The Judge (48 page)

"Do we understand each other?" "Oh, yeah. Sure."

"Two or three," he says. "Depending on how you count." Radovich looks as if he wants to reach out and hit him with the gavel.

"Your witness," I say.

"Saved by the bell," says the judge. A few jurors laugh at this. Kline rips in like a shark with blood in the water.

"Isn't it customary to take photographs when examining indented writing? " he says.

"Some people do," says Franks. "I don't."

"Come now," says Kline. "Isn't it a fact that in order to read such impressions, photographs are necessary?"

"I can read them without it," says the witness.

"And I'll bet you speak in tongues, too," says Kline. "Objection."

"Stick to questions," says Radovich.

"So all we have is your word that these impressions existed? There's no hard physical evidence that you can show to the jury, is there?"

"No."

"How convenient," says Kline.

"Is that a question?" says Radovich.

"Sure," says Kline. He decides to get cute. "Isn't it a fact that you found this, the absence of photographs, convenient?"

"In what way?" says Franks.

"Because if you were forced to produce photographs we could examine them. The jury could see them. Without them you can say whatever you want and there's no way to question what you say. Isn't that so?"

"There was a reason there were no photographs, but that's not it," says Franks.

In front of the jury it is like a dare, a test of his manhood. Kline has no choice but to ask why. He does. "Photographs would have been inadmissible," says the witness. "You said it yourself. The content of that writing in a photograph would have been hearsay." Kline stands in front of the jury box, hoist with his own petard.

"Well, the judge could have looked at them, behind closed doors." Kline says this lamely, knowing that he's just had his butt flamed. He retreats for cover, changing the topic to the glue.

"How can you be sure that what you saw on that calendar was glue from a stick-on note?"

"It's what it looked like when I did comparisons."

"Are you sure you didn't sniff this glue?" Franks actually says, "No," before he realizes that this is a dig by Kline.

"I have no more use for this witness," says Kline. He musters all the contempt possible in a human body and dismisses the witness with a gesture, the back of his hand.

It is the best he can do, given the anger that is welling up within him at this moment. His rage would be stratospheric if he only knew the truth. The impressions attested to by Jerry Franks are mythic. The content of the note, what we have agreed he would testify to if it came to that, would read, Tony A. 7:30.

It is short and crisp, a cryptic reconstruction by Lenore of what was on the paper that night, the best she can remember months after the fact.

You're out of your mind. Crazy," says Harry. "Gonna lose your ticket. And the judge ain't worth it." Harry's talking about Acosta. We square off in the corridor outside the cafeteria during a break, where I have finally told Harry the truth about Franks's testimony.

"This is not like you," he says.

The fact that this could offend Harry's sense of ethics for a moment has me wondering about my own moral center of gravity. Then I realize it's not that I have done something wrong that bothers Harry, but that I might get caught.

It's a gamble of some proportions, but not as great as Harry thinks. I have not shared some of the things I know, and others that I now suspect, with my partner.

"What are you gonna do next?" he says. "Call the next witness."

"No, I mean for a living, after you get disbarred." I look at him and he is not laughing.

We push through the crowd in the corridor outside the courtroom, the end of our morning break. A news crew, cameraman, sound tech, and a reporter on the fringes are the first to see us. The reporter jockeys for an angle to herd us into one of the side corridors.

"Can we have just a minute for an interview?" Harry and I are trying to pick up the pace to get away.

"No time now," I tell him.

"The D.A. is saying that he's going to subject the calendar to his own testing. Do you have any comment?" Lights in my eyes.

"We will expect him to share his results," I say. "You're not concerned about this?"

"Why should I be? I know what was on that calendar." At least part of this is the truth.

"Whose name was on the note?" By now there are more cameras, enough lights to film a movie, a growing throng so that they block our way.

"Follow the trial," I tell them, "and you'll find out. All will be revealed," I say, giving them a deliberate sound bite so that several of them turn in front of their own cameras, to put a twist on it for a closer: "There you have it ..." Out of the crowd comes a hand on my arm from behind. When I turn it is Phil Mendel.

"Cute. Very cute," he says.

The last thing I want is an argument here in front of the cameras with
Mendel.

"Now if you could tell me when you're gonna call me?" He is almost polite in his inquiry.

"When I get around to it," I tell him.

Mendel has been cooling his heels in the outer corridor for two days now, under subpoena. I have told him he could be called at any moment.

Tony is standing behind him over his shoulder, two bumps on the same log.

Mendel waves a small paper envelope in front of my eyes, florid drawings in bright colors, a commercial jet superimposed over an exotic beach somewhere, a female bottom in a bikini poking over the wing tip, all the fantasies conjured by commercial art.

"Tickets to fly," says Mendel, "bags packed and downstairs. I'm outta here tomorrow night. Five o'clock flight."

"We all have our problems." I push by him and he grabs my arm one more time.

"Five o'clock," he says. "You can call me next and get it over with." He is serious. Mendel thinks I will actually structure the order of my evidence to accommodate his vacation plans.

"If you like I can get an order from the court to have the marshal hold you." I remind him that as a peace officer he is an attache of the court and cannot leave until they are finished with him. "My ass," he says.

