Compelling Evidence

by Steve Martini

  She looks around her at the dreary gray walls and the scarred countertop where she rests one elbow, the arm holding the receiver. On Talia’s side of the glass, the gray metal is carved with the initials of some former occupant. One must wonder where that soul obtained the sharp tool for this task, and the boldness to wield it as a guard looked on.

  “I don’t know if I can stand another night in here.”

  She sweeps the hair back from her eyes. Talia without makeup is still a striking woman. But her hair in twelve hours has already surrendered its luster to a single shampoo with a stringent disinfecting soap. This along with other indescribable indignities is the cost of admission to this place.

  “I’ll get you out,” I say. But I almost choke on my own words. I’m beginning to sound like Cheetam.

  “If Ben were here he’d …” She stopped, killing this threat in mid-sentence, a victim of its own lack of logic. “If Ben were here, none of this would be happening.” She laughs. “I’m not thinking very well, am I?”

  “Can’t imagine why,” I say.

  This draws a little smile.

  “Are you in a single cell, alone?” I ask.

  “For most of the night. They put somebody in the other bunk early this morning. The noise in this place, how does anybody sleep?”

  “It’s not billed as a five-star hotel.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Listen, I don’t have much time and we have a lot to cover.

  I’m going to get you out, but until I do, a few rules.”

  She looks at me, bright-eyed, eager to cooperate.

  “First, don’t talk to anybody. The police, the district attorney—no one. Do you hear? If the cops want to talk, you ask for me. They can’t question you after that unless I’m present. That should curb their curiosity.”

  She nods.

  “Rule number two. This is more important than rule number one,” I tell her. “Don’t trust anybody in this place, no matter how nice, no matter how helpful. Don’t get involved in conversations with any of the occupants. Don’t discuss your case. Don’t tell them why you’re here. If they watch TV or read, they know. You’re a hot item.”

  She looks at me, a little naive. Then it settles on her. The curse of every jailhouse, the informant.

  “It’s not just a confession you have to worry about. It’s the little details of your life. Tell some of these people where you were born—or your mother’s maiden name—and in twenty minutes they’ll craft your confession, sewing in these little facts for color. They’ll tell the DA that you told them in the night, in the depth of depression, between sobs in a crying jag, that you bared your soul to them because you trusted them. Believe me,” I tell her, “they will package and sell you for an hour off their time in this place.”

  “I can believe it,” she says.

  “I’ll get you out of here. That much I promise.” It was a blood oath. If for no other reason, my debt for complicity in Cheetam’s debacle.

  I take a deep breath before tackling the next topic. It’s ticklish.

  “Cheetam’s gone. Maybe you already know?”

  She nods. “Tony told me he couldn’t go beyond the preliminary hearing, something about a conflict. He said he would try to get me somebody else.” Her eyes are pleading with me. “Why can’t you take it?” she says.

  “You and Tony talked about that?”

  “A little. He thinks you’d do a good job.”

  “This from the man who gave us the gold-plated reference for Gilbert Cheetam.”

  “I didn’t know Cheetam. I know you.”

  “It doesn’t look good,” I tell her, “your case.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  I’m thinking I will have to deal with Nikki, her wrath, if I take Talia’s case, and obtain her signature if I’m to get the money to do it.

  “You said you’d stay with me.” Talia now calls this in like a chit.

  “I did, didn’t I.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Well, then I guess if you want me, I’m yours.”

  “I want you,” she says.

  There is a little giddiness here on her part. Her mood, elevated, expansive. She throws a mental party on the other side of the glass. I sense that she was less than confident that I would take the case. I can tell that I have made her day.

  “I know it’s not the time, but we have to talk about finances.”

  “Pick a lawyer and the first thing he wants to talk about is money,” she says.

  “Besides my fees there will be costs,” I say, “expert witnesses, lab tests. All the things that Cheetam either didn’t do or did wrong.”

  “Tony’s handling all of that,” she says. “He’s handling the money.”

  “I met with Tony at his office the other night. He called me. Seem’s he’s getting nervous about the costs of defense.”

  “What’s his problem? He knows I’m going to sell him Ben’s share in the firm when this is over.”

  “Yeah, well, I hesitate to break the bad news, but I think he’s looking for a discount.”

  She says a single word of profanity, to herself, under her breath. She is holding her head in her hands now, tilting it to one side and cradling the phone with her shoulder, elbows propped on the countertop. I can no longer see her eyes. They are lost behind a shower of stringy ringlets cascading over her face.

  I’ve knocked the wind out of her, killed the euphoria of her celebration—my news and this place, which breeds manic-depression.

  “What does he want?” She speaks from this pit.

  “He’s offering cash in advance for a buy-out of your entire interest in the firm.”

  “How much?”

  “I got him up to three hundred thousand. I think he’ll go higher.”

  She shakes her head, hair tangled in her eyes, looking at me now, almost accusing. I can hear the little voice in her head: “You got him up to three hundred thousand for full partnership interest in a firm worth ten million. Wonderful! Were you able to do me any other little favors while you were at it?”

  “It’s absurd,” I tell her. “I told him I’d communicate the offer, but that I wouldn’t recommend it—that I was confident that you would not take it.”

