by Paul Levine
Twenty-nine
NEVER TRUST THE SUITS
“I’m sorry I was late, kiddo,” Steve said.
“Wouldn’t have made any difference,” Bobby sulked.
“Steve could have given you some tips,” Victoria said.
“I’d still suck.”
Victoria ran a hand through the boy’s squashed hair, which bore the imprint of his ball cap. “Steve says you have potential. Something about your arm.”
“A live arm.” Steve made a throwing motion. “All you need is some confidence and a little practice.”
Bobby picked up his root beer and sucked at the straw. He was deep into self-pity mode. They were sitting at an outdoor table at the Red Fish Grill in Matheson Hammock Park. The night was warm, but a breeze from the Bay cooled them. Across the water, they could see the lights of Key Biscayne. Some of those lights lined the dock at Cetacean Park, but from this distance, you couldn’t really make out the place.
Bobby looked toward the darkness of the bay. “I don’t wanna talk about baseball, okay?”
“How about the case, then?” Steve asked. “You really helped me today, kiddo.”
“You’re patronizing me, Uncle Steve.”
“I mean it. You helped me prove that Hardcastle kidnapped Spunky and Misty.”
“Prove it?” Victoria tried not to sound skeptical as she sipped at her Pinot Noir.
“Think about it,” Steve said. “Hardcastle needed the world’s smartest dolphins for its Marine Mammal program. That was the motive for the raid.”
“I don’t want to diss your case,” she said, “but Hardcastle’s a New York Stock Exchange company. A four-billion-dollar company. A company in the public eye.”
“You ever hear of Enron? Never trust the suits, Vic.”
“You’re a suit.”
“I wear a suit. There’s a difference.”
“Still not buying it,” she said. “All you’ve got is a theory, not proof.”
“Really? Bobby, how long does it take to train dolphins?”
“Four or five years to get to Spunky and Misty’s level.” Bobby dipped a piece of his broiled mahimahi into a spicy tartar sauce.
“Don’t you see, Vic? Hardcastle wins a contract to provide trained dolphins to the military to guard the ports. But they don’t have five years to do it. The clock’s ticking. Fort Lauderdale. Long Beach. New York. Every port authority wants to be protected yesterday. They also want the sexiest, newest item in the defense arsenal, dolphins with cameras and transmitters, and for all we know, dart guns and iPods.”
Victoria sipped at her wine, shook her head. “I still can’t see a giant company taking a risk like that.”
“Forget that Hardcastle’s a billion-dollar conglomerate. It’s made of divisions and departments. Somewhere there’s a guy running the dolphin program, and he reports to a numbers cruncher who reports to a hard-ass who reports to the guy who runs all their defense subsidiaries. If the dolphin guy can’t produce, there’s no year-end bonus. There’s bad publicity. If it’s bad enough, 60 Minutes comes knocking on your door. There are congressional investigations. Cries of boondoggles and pork-barrel politics. Taxpayer money down the drain. Hardcastle loses bigger contracts just because they couldn’t supply dolphins who can do the job.”
Victoria thought it over a moment. In the nearby saltwater pond, a pair of yellow-crowned herons poked their beaks in the shallows for crabs. “Let’s say you’re right and Hardcastle doesn’t have time to train its own dolphins. Why not just buy them?”
“Mr. Grisby loves Spunky and Misty,” Bobby said. “He’d never sell them.”
“Even if Grisby wanted to, he couldn’t do it,” Steve said. “Think of the uproar. One day, Spunky and Misty are nuzzling kids with muscular dystrophy. The next day, they’re packing explosives. I don’t think so.”
A waiter came to their table with offers of key lime pie and tres leches cake. Bobby went for the pie. Victoria ordered cinnamon apple tea, and Steve stood pat.
“If Hardcastle’s as corrupt as you say, what’s a retired naval officer like Sanders doing mixed up with them?” Victoria asked.
