The Judge

by Steve Martini

  Her moves that night had more purpose than idle inquisitiveness. There was a reason why she went there. If I had to guess, it was something in the kitchen. I was with her every moment of the time, except for the short span when she was out of my view in Hall’s kitchen.

  “You put me in a difficult position,” she says.

  “Another conflict?” I ask.

  “Of a sort.”

  “Would it help if I guessed?”

  She gives me a face, like she might tell if I come close. Then again she might not.

  “It had to do with Tony, didn’t it?”

  Her face is without expression, but the shift of her eyes gives her away.

  “Was he seeing her?” It is not a far call, given the fact that having once set his eyes on Hall, Tony would likely go into rutting, like some oversexed Chihuahua.

  Harry has struck out with Hall’s neighbor, the one who saw her with the shiner. The woman never saw the man who did it. But Tony Arguillo is rapidly becoming a candidate, someone who in a fit of machismo might be likely to punch Hall’s lights out.

  “Let me guess. He left something behind?”

  Lenore doesn’t answer.

  “You will tell me if I get warm, won’t you?” I say.

  I put one hand to my head like the Great Karnak, and venture a guess. “A used condom into which the Great Tony spilled the better part of himself?”

  She laughs and turns her nose up at the thought.

  “I will try again.” I muse for a brief instant.

  “A mighty jockstrap encrusted with sequins and a gold zipper to encase the family scepter?”

  She begins to giggle, gallows humor as a sedative in an otherwise unbearable situation.

  “Guess again, O Great One,” she says.

  “An isometric exerciser for Tony’s alter ego, the flagging Willard?” I say.

  “Who the hell is Willard?” she asks.

  “The one-eyed monster in the turtleneck sweater,” I tell her.

  With this she breaks out in open laughter. “Nothing so lurid,” she tells me.

  “Then what?” Karnak suddenly goes serious.

  A deep sigh from Lenore. Fun and games are over. It is time to own up, and she knows it.

  “They were supposed to have a date that night,” she says. “Tony and Hall. Obviously she was killed and her body was found before he could keep it.”

  “That’s what he told you,” I say.

  “Listen, Paul, he didn’t kill her.”

  “Is that an article of faith?” I ask her.

  “I know him. He couldn’t do that.”

  “That’s what I thought. So what was it that he left there?”

  “He didn’t leave anything.”

  Still, she went there for a reason.

  “You have to promise you won’t use it.” She means in Acosta’s defense.

  “I can’t make that promise and you know it.”

  “Listen,” she says. “I believe him. He didn’t have anything to do with her murder.”

  “Try me?” I say.

  A face of exasperation from Lenore. “That night,” she says. “When we went to meet him where they found the body. In the alley. Tony and I had a moment alone.”

  “I remember.” It was in that fleeting instant when she walked away from me toward Arguillo. They talked briefly and I could not hear.

  “He told me about their date. Said that Brittany would have made a note somewhere. Apparently she had a penchant for notes. She didn’t trust her memory.”

  “She didn’t seem to have any trouble recalling all the picky little details of her conversation with the Coconut in that hotel room,” I say.

  “She also had a flair for creative genius,” says Lenore. “I didn’t believe any of it when I heard her story. I think that’s the problem Kline has. He knows her story was full of holes. If they’d have taken Acosta to trial based on her testimony alone, and if he had competent counsel, the judge would have stuffed the case in the prosecution’s ear. They had no case.”

  “But they would have prosecuted Acosta just the same?”

  She makes a face like she’s not sure. She tells me there was no consensus in the office, that the only one pushing for a trial was Kline, and Hall herself, who saw her credibility as being questioned.

  “She thought that if the D.A. didn’t believe her in such an important case, that it would hurt her chances of landing a job on the force after she finished school. She was angry that people were questioning her honesty.”

  “Maybe they had good reason,” I say. “She was running with a crowd most of whom were strangers to the truth. That can be contagious.”

  “You think they used her to set up Acosta?” she asks. “You’re thinking Lano?”

  I give her an expression like it’s a possibility.

  “That would be my guess,” she says.

  “Anyway, you went to the apartment,” I say. “What were you looking for?”

  “A little yellow Post-it note. Tony told me that Hall had a habit of pasting them on her calendar so she wouldn’t forget things.”

  “And you found it?”

  She nods. “With Tony’s name and phone number, and the time: seven P.M. It was stuck to the calendar for the day of the murder. It’s when I saw the appointment for the meeting with Acosta written on the calendar. The Post-it note was pasted over it.”

  “Run that by me,” I say.

  “I found the note for Tony’s date.”

  “No. No. Not that. Where you found it?”

  “Pasted over the notes written on the calendar.”

  She still doesn’t get it.

  “Acosta’s meeting,” I say.

  And then it dawns. “Oh, shit,” she says.

  “Could it have meant that the meeting with Acosta was canceled?” I say.

  “I don’t think so,” she says. At least Lenore is hoping that she has not destroyed such evidence.

