The Defense: A Novel

by Steve Cavanagh

  I could feel the muscles in my neck getting tighter and tighter each minute, as if the wiring from the bomb was sliding up my back to choke me.

  Miriam walked over to my table and stood beside me. Staring into space, my head was running at a hundred miles an hour. I could feel the heat from Miriam’s smile. She held a handwritten message on a yellow Post-it, which she waved at me before sticking it to the desk.

  YOUR CLIENT’S GOING DOWN. I’LL HAVE HIS BAIL REVOKED BY 5 P.M.

  My mouth was dry. That note was a death sentence for Amy. If Miriam was right, and she was successful in revoking Volchek’s bail, then Amy and I would be dead before the cuffs warmed up on Volchek’s wrists. I was aware of my heels bouncing on the marble floor, and I swore silently and battled to calm down and think.

  Miriam didn’t normally get so personal. Like most good lawyers, Miriam usually stayed detached. We’d come up against each other a few times in the past and came out about even. In the first case I tried against Miriam, I’d underestimated her badly. She wiped the floor with me. My client was caught selling meth outside a school. No deals on a plea, so we fought it and my scumbag got heavy time. Her performance for the jury was flawless; she’d remained composed, restrained, and gave the impression to the jury that she was just recounting facts, not playing on their emotions. About a month after the trial, someone told me that Miriam’s son went to that school and had been offered drugs by my client. She hadn’t mentioned it to me and sailed through to an easy, dispassionate victory. Even though it was the right verdict, and an easy one for the jury, the way she secured that win impressed me.

  The note she’d handed me was intended to rile the defense. That meant Miriam was worried. This was no ordinary murder. Miriam’s career case started today. If she lost this open-and-shut wonder, she’d be out of a job. Prosecutors often experience more pressure on such a case because they’re expected to win, and if she secured a verdict, with the feds holding the hand of her star witness, news of her victory would travel in the right circles. I handed the note to Volchek. First, so that he could see I wasn’t swapping notes with the prosecutor about the bomb, and second, I needed him scared. People who’re scared like options. If such things had existed, the hustler’s bible, page one, would read exactly the same as the first page of the trial lawyer’s manual: Give the people what they want.

  “She’s going for your bail straight off the bat,” I said.

  Arturas leaned over the rail to listen. I watched as Volchek grew pale and turned toward Arturas.

  “You did not expect this,” said Volchek.

  “She can’t do that yet. The other lawyers told us the prosecutor would try, but that they were confident she wouldn’t get it,” replied Arturas.

  “You think they were maybe being optimistic because they wanted to get retained in your case?” I said. I watched Arturas’s face tighten, his eyes narrow.

  “She must think she has a great first witness: a game changer. A good trial attorney will always start a case with a strong witness. Miriam Sullivan is a great attorney. She thinks the first witness will be enough to put you in handcuffs.”

  Volchek bared his teeth and snarled, “Arturas, you told me you had thought of everything. You’ve had two years to plan. First Jack can’t even get out of the limo with the bomb, never mind get through security. Now this…” His arm reached out as if to claw at Arturas’s face, but he held back at the last moment. “If you fail me again…” He shook his head.

  Arturas stroked the scar on his cheek. He saw me watching him and took his hand away from his face. Up close, I saw that the scar had not fully healed. A translucent liquid oozed from a red, puckered section of the wound just below his eye. Guys like Arturas don’t go to the ER for that kind of treatment, and whoever had stitched his cut hadn’t done a very good job. Backstreet doctors, high from their own prescription pads, aren’t known for their care with hygiene, or their skill with a needle for that matter. The scar looked keloid and infected and would probably stay that way; damaged tissue sometimes never fully heals.

  I began to wonder about that scar. Perhaps it was a punishment from Volchek for a past failure. Arturas focused his anger on me.

  “You will not let her revoke bail. Your daughter’s life depends on it. One phone call is all it takes to have her little throat cut,” he said.