“I figure he was a legitimate hire, the perfect guy to run the dolphin-training program. Then Hardcastle tells Sanders he has twelve months to produce, and he says it can’t be done. They say make it happen. Again, he says it’s impossible. Finally, they put someone else in charge, two guys from their security division, or whatever they call their department of dirty pool.”
“The men in the Lincoln,” Victoria said.
“They tell Sanders they’ve got a shortcut. Steal trained dolphins. But they need cover. It’s got to look like the Animal Liberation Movement is behind it.”
“So Sanders dupes Nash? That’s your theory?”
“A perfect plan. Sanders and his buddies can hit several attractions around the country and blame the animal nuts. This was the first raid, and it blew up in their faces.”
Victoria sipped her tea.
Steve waited.
In the saltwater pool, a long-necked white ibis with a curved beak joined the herons in their search for dinner.
Victoria sipped some more, then said, “I think you may be right.”
“Yes! I knew it. I knew you’d respond to logic and reason. You always do.”
“Your client was clueless, wasn’t he?”
“Yep. Nash figured they were setting the dolphins free. He’d have shit a brick if he knew they were turning the animals into warriors.”
“Not that it would matter if Nash knew.” Victoria put down the teacup and patted her lips dry. “It’s irrelevant that his accomplices were committing a different crime. Regardless of their motive or his, Nash committed a felony, Steve. Grand larceny. In the course of that felony, Sanders was killed. So even if you prove to the jury everything you just said, you still have no defense. Your client is still guilty.”
SOLOMON’S LAWS
9. Be confident, but not cocky. Smile, but don’t snicker. And no matter how desperate your case, never let the jurors see your fear.
Thirty
SPEECHLESS
Steve sat at the defense table, slumped and frowning, in blatant disregard of his rules of courtroom behavior. He’d taught Victoria that a trial lawyer should always project confidence.
“It’s your courtroom. Not the judge’s. Not the jury’s. Not the snoring bailiff’s. Let everybody know you’re in charge.”
Victoria delivered her opening statement with competence and ease. Clearly she’d learned her lessons.
Steve had a blank yellow pad on the table in front of him, his client Gerald Nash beside him. Victoria was doing just what Steve expected. No frills, no riffs, no fancy footwork. Just solid, likeable lawyering. She started by reading the indictment. Prosecutors often do that. The formal language tends to convey to the jury that Zeus himself had leveled the charges.
“The Grand Jurors of the State of Florida, duly called, impaneled and sworn to inquire and true presentment make…”
Steve briefly considered an old trick.
“It’s just a piece of paper, folks.”
Then he would tear the indictment in half. But Victoria would be ready for the stunt. She’d seen him do it before.
“I’m going to give you a preview of the evidence,” Victoria told the jury. “But before I do, there’s one image I want you to see.”
She picked up a poster board and positioned it in front of the jury. A head shot of Sanders in his dress whites. Handsome. Rugged. Still alive.
Nice move, Vic.
He’d always told her to humanize her clients. Now, while the State of Florida was technically her client, she wanted the jurors to connect with the late Chuck Sanders.
“This is Lieutenant Commander Charles Sanders,” Victoria said. “He grew up in a small town in South Carolina and worked summers as a lifeguard. He earned a swimming scholarship to Vanderbilt and enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps because he wanted to serve his co
untry. In the U.S. Navy, he survived the most rigorous training known to the military, and he became a Navy SEAL. A decorated war hero in Desert Storm, he…”
Steve tuned her out and watched the jurors. All twelve were transfixed. Victoria was a natural. Poise and presence. You didn’t have to hear her words. Just look at her in her double-breasted jacket and matching skirt that fell just below the knees. Brown pinstripes, wide lapels. Gucci or Prada or Fendi. One of the Italian designers; he couldn’t tell them apart. Victoria looked great whatever she wore. Smart and stylish and sexy.
At that moment, Steve was aware of two conflicting feelings. Despair at the knowledge that he would lose the case, and a reservoir of warmth, an ocean of love, for the woman who was going to defeat him.
