The Defense: A Novel (30 page)
One of the fakes.
Apart from the fresh shirt and tie, I wore the same clothes as yesterday, and that slight change was probably what I would normally have done anyway. My usual practice for the second day of a trial would be to wear the same suit, but I would put on a fresh shirt and a different tie. Day three of a trial, and I could wear a different suit. Then a different suit again on day seven, but never more than three different suits for any trial unless we were going over a month—then five suits, but that was my absolute limit. I had around fifteen very good suits in my apartment. I could wear a different suit every day if I wanted, and I used to do that regularly. Then the jury noticed me doing it, and then I noticed the jury noticing me. That was bad.
When juries whispered about my suits, that meant they weren’t listening to the evidence. They were thinking how nice it must be to wear a different suit to work every day, how much those suits cost, how much I was getting paid to do this, and that guilty men would pay anything to stay out of jail. A trial lawyer can dance through the evidence and entertain the jury and still get his client convicted in a heartbeat for any number of reasons. Even the best trial lawyer can be undone by a really good suit. If I showed up to trial in Armani, my client might as well just fire me and call the public defender.
My normal court attire was a plain tan suit, alternated with a dark navy suit. Clear changes and changes back again, so the jury doesn’t start thinking about my bank account, but still thinks I’m a regular guy, clean and professional and trustworthy.
The jury waited patiently for the judge. Pike had told the clerk to bring them in and that she would be right out. The jury were silent. Most had their heads bowed, and one or two occasionally glanced my way. I couldn’t see Arnold in the court that morning. He probably told Miriam that he’d been made by the defense, that he had been compromised.
None of the jury looked at Miriam. I’d burned her pretty bad yesterday. Even so, she still had plenty of time to recover. Trials ebb and flow, rise and fall. You can be almost home one minute and guilty as sin the next. That’s the way the evidence goes: direct examination, cross-examination, argument, and counterargument. Most lawyers would spend days cross-examining witnesses if they could get away with it. Poking through every little detail and nuance of the evidence and aggressively putting minor inconsistencies to the witness as if they’d just admitted to being behind the grassy knoll when JFK bought the big ticket. As far as I was concerned, that was all wrong. The longer the battle of words went on, the longer it looked like the witness was winning.
The trick was to be quick and devastating and therefore memorable.
With the trial bundles spread out on my desk, I suddenly realized that I’d forgotten something. A pen. I patted my pockets. I tut-tutted and told Volchek that I must have lost my pen somewhere and needed to borrow one from the clerk. He nodded. Jean gave me a spare pen and a cute smile on the side.
I had a possible four witnesses to spar with today. I had to cut that down. Kennedy would get that damn warrant signed, and God knows what Arturas planted in my apartment. Probably something bad, something that linked me to his plan, something that would put me away for the rest of my life.
“All rise!”
Everyone stood, and I turned as I heard Arturas swearing loudly. He ended a call on his cell phone, whispered something to Volchek, and left the courtroom with Gregor, leaving Volchek sitting beside me at the defense table and Victor sitting behind us, babysitting. I didn’t know what had happened. I hoped it was because they couldn’t get in touch with Alvin, who had probably woken up and in all likelihood remained safely cuffed to the radiator. My gut told me something different; it told me Arturas had tried to contact Elanya and couldn’t get through. If he checked on the apartment in Severn Towers, which was close by, and found them dead and Amy missing, then it would all be over. Arturas would run and hide before taking his revenge on my family. I couldn’t think about that now. Amy was safely tucked up in a Mafia stronghold with at least one law-enforcement agency outside watching the place, so at least she was safe, for now.
I turned back to the judge’s bench, fully expecting to see Harry sitting beside Judge Pike. He wasn’t there. I needed Harry here, in case I ran into problems.
Miriam rose to her feet. She’d been careful not to say a word to me today. No note, no smile, and to give her a little more edge, her skirt looked to be even shorter than the little number she’d worn yesterday.
“The state calls Tony Geraldo.”
A mistake. Miriam didn’t know it yet. She was trying to court sympathy for the victim, but she was doing it too early. The girl’s evidence would have been better coming first. Nikki Blundell puts Volchek in an argument with the victim a day before he’s murdered. Nikki didn’t hear the argument. She just saw the scuffle. So the jury will ask themselves, what was this argument all about? Then Miriam calls Tony to explain it all. It creates a relationship with the jury. Let them put two and two together. Juries love that.