"It will be if you try to leave." Several of the cameras are now back on, capturing these last words for posterity.

"Excuse me." I push through, Harry behind me. "Are you a witness?" One of them asks Mendel.

"Only because of the harassment and abuse of the defense. Figments of their imaginations. They are calling witnesses that have nothing to do with the case as a smoke screen." The reporters are eating this up.

He has an outstretched arm pointed in my direction as I walk away.

"The defense in this case is grounded on the defamation of upstanding law enforcement officers," he tells them. "People who risk their lives for public safety every day," he says. "They are willing to do anything to win." Lights are suddenly on my back, accusations I can do nothing about and would rather not hear. Mendel's impromptu news conference.

I hear my name taken in vain one more time as Harry lets the courtroom door close behind us. The war of media spin is beginning to leave tractor marks on my face.

Inside, the audience is milling, standing room only. I look at my watch and we are late. Kline is not at his table, nor is Stobel. Acosta is at ours, backed by a guard. I send Harry forward to chaperon. Something is up--it is in the air. One of the bailiffs approaches.

"They want you back in chambers," he says.

I make my way down the corridor past the bench, wondering what intrigue of procedure Kline is up to now. My best guess, he is renewing his motion to reopen his case to call Lenore, some new evidence he claims to have discovered.

"They have been waiting for you inside." It is a stern look I get from Radovich's clerk when I show my face that is the first indication I may be wrong.

The minute I am through the judge's door, I can feel that the air is heavy with a charge of electricity.

Radovich is behind his desk, brows knit and heavy, like images of God from the vaulted ceiling of some Renaissance chapel. Kline barely looks at me, and Stobel turns away.

"Mr. Madriani. I'm glad you could make it," says the judge. This is clearly his party, and it has me worried.

"I'm sorry I'm late." I offer some feeble excuse about cameras in the corridor.

"Never mind that," says Radovich. "There have been some serious charges made. During the break Mr. Kline had one of his experts examine that calendar." All of a sudden there is a knot in my stomach the dimensions of a good-sized boulder.

"We are concerned," says Radovich, "that they could not find any evidence of indented writing." I actually slammer in trying to speak, something Kline seems to enjoy, if a smile is an indication.

"How thorough could they have been in the time that they had?" I finally say.

"That could be it," says the judge. "But I thought it was only fair to tell you that the people are making an inquiry in this matter."

"Something for their case in rebuttal?" I say.

"That's not what we have in mind," says Kline. "I'm not worried about your witness. I suspect the jury can see through that for them selves.

But suborning perjury is a more serious matter. Especially for an officer of the court." Kline's anger has laid quick roots.

"You'd better hope you can back that up," I tell him. I take a step forward, in his face, as I say this. The best defense ... "For your sake I hope that he cannot," says Radovich.

There are a million reasons, I tell the judge, why impressions of writing may be transitory. If heavy items were laid on top of the calendar in the evidence lockup, or if it was folded or rolled, what was there when we examined it months ago might now be obliterated.

"I am told that a scanning electron microscope can detect impressions if they were there," says Kline. "We will find out."

"Enough said," says Radovich. "We have a trial to finish," he says.

Up from behind his desk, he does not give me a warm look as we exit his chambers, though he is careful not to linger behind to show favoritism with Kline or Stobel. If nothing else, my antics with Franks as a witness, I suspect, have now lost me the trust of this judge.

The first thing I notice about Tony Arguillo as he takes the stand is that the swagger is still in his walk. He knows that the note taken by Lenore that night has long since been destroyed. No doubt by now Kline has found some way to inform him that the impression evidence, if it exists, has its limitations. The contents that could point to Tony are hearsay and inadmissible. He has the appearance of the bullet-proof man as he sits in the chair and looks at me.

"Can you tell us what you do for a living?" I say.

"Police officer. Sergeant," he says.

"You were one of the officers present in the alley the night the body of the victim was discovered?"

"That's right."

"Did you know her, the victim?" Tony looks at me. He would no doubt deny this if he thought he could. Still, we have already established by other witnesses that Hall was a police groupie, with a long association with Vice and its members.

"We were acquainted," he finally says. "Professionally or socially?"

"Professionally." He is not willing to cross this line. "Did you ever go to the victim's residence?" "Objection. Vague as to time," says Kline. "Sustained."

"Let's just talk about the time prior to her death. At any time before she was murdered had you ever had occasion to be inside the victim's residence?" Again Tony wants to consider this before he answers. It is the problem when you have no clue as to what the other side knows.

"It's possible I was there," he says. "I coulda been. As a cop you visit a lot of places. But I don't have a specific recollection."

"Is it possible that you were there more than once?" By now Tony must figure there is some fact feeding this question, perhaps a nosy neighbor who has seen him on more than one occasion.

"I don't know. Anything's possible."

"Indeed." I say this as I walk away from the podium and Tony, my face toward the jury, an expression that says, "Let's consider the possibilities."

"You don't have any specific recollection of such visits?" He thinks for a moment, wondering what I may know, considers the safest answer, then says, "No."