  Rage stripped the anxiety from my voice. “Take it easy. I won’t let it happen. She would need something incredible to get Volchek’s bail revoked on the first day. Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it,” I said.

  I heard the door to the judge’s chambers opening. I was about to start a case that I knew nothing about. Whatever Miriam had up her sleeve that was so good, I would learn all about it from her opening statement to the jury. I straightened my tie, adjusted my jacket, and felt the weight of the bomb on my back.

  “Silence in court! All stand for the honorable Justice Gabriella Pike, case docket number 552192, the People versus Olek Volchek on one count of murder in the first degree.” With that announcement from the court officer, a small, unassuming brunette in dark robes jogged into the courtroom and sat down before the announcement finished and long before most people had lifted their ass off their seats. Judge Pike did everything at high speed. She spoke quickly, walked quickly, and ate quickly. As a defense attorney, she’d been a formidable lawyer because, just as she was with everything else, she could think on her feet with stunning rapidity. This made her a devastating cross-examiner. She could shift tactics at the drop of a hat, and her skills soon became noticed by the right people. Deeply ambitious, it didn’t take long for Gabriella to become the youngest judge in the history of the state, and because she was a former defense attorney, she made a point of giving all defense attorneys a real hard time.

  “Please be seated with Her Honor’s permission,” cried the officer, and people settled.

  Judge Pike looked at me. “Mr. Flynn, I thought your partner was counsel in this case,” she said. She spoke with a slightly diluted Brooklyn accent, but her speedball delivery hid the breadth of that accent well.

  A throbbing pain began in my head.

  “I’m stepping into my friend’s shoes for the duration of the trial—unless Your Honor has any objection?” I said it more in hope than anything else. I knew she would have no objection, and she said so. Changing the counsel of record happened a lot. Criminal clients were always firing their attorneys and hiring new ones. Some defendants changed counsel five or six times during the life of their case—usually because they didn’t like the advice they’d been given or because their attorney sent them a large legal bill.

  “Can we have the jury, please?” said Judge Pike to no one in particular, but the jury officer heard his cue and departed through a side door to fetch them. I prayed for a little break to bring me some hope. The judge would watch the jury closely. If the prosecutor’s opening witness was really strong and the jury was leaning against Volchek, this might give Judge Pike enough confidence to revoke Volchek’s bail when the time came. The pain in my head worsened, and I began to feel nausea creeping into my gut. I had no choice at the moment but to deal with what was in front of me. Jack had been a good lawyer. Surely he would’ve picked a good jury.

  The jury filed in and took their seats: six in the first row and six in the elevated row behind.

  I doubted if I would’ve picked any of them.

  The first juror was a white guy in his early forties. He wore a plaid shirt and spectacles. He looked considerate, moderately intelligent, and probably ranked as the worst choice of all. The rest were not a jury of Volchek’s peers—five small black women in their late fifties to early sixties, wearing floral dresses, strong ladies with a certain charming appearance but no friends of the Russian mob. Then another four women in their thirties and forties: two white, one Hispanic, and one Chinese. I saw a black guy wearing a white shirt and a red bow tie. Bow ties spell danger to trial lawyers; no one is more strident in their views than a man in a bow tie. T
he last guy was Hispanic, and his shirt looked well ironed with sharp creases down both arms. He looked clean, well presented, and something about him spoke of a quiet intelligence. He didn’t rank as a good choice either, but he was probably the best of a bad bunch. At least he would listen. It’s so vital to have a jury member who is willing to listen. Their face can be your barometer for success: As long as that face is computing and occasionally smiling and nodding at your points, you’ve got a chance. Other jurors might listen to him and be led by him.

  “Ms. Sullivan, your opening statement, please,” said the judge.

  An expectant silence fell on the room. Arturas reached into the case, produced a legal pad and a pencil for me to take notes. He’d thought about everything. I opened the pad, pushed the pencil away, took out my DAD pen, and readied myself to take notes.

