A Case of Redemption (6 page)

“How bad will it be?” she asked.

“If the Macy case is any guide, reporters won't be going through our garbage or investigating whether you smoked pot in junior high school, but we'll probably have a paparazzo or two in front of the building from time to time, mainly on days we're due in court. The truth is, they get better pictures in front of the courthouse, so that's where they usually stake out. We'll also get a lot of requests for interviews. On the Macy case, any time any idiot had something to say about Darrius, they'd call me looking for comment.”

She looked a bit concerned. “You okay with that?” I asked.

“Yup. I didn't even smoke pot in junior high school,” she said with a sudden change of expression.

“Okay, because you looked a little worried for a second.”

She laughed. “Oh no, I was thinking about something else.”

“Care to share?”

“When I draft the notice of appearance, I'll need to identify our little law firm's name, and I was wondering whether it should be Sorensen and Harrington or Harrington and Sorensen.”

I laughed with her. “I take it, then, that you've rejected out of hand the Law Offices of Daniel L. Sorensen or Daniel L. Sorensen and Associates?”

She looked crestfallen, apparently taking my effort at humor seriously. “I'm joking, Nina. Whatever name you want.”

“Okay, because I was joking a little bit, too. I realize I'm being a bit presumptuous to assume that you're going to put my name next to yours, given that the client wanted you and I really have very little clue what I'm doing unless all of a sudden the DA's office dumps a bazillion emails on us.”

“No, we're partners, Nina. I'll likely do the lion's share of the stand-up trial work because I'm more experienced, but you'll see how quickly you'll pick things up, and I'm going to rely on you almost exclusively for the legal arguments. Besides, our client may have asked for me, but he
loves
you.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I'm going to go with Sorensen and Harrington,” she said, “in deference to your age and experience.”

“That's very generous of you.”

“I try.”

While Nina worked on the notice of appearance in the breakfast room, I took my coffee out to the dining room and put a call in to Marcus Jackson. Protocol was that prior counsel should hear he's being replaced, rather than get an email notification from the court system.

The woman who answered the phone at Jackson's eponymous law firm told me that Jackson would not be able to return my call for a few days, as he was engaged in “several serious matters” that required his immediate attention.

“Does he have voice mail?” I asked.

“I'm it.”

“Okay, my name is Dan Sorensen. Please explain to Mr. Jackson that I'm sorry to leave this in a message, but if he's really not going to be able to return my call for several . . . days, I guess I have no choice. I've met with Legally Dead—Nelson Patterson—and he wants to substitute us in for Mr. Jackson.”

I'm not sure what type of reaction I expected, but the loss of the firm's marquee client should have engendered some comment. All I got, however, was a very bored-sounding, “What is your number and could you spell your name, please.”

Next I called Matt Brooks's office at Capital Punishment Records. It was a rerun of my call with Jackson's office. Brooks's assistant told me that Brooks was out of town but would get back to me shortly. Like with Jackson, I wasn't going to hold my breath.

“Well, I'm done for the day,” I said when I came back into the breakfast room less than five minutes later. “I left messages for Jackson and Brooks. Want to bet which one calls back first? Or if either one ever bothers calling back?”

“So what do we do now?” Nina asked.

I paused for a moment, making a mental checklist of the things we'd need to represent Legally Dead. “Well . . . since we're flying under the radar for now, I don't want to call the prosecutor just yet. But we could start to think about lining up an expert. We'll need a forensic guy.”

“The only MEs I know are on television,” Nina said with a smile.

“I have a list somewhere of the guys we used at Taylor Beckett. Since you're a little more up to speed about our client and his music, why don't we divide things up like this—you call the potential MEs and line up some interviews, and I'll do some work on Google and find out what I can about Legally Dead?”

Less than a second after I typed “Legally Dead” into Google, over three million hits popped up. Even limiting it to “Legally Dead rapper” or “Legally Dead Roxanne” or “Legally Dead murderer” didn't significantly reduce the number.

