First degree (5 page)

Billy stops laughing. He knows Laurie very well and is fully aware that her opinions about matters like this are to be taken very seriously. But he has to stand his ground. "I don't think the 'Laurie defense' will hold up in court."

"I'll try and come up with something else just in case," I say.

I can see that he is weakening, so I up the pressure a little. "Come on, Billy, you know every lawyer you have is hiding in the closet when you walk by so you can't dump this on them. And I won't use your resources. Everything comes out of my office."

He can't think of a reason to say no, so he doesn't. "And you'll keep me informed?"

"Every step of the way," I say.

"Andy, you know how many of these cases I've seen? Don't count on this being another Willie Miller."

"I won't," I say. "It's Oscar Garcia all the way."

He reaches down and picks up a file off his desk. He hands it to me. "Here's all we know so far. Read it and then go see your client."

I take the file back to my office and read what Billy found in the police reports. They had received an anonymous tip phoned in to 911 by a woman claiming that Garcia was involved. They were then able to match his fingerprints to those found on the door to the warehouse where Dorsey's body was found. Witnesses also claimed to have seen Garcia near that warehouse on a number of occasions, including the morning of the murder.

I'm sure the case is stronger than this, and I'll have to direct my efforts toward finding out what more they have. The 911 call is intriguing, since the information given was wrong. It could simply be a mistake, but it more likely seems to be an indication that someone, most likely Stynes, is trying to frame Garcia.

I'm about to go visit with my potential client when Laurie comes in. She is obviously upset, and it takes about a fraction of a second for me to find out why.

"Is it true you're taking on Oscar Garcia as a client?" It's a question, dressed up like a demand.

"I haven't met with him yet," I reply rather lamely.

"So you are meeting with him? You want to take his case?"

I nod. "I'm on the way over there now."

"Incredulous" doesn't quite go far enough to describe her reaction. "Let me see if I understand this," she says. "You were turning down every client in town for six months so you could hold out for Oscar Garcia?"

"Laurie, I'm late. Can we talk about this if and when he hires me? He might want a different lawyer." The fact is, I'm hoping he turns me down. My conscience will be clear.

She laughs derisively. "Yeah, he's a real prize. There'll be a roomful of lawyers trying to win him over. Andy, how the hell could you do this to me?"

"I'm not doing anything to you, Laurie."

"You know how I feel about him, you know what he's done to my friend, yet of all the people you could represent you pick him."

"Laurie, I know how this might seem. But believe me, it's not about you. It has nothing whatsoever to do with you."

It's clear that she isn't close to being convinced. "Then why are you doing this? Just tell me why."

"There are reasons that I can't go into, I truly can't go into."

"Yeah, right."

I try a different approach, because this one obviously isn't working at all. "Okay, you tell me why I would be taking on a client to get back at you. I love you, I care about you, but I would do this to punish you? To hurt you? Does that make sense? Did we have a fight I forgot about?"

She takes a moment to weigh my argument, and I think I have a chance until I can see the reject button go off in her brain.

"Don't do it, Andy." It's a combination plea and command.

"I'm sorry, but I have to."

She shakes her head. "No, you want to."

She turns and leaves. I feel bad that she is hurt, but I feel much worse that she believes I would intentionally hurt her.

BEING PUT IN
COUNTY JAIL IS LIKE SIGNING A FIRST
baseball contract and reporting to the low minor league team they assign you to. You're in professional baseball, and while you know you might someday find yourself in the big leagues, for right now this seems pretty significant. Of course, if someday you do make it to the majors, you realize just how small the minors were.

County jail is the flip side of that. When you're sent there, you know you might find yourself in state prison if you get convicted, but for right now this seems pretty awful. Of course, if you do wind up there, or in a federal prison, you realize just how easy you had it back in County.

The thing is, when you're in County, at least things are happening. You're getting the lay of the land, seeing your lawyer, preparing for trial ... it's a new experience. When you're convicted and sent to State, it feels like the system has forgotten about you, and in fact it has. Your life is not only miserable, it's also boring, and there is no end in sight.

I guess my point is that, all in all, county jail is a pretty super-duper place to live. But for some reason, Oscar Garcia doesn't see it that way. Oscar thinks it's an outrage--a "motherfucking joke" is the homespun way he puts it--that he should be in this position.

He rants and raves for two or three minutes, then finally realizes that, since I am sitting there, I just might have a role to play in all this. "Who the hell are you?" he asks.

"My name is Andy Carpenter. I'm an attorney working for the public defender's office on your case."

He stares at me for a few moments, as if trying to remember something. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

I shrug. "Maybe. I went to NYU. What fraternity were you in?"

Oscar's sense of irony doesn't seem that well developed, and I've got a hunch he's not going to be a master of self-deprecating humor either. He ignores my comment, mainly because he's just remembered where he's seen me.

"You're that lawyer, right?" He points at me, no doubt to make sure I know he's not talking to the table.

"That's what I just finished telling you."

He shakes his head. "No, I mean the guy that was on TV."