  “Not the way it was pasted on there,” she says. “It was more like an addition, as if Hall ran out of room on the calendar.”

  “But you don’t know that?”

  Lenore grasps the significance. If the notation had been left for the cops, it was something that we might have argued. Without intending to, she has single-handedly affected evidence in the case to the detriment of our client.

  “There was nothing sinister in it,” she says. “Tony just didn’t want the other cops to see the note. He was embarrassed.”

  “Yeah. You can imagine the embarrassment, particularly if he doesn’t have an alibi.”

  “You aren’t going to use this?” she says.

  I give her a noncommittal look.

  “You said. . .”

  “I said nothing. I said that we both have a commitment to represent a client who is accused of murder.”

  “If I have to, I will testify that I took the note off the calendar. That it was pasted right over the notation with Acosta’s name. That it was clear that this meeting was canceled. But I will not name Tony. He didn’t do it.”

  “What is it with this guy?” I say.

  “I just don’t think he had anything to do with it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “You know as well as I do that if I put you on the stand nobody is going to believe you anyway. They’ll see it as a concocted story. Kline would paint it as perjured testimony to the jury. A last desperate attempt to save a guilty client.”

  “With a gleam in his eye,” she says. “Besides, I didn’t save the note,” she tells me.

  I make a face, like that cuts it.

  “Who tore the pages out of Hall’s little book? The phone numbers?” I say. “The letter A, maybe Tony’s number?”


  “I don’t have a clue,” she says. “All I know is what Tony told me, and what was on that note.”

  Without a breath, she says: “How do we make it right? What should I do?”

  It is a conundrum.

  “For the time being, you take a low profile.”

  “Disappear?” she says.

  “Nothing so drastic. Just make yourself scarce for a while.”

  “Leaving you to pick up the mess,” she says.

  “That can’t be helped. I will talk to Acosta. If he wants a continuance, I think Radovich would give it to him.”

  “And if Kline subpoenas me to testify?”

  “We will resist it.”

  “And if we fail?”

  “Breaking and entering is still a crime,” I tell her. “You take the Fifth. Tell them nothing—on advice of legal counsel.” I wink at her.

  She smiles at this. “Let me guess,” she says. She points to me.

  “I couldn’t represent you,” I say. “That would be a conflict of interest. I will find someone else to give you this advice.”

  Harry wants out of the case. He is telling me that I should pull the rip cord and join him. Defending Acosta is not Harry’s idea of justice on high.

  Still, he is frenetically pushing paper in the case. His principal task at this point, which has become a labor of love, is subpoenaing records, including books of account from Lano’s union, and poking around in the police property room for information on the handgun used to kill Zack Wiley.

  Harry is a master in the plunder of private papers using legal process. He says we should be able to hear Lano’s howl in our office without benefit of a telephone once he gets service. With these steps we have begun to tip our hand as to the direction our defense will take.

  This morning I travel alone to the county jail to talk to Acosta.

  When I get there Lili is talking with her husband. It seems they are both expecting me. With Lenore’s departure from the case, we are now at a crossroads.

  Acosta looks weary. The monotony of the early stages of any trial is like a narcotic, even when the consequences can be death. His face is drawn, eyes sunken. He has lost a dozen pounds since his arrest, though he says he maintains a little muscle tone working out in the jail gym on the days we get out early from court. He says it is not so hard. It is, after all, a routine.

  As for Lili, her life seems shattered. She puts on a brave face, a solid rock at his side, at least psychically, from her side of the thick glass. But you know that in her private moments she lives the agony of uncertainty, trying to figure out what she will do with her life if she loses her husband. As difficult as it is for me to imagine, Armando Acosta is the sun around which she orbits.

  After twenty years of professional enmity, I have in the last weeks come to see Acosta in a different light—the broken man, what humility does to ennoble the human spirit.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I am here,” Lili says. “We don’t get much time to talk anymore.”

  Radovich’s court is dark this morning. He has taken the day off, I think to give us a chance to regroup after the shattering blow to Lenore. The last item of business yesterday, after swearing the jury, was a contentious argument with the media.

  Radovich will not allow television cameras to film the trial. He has seen what this does in terms of squandered time.

  “Human egos,” he told them, “tend to inflate like balloons at high altitude whenever they find their way in front of a lens.”

  To add insult to injury he has imposed a gag order on the lawyers and their agents, the investigators and police, as well as all witnesses on our lists. This has shut down a growth industry for the media.

  When the broadcast lawyers stormed the bench armed with First Amendment rights, Radovich told them he didn’t see anything in there about film at five or, worse, live cameras. He told them to sharpen their pencils, and he’d find a place for them in the front row.

