Prime Witness

by Steve Martini

  She tells me that every defense lawyer in the northern part of the state knows we can’t try the cases we have.

  “And on a personal note, I’d like a new office with a view, preferably something that looks out on the courthouse.” She thinks for a moment. “I could do with an hour for lunch maybe once a week, that’s optional,” she says. “And of course, I’d like your job.”

  I look at her across the table. She looks back, still smiling, her idea of a cerebral Mexican stand-off.

  “You asked,” she says.

  Mario Feretti was right. The woman is direct.

  “Are you a candidate?” I ask.

  “Get real,” she says. “You’ve seen the people who run this county. Can you see them appointing a Hispanic woman as their DA?” She laughs at the image of this.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” she says. “As long as you’re asking, you will either have to get rid of Roland, or immunize me for murder. Because if you don’t dump him, I intend to kill the sonofabitch. He’s running through secretaries like some snotty kid uses up Kleenex.”

  It is true. In the last year three seasoned stenos have left the office, something already brought to my attention by the other deputies.

  I try to give Goya a few positive strokes. “You hold the office together,” I tell her. “Mario, Mr. Feretti, spoke very highly of you.”

  She smiles a little at this. “Mario was a prince. I will miss him,” she says. “We will all miss him.” It seems that her bitterness toward her situation did not extend to Feretti. There is something in her expression that tells me there was genuine affection here, that Mario’s death has suddenly left some vast professional void in her life.

  “He had a great deal of confidence in your abilities.” I am shameless. I play upon this.

  She smiles. “He had so much confidence that he asked you to take his place when he got sick.”

  “He knew that you couldn’t handle his job and the felony calendar, too,” I tell her. “Mario trusted you to get the job done.”

  “Mario had no choice,” she says. “He had a full plate and the county gave him nothing but kids out of law school for help—because they work cheap,” she says.

  I remind her that Overroy is no kid out of law school. That he has been here for almost thirty years. But that even with his seniority it is she who is assigned the heavier cases.

  “Spare me,” she says. “Come back in thirty more and he’ll still be here. You know as well as I do that around here ‘relief’ is not spelled R-O-L-A-N-D.”

  On the issue of Roland Overroy I have hit a raw nerve.

  “I’ve been here seven years. I’ve been passed over for promotion twice. They say it’s because they have no money.”

  More likely it’s because Roland won’t retire. But I cannot say this to Goya. If word got out that this subject passed the lips of management, or if any move is made to seek his retirement, he could sue the county in the flash of an eye for age discrimination. For Roland this would be departing county service on a high note, something to augment his six-figure retirement check each year. It is little wonder that this state is going broke.

  I encourage Goya to hang in there a little longer, to stick it out, that I will do what I can.

  “Sure,” she says. “But when a big case comes along, something making headlines across the state. Well . . .” Her voice trails off. Her facial expression tells me how this sentence will end.

  The notoriety surrounding this case is eating on her. A few quiet conversations with neighbors in the building, and reporters had their story, and Iganovich’s name. His picture was spread all over the front page of this morning’s Times. She knows that success in a high-profile prosecution like this is the stuff of which legendary legal careers are made.

  “What hurts,” she says, “is that they didn’t even talk to me.”

  I look at her, questioning this comment.

  “When they filled behind Mario, the county supervisors didn’t even come and talk to me. They just went to somebody on the outside.” She thumps the desk as if to make the point, steel in her eyes. “I suppose that should tell me something.” She’s shaking her head now. “You know, I tried to leave last year. Gave Mario my resignation. He talked me out of it. I made a mistake,” she says. “A big mistake.”

  I had not heard this. Like a lot of things Mario never told me.

  Then quickly she pulls herself together. She turns an agreeable smile my way, fighting back the bile. “Then again,” she says, “maybe it’s just been a bad week.”

  “It’s only Monday,” I say.

  “See what I mean?”