I looked around the courtroom and spotted Tony sauntering up to the witness stand. From the smug look on Tony’s face, I guessed why Miriam was calling him first. She must have realized Tony wasn’t going to cooperate, and Miriam had shifted into damage-limitation mode: Get off to a bad start now, get it over with, and finish strong.
Volchek watched Tony intently. He probably wondered what he’d bought with his four million dollars. He held the detonator in his hand. I could see it, inexpertly hidden in his palm. The real detonator remained safely with me.
Tony’s shiny silver suit was really something to behold. Paired with comfortable cream shoes, a jet-black silk shirt, and white tie—Tony looked like a low-rent pimp. The jury would be unlikely to give him their sympathy. Tony’s shoes sent loud, metallic clacks bouncing off the walls with every overconfident step.
He stood in the witness box and the clerk, Jean, approached him. Jean’s face took on a look of disgust when she saw him chewing gum. She held out a napkin in front of his mouth. Tony’s jaw worked noisily. Jean took the oath seriously, dead seriously. Helpfully, Tony spat the gum into the napkin.
“You can keep that, sweetheart,” he said.
He managed to read the oath on the card with one hand on the Bible and then sat down before the judge gave him permission to do so.
“Mr. Geraldo,” Miriam began, “would you please explain to the jury your relationship with the victim in this case, Mario Geraldo.”
Silence.
“Mr. Geraldo?” asked Miriam.
No response. Tony just sat there. The jury seemed to lean forward.
I kept my head down. I could feel Miriam’s eyes boring into me like twin lasers.
“Mr. Geraldo, please state your date of birth for the record,” she said.
I couldn’t help but hang my head even lower as I heard the reply: the prearranged response that I’d written for Tony in Jimmy’s restaurant, the response that Tony had learned by heart.
“I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.”
The jury looked at Miriam. Then they looked at me. Miriam shifted her weight onto one hip, her mouth slightly ajar. She appeared hurt and ready to deal out a reprisal the size of Hiroshima. A jury can always tell when something goes wrong, and when something goes this wrong, it’s as plain as watching a subway car derail right in front of you and just as messy.
“May I remind you, Mr. Geraldo, that you’ve signed an immunity agreement with my office? If you breach that agreement by refusing to testify here today, you will go to jail.”
Tony said nothing. In fact, he made a mistake. He started to smile.
Miriam’s face flushed, and momentarily she became lost for words. She was about to say something when she caught her tongue just in time. The judge helped her out.
“Ms. Sullivan, you may wish to make an application to treat this witness as hostile, but before you do so, may I suggest we take five minutes for you to consider that course of action?”
And with that, Judge Pike left the courtroom.
I stood up and sat on the edge of the defense table, my arms crossed, awaiting the inevitable tirade from Miriam. I didn’t have to wait long.
“You bastard, Eddie. Are you even aware of what you’re doing? Interfering with a state’s witness? Are you crazy?”
“No. I’m his lawyer. I happen to represent Tony Geraldo in relation to those drug charges. All I can say is that I got very recent instructions.”
“How recent?”
“I spoke to him this morning.”
“Well, I hope he fires you and gets a better lawyer, because he’s going down for possession with intent to supply, trafficking, distributing, and whatever else I can think up. You know the way this works just as well as I do; it’s a two-way street, Eddie—no evidence, no deal. Why don’t you tell him that?”
“Whoa, hang on. Can I see his agreement?”
Miriam looked as if I’d just propositioned her. Before she could bite my head off, one of her clerks put a copy of the agreement into my hand. I knew the agreement by heart. It was the state’s standard immunity deal, and in the right lawyer’s hands, it could develop holes. Lots of real big holes.
“This is your standard immunity agreement. It states that in exchange for giving evidence at this trial, my client will not face any charges. It does not detail what evidence he has to give. Nor should it. Coaching a witness will get you disbarred,” I said.
At the phrase “coaching,” her eyes widened. Lawyers can prep witnesses for trial but what is absolutely off-limits is agreeing to precisely what answers the witness will give in evidence. The evidence can’t come from the lawyer.
