Open and Shut ac-1

by David Rosenfelt

  “I've got to take care of a hooker.”

  Philip asks me what the hell I am talking about, which forces me to stay there another five minutes as I explain about Wanda, Cal's daughter. But I finally get away so that I can drive to court to deal with Wanda's case. This seems like a particularly appropriate time to indulge my superstition, and I stop off at Cal's newsstand on the way. It is closed for the first time in my memory. I assume that Cal is going to be at court supporting his daughter.

  I arrive at the court and arrange to meet Wanda in an anteroom. When I walk in, she is sitting at a table. She's all of sixteen, with a face at least ten years older and sadder. The sight of her jolts me.

  There is one thing that virtually all of my clients bring to our first meetings … the look of fear. All but the most hardened criminals are genuinely afraid of the process they are about to go through, knowing full well that it can end with them being locked in a steel cage. Many of them feign a lack of concern, but if you look deep into their eyes, you can see the fear. In a weird way it's one of the things that I like about my job; if I do it well I take away the fear.

  That fear is not present in Wanda. Her eyes tell me that this is a piece of cake for her, that she's faced much worse. Her eyes scare the hell out of me.

  When I enter, Wanda looks at me as if a gnat had flown in through an open window.

  “Wanda?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My name's Andy Carpenter. I'm a friend of your father. He's hired me to represent you.”

  Wanda doesn't seem to consider this worthy of a reply. I clearly haven't charmed her yet.

  “Is he coming today?”

  “Who?” she asks.

  “Your father.”

  She laughs a short, humorless laugh, which unnerves me a little more. “No, I don't think so.” And then she laughs again.

  I explain to her that I am her attorney, and I detail the charges facing her. She takes it in with a minimum of reaction, as if she's heard it all many times before. I don't think Cal's daughter is a virgin.

  “Any questions so far?”

  “How long is this going to take?”

  “Not very long. An agreement has been reached already. You just have to show some contrition, and-”

  She interrupts me. “I've got to show some what? ”

  “Contrition. It means you have to say you're sorry. Just tell the judge you're sorry and you won't do it again.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Wanda, when you say it … mean it.”

  She nods an unconvincing nod. I tell her that we're fourth on the docket, and she should be called in about an hour. She frowns and looks at her watch, as if she has theater tickets and is in danger of missing the overture.

  I leave the room wondering how a father can be so blind as to not realize what his child has become. I feel sorry for Cal because getting Wanda out of this is not going to come close to turning her life around. And I feel sorry for Wanda, because she's never going to put on a corsage and go to the prom.

  The county is considerate enough to provide defense attorneys with small offices in the courthouse so that we can productively pass the time while waiting for the wheels of justice to ponderously come around to us. I head for the office assigned to me, which is on the third floor.

  When I get off the elevator, I run into Lynn Carmody, a court reporter for the Bergen Record. She tells me that she has been waiting for me, and asks if I've got some time to talk. I say that I do, since I've been planning to start speaking to the press about our side of the Willie Miller case anyway. I invite her into the office, stopping off at a vending machine to get some absolutely undrinkable coffee.

  I've never really had a problem with reporters. I treat them as human beings, not as objects to be manipulated. I find I can manipulate them better that way. I've long ago learned that in dealing with the press, sincerity is the most important quality you can have. If you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.

  Lynn is a particularly good reporter. She's been covering the courthouse beat for almost fifteen years, without aspirations of going anywhere else. She recognizes the incredible human drama that takes place in courtrooms every day, and enjoys conveying that emotion to her readers. She and I get along pretty well, because we understand each other. She knows I will only tell her that which will further my agenda, and she'll do the same.

  I'm not really sure what to tell her about Willie, so I mouth platitudes about our confidence at trial, hinting at new evidence by talking about how different this trial will be from the first one. The strange thing is that I don't have to answer a bunch of penetrating questions about the case, since she doesn't seem terribly interested in it.

  Lynn asks as many questions about the reason I am here today as she does about the Miller case. I tell her about Wanda, though I leave out my connection to her through Cal. He doesn't need his name dragged through the papers, though I can't imagine why Lynn would want to write about this anyway. She asks me if she can go with me downstairs when Wanda's case is brought up, and I shrug and say that it's fine with me. She's obviously a courtroom junkie.

  The call comes moments later, and Lynn and I go downstairs. We enter the courtroom, and I'm surprised by the number of press in attendance. Obviously there is a case after mine that has some public interest, and I consider the possibility of hanging out afterward to lobby the assembled reporters about Willie's prospects. I just wish I had a more compelling story to tell.

  On the way down to the defense table, I pass Alex, who has been the bailiff here since the fourteenth century. Alex looks twenty years older than his seventy-one years. In this courthouse, the metal detectors are the first and last line of defense; it the bad guys get to Alex they win.

  “Big case today, Alex? The press is out in force.”

  He turns around in surprise, as if he hadn't noticed them.

  The Russian army could sneak up on Alex. He shrugs. “Beats me. I ain't never seen that many of them here before.”

