Dead Man's Thoughts

by Carolyn Wheat

  I didn’t feel much like talking to anyone at work. I nodded to the secretaries and stepped into my office. Working quickly, before anyone could come in, I threw the day’s case files into my Channel Thirteen tote bag, where the precious transcript already lay. On my way out, I told Ramona, my secretary, where I’d be and tossed my AP4 cases in the traffic cop box.

  Kings County Supreme Court is a huge slab of a building with tiny windows that look like shifty, close-set eyes. Inside it hasn’t got a lot more character—marble walls the color of used chewing gum, an imitation tile floor so dirty the original color is a mystery, and overall a bureaucratic impersonality Albert Speer would have been proud of.

  I took the elevator to nine, sidestepping the airport-style security system and going straight into the hallway.

  On the side of the hall, away from the courtroom there are windows, each with a little recessed window seat, where defendants sit and wait for their lawyers, and lawyers discuss pleas with their clients. As Lenny Bruce said, the only justice is in the halls.

  I checked into Part C, telling the clerk what case I was there on, and sat in the first row. I took the transcript out of my bag and started to read the direct examination of Charlie Blackwell.

  Parma was good on direct—clean and crisp. Straight to the point, yet anticipating what he expected Riordan to ask on cross. Like the way he had Charlie explain his past criminal record—no hedging, no denying his guilt. If Riordan went after Charlie for being a skell, he’d be beating a dead horse. Same thing with Charlie’s previous appearances as a People’s witness. Charlie was open. Charlie was frank. Charlie admitted he’d made deals in the past, deals that had insured his freedom when all around him were losing theirs. Again, all Riordan could expect to get on cross was a rehash of that seeming frankness. Parma was leaving no chink in Charlie’s already thin armor.

  When the direct was over and Riordan stood to cross, I could almost see a smile of satisfaction on Parma’s sharp, handsome face. Where could Riordan go that Parma hadn’t planned for, hadn’t planted little land mines for Riordan to trip over?

  Nowhere, it seemed. At first. Riordan did what Parma expected. He hit on Charlie’s record. He emphasized Charlie’s reputation for selling out his grandmother to catch himself a break. Just what Parma had planned for.

  Until the flying saucers. They came flying in all right, straight out of left field. I was laughing silently as I read, visualizing Parma’s stricken face as he took in this unexpected development.

  Parma peppered the record with objections. They were all out of line, and finally the judge admonished him, but they were designed to give Charlie time to think. The trouble was that Charlie didn’t want time to think. He seemed eager to confide in Riordan, like an author pushing his book with a helpful talk-show host. He was more than happy to tell the world, through Riordan, all about his close encounter of the third kind. In detail. Wacky detail.

  As it went on, my sick, defense-oriented sense of humor began to subside. I felt sorry for Del Parma. His case was falling apart, and I for one couldn’t see what the hell he could do about it. And because of Riordan’s curve ball, Burton Stone, who had single-handedly bought and sold large portions of the city I loved, would go free. To continue to traffic in people’s lives.

  Riordan closed his cross with a couple of questions about Charlie’s 730 examinations. The questions were interesting for what they didn’t say. They were brief and perfunctory, as though it was only the fact of Charlie’s having been examined at all that Riordan wanted to bring out. The implication was clear. If the examinations had mentioned flying saucers, Riordan would have used them for all they were worth. Since he didn’t, they didn’t. In other words, although Charlie had been examined by six shrinks at various stages in his career, now was the first time he had ever mentioned space travel. Very interesting.

  The question was, what could Parma do about it? If he used the 730s to show that Charlie’s science fantasy was a recent development, he still risked emphasizing Blackwell’s general looniness. If he didn’t, the jury would get the impression, fostered by Riordan, that the reports backed up Charlie’s unreliability.

  I was so absorbed that when my case was finally called, I felt as though I’d been rudely interrupted. I wanted to ask the judge, as I’d asked my mother so many times when I was a kid, if I couldn’t finish the chapter first.

  My client was brought out and sentenced to one-and-one-half-to-four. On a Rob Two reduced from Rob One. First offense, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Not when there’s a gun.

