Shadow of Power Free with Bonus Material

by Steve Martini

  “Quiet!!!” Suddenly the booming voice of the sergeant at the back door again. “Everybody sit down.” The festivities out in the audience are over. As if somebody had pulled the plug in a game of musical chairs, there is a dash for seats. Within seconds the noise level drops.

  Herman comes back to the table. On the way by, he slaps out a quick if low rendition of the brothers’ handshake with Carl—crossed palms, cupped fingers, and a light slap.

  “Hey, man, you’re gettin’ better,” he says. Herman has been doing this ever since Carl’s first week in jail, after they broke the ice on information from the kid, leads that Herman had to run down with the leather of his shoes.

  As Diggs sits, Carl leans over. “I owe ya, man.”

  Herman shakes it off. “You owe me nothing.”

  “No. No. I mean it. You nailed that guy,” says Carl.

  “If I didn’t, the cops would have.”

  “Yeah, but you did it.”

  “Now let’s see if I can get outta bed in the morning, and after that I’ll have to see if I can move.” He laughs it off.

  I know that Herman is taking heat. He has received some ugly phone calls, wrong numbers to “Uncle Tom.” Some hip artist did graffiti on his car. I’ve told him that there is no dishonor in begging off on this case. It’s one thing for a lawyer to take on a controversial cause. If John Adams was right, even the devil deserves a defense. I’ve told him that there are other investigators who can step in. Herman would be busy full-time just doing the other cases in our office.

  To all of this Herman has said no. Part of this is the man’s nature. No one is going to tell him what case he can or cannot work. He is not a joiner of clubs—social, political, or otherwise. He is not afraid of anything that walks on two legs and could probably thrash most that walk on four. If you’re counting on group dynamics to change his mind, be advised that organized intimidation, whether racial or political, is much more likely to fuse his backbone into titanium than turn it to jelly.

  And there is one thing that I know about Herman, because he has told me. Herman Diggs is the progeny of slaves. If the laws of genetics hold true, they must have been proud people, because if they are any kin to Herman, their masters never broke them.

  I see a shadowed figure approach from the hallway leading to chambers. It’s Ruiz, the judge’s clerk. The show is about to begin.

  Ruiz comes out and stands near the foot of the bench, his shoulders back, his chest puffed out, and in almost a squeaky tone, what passes for the voice of authority from R2-D2, announces, “All rise. Superior Court for the State of California, County of San Diego, is now in session, the Honorable Plato Quinn presiding.”

  There is the hushed friction of cloth as it leaves every seat in the room, all on their feet. Quinn strides out, black robes flashing. He climbs the few steps to the bench and takes his seat. The high-backed leather throne swivels a little. He tries the gavel, and there is the shot-like clap of hard wood. “You may be seated.”

  Everybody in the room drops as if legs just gave out.

  The judge sits for a moment looking out at the courtroom, a death stare, his eye scanning the crowd, his expression one of paternal irritation. “Before we start,” he says, “I want to make a few things clear. Those of you in the audience, no matter what you might think or how strongly you might feel, you are not participants in this trial. You are here to watch and observe, and that is all. There will be no demonstrations or disturbances allowed in my courtroom. Any talking, clapping, booing, hand signals, written signs, or other gestures, any demonstration of emotion of any kind, and you will be removed. I don’t want to see any newspapers, books, magazines, or anything else being read in this courtroom while the trial is going on. If I do, you will be removed. If you want to read, go to the library. There will be no food or beverages anywhere in the courtroom, no candy or gum. If you want to stick gum under a chair, do it at home at your kitchen table, not here under my benches.”

  He goes through the routine about cell phones, cameras, and recorders not being allowed inside the courtroom. “If you have any one of these, give it up now or lose it.” He pauses a second. Nobody holds up a hand or steps forward. “If I hear a cell phone ring, you may as well hand it to the bailiff to answer, because that phone now belongs to the county.

  “Cause a problem in my courtroom and you will go to jail.” He gestures with his gavel toward the door at the lockup, which is now closed. “You will not pass go, and no one from the press will be allowed to talk to you so as to immortalize your message to the world. Do I make myself clear?”

  Some in the audience are probably wondering whether this includes having Herman pulverize them in the form of a human blocking sled before they get to go to jail.

  “If it becomes necessary, I will clear the courtroom. If this happens, no one will be allowed back into the audience. You can watch the trial on closed circuit downstairs. I will tell you right now that that room is tiny, the chairs are uncomfortable, and the bailiffs are just as uncompromising.”

  He continues directing his death gaze out at them for what seems an uncomfortable eternity, then settles back in his chair.

  “The clerk will call the case.”

  Ruiz reads from a single typed sheet in his hand. “People of the State of California versus Carl Everett Arnsberg. Case number…”

  We waive a formal reading of the charges, and then Quinn looks over at one of the bailiffs. “Bring in the jury.”