  I take my seat at the table, while Judge Walling finishes up a misdemeanor drug possession case. Walling is sixty-two years old, and is staggering toward retirement the way a once-a-year marathoner staggers toward the finish line. He is all but sleeping through this case, and I doubt that Wanda and I will provide him any more substantial stimulation.

  Wanda's prosecutor, Barry Mullins, comes over to say hello and to go over the final arrangements for the plea. Wanda will plead no contest, Walling will lecture her on the evils of her ways, and she'll get two years probation. If she stays clean, it'll come off her record. My initial assessment is that she won't and it won't.

  In any event, it's all straightforward and has been done a million times before; it is a safe bet that no future attorneys will be citing New Jersey v. Morris as precedent-setting law.

  Finally, Wanda is brought in and our case is called. Wanda is no more friendly or animated than she was before, and she's also no more nervous.

  Without looking up, Walling asks if the state is ready to proceed. “Yes, Your Honor,” says Mullins.

  “And the defense?”

  “We are, Your Honor,” I intone.

  For the first time, Walling looks up, taking off his glasses so that he can see me. He seems surprised.

  “Well, Mr. Carpenter, this is an unusual type of case for you to be involved with.”

  I bow slightly. “A return to my humble roots, Your Honor.”

  I sense something and turn around. The press has moved forward, en masse, apparently interested in this exchange. I'm glad my retort was characteristically clever.

  Mullins, less concerned with putting on a show, gets to the point. “Your Honor, Ms. Morris was arrested on May 15 of this year for soliciting a police officer. The District Attorney's office and counsel for the defendant have agreed to probation in this case, if it pleases the court.”

  Judge Walling examines the papers before him, as if deciding whether he will go along with this arrangement. Waiting
for his decision is not exactly nail-biting time. He's probably had this kind of case brought before him ten thousand times, and it's safe to say that the next plea bargain he refuses to accept will be the first.

  When he's finished, he removes his glasses and looks at Wanda, catching her in mid-yawn. “Young lady, do you know what is going on here?”

  “Yeah, I'm getting off.” Good old Wanda, she must have been valedictorian of her charm school graduating class.

  Walling isn't pleased by her answer or her demeanor. “You are possibly being put on probation. There is a difference.” He looks at me. “Which I hope Mr. Carpenter has explained to you.”

  I nod. “In excruciating detail, Your Honor.”

  Walling turns back to Wanda. “You understand the difference?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You will be expected to find proper employment, and to refrain from future actions of this kind.”

  Wanda jerks her thumb in my direction. “Tell him that, not me.”

  She is now officially getting on my nerves, and I think Walling's as well. He asks her, “Why should I tell Mr. Carpenter that?”

  “'Cause he's my pimp.”

  It takes a split second for the meaning of what she has said to penetrate. However, it doesn't take the press quite that long. There is an immediate uproar among them; and I realize in a horrifying flash that they have been primed for this.

  Walling pounds his gavel to get quiet. “What did you say?” he asks.

  “I said, he's my pimp.” Then she looks at me, a puzzled expression on her face. “I thought they knew that.”

  Walling turns to me. “Mr. Carpenter, do you have any comment on your client's contention?”

  I've been set up. I don't know why, or by whom, and I can't believe that Cal would do this to me.

  “Your Honor, she clearly is using a different definition of pimp, from the Latin pimpius, meaning ‘to represent.’ ” I'm floundering and trying to use humor to defuse the disaster. But Wanda will have none of it.

  “He keeps me and a bunch of other girls out on the street. We pay him part of what we take in.”

  Walling turns to me. He's having so much fun I can see him reconsidering retirement. “Well, Mr. Carpenter, sounds like Webster's definition to me.”

  Before I can respond, Wanda drops another bomb. “And he gets free blow jobs whenever he wants.”

  The press is going berserk, laughing and cheering as if they are in a nightclub. I try and compose myself.

  “Your Honor, this is bizarre. Ms. Morris's father is a friend of mine, and he called me, asked me to help his daughter. I have never met her before today.”

  Wanda cuts in with the crusher. “My real name ain't Morris, and my father's been dead for ten years.”

  Walling almost gleefully turns to me. “Mr. Carpenter?”

  I look at Wanda, then at the hysterical reporters, then back to Walling.

  “The defense rests,” I say.

  It goes downhill from there. With an accusation like this taking place in open court, Walling is obligated to turn the matter over to the District Attorney for investigation. A hearing is set for two months from now to hear the results of that investigation, and Wanda is directed to appear. She says that she will, but she won't. This was her closing performance.

  When I finally get out of the courtroom, I run into Lynn Carmody. She tries to stop giggling long enough to talk to me. It's going to take a while, so I walk past her. She turns and walks with me, finally controlling her laughter.

  “I'm sorry, I just couldn't tell you.”

  I stop and turn toward her. “So you knew about this?”

  She nods. “My colleagues would have killed me if I tipped you off.”

  “Who set me up?”

  “I don't have any idea.” She holds up her hand as if taking an oath. “Honestly, I don't.”

  I believe her. If she were protecting a source she'd say she's protecting a source.

  “And you're going to print the story?” I ask.

  “Andy, are you kidding? It'll be page one.”