  We both laugh a little, put a face on it. I see a lot of frustration here, masked by a quick wit. I sense no personal enmity, and I wonder if I would be so generous if the shoe were on the other foot.

  “I will see what I can do,” I say.

  She looks at her watch. “I’ve got to go now. Court,” she says. She’s gathering papers and a stack of files from off the desk.

  “Lenore.”

  She looks up at me.

  “I will do whatever I can,” I say.

  “Sure.”

  Chapter Nine

  For a man who is inherently lazy, Roland Overroy exhibits an unusual vitality in the pursuit of political opportunity. Since Mario’s death he has left no stone unturned in his efforts to cultivate people of influence in this county. He has in no uncertain way thrown his own hat in the ring of contenders for Feretti’s old job.

  While I have done all within my power to keep Roland out of the Putah Creek cases, I now discover that he has been busy, lobbying, backdooring the sheriff on matters concerning these prosecutions. Overroy has convinced Emil that an encounter between law enforcement and the survivors of the Putah Creek victims would be a politic thing at this time.

  “This is a major mistake.” I am talking to Johnson in the confines of his office. We are alone.

  “It’ll be a disaster,” I tell him, this proposed meeting with the Putah Creek survivors, a gathering of angry and dazed parents, families who are likely at this stage to blame anyone handy for their grief.

  Overroy has demonstrated more cunning in this than I had credited to him. Rather than an overt play for Johnson’s support before the board of supervisors, he has maneuvered himself into a position to advise the sheriff on the political fallout of these killings. His bid for support will no doubt follow.

  “They want a meeting,” says Emil. “Whataya want me to do? I can’t say no.”

  The “they” in Johnson’s plaintive capitulation is the county’s victim-witness program, a bureaucracy of its own making that has spawned a perpetual money machine for a horde of loosely wrapped psychic healers and self-described counselors. These people take referrals of crime victims and send the bill to the state for payment under the crime compensation act.

  “Roland met with Maggie Wilson yesterday,” Emil tells me. “It’s all arranged. The meeting is this afternoon,” he says.

  Wilson is the victim-witness coordinator in this county, the crime victim’s answer to Don Corleone in drag. To defense attorneys trying to stave off a long term for their clients, she is known as “Attila the Hen,” a woman who missed her calling on the committee of vigilance. Alas, for Maggie Wilson, justice is blind reprisal.

  I roll my eyes. “Tell them I scotched it,” I say. “You can blame it on me. Tell them we will meet with them privately at the appropriate time, when we have specific details to reveal. Right now there is nothing to tell.”

  This slows him for only a second as he considers his options.

  “Roland thinks it’s a good idea,” he says.

  “Roland would,” I tell him. Overroy has no concept of the dictates of a fair trial. It has not dawned on him that a public gathering of the victims
will turn out the press like buffalo at a watering hole. He will poison the potential pool of jurors for a thousand miles.

  Since the last set of killings, life in Davenport resembles nothing so much as festivities under the big top. One enterprising soul armed with the university’s student mailing list is now marketing a stun gun packing 60,000 volts, packaged as a collapsible umbrella; no doubt his version of “Singing in the Rain.”

  Emil is sprawled in his overstuffed swivel chair, his cowboy-booted feet propped in the center of the desk, on top of a pile of police reports and booking sheets that have been sent up the chain for his review.

  “Listen to me, Paul.” His voice is edging toward some southern homily. “It’s no big deal. We can hold their hands, pat ’em on the ass, tell ’em we’re workin’ around the clock to find the killer. It’s the truth,” he tells me. “Hell, all these folks want is some assurance, a little public recognition that they’re in pain.”

  I’m getting worried. Emil is beginning to talk like victim-witness with heavy jowls and a southern accent, the sensitive redneck.