  These words are brave, considering that Talia now sits in jail, perhaps lacking the financial wherewithal to post her own bail.

  “Skarpellos.” She shakes her head in despair. “Ben always said he had a gift for business.”

  “The man knows when to make an offer,” I say.

  “The man’s a world-class shit,” she says. It’s the first harsh word I’ve heard from her during the months of her travail. The first time she has blamed another living soul for any part of her plight. Talia is many things, but never a complainer. I take it as a sign of the stress she is under.

  “What else can I do?” She’s says this matter-of-factly. As if she has made a mercurial decision to take the Greek’s offer.

  “You can keep your cool. Don’t panic. For now I have him believing that money is no problem. Seems I’ve broken his lever.” This thought gives me happy eyes, which she reads from beyond the glass.

  “How?”

  “Told him I might take a piece of your action for myself. That I might finance the defense out of my pocket, take a note from you, secured on Ben’s interest in the firm. You should have seen the look,” I tell her.

  “I can imagine.” There is a brief moment of satisfaction. A light, airy smile. Then she turns serious. “Still,” she says, “Skarpellos is nobody to toy with. He can hurt you in a hundred ways, all of them legal. Besides, where would you get the money?”

  “Not to worry,” I say. “I can get it.”

  If she has to sleep in this place for another night, I may have at least removed one cause for insomnia.

  “I have to go now. To prepare for the bail hearing. Harry will be by later to talk to you. While you’re in here, either he or I will be by twice a day. A
friendly face,” I tell her. “It will keep you from talking to strangers.”

  “Tod will be by later too.”

  I’m a bit surprised by this. While he was there for at least part of each day of the preliminary hearing, discreet in the back of the courtroom, I would have thought that by now, with all of her troubles, Tod Hamilton would view Talia as a sure career-stopper.

  “Don’t discuss the case with him,” I tell her.

  “It’s a little late for that. He knows what there is to know.”

  The way she says this, with my recollection of their private conversation the night we talked at her house about the missing handgun, I wonder whether Tod knows more than I do.

  “Don’t discuss the case with him. Whatever you’ve told him before may be privileged. He’s part of the firm. As long as I was associated with P&S, I could argue that his lips were sealed by the lawyer-client privilege. That may all change now.”

  She nods. I think she understands.

  “I’ll see you in court this afternoon.”

  We put down the receivers, and before I leave, I watch as she is ushered through a heavy steel door at the side of the visiting room.

  Nelson is pressing for the sky. He says he’s prepared to ask for three million in bail on Talia. I’m incredulous. I rain fury on him as we talk over the phone.

  “It’s outrageous,” I say. “No court will permit it.”

  “Not at all,” he says. “Whatever it takes to secure the defendant’s appearance at trial. This is a lady with big bucks. Two hundred thousand—hell, that’s travelin’ money.”

  “Her assets are tied up. She’s cash-starved. Three million,” I say, “you may as well move that she be denied bail altogether.”

  “It’s an idea,” he says.

  “You’re overreaching,” I tell him. “On what grounds? That the lady’s a serial killer—that she’s been out beating up witnesses? She doesn’t even have a passport,” I tell him. It was true. Ben was so busy doing business that he hadn’t taken a vacation longer than three days since he’d married her. And Talia, while bored, hadn’t yet hit on the idea of separate vacations. She found other outlets for her energies, diversions closer to home.

  “We’ll see,” he says.

  “Listen, ask for some reasonable amount of bail and we’ll do what we can to raise it.” I’m trying a little sugar now. “Talk to anybody. I’m straight. I’ve had clients who are genuine flight risks. I don’t press for low bail if I think there’s the slightest chance that my client will run. It’s not good for business. Judges tend to have long memories.”

  Then from a direction I do not see: “Have you considered the possibility of a plea bargain?” he asks.

  “What,” I say, “you’re gonna offer her bail if she cops a plea?”

  He laughs a little at this. I’ve broken the ice.

  “What are you offering?” I ask him seriously.

  “Maybe second degree.” He pauses for an instant. “Maybe less. Depends on what your client has to offer.”

  “What can she offer?”

  “The name of her accomplice.” He says this without missing a beat. The cops have been pissing up a rope for months trying to get a bead on who helped Talia murder Ben. They haven’t for a moment considered the possibility that there was no accomplice, that whoever murdered him, and it wasn’t Talia, may have acted alone.

  I tell Nelson this. He isn’t interested.

  We are back to bail. He says, “I’ll see you in court.”

  That is where we are at two o’clock in the afternoon. Nelson and I are standing before the Honorable Norton Shakers, judge of the superior court. Talia’s in the box, surrounded by oak railing and acrylic screens, as if in some space-age loading pen, near the door that leads to the courthouse holding cells. She’s wearing a jail jumpsuit, overalls in Day-Glo orange with the word PRISONER emblazoned across the back. On Talia the P and the R of the oversized jumpsuit have wrapped around, under her arms. I lean on the railing outside, close to her, a sheriff’s matron behind us.