  My first note is usually the name of the case and the name of the judge and prosecutor. When I looked at my pad, I’d written only one thing—Amy. Until a year ago, I’d cherished Sundays. That was our day. No matter what case I’d been involved in, or how overworked I was, on Sunday I made pancakes for breakfast and Amy and I would hit Prospect Park for the afternoon. It was our time. She’d learned to ride her bike on the footpath leading up to the Nethermead Arches Bridge and couldn’t wait to get home to tell Christine; she’d fallen asleep on my shoulders on the way back from the zoo and dribbled all over my shirt; and we’d eaten ice cream cones beside the lake as we watched the geese flying over the boathouse and talked about her best friends and the kids that gave her a hard time for being a little different. Amy didn’t listen to the latest boy bands or hip-hop artists, and she didn’t watch much TV. She liked reading and listening to old rock bands, like The Who, the Stones, and the Beatles. If it was raining, we’d buy too much popcorn and go watch an old movie. I’d always looked forward to Sundays. But it was no longer our day; since the breakup, Christine wanted Amy to be settled for going back to school, so we’d switched to Saturdays. At the end of every Saturday afternoon, I dropped her off, kissed her goodbye, and left to drive home to my empty apartment.

  I looked around the courtroom and saw that everyone was waiting for the prosecutor to begin.

  Miriam rested her elbows on the desk and held her hands delicately below her face. I’d seen her do this before. All eyes were upon her. She drew you in, framing that trustworthy face with those fragile hands. Rising from her seat, she approached the jury and began, confidently, to look at each one of them in turn, holding their eyes in her forensic gaze. Her way of connecting with them, each of them, and they connected all right. If she’d told the jury right then that Volchek was guilty, they would’ve convicted on her word—that instant.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Miriam Sullivan. I’m responsible for prosecuting Mr. Volchek for murder. In a moment I’ll give you an outline of the evidence. I’ll give you a route map to the truth about this murder. This map will show you the path that we have to take before you can say that Mr. Volchek is guilty. You’ve seen the TV coverage of this trial; Mr. Volchek is regarded by many to be the head of the Russian Mafia. Our main witness will tell you about life inside the Bratva, the Russian name that’s given to these criminal organizations. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, you will see that the defendant faces a mountain of evidence against him.” As expected, she threw a manicured hand at her team’s table as an illustration. They probably had two or three copies of the evidence on that table and probably not that much of it proved Volchek was a murderer. However, it was the impression that counted.

  She continued. “And that is what you have to evaluate—the evidence. Not the press coverage. I’m going to tell you a little bit about our case now and about the expert witness who will tell you that Mr. Volchek ordered Mario Geraldo to be killed.”

  I had no clue what expert witness Miriam was talking about, but I had an inkling that this was her opening witness, her shot at revoking Volchek’s bail.

  “But more important than the expert in this case is the man who actually pulled the trigger. That man will tell you that his boss, the head of the Russian Mafia, Olek Volchek, ordered him to kill Mr. Geraldo. That man, the man who shot Mr. Geraldo, is under FBI protection. His old and new identity will be protected in these proceedings because as a former member of the Bratva, this man is living under a death threat. In this trial, this man will be known as Witness X.”

  Miriam paused for effect, allowing me time to read over the notes I’d just written. I reread the phrase This man is living under a death threat and underlined it. Twice.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Miriam talked for an hour about the burden of proof. She explained to the jury that they must be satisfied of Volchek’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury nodded throughout this portion of the speech, and Miriam went on to explain what pieces of evidence would satisfy that burden.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the first witness you will hear from the prosecution will be Dr. Irving Goldstein, the eminent forensic document examiner. He is a man who examines pieces of handwriting to determine who created them. Dr. Goldstein knows the defendant’s handwriting from public documents that we, the prosecution, have obtained. He can then look at another sample of handwriting and determine with scientific accuracy if the defendant wrote it or not.”