“Now Charles Sanders is dead,” Victoria continued. “Killed as a direct result of a crime committed by the defendant, Gerald Nash.”
She pointed toward the defense table, her pin-striped arm steady, her lacquered nails glistening.
The jury turned toward Nash, who winced and squirmed in his chair. In his ill-fitting suit with its lumpily knotted tie, he couldn’t look more guilty if he’d been foaming at the mouth and howling at the moon.
Victoria smoothly moved on to a discussion of the elements of the crime, describing exactly how Nash’s actions fit every one.
Steve drifted off again. Victoria had been right the day before when she said he had no defense. Sure, he may have solved a mystery. He knew what Sanders was doing and who he worked for, but so what? Steve had spent so much time tracking down loose ends, he hadn’t done the scut work of defending his client. Now he needed to do something he’d never done before in a criminal trial. When the judge turned to him, Steve would politely decline to give his opening statement. He would wait until after the state rested its case, then belatedly concoct something to say.
This strategy—or lack of strategy—violated yet another one of his rules, based on the psychological concept of “primacy.” People are more receptive to information at the beginning of an event than in the middle or at the end. Sure, some lawyers believe in “recency,” that people remember best what they hear last. But Steve always told Victoria to get off to a quick start.
“A flurry of punches, knock ’em out in the first round.”
But here he was, reserving opening statement until after he heard the state’s evidence, because he had no winning strategy.
Speechless.
He scanned the gallery. Marvin the Mavin and Teresa Toraño sat in the front row, holding hands. They nodded with approval as Victoria crisply explained the difference between peaceful protests protected by the First Amendment and trespasses and larceny, which are crimes.
“She’s good,” Nash whispered, sounding alarmed.
Of course she is, Steve thought, I taught her everything. No, that wasn’t true. A person isn’t a dolphin. You don’t blow a whistle and hold up a mackerel to teach a person how to try a case. They either have the innate talent or they don’t.
Some people can throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour and knick a slice of airspace sixty feet, six inches away.
Some people can recite eighty-verse limericks from memory without blowing a line.
And some people can tell a story that will move a dozen strangers to either condemn or exonerate another human being.
While Steve mulled over these thoughts, Victoria began wrapping up, warmly thanking these good folks for leaving their jobs and families to come downtown and help do justice. The good folks beamed back at her, mighty proud to be of service.
The courtroom door opened and a woman took a seat in the last row. Mid-twenties, maybe. Difficult to tell her age because she wore wraparound sunglasses and a little white tennis jacket with a high collar turned up. Maybe it was the sunglasses. Maybe it was the style of her upswept blond hair. Or maybe it was the courtroom setting. Whatever the reason, Steve thought of Lee Remick in the classic movie Anatomy of a Murder. A woman of mystery and dubious credibility.
His client followed his gaze and seemed to squint. “Huh,” Nash said.
“Huh, what?”
“For a second, that woman looked like passion.”
It took Steve a second to realize Nash meant “Passion” with a capital “P.” Passion Conner. His girlfriend and accomplice, who’d hung him out to dry.
“But it’s not her,” Nash said.
Steve tried to get a better look at the newcomer. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Passion’s not a blonde.”
“You ever hear of beauty salons?”
Steve stood and took a step toward the gate that led to the gallery. The woman looked up at him, her body stiffening.
Steve moved through the gate and headed for her.
“Mr. Solomon!” Judge Gridley called out.
Steve ignored him. The woman bounded to her feet. She moved toward the door.
The judge hit his steam whistle. Spectators jerked up in their seats.
The woman pushed through the door to the corridor.
“Mr. Solomon! Ms. Lord hasn’t finished her opening. You don’t jump off a moving train—”
“Sorry, Judge. But nature calls.”
“Now?”
“Those cafeteria burritos, Your Honor.” He was out the door before the judge could reply.
In the corridor, Steve wheeled left, then right. Caught a glimpse as the woman turned a corner at the escalators. Six flights down to the lobby. He could beat her there by taking the stairwell.