  The kid seemed to accept it. He slouched into the pens without a backward glance. His mother was a different story. She kept wanting to know why her baby couldn’t have gotten probation. I explained as best I could about AFOs, armed felony offenses, which involve mandatory jail sentences, but she didn’t want to understand.

  Finally it came out. This kid was her baby, all right, the youngest of her four boys. All the others had records; two were in the can right now. All had gotten probation the first time out. Why couldn’t Robert get the same?

  I explained it one more time, gently, I hope, then walked away. What could you say to a woman who had watched four sons, one by one, eaten up by the street?

  Then I packed my file and headed for 120 Schermerhorn Street and Part D, the drug part. Jorge Ruiz’s hour had come.

  I sat Jorge and his girlfriend Alma on the bench outside the courtroom. Alma, thank God, spoke English. I ran through the case again, telling Jorge that he was charged with selling methadone to an undercover cop, that the D.A. had plenty of evidence to back up the charge, and that if he went to trial, he’d probably go to jail. In fact, when Jorge shook his head and blandly repeated, for the hundredth time, “No culpable,” I went further. I told him I saw no way for him to win the case. It was true. Never had Jorge given me the slightest hint of a defense. No culpable was all well and good, but it wasn’t good enough. Not for a jury.

  I brought out the heavy guns. I explained in great detail that selling methadone was a C felony, carrying a penalty of up to fifteen years. That got to Jorge. He laughed. He couldn’t believe that selling your clinic-given methadone for an easy ten bucks wasn’t a God-given right, protected by the Constitution. Or at least a minor offense, like spitting in the subway.

  Finally, Jorge agreed to talk. Boiled down, the story was exactly what the D.A. had said it would be. Jorge was approached by a dude looking to score; he pulled a bottle of methadone out of his sock, gave it to the dude in return for ten bills, and then got the shock of his life when the dude flashed a badge and arrested him.

  I looked at Alma. She looked at me. Being about ten times swifter than her boyfriend, in Spanish or English, she saw the point immediately. What was there in his story to support a plea of no culpable?

  Finally, it came out. Jorge wasn’t guilty because the stuff he’d pulled out of his sock wasn’t methadone. It was orange juice.

  We ran through the events of the sale again. Then again. This time I asked Jorge how he knew the stuff was orange juice. The answer was a classic. “Chico told me.” Who was Chico? The wholesaler who’d sold him the stuff for resale.

  As usual, Alma caught on before Jorge did. She jumped off the bench, let out a tirade in Spanish, stamped her foot and walked away. I looked at Jorge. He looked back at me and shrugged. Until Alma came back, sign language was all we had.

  She was back a minute later, red-faced but composed. “This Chico,” I began. She started swearing again.

  I cut her off. “He’s your friendly neighborhood dealer, I suppose.”

  She nodded. “That pig, he sell to the kids from the school. No good son of a bitch.”

  “And everybody knows it.” She nodded again. “Including Jorge.” He might as well not have been in the room.

  Again she answered for him. “I tell him to stay away from that bum. He’s no good.”

  “So if Jorge believed this guy when he said the stuff was orange juice, he’d have to
be an idiot.”

  Alma bristled, then nodded. “Tell Jorge that,” I urged. “Tell him the only way the jury’s going to buy that he really thought the stuff was harmless is if they think he’s stupid. Tell him I don’t think he’s dumb” (sometimes you have to lie) “and I don’t think a jury will either. If he goes to trial with that story, he’s dead. Tell him.”

  I sat back and waited. At this point, the ball was in Alma’s court. She understood what was happening, if Jorge didn’t. She wanted him home, not doing time, when their baby came. So it was up to her to convince him he really was culpable and that he should accept probation.

  Finally, she turned to me and nodded. Jorge would take the plea. We were both exhausted. Now all I had to do was get him probation.

  I’d just gotten back into the transcript when the case was called. I horse traded while we waited for an official interpreter. I got what I wanted, everyone agreeing Jorge wasn’t such a bad guy as to deserve jail. Jorge took the plea. He answered all the questions the right way, admitting he’d knowingly sold methadone to an undercover cop, and we set a date for sentencing.