  From a door just off to the right and next to the jury box, they come out, two men, one of them middle-aged, wearing a suit and a stern expression, followed by a younger man in blue jeans and a slip-over shirt. Then three women file out, two of them African American, one dressed neatly in a pantsuit, the other in jeans and a brightly colored top. The third woman is older, wearing a black wool skirt and a matching top with a Chinese red cashmere scarf around her neck, one end tossed over her shoulder. She is sporting bright jewelry—large rings on three fingers of one hand and a gold bracelet on the wrist of the other. When she leaves at the end of the day, you’ll be able to find her by following the parade of felons attached to her jewelry after she passes the probation office downstairs.

  The procession into the jury box continues.

  We have dossiers on all of them, information down to whether they have nicknames and if so what they are, their jobs, income levels, the churches they attend if any, the number and names of their children and grandchildren. If it is possible to psychoanalyze them without shooting them up on drugs, we have done it, both sides, Tuchio with his state-paid consultant-cum-shrink and we with ours.

  Like any jury, this one is a microcosmic social cauldron, an economic, racial, and political melting pot with the burner turned off. Other than being voters or having a driver’s license—which is how they got pulled into the jury pool to begin with—and besides the fact that they breathe air and will bleed if cut, there is almost nothing that any of them have in common. They’re here for two reasons: because the witch doctors of jury consulting believe they possess some hoped-for bias that will help either one side or the other or because one of us, Tuchio or I, ran out of bullets in the form of peremptory challenges to blast them off the jury.

  They file into the jury box until it is full. The last six take chairs that have been set up just outside the railing to the box, directly in front of it. These are the alternates. For the time being, all of them are sleeping at home, comfortable in the thought that at least at night they can return to the real world and their families.

  As soon as the last one takes his seat, Quinn starts in.

  “Good morning!” He beams down at them from the bench—Mr. Happiness. Those in the audience have to be wondering if they’ve drawn Jekyll and Hyde as a judge and, if so, where he keeps his syringe.

  Plato Quinn may play God in his own court, but he has presided over enough trials to know that in a case like this there is one group he has to cater to, come hell or high water. He’s looking
at them now, flashing more teeth than the average alligator. He will feed them, worry about their bladders, give them regular breaks along with a steady diet of entertaining homilies from the bench, and if possible get them home early whenever he can.

  This is an expensive, high-stakes case. Quinn knows that if he ends up with an unhappy or rebellious jury, he can find himself staving off a mutiny as he bails to avoid a mistrial. When taxpayers fork over millions on a case that will be constantly on the airwaves, with updates every minute or so, the last thing anybody wants is a story with no ending. The political powers aren’t likely to forget who was at the helm if the trip has to be taken again and the case tried over.

  “I hope you all slept well last night.” He gets a few nodding heads, some half grins, and a broad smile from the woman decked out in her best going-to-court outfit, complete with rings and jangling jewelry.

  “We have a little work to do today, but it shouldn’t take too long. I’m hoping for a light day. I know it’s Friday, so I hope to get you out of here and on your way home before the rush hour.”

  This brings a lot of vigorous, happy nodding from the direction of the box.

  The judge shoots a look at Tuchio, whose opening statement is the principal order of business for the day, a little gentle stage direction from on high not to be too long-winded.

  “We’ll also get to know each other a bit better. I hope you’re all comfortable with the court staff.” Quinn introduces his clerk and the bailiff, whom they already know. What they don’t know is that if they are sequestered, he will become their personal jailer.

  “These people are here to make sure that your time on jury duty is as pleasant and comfortable as we can make it.” Quinn makes it sound like a party, cookies and milk over photographs of Scarborough, his head all bloodied by the claws of a hammer.

  Some of the jurors are looking around, taking their first gander out at the bleachers, where there is standing room only and a sea of serious faces, some of them still flushed by the threats from the judge. The jurors are probably realizing for the first time how important they are, the random hand of government having given them the power, like the emperor with his arm outstretched, closed fist with thumb protruding, suspended over the question of life and death.

  Quinn does a few more introductions. He starts on us.

  “You already know Mr. Tuchio, the district attorney.”

  The Tush gives them a big smile and waves from his chair.

  “And Ms. Harmen, who will be assisting him.”

  She nods and favors them with the pearly whites.

  “And of course counsel for the defense, Mr. Madriani.” The judge nods pleasantly toward me. “I see Mr. Hinds is not with us today.”

  “He couldn’t make it, Your Honor.” I could tell him that Harry has become the recycling king, buried under a pile of last-minute paper by Tuchio, but why bother?

  Quinn skips right over my client, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla, the reason we’re all here, and instead finds himself looking at Herman, whom he doesn’t know.

  I get up out of my chair, fingering the middle button on my suit coat, and give the jury my best college smile.

  I introduce Herman, who stands and half bows toward the jury. “And last but not least my client, Carl Arnsberg. Carl.” I gesture for him to stand.

  This catches Carl completely off guard. Nobody told him he was going to have to stand up and meet people. He becomes what he is, a kid stumbling over his feet trying to get up. When he finally makes it, he looks over at the jury and offers a kind of sheepish grin that slowly blossoms into a full smile. This becomes infectious when a few of the jurors begin to smile back.

  Tuchio is halfway out of his chair, worried, I suspect, that Arnsberg might try to say something, like, Please don’t kill me. I didn’t do it. This is matched by Quinn’s stark expression up on the bench, judge in the headlights.