I nod. "That's me. The TV lawyer."

He sort of squints at me, checking me out. "What do you want with me?"

He's suspicious, the first sign of intelligence I've seen. I decide to tell the partial truth, which seems to be the most I can manage these days. "I thought you might need my help."

"I don't need nobody's help."

"Then I'll find someone who does." I stand up to leave. "See ya around the campus."

I reach the door and I'm halfway out when I hear, "Wait a minute, man." I can pretend I don't hear it and keep walking, or I can turn around and continue with this self-destructive insanity. I turn.

"What is it, Oscar?"

"I didn't do it, man. I've done some pretty bad shit, but this ain't me."

"Did you know Dorsey?" I ask.

"A little bit, no big deal. He hassled me a few times. Nothing I couldn't handle."

"How did you handle it?" I ask.

"I just let it slide, went about my business."

"And just what is your business?" I ask.

"What the hell is the difference? This ain't about my business. My business is my business."

I pull up a chair and sit down less than a foot away from him. "Listen to me, Oscar, because I'm only going to say this once. Your business is my business. Everything about you is my business. And every question I ask you, every single one, is one you are going to answer as best you can."

He can tell I'm pissed, and he's afraid I'm going to walk away. "Okay, man," he says. "But you can't tell nobody, right? It stays between us?"

I nod. "It's called attorney-client privilege, and you can't imagine the shit I go through to maintain it."

He proceeds to tell me about his drug dealing and prostitution activities. It's fairly small-time, but like Danny Rollins, his small territory has been bestowed upon him, and he pays a substantial portion of his earnings to his patrons. The days of Al Capone are over, but the mob influence, at least in this area, is surprisingly substantial.

Oscar adamantly refuses to talk about the mob people that he deals with. He pathetically considers himself "connected," even though the truth is that the only people below him on the mob food chain are the victims. I don't press him on it, since there is little possibility his connections had anything to do with his facing these charges.

I move the conversation to the specifics of the case. I don't want to ask too many questions at this point; I'll save that for when I know more about the police's evidence. I concentrate on the warehouse where the body was found.

"Of course my prints were there," he admits. "That's where I operate out of."

He goes on to explain that because the warehouse was adjacent to the park, he would occasionally hide merchandise in there and have certain customers meet him inside when the police were in the area. He considered the warehouse his corporate headquarters.

And besides that, as he so eloquently puts it, "Prints don't mean no damn shit anyway."

"Write that line down. I'll want to use it in my closing argument."

He doesn't respond; there may be no bigger waste of time than using sarcasm on someone who has absolutely no understanding of it. "Now, this is important," I continue. "Someone called the police, a woman, and told them that you killed Dorsey. Do you have any idea who that could have been?"

"Shit no, man."

"What about one of your girls on the street?"

He shakes his head vigorously. This he is sure of. "No way. No fucking way. They know what would happen."

Every time he opens his mouth I dislike him more. "There's no one you can think of who might want to frame you?" I ask. "No one who has it in for you?"

"I got some enemies, my competitors, you know? It's part of business."

We clearly have a Macy's/Bloomingdale's situation here. "Make a list of everyone who dislikes you," I say.

He nods. "Okay."

"How many reams of paper will you need?"

"The guard'll get me paper."

What I think, but don't say, is, "Oscar, I'm insulting you. I'm your lawyer and I'm insulting you! Fire me!" Instead, I mentally vow to swear off sarcasm for the duration of this case. I'm not sure if I can do it; my addiction goes way back. I wonder if they make a sarcasm patch that I can wear to wean me off it.

For now I confirm that Oscar wants to plead not guilty, and I tell him that I'll see him again tomorrow at the initial court appearance.

I turn and leave. The only thing I've learned in this visit is that Oscar is a really easy guy to leave.

As I walk to my car, I reflect on how depressing this situation is. A lawyer-client relationship, particularly in a murder trial, is close and often intense. Unfortunately, I would rather have warts surgically implanted all over my body than be close and intense with Oscar Garcia. But he's been wrongly charged, and since I'm not willing to risk my legal career by breaking Stynes's privilege, the only way I can right that wrong is by defending him.

When I get in the car, I make a couple of phone calls to determine where my next stop should be. In that regard, I come up with two significant pieces of information. First, I learn that the dry cleaner closes at six. This is good news because I have only three suits and they've all been sitting there, no doubt hanging in plastic and feeling abandoned, for weeks. Getting there by six will be no problem, which means I won't have to wear sweatpants to the hearing tomorrow.

The next thing I find out is that the assistant DA assigned to the Dorsey case is Dylan Campbell. This takes me out of the good mood that the dry cleaner news had put me in. Dylan would have been my last choice as an adversary on this case, which may well be why they don't let the defense attorneys choose the prosecutor.

I know every assistant DA in the county; in fact, more than half had been chosen by my father when he ran the office. To generalize, they are tough, hard-nosed prosecutors whom I can't stand in a courtroom but like drinking beer with afterward.

