The Law Partners (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by John Ellsworth

  "And here is the final nail in the coffin. The cigarette butt found with her lipstick and her fireplace charcoal were not found at the crime scene. No, they were found in a legal file that belonged to her lawyer, sitting right behind me, Mr. Michael Gresham. The file was in his office and was discovered by Detective Weldon when he searched Michael Gresham's office pursuant to a search warrant issued by the Cook County courts. That's right, Michael Gresham removed evidence from the scene of the crime and hid it inside his file folder. All of this is conclusive proof that Morales not only committed the crime but also that her lawyer attempted to remove evidence in order to help cover it up. Why didn't he dispose of the cigarette butt? Why not just throw it away? Ladies and gentlemen, I leave it to Michael Gresham to explain that 'why' to you. I certainly don't know why."

  He steps back and turns around to look at me. He then raises his right arm and points a finger at me in an accusing manner.

  "Here's the last thing I have to say. Before this case is over, Michael Gresham may be charged with the crime of obstruction of justice. For tampering with evidence and attempting to hide the commission of a murder. That's who is about to stand up here and talk to you. Shall we all listen? Are you ready? So am I. Thank you."

  Then he sits down and all eyes turn to me. I stand and ask the court for a five-minute recess. The court goes me one better and recesses trial for the morning, saying she has other cases that need attention in open court.

  Thank God for beneficent judges. Judge Itaglia has done me the huge favor of giving me time to respond to the DA's charges that I have committed obstruction of justice.

  I ask the judge if we can make a motion in chambers and she agrees. For the next five minutes, seated around the judge’s desk, I and the prosecution team argue whether the case should be declared a mistrial due to the prosecutor’s comments about me being prosecuted—maybe, he said—for obstruction of justice. It is extremely prejudicial, I argue, and at the very least the jury should be told to ignore it and remove it from their memory. My argument is halting and unrehearsed and I cannot tell which way Judge Itaglia is leaning as she takes my motion under advisement. Which means she’s going to think about it privately before she rules one way or the other. We leave her chambers and my heart is heavy.

  We walk out of the courtroom stunned. The press clamors around us, demanding a statement, but Marcel and Danny run interference for me, Harley, and Mira. Now we make the elevator and Marcel quickly punches buttons and closes the door. Only our team and our client ride the elevator down to the lobby.

  "Son of a bitch," Marcel says as we grind our way on the creaky old elevator.

  The rest of us are too shocked to even comment.

  Finally, Mira says, "Michael, I want you off the case."

  I look at her and nod.

  "We'll meet in my office in thirty minutes. We'll discuss it then," I tell her.

  Marcel drives my Mercedes as we silently wind our way back downtown to our office.

  Finally, we park in the basement and climb on the elevator.

  Not a word has been spoken since Mira said she wants me off the case.

  Not one word.

  35

  It is before noon and we’re seated around the conference table in my office. With me are Mira, Harley, and Marcel.

  "What were you even thinking?" says Mira. "Removing a piece of evidence is one thing. But hanging onto it? Seriously?"

  I shake my head. She's right, it is beyond the pale. The whole thing has left me in a rage at myself for taking the cigarette butt and then keeping it around.

  "I'm sorry, Mira. I've put you in a terrible position. My thinking at this point is that I agree with you. I should move to withdraw from your case. Ask the judge for a mistrial. What do you think, Harley?"

  Harley pours a second cup of coffee from the carafe. She is thinking and very quiet, for Harley.

  "I'm thinking you have to withdraw, Michael. Withdraw and let me take over the defense. That is, if Mira feels okay with that."

  All eyes focus on Mira.

  "To tell the truth, I've never been faced with this before," she says. "I've had situations where I suddenly found that I had witnessed something inadvertently, sometime that made me a witness to the case in trial. But I've never had a case where a lawyer on either side of the street was accused of removing evidence from a crime scene. I'm just relieved that Michael has you, Harley. I don't want a mistrial. That would just allow the State to come in better-prepared the second time around. I want to go ahead without Michael at counsel table."

  Then Marcel speaks up. "We do have an option here."

  My head jerks up. "What might that be?"

  He continues, "Let me just float this. What if we go in and say it was me who removed the cigarette butt? I could say that I removed it in order to have the smudge tested by our own crime lab. At the time I did it, the scene was under no one's control. We could argue that I put it inside the file with the intention of having it tested but then I forgot about it."

  We three lawyers trade looks. Marcel is speaking beyond mere friendship. It is an act of extreme devotion that he's proposing, giving the State a shot at him.

  But it can't work. It can't work because I won't let him take the fall for me.

  "Can't do that, Marcel," I say, "but it means everything to me that you would offer."

  "Wait a minute, Michael," says Harley, "I think you're missing the point here."

  "What point is that?"

  "That point he's making is that if he steps up then Mira's defense team--her lawyers--can remain on the job with clean hands. It will have become a staff error, not a lawyer error or, worse, an intentional deception. That looks terrible for Mira. This looks less terrible if a staffer did it without your knowledge or permission. Think about that, please."