  Shakers is low on the totem pole, recently appointed to the court and with limited experience. He has drawn magistrate duty. It means he’s roused at all hours of the night to sign search warrants and listen to the ramblings of cops on probable cause. He’s yawning and kneading his eye with two fingers when Nelson makes his motion for three million dollars in bail.

  It’s the same sorry song he sang to me on the telephone. The defendant is well-heeled. Bail set at $200,000 is an invitation to take a vacation. He emphasizes the seriousness of the crime, the consequences to my client if she is convicted, the inducement for her to run.

  I put on my coat of indignation once more, and I tell the court of Talia’s considerable contacts in the community. I flash her financial statement, copies to Nelson and the court, and beat on the theme that excessive bail is no bail at all. The numbers from Talia’s CPA show that liquidity is not among her financial virtues. Everything she owns is tied up in the law firm, a small business account from her real estate company, and the house, which is heavily mortgaged.

  The judge sits impassively as Nelson and I claw at each other.

  I make a case for reinstating the $200,000 bond. I argue that the lady has been free to roam for three months, since the grand jury indictment, and she has appeared in court on each and every occasion as ordered. “This is a prominent woman in the community,” I say. “Talia Potter is no flight risk,” I tell the court.

  “Mr. Nelson.”

  “Your Honor. The woman is accused of a capital crime. She may have had no incentive to run before this. But she does now. I submit to the court that anyone faced with the death penalty must be considered a potential flight risk.” He looks steely-eyed up at the bench. “The state does not believe that the presence of this defendant can be guaranteed without the posting of some considerable surety.”

  “Seems more than a little excessive to me,” says Shakers. I can see the figures fading fast in the judge’s eyes.

  “Your Honor, I have a declaration here, may I approach the bench?”

  Shakers nods.

  Nelson makes the rounds delivering a copy of this thing, his declaration to the court and one to me.

  I look at it. It’s a lengthy statement, fourteen pages, prepared by one of the DA’s investigators and signed under penalty of perjury by a woman named Sonia Baron. I put it on the rail and point to the name so that Talia can see.

  “Sony’s a friend,” she whispers, and shrugs her shoulders, like this is news to her.

  “For the convenience of the court I have highlighted the pertinent part of this declaration. I would refer you to page eleven.”

  I open it and read, a long, rambling statement in an elegant hand, a history of social friendship, of meetings and discourse between the two women over a period of years. It is standard fare for statements by investigators checking every lead, talking to acquaintances, getting background on a suspect. Entire forests have been slaughtered for such irrelevance, and now lie entombed in police files.

  Nelson has highlighted with a yellow marker a portion of this rambling discourse, a meeting for coffee between Talia and Sonia at the club one morning shortly after Talia was indicted.

  “She was depressed,” Sonia said of Talia. “She was offended and hurt that anyone could think that she had done such a thing. She said that life wasn’t worth living. That she had nightmares every night now and that she dreamed of getting away and starting over. She talked about Raul in Rio.”

  After the word “Rio,” in the double space above the written line, the cops have scrawled in a heavy hand “(Brazil)”—just in case the reader doesn’t get it. They’ve had Sonia initial this addition.

  “They had written to each other recently and he had talked of the weather, and the carefree life there. She had written back and said that she wished she could visit him there.”

  The declaration goes on, but Nelson’s yellow overlay comes to an end.

  I le
an over the railing into Talia’s ear.

  “Who’s Raul?”

  She gives me a look, like “No big thing.”

  “He was the tennis pro at the club. Sonia and I both knew him.”

  I can imagine.

  Shakers lets the statement drop on the bench and emits a deep sigh, the first sign that this is not going as well as he’d hoped. He will have to play Solomon.

  “Your Honor, I think it is clear mat the statements of the defendant made to this witness reveal a deep desire to escape her plight, if necessary to leave the country in order to avoid the situation she now finds herself in.” Nelson is playing the declaration for everything it is worth.

  “On the contrary,” I say. “This declaration purports to be exactly what it is. A candid expression of the defendant’s melancholy state as confided to a friend. The fact that she may have dreamed of being free from her current problems is natural, understandable. She told a friend how she felt. That’s all.”

  “She wrote to Raul in Rio that she wished she could visit him.” Nelson directs this little reminder more to me than to the court.

  I could put Talia on the stand, to explain her comments, to put them in context, but this would seem self-serving to the court, and it would open her to cross-examination by Nelson. He would ask her about Raul, dig for a little dirt, something to go along with a leopard-skin jock strap.

  “Yes, but she didn’t go, did she?” I say. “During three months of hammering in the press, when it would have been easy as pie to get a passport and slip off to some far-flung place, my client stayed here and confronted the charges against her. And she’ll do the same now until she’s acquitted.”

  Shakers sees that we are making no progress. He looks at Nelson.

  “You’ve got to admit, Mr. Nelson”—the judge is holding the declaration up a few inches—“this sounds a lot like coffee-klatch gossip between friends. There are times I wouldn’t mind going to Rio myself,” he says. He makes it sound like this is one of them.

  I laugh a little to show my understanding for an overworked judge.

  “This,” says Shakers, looking at the declaration, “is not worth three million dollars.”