Dylan Campbell does not fall into this category. While his colleagues and I will bend the legal rules and watch the other side bend them back, Dylan bends them until they break and then throws them in your face. He's smart but unpleasant, and I would much prefer to go up against dumb and affable.

I call Dylan, and he agrees to see me right away, which means he probably wants to make a deal. I find that plea bargains are most likely to be made either at the beginning of a case or just before trial. Early on, the accused is often scared and shaken, while the prosecutor is standing at the foot of the enormous mountain of work that preparing a case represents. It's a likely time for compromise.

Just before trial, the possibility of a bargain being struck again increases, mainly because both sides know that soon it is going to be out of their hands and into a jury's. That threat of imminent repudiation of one's position is a major motivating factor toward dealing.

When I reach Dylan's office, he catapults himself out of his chair and rushes over to greet me, hand extended. This uncharacteristic and transparent graciousness is another sign he wants to deal. "Andy, good to see you. Good to see you. Here, sit down. Sit down."

I'm not sure why he is saying everything twice, but it's probably to show me how sincere he is. "Thanks, Dylan. Thanks, Dylan."

I sit down, and Dylan's next act as the perfect host is to go to his little refrigerator and ask me what I would like to drink. He's something of a health nut, so it basically comes down to whether I want American, Swedish, or Belgian mineral water. I shrug, and wind up with Swedish.

He sits back behind his desk and smiles. "I've got to ask you a question," he says. "Everybody in the office is wondering--I mean, no offense--but how in God's name did you wind up with a loser slimeball like Oscar Garcia? Did you lose a bet or something?"

"Oscar Garcia is godfather to my children." I say this quietly, with as straight a face as I can manage, and I see a quick flash of fear in Dylan's eyes, as his mind processes the possibilities. It takes three or four long seconds for his look to switch to nervous relief, as he realizes it just couldn't be.

"Hey, buddy, you had me going there for a second. But only for a second."

I grin. "Can't fool you, you old rapscallion you."

He's a little uncomfortable with this, so he decides to get back on firm ground, which unfortunately for me is his case. "So I assume you're here to do a little business?" he asks.

"Well, I was hoping you could bring me up to date. I just officially took the case a few minutes ago."

"You want me to do your homework for you?"

"You don't have to. I can just ask the judge for a delay." A delay is something he most certainly does not want. The court system is like a conveyor belt in an assembly plant, and the prosecutor is the foreman, charged with keeping it moving. Delays are like coffee breaks: The belt stops and the system grinds to a halt.

Dylan pauses for a moment, considering his options. "You looking to deal?"

I'm not, of course, but I don't want him to know that. "I sometimes find it helpful to know what my client is up against before I advise him on what to do."

He sighs; there's no way around this. "Okay. I'll have the file copied and sent over to you with the police reports."

"Good. I'd like it today. Can you also give me the shorthand version?" I ask.

"What do you know so far?"

"About the 911 call and the fingerprints at the warehouse. Unless that's all you have ..."

"Come on, Andy, if that was all we had, your boy Oscar would be out in the park peddling dope, and you wouldn't be sitting here. Dorsey's gun was found in Garcia's house."

I'm surprised by this, but only because I know Oscar is innocent. "You think Garcia murdered Dorsey, then took his gun and left it in his house?" I ask, trying to exaggerate my incredulity at the stupidity of such a move.

He shrugs. "You visited with Garcia, right?" he asks. "You see any diplomas hanging in his cell?"

I ignore that. "What about motive? That seems to be in short supply."

"We're not there yet. Dorsey was into some bad things, maybe Garcia was a partner, or a competitor. We'll get to motive, but if not?" He throws up his hands. "So what? We don't have to prove motive. Even you public defenders know that."

Dylan has opened up an area I had planned to get into: Dorsey's illegal activities. I nod and say as casually as I can, "I also should look at what the department had on Dorsey."

The fake affability immediately vanishes. He shakes his head firmly. "No can do."

"Why not?" I ask.

"I don't have it myself," he says. "They tell me it doesn't relate in any way to this case."

"Let me see if I understand this," I say. "Dorsey takes off and goes into hiding because the department had something on him, he gets murdered a week later, and what they had isn't relevant? Earth to prosecutor, come in please, come in please."

His look turns cold as he changes the subject. "It's time to make this case go away, Andy. Twenty-five to life, Garcia can be out in ten."

"He can also be in for fifty." I shake my head. "I'll talk to my client, Dylan, but the answer is going to be no."

"I might be able to do better," he says, then sees my look of surprise. He explains, "Dorsey is not a person the department brass wants to read about every day."

Warning bells are going off in my head. The offer of twenty-five to life was actually very generous on his part for the brutal murder of a cop. If he's going to try to better that, it's more than just a desire to get the conveyor moving, or to appease the higher-ups in the police department. There's something here that's interesting and waiting to be discovered.

"Do the best you can," I say. "But my guess is that the day Garcia gets out is the day the jury comes back."

He shrugs his disappointment. "Then I guess we're finished here."

"Not according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals," I say.