  "Oh my God!" I explode. "I don't want that to make sense, but it does. Someone please tell me there's another way around this."

  "Not that I can think of," Mira says. "As the client, I think it's a game-saver."

  "Nor I," says Harley. "It keeps the defense counsel intact and clean. It has to be done."

  I shake my head violently. "I can't just let Marcel open himself up to being prosecuted for obstruction of justice. It isn't right."

  "Neither is throwing your client to the wolves in order to preserve your own sense of right and wrong," says Harley. "Look, I know how you feel and I know you, Michael. Truth be told, your inner sense of right and wrong is almost too powerful for you to be doing criminal defense. Sometimes criminal defense requires that the criminal lawyer do things that violate his sense of right and wrong in order to protect the client. That's the case we have here. We can't let Mira go to prison because you have a need to feel honest in all things."

  She's right. That's the quandary. It's my exaggerated sense of right and wrong that's causing the solution to the problem to go wanting. "Damn, I have so screwed us up here," I say. "Mira, I can only tell you how sorry I am for this."

  Mira tosses her head. "Just tell me you'll make it right by letting Marcel take the fall. I'm not asking you, Michael. I'm demanding you do it at this point in the case. You owe me."

  I can only agree, of course. "I do owe you. I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't."

  "But don't leave out the all-important fact that you created this problem yourself, Michael," says Harley.

  Then another niggling idea floats to the surface and for just a moment I see a glimmer of hope.

  "Let me posit one other solution," I say.

  All eyes turn to me.

  "What if we renew our motion to suppress to include the cigarette butt?"

  "Keep it out of evidence altogether?" says Harley. "How's that work when Ronald Shaughnessy has already mentioned it to the jury?"

  "It works by the judge giving the jury an instruction that the District Attorney's representation to them was improper and that the court has found it was also untrue."

  "Wow," says Mira. "That is a
n alternative, Michael."

  "It does save Marcel from prison bars," says Harley. "But I can't see the judge telling the jury the District Attorney lied to them. That's not going to happen."

  "I agree," says Mira.

  "What about this?" I say, as the truth of the case settles over me. "What if I admit taking the cigarette but tell the jury I was going to turn it over to the police but they beat me senseless and then I forgot about it."

  "Bingo!" cries Harley. "Then we get it in front of the jury that the cops beat you up and we explain why you had the evidence in your file. It works! This is what we'll do."

  "Agreed!" exclaims Mira. "They did beat you up, Michael. And something tells me this scenario is probably closer to the truth than anything else on the table."

  "I'm liking it, Boss," Marcel agrees. "A closed-head injury with serious neurological repercussions--that's enough to win the jury's sympathy right there. They need to hear about it and Mira needs for them to hear about it. So do you, now that the State's Attorney stuck his knife in your back."

  "Then that's what we'll do," I state. "So what's our scenario? Harley?"

  "We file a motion to allow you to testify even though you're trial counsel, for openers," Harley says. "Second, we move to call you out of order in the case. We move to have you testify regarding the District Attorney's claim that you hid evidence. We do it bundled together with a motion to strike what's been said."

  "But that would be held outside the jury's hearing, that kind of motion," says Mira.

  "She's right," I say. "But we want the jury to hear it. So how does that happen?"

  "I've got it," says Harley. "We don't call Michael at all. We cross-examine Detective Weldon on the issue. Ask him about the beating as a possible explanation. I get to do it. Leave Michael out of it."

  "And here's the nail in the coffin," I say. "As our first witness, we call the District Attorney himself, Ronald Shaughnessy. We call him as an adverse witness and cross-examine him regarding the beating."

  "Do we all agree?" Harley asks. "Let's see some hands. All in favor of a motion to strike?"

  Four hands are raised.

  "All in favor of calling Shaughnessy as our first witness?"

  Four hands again.

  "Cross-examination of Weldon on the beating?"

  "No-brainer," says Marcel. We all nod our agreement.

  "I'll whip up the motion to strike," says Harley. "It will be my motion to argue. I'm going to love this."

  "Sounds good," I say.

  It beats hell out of me going to prison for hiding evidence. We have come a long way in a half hour. But now it's time to move along to court.

  Detective Weldon will be first up. I will be ready with my cross-examination of him. This will actually be fun, I realize for the first time all day.

  "Weldon is my witness on cross," I say.

  No argument, only nods.

  "Good," I say. "Then let's go to court and watch the heads roll."

  36

  Wednesday afternoon. It’s one o'clock when court resumes.

  Detective Weldon looks every bit the part of the professional detective when he comes into court this afternoon. His hair is perfectly combed and neatly parted; his starched white shirt is obviously brand new and sparkling; his pinstripe suit fits perfectly in the shoulders and back without a wrinkle. He is here with us in the courtroom ready to do some serious damage to me and to Mira.

  Now we will find out just how far he can get.

  After the jury is settled and court called to order, Shaughnessy calls Weldon as the State's first witness.

  "Your name?"

  "Jamison Weldon."

  "Please tell us about your current job and your work history."