  Those expensive high-heeled shoes of Miriam’s clicked over to the prosecution table, where she picked up what looked like some form of currency in a sealed plastic evidence bag.

  “This is prosecution exhibit twelve. This is an old, one-ruble bill that has been torn in half. One half is unmarked; one half has a name written on it in marker pen. That name is Mario Geraldo, the victim in this case. Witness X will tell you that he was given one half of this note—the unmarked half—by his boss, the defendant, Olek Volchek, and when he was subsequently given the other half of the note with the victim’s name on it by an unknown messenger, that was his order to kill the victim. Witness X will tell you that this was the MO for the Russian mob; this was how the orders to kill were handed down by the defendant. How do we know the defendant wrote the victim’s name on the bill? Well, that’s where Dr. Goldstein comes in. Dr. Goldstein will tell you that the handwriting on this note matches exactly with the defendant’s handwriting.”

  Miriam paused, the note still held aloft in her hand. This was the game changer. This evidence would blow his bail for sure. Several of the jury members fixed Volchek with a stern look.

  I rocked back in my chair and folded my arms before whispering to Volchek in the seat beside me, “Lean back. Smile. The jury is looking at you. Pretend that you’re relaxed. The jury will think we’re not in the least concerned about this evidence and that we’ve got it completely covered.”

  We both smiled.

  “You’re shitting me, right? How the hell did you get bail in the first place?”

  “The prosecution didn’t have this evidence for the arraignment. They only produced the handwriting report at the beginning of the year,” said Volchek.

  I thought for a moment. “Why the hell would you write down an order for a hit? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Tell me she’s lying and we’ve got something to challenge this,” I said.

  Volchek’s smile disappeared. His brow furrowed, and his voice deepened. “Do not presume to know anything about me or how I run my business. This is the old way. Back in Soviet Union, the gangs ran wild, but there was always loyalty to the boss. That loyalty did not always extend below, to the vor—what you would call the soldiers. If a soldier wants to move up in the Bratva ranks, the easiest way is to kill his biggest rival. But he cannot do this himself. Instead he uses other soldiers. He tells them that the boss, the pakhan, has ordered the rival to be killed. The other soldiers obey absolutely, and the pakhan knows nothing until it’s too late. I’ve seen entire Bratva kill one another in this way. I use the old way to make sure this does not happen. The old way is this,” he said, pointing to the exhibit just as Miriam lowered
her hand and slowly walked back to the prosecution table.

  He continued. “The only man who can order a hit in my organization is me. I control all kills. This way I do not start wars with other gangs, and I make sure my men do not kill each other. To do this, I have one man who is my torpedo.” He pronounced it tor-pedd-o. “It is old Soviet name for hit man. This man comes to me and me alone. In front of him, I tear an old, one-ruble bill in half. I give him one half of the bill. In this way, he becomes torpedo. When I need a man killed, I write down that man’s name on my half of the bill and it is sent to torpedo. He will check if his half of the bill matches the one he has been sent. If they are a match, he knows the order is real and that it comes directly from me. In this way, the old way, my men have trust from me and I have total loyalty from them.”

  “And this Witness X, Little Benny, he was your torpedo, right? So why the hell did he keep the note?” I said.

  “In Soviet Union we called a one-ruble bill tselkovy, meaning the whole one. It means that the torpedo has my whole heart in trust and loyalty forever. The torpedo is supposed to burn the bill after the job. Most do not. They keep their rubles. Old ruble bills can be hard to find these days. They are like a badge of honor. Some even have the one-ruble bill tattooed on their backs. I do not allow tattoos. We wear our pride in our eyes, not on our skin.”

  I couldn’t react in case the jury saw me, but I wanted to put my hands over my head and scream. The courtroom no longer felt huge. It felt small and public and dangerous. I wondered where Amy was being held. Was she, too, feeling enclosed, trapped, and afraid? If I let myself wonder what was happening to her, I would go crazy.