished," I say, searching for something, anything other than Talia and her case, to talk about.

"It looks delicious," I tell her. ‐ Nikki is not even interested in her plate, but instead is staring at me, with searching eyes, an expression brimming with immense pain and a single tear on her cheek. I look away.

The little foxes are now gone. "you've got a guest," Harry tells me deadpan. "In your office."

He's in the reception area leaning over the desk talking with Dee. She's finally learned to use the computer, when it suits her. The two of them are doodling with a crossword puzzle, a computer game Dee's boyfriend bought for her birthday. Harry's giving her words to fill the blanks.

"Irish Gaelic, four letters, starts with an E. Erse," says Harry. He can afford this. He's not paying her Wary. I look at him from under arched eyebrows, scanning my telephone messages plucked from the holder on Dee's desk. "Did you make contact with the money changerst' I've left Harry in charge of getting the paperwork rolling on Talia's mortgage, cash for the premium on her bond. He nods. "rook the loan application over to the jail this morning, Could've saved myself the trip," he says.

I.Ifty?" Harry reaches over with one hand, still distracted, looking over Doe's shoulder, and swings the door to my office open, enough for me to look inside. There, ‐in one of the client chairs across from my desk, she sits reading a magazine, Talia sans the bars 'and the wire mesh. She's wearing a fresh print dress. Her hair, still lacking a fresh perm, is softer than the jail ringlets I had seen the day before, this no doubt the result of some pricey Ph‐balanced shampoo and an hour soaking in the tub at her house. Mat was quick," I say. Her exodus from the county jail. She turns and looks at me, her fingers clutching a small hand‐ %9. "Couldn't be fast enough for me." I move into the room, now heading for my chair behind the desk. ‐‐ How did you manage it?"

I ask her. "Friends," she says. 1‐1bey posted your bond?"

"I owe them a lot." At least a hundred thousand‐and some change,‐I MM 1

myself. "Who was it?" I ask. "I can't tell you that. They want to remain anonymous."

"From your own lawyer?"

"I'm sorry, Paul. I promised them I wouldn't tell lis

"I see. Harry

finally gives up the game and follows me into the i) i He shuts the door, and we sit, ready to talk to Talia. "It's one thing you two won't have to worry about," she getting me out. I thought I was doing the right thing. I am wondering who, in Talia's set, would have im ‐1"

interest to post the hundred‐thousand‐dollar premium, iit4@ personal guarantee required for a million‐dollar bond. it is good news. "It frees up your mortgage money," I tell her. "We can for the defense. Let's pursue the application anyway‐'9 Harry nods. She smiles at this prospect of paying a little more own way. "Oh, before I forget," she says. She is into the small lying in her lap and pulls out a wrinkled brown paper bag, over itself a dozen times. "Tod. found this at the house yesterday."

She's undoing ' if ' and finally reaches in. When her hand comes out it's MIT@.@, shiny semi‐automatic, so small that it is nearly lost in her ` "Here," she says. Talia reaches across the desk to 17@" to me.

There," I say, gesturing for her to put it on the JM. center of my paper‐strewn blotter. I'm hissing under my

"I told you to call me if you

found it. Not to touch it." t ‐‐ ‐1 r' at Harry, who's rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "I guess you did. He was so excited when he , Mirhe must have forgotten." She's talking about Tod. '11 she says, crumpling the paper bag and pushing it back handbag. "Great. I suppose his prints are all over it too. A She looks at me, a little whipped dog, and nods, assumes this is now the case. Without ballistics to weapon with or stinguish it from the jacket fragment found in potter's skull, the cops are free to draw inferences that this is the murder weapon, this little gun covered with the fingerprints of my client and her latest flame.

Beyond this it is difficult for me to fathom the lack of basic prudence that should cause Talia, less than a day out of jail, to carry this thing concealed in her purse into my office. I study it closely. It is small, about five inches in length. The safety is engaged. There's heavy tooling on the shiny chrome barrel, scrolling around the numerals and letters 25 ACP just under the ejection port, and the image of two cards engraved farther out near the end of the barrel, double deuces; laid one over the other in a fanned hand. I'm anxious to know if it's been fired, to pull the magazine and eject any round from the breech so I can look down the barrel for residue. But to do it I would either smudge prints or put my own next to Talia's and Tod's. What to do with the gun‐this is a problem, Harry wants to take it to a lab, have it screened for prints, shot for ballistic comparisons. But then Nelson will hint that perhaps we have destroyed evidence. What will be left will be our own lab report, confirming at a minimum Talia's prints on the gun. "No," I say.

"We'll turn it over to Nelson. We'll demand that we see a full print analysis and baistics report as soon as they're available. We give him the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of everybody we know who touched the gun, Talia, Tod, and probably Ben. We tell them that Tod found it and without tbinking picked it up and handed it to Talia. They didn't realize the significance of any prints. They brought it to me.

Tlat takes the sting out of their findings. Any other prints they fine‐l wink at Harry‐‐only serve to exonerate."

It is almost too neat. Harry's on board quickly, 0 nods. My first, impression might be that much of this has sailed beyond Talia. But as I look at her she is smiling, like the cat who got the canary. She seems to have a greater facility with this scenario than I would have expected, and perhaps it is exactly what she

"Would have done herself.

They have left me alone in the office. Talia's gone home to Wash a little more hell out of her hair. Harry's calling Nelson L67 the gun, confirming everything in writing. Then he will ‐MVI‐) the piece to one of the DA's investigators. Against his better judgment, Harry has agreed to be my Keenan coun this case. I pick up the phone receiver and dial Judy Zumwalt. three hundred pounds of pleasure, with a voice that is into a laugh when she answers, "County clerk's office."

"Judy, Paul Madriani here. Wanted to ask you if you c a little favor."

"You can ask," she says, "but I'm already booked Then she laughs, big and bawdy, with waves of rolling it undulate through Ma Bell. "Bail was posted on a client this morning. I'd like who paid the premium. Also who signed as a guarantor balance."