  I just shake my head and walk away, and she calls after me to tell me that if I find out how this happened, I should tell her and she'll print that also. Somehow I don't find this all that comforting.

  I leave the courthouse and stop at the newsstand. It's still closed, and I have this unsettling feeling that it is never going to open again. What the hell happened to Cal Morris?

  The next morning I get to the office and experience a first: Edna has the newspaper opened to other than the crossword page. Actually, the paper isn't really open at all, since Edna, Laurie, and Kevin are all looking at the front page. I don't want to look at it, but I can't help myself. There's a picture of Wanda and me, with the headline “A Different Kind of Client?”

  I moan, and Edna tries to make me feel better by telling me that it's a good picture, that it makes me look like a slightly fatter version of her Uncle Sidney. Laurie chimes in with the revelation that she has been around a long time, and she's never seen a better looking pimp. I smile and try to seem good-natured about it all. I have as good a sense of humor as the next guy, but I generally prefer it when the joke is on the next guy.

  This is disturbing on a level beyond the total public humiliation. Somebody has gone to an incredible amount of trouble to do this to me, and has demonstrated remarkable power in the process. If I'm right, they have even made a person, Cal, disappear. I don't think Cal even has a daughter, and if he did Wanda certainly isn't her. He was either frightened into doing this or paid off; this was no minor prank to embarrass me. This was designed to impress me with strength. It wasn't a severed horse's head in my bed, but it did the trick.

  Once my staff finishes giggling, we kick around the possibilities. I come to believe Cal was paid off, and I further believe it would have taken serious money to do it. Since Laurie and I have been prying into the lives of Markham and Brownfield, people with very serious money, there seems a possibility that one or both of them are involved.

  It's a long-shot hunch, but my instinct says I'm right. Representing the opposing view are Laurie and Kevin, who say I'm nuts. I hope they're right, because if they're not, then my father was somehow involved in something so bad that these people are desperate to conceal it.

  After half an hour of unproductively debating all of this, Laurie offers to try and find Cal. I tell her that I will want her to do that, but not now. Now we have to focus all our attention on Willie Miller.

  Kevin's brief on the change of venue is thoroughly professional and well reasoned. I make one or two nitpick changes, wipe off a couple of mustard stains, and then instruct him to file it with Hatchet. I also assign him to deal with the DA's office on all discovery matters. It's only been a couple of days, but I already have the confidence that I can turn something over to him knowing it will be done. It's a nice feeling.

  Laurie reports on her progress, which is less favorable. I expected this; when a murder was committed this long ago there's little likelihood of turning up much new. More disturbing is her inability to find Willie's lawyer, Robert Hinton. His elusiveness is puzzling. Lawyers generally don't like to disappear; it causes them to have trouble attracting new clients.

  Laurie is going to redouble her efforts to find Hinton, as well as arrange to interview the eyewitness whose testimony helped to bury Willie in the first trial. She's also recruited a DNA expert for us to possibly use to rebut the state's evidence, or to help us prevent it getting in. Like the change of venue and just about everything else involved with the case, it's pretty much a lost cause, but I agree to see him at three o'clock this afternoon.

  We're wrapping things up when the phone rings. Edna, despite having been told not to interrupt us, does so anyway.

  “I think you'll want to take this,” she says.

  “Who is it?”

  “It's your wife. It sounds like an emergency.”

  I pick up the phone and conduct a ten-second conversation during
which Nicole tells me what has happened. I hang up and start walking toward the door.

  “Is everything okay?” Laurie asks.

  I tell her. “Nicole found a threatening message on the downstairs answering machine.”

  “What did it say?”

  I shake my head. “I don't know yet. But whatever it says, that's not the worst part.”

  “What's the worst part?”

  “We don't have a downstairs answering machine.”

  I make it home in record time. Nicole was borderline hysterical when I spoke to her, and she's not likely to have calmed down before I get there. She's also not likely to calm down after I get there.

  I pull up to the house, and I see that she is peeking out from behind the drapes, watching for me. She opens the door and leads me to the answering machine, which is hooked up in the den. It is not a machine I have ever seen before.

  So as not to smudge any fingerprints, and so I could appear to know what I'm doing, I use the point of a pen to press play. The voice is computer-generated, effectively concealing the speaker.

  “Think of your embarrassment in court as just the beginning … a small sign of our power. We are bigger than you, Carpenter … much bigger. We can do what we want … when we want. So drop your crusade, before it is too late. The past is past.”

  Nicole looks at me, as if I can say something that will take away her fear. Something like, “Oh, is that all? Don't worry. I had told a friend he could break into the house and drop off a threatening answering machine.”

  She sees I have nothing comforting to offer, so she says, with great drama, “Andy, they were in here. While we were sleeping. They were in our house.”

  My mind flashes to Michael Corleone, speaking to Pentan-geli after gunmen shot up his house. “In my bedroom, where my wife sleeps! Where my children come to play with their toys!”

  I decide not to mention the Godfather reference to Nicole. Instead I ask, “Did you check the doors and windows?”

  “No, I didn't,” she says before she explodes. “I'm not a policeman, Andy. I don't want this to happen in my house!”

  “Of course you don't, Nicole, and neither do I. But …”