  While I have no brief one way or the other for air time, there is a dynamic to television that tends to favor the defense, particularly with an elected prosecutor like Kline. In the glitz of television lights, our man is likely to throw out the manual of orderly prosecution. As a result, the state has a burgeoning record of botched high-profile cases, dead-bang winners that have been lost, or juries hung because a D.A. couldn’t keep his eye on the ball, or started chasing media curves pitched by the defense. There are witnesses who will make up any story and stand in line to perjure themselves for their fifteen minutes of fame. And there are judges who will permit this. It is the dawning of the age of stupidity.

  “How is Ms. Goya taking it?” says Acosta. “Her removal?”

  “She’s angry. Mostly at herself,” I say. “It was a foolish thing.”

  “I did not catch the time frame,” he says, “but I assume that she was not with the D.A.’s office when she made this little sojourn?” He means the trip to Hall’s apartment the night of the murder.

  “It was right after she departed the office,” I say.

  “So there may be questions as to whether she abused authority,” he says. “Impersonation?”

  “Let’s not give Kline any ideas,” I tell him.

  “Absolutely not,” he says. “But tell me, why did she go there?”

  He has a right to know this, but I tell him it is something we must discuss in private, once Lili has left. We talk about where we stand, the consequences of Lenore’s removal. Acosta does not seem shaken.

  “It could have been worse,” he says. “It could have happened after the jury was sworn and she had bonded with them. It would have been a fatal loss at that point.”

  He may have wielded a meat cleaver from the bench, but he has a deft perception of the trial process.

  “As it is,” he says, “you will have the opportunity to step up and fill, before any real damage is done.”

  “That raises the first question,” I say. “Where do we go from here?”

  “We go on,” he says.

  “Radovich would give you a continuance,” I say, “if you wish to find other counsel.”

  “You’re leaving us?” says Lili.

  “What is this?” says Acosta. “The rats all leaving the sinking ship? You’re not up to the defense?” he asks me.

  “Lenore was lead counsel,” I tell him. “It was her case.”

  “And you bought in,” he says. He reminds me of my pitch for hard cash, the stiff fees I quoted in our first meeting.

  “We have taken a mortgage on the house,” says Lili.

  “I will resist any attempt on your part to withdraw,” says Acosta.

  “We have known each other a long time,” I tell him. “Not all of it pleasant. I thought perhaps you would be more comfortable with other counsel.”

  “We’re not marrying each other,” he says. “We’re fighting off a murder charge. It is what you call a dogfight,” he says. “And it is true, that we have had our differences.”

  He gives me an expression, something wrinkled and wise, with an air of the old world to it.

  “I suppose I was not always easy to get on with,” he says. Acosta is a master of understatement.

  “And if you want to know the truth,” he says. “I have for many years considered you a son of a bitch.”

  “Armando!” Lili has one hand to her mouth, a horrified expression.

  “In fact, I would rate you as the biggest son of a bitch in the courthouse,” he says. “But if you are smart, that is what you want when you’re engaged in a dogfight. And right now what is important,” he says, “is that you are my son of a bitch. I bought you, and if you don’t mind, I would like to keep you.”

  It is a sobering moment. I know that he could make it difficult for me if I try to withdraw. Radovich would have sympat
hy for a defendant striving to retain counsel on the eve of trial. And yet this is not the reason that I remain. There are a universe of reasons why I could condemn this man: his short temper, his bias from the bench which is legend, his hypocrisy toward others who have found themselves where he is now—all are bases upon which I could easily and without question burn this devil—but not for a sin he did not commit.

  “So where are you?” he says.

  “If you want me, I will remain.”

  “And Mr. Hinds?” he says. “I know you work well together.”

  “I can’t speak for Harry. But I think he will do it.”

  “Good,” he says.

  With this resolved, Lili leaves us to talk business, and I explain Lenore’s purpose at Hall’s apartment that night. Acosta listens intently, picks up every point of nuance.

  “How well does she know Tony Arguillo?” he asks. Acosta wants to know if I mean in the carnal way.

  “They are friends. Nothing more. From childhood,” I add.

  This brings a satisfied nod. I think he was concerned that Lenore might whisper in his ear at night.

  “You think it was more than a one-night stand, as they say, with Hall?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could ask Ms. Goya.”

  “She doesn’t believe that Tony had anything to do with the murder.”

  “Well, she doesn’t think I did it. She doesn’t think he did it. Who does she think did do it?”

  What Acosta is telling me is that it is late in the game, and Tony’s would be a convenient face to put on the killer. Especially if we don’t have to prove it.

  “Some evidence, a mild suggestion to the jury,” he says, “would go a long way.”

  “They wouldn’t believe it coming from Lenore,” I tell him. “She is too easy for the prosecutor to attack.”

  “That is true.” He sees the problem.

  I tell him that the note from the calendar is gone.

  “That is too bad. We could have put Arguillo on the stand and questioned him with the note.”

  “We’d have to lay a foundation,” I tell him. Minor matters. “Establish where the note was found.” We’re back to Lenore.

  He shakes his head. No help there. Still he is troubled by the fact that Tony sent Lenore on this mission to retrieve the note.