I clicked on the first site listed and began to read.

The first thing I learned (aside from L.D.'s penchant for being photographed shirtless) was that he acquired his moniker when he was fifteen. A drug deal he was involved in went bad, and he ended up getting shot four times—once each in the neck and upper thigh and twice in the torso (above and below the rib cage). For a guy who seemingly never caught a break in his life—no father, mother dead of a drug overdose before he could walk, in and out of foster care—it was nothing short of a miracle that none of the bullets pierced anything vital. The story is that one of the paramedics at the scene pronounced him “legally dead,” which didn't make a lot of sense to me because it's a phrase with no medical significance, but when he survived, the nickname stuck.

From there I went to L.D.'s Wikipedia entry. A section labeled “Recordings” listed his one and only album as
First Kill All the Hos
. Lovely, I thought to myself. Another thing we'd have to deal with. The album “dropped” on October 30, less than a month before the murder, and had fifteen songs—“A-Rod” among them.

The full lyrics to “A-Rod” were printed. Three readings later, I still couldn't tell if it was about Roxanne or gangbangers or something else entirely. It was like a Rorschach test; the listener would interpret it according to preconceived prejudices—those who thought L.D. was guilty would immediately think it was about Roxanne; anyone who believed he was innocent could find a half-dozen alternate interpretations.

The entry about Roxanne's murder was the longest at five paragraphs, but the information it contained I'd already learned from Nina—the alleged pre-Thanksgiving breakup, which led to his allegedly being disinvited to Stocks, South Carolina, for Thanksgiving, which led to the alleged post-Thanksgiving confrontation upon Roxanne's return to New York, which led to L.D.'s allegedly grabbing the baseball bat Roxanne had been given for singing the national anthem at the World Series, and then allegedly beating her to death with it, before he allegedly got rid of the murder weapon.

I surfed through another ten or so websites, but found nothing new. Interestingly, none of the sites mentioned that L.D. had a daughter, which gave me some faith that not everything was publicly available in cyberspace.

When I reentered the living room, Nina was still on the phone, but smiling. She held up her index finger, telling me that she wouldn't be long.

“Okay,” she said into the phone. “I understand. And thank you. Good-bye.”

When she put down her cell, I said, “Does your smile mean we have an expert?”

“Sure do. The three names you gave me were all noes. One claimed to be too busy, and the other two said there was a conflict. But the last guy told me to call a guy named Marty”—she looked for her notepad—“Popofsky. He just left the ME's office.”

“And he's willing to consider coming aboard?”

“Better than that. He'll be here at four.”

A
s we waited for Popofsky to arrive, I got an unexpected call.

“Hold one moment, please,” a woman's voice replied after I said hello.

The next thing I heard was “This is Matt Brooks.”

My first thought was that I was being punk'd. That's how unlikely I found it that Matt Brooks would be returning my phone call.

“Thanks for calling, Mr. Brooks,” I said, somewhat tentatively. “I reached out to you because my partner and I are about to come in for Marcus Jackson as counsel of record for Legally Dead.”

“Let me stop you right there, Counselor. You need to call me Matt, okay?”

Brooks's voice was confident and encouraging. It was more than just a pleasant surprise. It was something of a shock, actually. Not only did I not expect him to return the call but I had imagined that if he did call back, he'd be hostile, considering that our client stood accused of murdering his label's biggest star.

“Of course,” I said.

“I've checked up on you a little bit, and I must say, L.D. is very lucky to have you in his corner. I know you did wonders for Darrius Macy.”

There was a time when someone knowing your professional accomplishments in a first phone call was disconcerting, like they'd run a background check on you, but now all it takes is plugging your name into a search engine, and voilà, instant biography. Anyway, I was reasonably sure I knew a lot more about Matt Brooks than he knew about me.

“I'm hoping I can help L.D. the same way,” I said. “He's an innocent man.”