  It is one of those moments when dumb luck plays a hand, surprise aided by awkward innocence and the ill-fitting suit that Herman picked off the rack giving Carl the image of a prairie schoolboy. All that’s missing is a stalk of hay dangling from his teeth.

  It’s a good thing none of the jurors have X-ray vision, or they’d be looking at the edgy artwork, swastikas, and other social commentary tattooed on his arms and upper body.

  Carl stands there grinning, casting an occasional shy downward glance. The judge finally pushes his heart back down into his chest and says, “Thank you, Mr. Madriani.”

  Under the glare from the bench, I put a hand on Carl’s shoulder, and we both quietly sit.

  Quinn is not happy having his dog and pony show with the jury hijacked. But on the scale of things at the moment it is not worth his wrath.

  When you’re defending, the one thing you don’t want sitting in the chair next to you at a murder trial is the invisible man, a silent, emotionless cipher of a client charged with crimes so vile that normal people have trouble imagining them.

  When I look over, Tuchio is hunched at his table, working over the notes for his opening statement, his pen whittling away. He has a kind of benign no-crime, no-foul grin on his face, though you can bet he is seething inside. If he wants to put Carl to death, he will have to burn out of their brains the image of the defendant standing in front of the jury, smiling at them with the homespun geniality of Will Rogers.

  “I’m going to give the jury a brief break. Ten-minute recess,” says Quinn. “I will see counsel in chambers.”

  TEN

  Ten minutes turns into an hour, a good part of which is spent with Quinn giving me more than a small slice of his mind. “If you want me to introduce your client to the jury, I’ll be more than happy to do so,” he tells me. “But under proper guidelines and with clear instructions to the defendant that under no circumstances is he to make any statement or say anything.”

  “He didn’t, Your Honor.”

  “Damn lucky for you,” he says. “And what’s this business with your investigator? Where the hell is Hinds?” He reminds me that Harry is assigned the penalty phase of the trial in the event that Arnsberg is convicted and the jury has to decide whether he gets life or death. “He’s supposed to be here.”

  “When the evidence comes in,” I tell him. “When the first witness is sworn, he’ll be here.”

  “I asked you where he was.”

  “You want to know where he is, ask Mr. Tuchio.”

  Quinn looks over at the prosecutor, who is lounging on the judge’s couch against the wall in the corner. “I don’t know where he is, Your Honor.”

  “He’s back at the office checking for roadside bombs tucked into the truckload of materials from the victim’s computers that your office delivered to us at eight o’clock this morning.”

  “Oh, that,” says Tuchio.

  At this, Quinn looks up from his desk, flustered. “Those were supposed to be delivered a week ago.”

  Tuchio’s turn to wiggle.

  “What about it?” says the judge.

  The Tush fishes the affidavit from his IT people out of his briefcase. “We sent the court a copy as soon as we got it,” he says.

  “What the hell is this?” Quinn gets his glasses on and starts reading. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “We didn’t know ourselves until the last minute,” says Tuchio.

  The judge tries to throw the paper. It seems to add to his frustration when it lands with all the force of a fallen leaf on the blotter in the middle of his desk.

  “Get Hinds over here,” he says.

  “When do we get to look at the materials?” I ask. “I know it’s a small point, but they may be central to our case.”

  “You think maybe Scarborough left a suicide note in his computer?” says Tuchio. “‘I’m angry with the world. I’m depressed. P.S.—I’m gonna beat my brains out with a hammer.’”

  “I want it on record”—I ignore him—“that this stuff came late. That the cops didn’t even see it before they charged.”

 
“You can look at it over the weekend,” says Quinn.

  The fact that the cops haven’t even had the time, let alone the inclination, to look at these leaves open the question whether there are e-mails with death threats strewn all over Scarborough’s hard drives. And God knows what else.

  “It’s a safe bet, given the subject matter of his writings, that there were probably regional chapters of ‘Hate Scarborough’ committees,” I tell them.

  “Yes, but did they all have their fingerprints on the hammer?” says Tuchio.

  “For all you know, there could have been a line forming outside that hotel room door with people paying quarters to take a whack at the back of his head,” I tell him.

  “Yes, and they all wiped their fingerprints off the hammer except your client.”

  “Enough,” says the judge. “You.” He points at me. “Call your partner. Get him on the phone and tell him to get over here now.”

  It takes Harry almost an hour in midmorning traffic to cross the bridge, drive downtown, park his car, and hoof it to the courthouse.

  Quinn is angry at my antics with Carl in front of the jury, so he takes it out on Harry. He lets us cool our heels while he sits in chambers as the clock edges toward the lunch hour, then sends Ruiz out to announce that his lordship has released the jury and gone to lunch. Court will reconvene at one-thirty.

  “Did you find anything?” I ask.

  Harry and I eat stale sandwiches out of wrappers from a deli around the corner. We are standing up at a counter listening to the strains of “We Shall Overcome” over the backdrop of the percussion section of the Nazi National Orchestra beating their hard hats against garbage-can covers they’ve turned into shields.