“You think
I’m
coaching a witness? Where did he get that little Fifth Amendment sound bite from, Eddie? Did you tell him to say that? And you’re going to lecture me about coaching a witness? He won’t get away with this, and you won’t either.”
“He will. You know he will. No judge will allow anyone in the United States to stand trial because they exercised a constitutional right. The right against self-incrimination is fundamental and inalienable. It doesn’t matter that he may be breaching a contract by exercising that constitutional right. The Constitution supersedes all agreements or subordinate legislation. And I wouldn’t call him as a hostile witness if I were you. He won’t say a thing, and it will only damage your case further. The jury will think you’re scrambling for scraps of evidence because your case is so weak. Just move on. You got played by the Mafia. So what? It happens to the best of us. Call your next witness, Miriam.”
You don’t get to be in Miriam’s position without being smart, tough, and ruthless. She knew Tony Geraldo was a lost cause, but she wasn’t going to let me off easy.
“What was all that about yesterday? You talking about a bomb?” she said, folding her arms.
“Your jury consultant is a lowlife. Either he made it up, or he misread me or took whatever I said out of context. You can’t rely on him. Why’d you hire a guy like Arnold, anyway? I always thought you played it straight.”
“I didn’t know he lip-read juries. I just knew he got results. He’s like you, Eddie. You don’t care how you get your result. You just want to win. I think you did talk about a bomb. Not a real one. An imaginary one. I think you were playing for a mistrial.”
“Bullshit. I’m just doing my job.”
Miriam grabbed my arm as I turned to leave.
“You’re the lowlife, Eddie. That’s your job, representing scum like that,” she said, nodding to Tony.
The last of the jury filed out of court, and Tony stood up in the witness box.
“Hey, lady, don’t be talkin’ about me like I’m some kind of criminal. I’m a good Catholic,” he said.
Miriam gave Tony one of her vicious looks.
“Leave it, Tony. Don’t get on your high horse about this. After all, you are a criminal. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in this mess. What does the Bible say about that?” I said.
Tony grabbed the Bible and sprang out of the witness box. The security guards rushed forward, but I held up a hand and shook my head at them, letting them know it was all right. Tony thrust the Bible into my arms and said, “
You
should read the good book once in a while, Mr. Flynn. You might learn somethin’.”
Tony resumed his seat, and I returned to the defense table and put the Bible down in front of me. Just as we’d arranged in Jimmy’s earlier that day, Tony was giving me a little religion. Volchek seemed amused at Tony’s outburst. I sighed heavily and remained standing, angled to my left so my back was to Volchek. Opening the case files, I removed the medical examiner’s report on Mario from the file and placed it on top of the Bible with both hands. With the Bible shielded from view by the document, my right little finger dipped beneath it and flicked through the good book until I found something lodged between the pages. I slid it out with two fingers and sandwiched it in between the front cover of the Bible and the last page of the medical examiner’s report. When I’d lifted the report, I’d made sure to put my fingers beneath it, so I could lift the envelope. I put the report, with envelope hidden beneath it, on the table and handed the Bible back to the clerk.
It was called a beggar’s lift. The absolute perfectionists of the art mostly lived in Barcelona, the hustlers’ capital of the world. I’d seen the lift done myself in that great city when Christine and I had traveled there with Amy for a few days’ vacation. We sat outside a café, enjoying the sun, and I’d noticed a homeless guy wandering around with a laminated card around the same size as a magazine. He approached the middle-aged British couple at the table next to us. The husband was being a real dick to his wife, telling her she looked fat in her summer dress. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, really. The homeless guy placed the laminated card on the table and left it there while he clasped his hands in prayer and said, “Please read. Please read. I have no English.” The British guy read the card. No doubt it was an elaborate sob story about the guy’s family, and at the very end it would ask the reader to give the man bearing the card some money. The British guy read the card, then waved him away and said, “No, no, no. Get out of here, you dirty little man.” The dirty little man then thanked the British guy and lifted his laminated card off the table and used the card to hide the lift. Along with the card, the hustler took the Brit’s cell phone and wallet from the table, having placed the card deliberately on top of those items in the first place to disguise the move.