It was the first time I'd said it out loud. The words flowed easily, as if I actually believed what I was saying, which made me wonder if, at least on some level, I did.

“So, what can I do to help you in your noble endeavor?”

“I'd like to meet with you, Mr . . . . Matt.”

He didn't hesitate. “Sure thing, Dan. Right now I'm in Atlantic City. My man Looming Large is performing at the Borgata tonight, and I got to represent, as they say. Unfortunately, I'm getting on a plane right after the show, and I'm not going to be back in the country until after the New Year.”

No wonder he called me back. I had little doubt that when I called him after the New Year, he'd string me along for a few more weeks before finally telling me that, upon further reflection, it was bad PR for him to help out L.D.'s defense. No hard feelings, right?

“Can we fix a definite date to meet upon your return?” I asked, awaiting some excuse about how much was up in the air or whatever he came up with.

But he surprised me. “Why put it off, Dan? Can you come down here tonight?”

I looked at my watch. I'd need an hour, maybe two, with Popofsky, and figured the drive to Atlantic City would be about three hours.

“I've got a meeting starting in about ten minutes,” I said, “but we could drive down right after that. Depending on traffic, I think we could be there by nine.”

He laughed. “Traffic?” and then laughed again. “You know that line in
Back to the Future
?”

“What?” I said, although I understood him.

“At the end of the movie
Back to the Future
, Michael J. Fox? The inventor guy says, ‘Roads? Where we're going, we don't need any roads'?”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said.

“Well, you go down to the heliport on Wall Street. My Sikorsky will be there. Takes less than an hour.”

He didn't expand on what his Sikorsky was, but I figured it was a helicopter, seeing that we were meeting him at the heliport.

“Okay. Thank you. I'm also going to be bringing my partner, Nina Harrington.”

“The more, the merrier. Looking forward to meeting the both of you. Come find me at the poker tables.”

•   •   •

Marty Popofsky was at my door exactly at four.

An expert willing to come over upon request was always a good sign, because it meant he didn't have a lot of other things to fill up his day. The more hungry for paying work, the more likely the expert will give you the opinion you want, because he knows that if he doesn't, you'll find someone else who will.

As soon as I opened the door, however, I realized that no matter what came out of Marty Popofsky's mouth, we had some work to do before he'd be ready for prime time. He was wearing a New York Mets baseball cap and a suit that looked like it had been slept in. When he took off the hat, he revealed a comb-over that he smoothed into place with his hands.

“Thanks for making time to meet us on such short notice,” I said, extending my hand.

“My pleasure,” Popofsky said. “I figured, no time like the present, right?”

At least his voice was good, deep and confident. How an expert sounds makes up a lot for how he looks. The initial impression of his appearance lasts a second, but then the jury hears what he has to say for hours.

The meeting was more like a first date than anything else, just getting to know each other. I told him the basic facts of the case that had appeared in the press, none of which he seemed too familiar with. I chuckled at the thought that he'd be our ideal juror—the
last man on earth who did not have preconceived prejudices about the case.

“We're looking for a full-service guy,” I said, “to give us an opinion on cause of death, analysis of blood spatter, the whole nine yards. The prosecution's theory is that the murder weapon is the baseball bat Roxanne had in her bedroom, but the police never found it. So we'll also need you to analyze splinters, if there are any.”

“If they haven't found the bat, why do they think it's the murder weapon?” Popofsky asked.

“Because of the song,” Nina said.

From the blank look on Popofsky's face I could tell that he had no idea what she was talking about. Nina pulled out her iPhone. A few touches later, the pounding beat of L.D.'s music was blaring, and then his staccato rhyming began.

Gonna stop you when you sing,

gonna give it til you scream;

don't like what you said,

gonna go A-Rod on your head.

Popofsky didn't even blanch. It was as if he didn't fully understand what the words meant, and then it occurred to me that he just might not.