  Just as we were stepping out of the bridge, Jorge changed his mind. I could see it coming. The look of cunning as he used his dim brain to figure a way to beat the system, the tensing up as he prepared to throw caution to the wind, the stubborn look of a man determined to do things his own way no matter what the consequences.

  The next thing I knew, Jorge was on the record. In English. Not very good English, to be sure, but good enough to be understood. “You Honor. You Honor. Please listen to me. I no wanna plea guilty. My lawyer, she talk me into it, tell me I gotta plea guilty. But I no guilty. I never sell no methadone, You Honor, I swear to God.”

  Judge Borkman gave me the long, disgusted look of a man who has just spent forty minutes negotiating and allocuting a guilty plea only to see it go down the toilet. I shrugged at him, trying to show it wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t help. “Plea withdrawn. Date for trial,” he said in a tired voice.

  I asked to be relieved. I’d done what I could for Jorge. If he honestly thought I was there to sell him out, I didn’t see how I could be any use to him. Borkman, still angry, agreed, and I wrote LAR on the file. Legal Aid Relieved. In more ways than one.

  I scooped up my things and swept out of the room, hoping to avoid further contact with either Jorge or Alma. Before I got out the door, I felt someone grab my arm. It was Deke Fischer.

  “I saw what happened,” he said.

  “That stupid turkey,” I replied. “Do you want to know what that bimbo intends to use for a defense?”

  “The guy does seem a bit of a hump,” Deke sympathized.

  “Understatement of the year.”

  “On the other hand.…”

  “On the other hand what?” My voice was cold.

  “On the other hand, you jumped off the case pretty fast. Couldn’t you have asked for a second call and talked it over with the guy? He just got cold feet, that’s all.”

  “Cold feet, my ass!” I hissed. “The guy’s jerking me around, and you’re talking cold feet. What he’s got is a lot of gall. But not nearly as much as you’ve got, standing here and telling me how to do my job.”

  “You’re just jealous because I was named supervisor instead of your precious Nathan,” Deke said hotly. “Everybody thought he was such hot shit, didn’t they? Well, I’ll bet even you don’t think so after you’ve talked to Milt.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said with venom, then wheeled away from him. Part of me wondered what the hell he meant by his last remark, since Milt Jacobs was head of Brooklyn Legal Aid, but I brushed it away. Just Deke’s jealousy, I told myself.

  Bill Pomerantz crept up beside me. “Deke on your tail?” he asked blandly.

  “Deke’s such an asshole,” I sighed.

  “No argument. But what burned me was what he said about Nathan. He’s got a lot of nerve.”

  “Let’s not talk about him.” It was easier said than done; I was still trembling with anger as we approached the elevators.

  “Where are you going?” Bill asked, pushing the “up” button.

  “AP4. You?”

  “Tenth floor. The arson trial. Fire marshal should be on.” My pulse quickened. “That’s Riordan’s trial?”

  He nodded. “Can’t wait to see him on cross.”

  “Maybe I’ll go with you. AP4 can wait.” I stepped into the elevator with Bill. But I had no desire to see Riordan’s cross-examination technique. I intended to practice my own. On Riordan.

  FIFTEEN

  You had to be frisked before you could get into the courtroom. That was a standard feature of Riordan’s trials. His clients were the type that invited martyrs.

  The courtroom was packed. Bill and I barely squeezed into the last row. I recognized quite a few lawyers in the audience, not all of them from Legal Aid. Plus every court buff in the five boroughs.

  Court buffs are a weird bunch. They’re a little like soap opera fans, except that the soap they follow is real-life trials. They like the drama of it. Of course, they only attend the juiciest parts of the juiciest trials, so they get more drama than is really there. At least I’ve never seen them at the run-of-the-mill Rob Ones or drug sales that make up the bulk of the trial calendar. Still, they do see the best trial lawyers. They compare notes on their respective skills and techniques, like drama critics comparing Hamlets. Evidently Riordan was a favorite. I could see knowing nods and smiles as he questioned a gray-haired, red-faced fire marshal whose men had apparently failed to dot enough i’s and cross enough t’s to meet Riordan’s standards.