  "Detective with the Chicago Police Department, homicide bureau. I've been a law enforcement officer for nearly twenty years, beginning in 1996 when I graduated from Loyola with a degree in criminal justice and then went to the CPD police academy. Upon my successful graduation, third in my class of eighty-eight cadets, I was assigned to patrol in South Chicago. That assignment lasted about eighteen months. Then I was assigned to a gang task force, also in South Chicago. I was still wearing a uniform but walking a beat every day, keeping my ear to the ground, gathering information on gang crimes and gang members. Our team would arrest and prosecute anyone found wearing gang colors for even the most minor infractions like loitering outside a candy store. Our job was to keep the pressure on the gangs."

  "Any promotions during this time?"

  "Well, two years in, I made sergeant. One of the youngest ever."

  "Why do you suppose that happened?"

  Weldon grins modestly. "I received two commendations for meritorious service. Our group had put over a hundred gang bangers behind bars in our time on the street. The mayor liked that, which meant the chief liked it, which meant I got promoted."

  "So your service was highly commendable. Well, what happened once you made sergeant?"

  "That went on about a year and then I made detective. Working vice then robbery-homicide. Been there ever since."

  "You've been working robbery-homicide how long, Detective Weldon?"

  "About fourteen years, give or take."

  "And over the past six months, have your duties been more on the robbery side or on the murder side?"

  "Murder, definitely."

  "Were you working robbery-homicide on July Fourth of this year?"

  "Yes, I was."

  "Describe your involvement, if any, with the Miranda Morales case that day."

  Weldon leans back in the chair and crosses an ankle over a knee. His jacket falls open but he buttons it and uncrosses his legs, remembering the posture rules when testifying. Those rules go way back to the police academy and all cops know them.

  "I came on duty at noon on July Fourth. A stack of paperwork maybe three inches deep took up most of my afternoon. This was interrupted with calls from witnesses and informants and vics--victims. I would have come off duty at nine o'clock except my partner called in sick and I had to work up his paperwork too. Paperwork doesn't have sick days, we always say. Someone has to do it, so partners cover for partners."

  "Please continue."

  "About eleven I got called out to the defendant's condo. Someone had called in a dead body. Later I found out it had been called in by defense counsel, Mr. Gresham."

  "So Mr. Gresham was at the crime scene before you?"

  Weldon's forehead wrinkles. "He was on the crime scene before any law enforcement official or officer."

  "Did that present any problems?"

  Weldon smiles wryly. "It certainly doesn't help. Defense lawyers have been known to clean up a crime scene before the cops arrive."

  "Objection," I cry, "move to strike. Relevance. Foundation."

  "Objection sustained. The jury will ignore the comment regarding defense lawyers. Please continue, Mr. Shaughnessy."

  Shaughnessy turns away from the judge and back to his witness. His huge shoulders hulk over the lectern as he finds his place in his list of written questions.

  "So you proceeded to the crime scene?"

  "I did. My partner was off sick so I went alone. That's not that unusual. I arrived downstairs and waited for the uniformed officers to arrive and secure the scene. When that finally happened I went upstairs. By now, CSI had arrived and they joined me."

  "What happened upstairs?"

  "We buzzed and knocked and entered the condo. Michael Gresham let us in. We found the defendant and Mr. Gresham’s investigator around the dining table. The shooting scene was fresh--the blood wasn't completely dry. I talked to the three people and got some basic info. Then I investigated the scene itself. I told CSI what I wanted, including camera shots and angles, bullet trajectory particulars, hair and fiber, trace and transfer, and possible sources of DNA evidence of the crime."

  "How long did that take?"

  "Not long. Five minutes, maybe."

  "Then what did you do?"

  "
I returned to the defendant and her lawyer and his assistant and asked some follow-up questions."

  "What did you learn?"

  "Not all that much. The defendant is a heavily experienced homicide prosecutor in the District Attorney's office. She wasn't going to give me a statement, if that's what you're driving at."

  "Did she tell you anything about what happened?"

  "Her lawyer wouldn't let her talk to me. All we obtained from her was gunshot residue swabs and a blood draw. We also searched the premises."

  "Now, without going into any prior proceedings in court, was the gun that killed Darrell Harrow ever recovered?"

  We have worked this out beforehand. Rather than tell the jury they "found" the gun in the trunk of my car, the jury is going to be told that the gun was recovered not in the defendant's possession. That's as far as it can go.

  "Yes. The gun was recovered."

  "Where from?"

  Weldon looks hard at the jury. "Not in the defendant's possession."

  "Very well. Now, for the record, please describe the victim."

  "The victim was lying on his back, his head facing the north wall, the entrance wall. He was dead, I checked. So did the medical examiner, later. A Christian cross was upside down on the floor just at the top of his head. On the wall was the drawing of a pentagram. It was done in charcoal. Lab reports have identified the drawing charcoal as the same as what was in the defendant's fireplace."

  "You said the victim was Darrell Harrow?"

  "Yes. I did the ID based on his wallet's contents. This was later confirmed at the morgue by you, Mr. Shaughnessy, the District Attorney himself."