He ran to the stairwell door, nearly knocking over two young lawyers in spiffy suits, sniffing the halls of Justice for fresh business. Steve took the steps two at a time, vaulting over the bannister to cut corners at each landing.
The floors flew by.
He burst through the door into the lobby.
The usual suspects. Cops. Corrections officers. Clerks. Public defenders, prosecutors. Spectators and witnesses and downtown lawyers. Milling about, buzzing like bees in a hive.
Steve waited at the bottom of the escalator. No blonde in a tennis jacket, with or without sunglasses. Maybe she got off the escalator on one of the higher floors, then switched to the elevator. Steve hurried to the elevator bank. A dozen people poured out of two cars. She wasn’t among them.
Damn.
No use standing here. He had to do something. And he had to get back to the courtroom before Judge Gridley held him in contempt.
Steve took the down escalator up, catching stares from the security guards and glares from the people he passed, going the wrong way. From lobby to second floor, then second floor to third.
And there it was.
A blond wig sticking out of a trash can. A white tennis jacket jammed underneath.
“Mr. Solomon.”
A man’s sleepy voice.
Elwood Reed, in his baggy bailiff’s uniform. Reaching into his pocket.
Oh, shit. Am I gonna be handcuffed?
“Judge thought you might need these,” Reed said, handing Steve a small bottle of pills.
Steve peered at the label. “Equilactin?”
“Judge says it’ll help form solid stools.”
“Well, he oughta know,” Steve allowed.
Thirty-one
CLUELESS
“You’re sure the woman was Nash’s ex-girlfriend?” Victoria asked.
“Why else would she run from me like that?” Steve answered.
“She could be your ex-girlfriend.”
“She never calls Nash, then shows up at the trial. Now, why would she do that?”
“What does Nash say?”
“No idea. He’s still heartbroken she ran out on him in the first place.”
They were sitting in the backyard of their home on Kumquat Avenue, Victoria sipping Chardonnay, Steve knocking back a Morimoto Ale. Friday night. On Monday morning, Victoria would put Wade Grisby on the witness stand, and Steve had nothing to poke holes in his story. A bleak thought occurred to him.
Maybe Grisby’s telli
ng the truth. Maybe he was only defending himself when he gunned down Sanders.
There was nothing to tie Grisby to Hardcastle. There was no evidence Grisby had ever encountered Sanders before the raid. Without some link, without some motive for Grisby to kill Sanders, Steve had nothing.
Zilch. Bupkes. Gornisht.
Guilty as charged.
“I’ve never felt so clueless in a trial,” he said.
“Are you gaming me?”
He shook his head. “You’re going to beat me. But that’s not what’s bothering me. I’m letting Nash down. He’s just a naive kid who deserves better.”
She heard it in his voice. He was wounded.
“You’ve got lots of clues,” she said. “You just don’t know where they lead.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
She didn’t answer, just took another sip of the wine.
“Because if you know something about Passion Conner,” he pressed her, “under the discovery rules, you better tell me.”
“You don’t have to remind me about my ethical duties. And I don’t know anything about Passion Conner, except I’m glad my parents weren’t as creative when it came time for the baby naming.”
“She could be connected to Sanders,” Steve said. “They both sought out Gerald Nash. When Sanders suggested they hit Cetacean Park, Passion cheered him on. When Nash tried to call her, she’d already canceled her cell phone. The backstory she gave him, Marine Biology degree from Rosenstiel, was phony. No one with that name ever attended the school. And crewing on a tuna boat, getting radicalized in the animal rights movement. No way to disprove it, but I doubt it’s true.”
Victoria tried nudging him in another direction. “If you’re at a dead end with her, why not focus on Sanders?”
“I already know who he was—an ex–Navy SEAL who went to work for Hardcastle.”
“With a stop in between at an insurance company.”
Steve laughed. “Yeah. His cover story. Nash told me.”