  I didn’t much care about the substance of the case, so I shushed Bill when he tried to explain it to me. It was Riordan I was interested in. His personality. His integrity, or lack of it. Was he just a hired gun, who’d do anything for a client within the somewhat hazy bounds of the Canons of Ethics, or was he an employee of the mob, who’d do whatever he was told? Right now, of course, he was behaving like a lawyer, methodically taking the hapless fire marshal apart like a jeweler stripping a watch. He picked up each tiny fact with the calipers of his precise questioning, holding it up to the jury, watching the light play on it as he dangled it this way and that, letting the jury see it from every angle. Then he carefully set it down and picked up the next minuscule fact to be similarly examined and displayed.

  Whole books have been written about the art of cross-examination. The basic idea is to score points for your side off the other side’s witness—who, if your opponent knows what he’s doing, has been carefully prepared to block your efforts. Trying a case is like a bridge game. You’ve got a certain number of tricks you’re bound to lose no matter how well you play. Other tricks are sure tricks for you, unless you’re a total idiot. The ones in the middle—the ones that could go either way—are what the game’s all about. Cross is where you take those tricks. Or lose them.

  From what I could see, Riordan was taking every trick that could conceivably have been taken—plus a few that should have gone to the D.A. A fire marshal, after all, is the keystone of an arson case. He’s an expert in his field, a professional witness, and he should be able to hold his own with even a skilled cross-examiner. But Riordan was taking tricks off this guy with deuces, pushing the fire marshal closer and closer to admitting his men had made significant mistakes in the handling of their investigation. Either Riordan was really good, or this guy was really bad.

  It went on for another half-hour. When Riordan finished, the D.A. stood tip for redirect, much to the marshal’s obvious dismay. But the judge too had had enough. He called lunch recess fifteen minutes early.

  I waited in the back of the courtroom for Riordan, as the crowds milled around. I got rid of Bill with the lie that I had to see the judge about another case. Finally Riordan slung his Burberry over his arm, picked up his Gucci briefcase, and stepped toward the rear doors. I stepped in front of him. “Mr. Riordan, could I talk to you for a minute?”

 
He smiled. He was even better looking up close. Glossy black hair, startling blue eyes, a pink face with laugh lines around the eyes and mouth. “Sure, Miss.…”

  “Jameson. Cassandra Jameson. I’m with Legal Aid here in Brooklyn.”

  “And you’re following this trial?”

  It was a natural assumption. What else would I be doing there? But there was a hint of being nice to a groupie about it that turned me off. “Not this trial, Mr. Riordan. It’s the Burton Stone trial I’m interested in.”

  Riordan’s smile broadened. In a crack cross-examiner, trained to show a jury triumph when he’d really suffered defeat, that meant he was either rattled or annoyed. I pressed my advantage. “Maybe you’ve been too busy to keep up with the news, but Charlie Blackwell was found dead in his cell last week.”

  The smile faded. He said softly, “And what’s your interest in all this, Miss Jameson?”

  I lied. “Blackwell was my client. He told me a little about the Stone case. I wonder whether he was killed by people who didn’t want him to tell Del Parma about it.”

  “So you’re doing what, Miss Jameson? Conducting your own investigation?” I nodded. “Let me give you some advice.” He had recovered his poise; the blue eyes were amused. “Leave it to the cops. I’m sure you’ve always wanted to play Nancy Drew, but don’t start with Blackwell. You could be getting involved with some very dangerous people.” He opened the courtroom door. “And now if you’ll excuse me, Miss Jameson.…”

  He was gone. I was furious. Nancy Drew, my ass!

  On the way out, I saw something disturbing. On a bench outside the courtroom, the D.A. sat with the fire marshal. I could just overhear the D.A. whispering earnestly, “But Mr. Boyce, you were so sure about your facts in the office. What happened?”

  It was a good question. Had the same thing happened to him that had happened to Blackwell six years ago? And when Riordan warned me about dangerous people, was he talking about himself?