  “The judges won’t like it,” I tell him. “It’ll be a circus. Prejudicial pretrial publicity,” I say. Usually the judges don’t get involved until later, but in a notorious case, they may make an exception. Such a meeting would be a spawning ground for new and additional arguments on appeal. I get a vision of Ingel’s steely eyes, anticipate the phone call that will no doubt come when he hears of this.

  He looks at me, an arched eyebrow. This has his attention. The wrath in the black robes. He thinks for a moment, weighs the anger of four superior court judges against the organized lynch mob that can be victim-witness and its followers.

  “Well, you work it out with them. You talk to the court and they’ll understand,” he says. “You’ve got their respect,” he tells me.

  Now I’m getting my own haunches stroked by Emil, sunshine and southern bullshit.

  “Listen, Emil.” I inject a little calm in my tone, my levelest attempt at sound reason. “I’ve dealt with these people, victim-witness before,” I tell him. “And they will not be satisfied. Give them a public forum and they will pillory both of us.”

  “You worry too much,” he says. “It’s just a little private get-together. Trust me,” he says. “It’ll be OK.”

  From its opening gavel Emil’s meeting with victim-witness has the decorum of a mud-wrestling match.

  As I expected, Maggie Wilson sandbagged him, stacking the crowd with community activists and campus organizers, anybody looking for a cause, and an audience-share on the five o’clock news.

  Claude and I stay in the back, not far from Roland Overroy, whom I saw lurking in the shadows behind a pillar.

  Maggie Wilson has arrogated a seat up close, in the front row, a pulpit for some cheerleading—a good place for roasting a southern hot dog. When Emil invited her to join him on the rostrum she smiled, then politely declined.

  Then the press showed up. Wilson encouraged the guys with the boom-mikes to stick them in Emil’s face. Reporters peppered him with questions about Iganovich and his whereabouts. The audience got personal about the investigation, demanding details on the method of death and other particulars at the crime scenes. This cut too close to the bone, questions Emil could not in good conscience answer. The crowd became abusive. After several minutes of this, Emil’s southern pride is in full retreat. He has called a recess, time out to patch wounds in his corner.

  “Sonofabitch,” he says as he joins us in the back of the room. Emil is puffing hard. He has loops of perspiration the size of a draft-horse harness under each arm.

  “Fuckin’ A,” he says. “They’re kicking my ass.”

  I could say I told him so, but in his current mood he would probably deck me.

  “Any ideas?” he says.

  The crowd is busy getting coffee, taking a leak. For the moment Emil seems relieved that at least they are not doing this on him.

  Claude makes a suggestion.

  “We could get the families of the victims out of here, into a private room, strip the gathering of its legitimacy,” he says. “Announce that they are now meeting privately with other officials.”

  This would leave Emil to deal with the hangers-on, the wannabe grievers and those looking for a social cause. They will get twenty minutes of campaign oratory with periodic admonitions not to backtalk or question Johnny Law.

  Emil dispatches Claude and two of his deputies to buttonhole the families for a private gathering away from the press and public, his own form of latter-day segregation. Emil heads back to the rostrum and I turn to grab a drink from the fountain in the hall outside. People are still milling in as I push through the door. It’s when I run into him, a swiping action banging shoulders. We stop in mid stride and he looks at me with deadly dark eyes, something from the Spanish Inquisition.

  “Mr. Madriani,” he says, dusky and brooding. My name rolls off his tongue, the affectation of some early California Don. Armando Acosta’s hair is slicked back, his suit an impeccable dark pinstripe, little kerchief in the pocket matching his maroon silk tie. I could retire on the metal in his cuff links, to say nothing of the three-thousand-dollar gold watch on his wrist.

  For an instant I am tongue-tied. It is awkward.

  “Judge.” It’s all that will come out of my mouth. I nod, forced deference.

  The Coconut has a woman by the arm, dark complexion like his own, a fierce resemblance. I suspect this is his sister, the mother of the dead victim Sharon Collins. There are no introductions. It is not that friendly. Instead he whispers in the woman’s ear, and a second later she walks off by herself toward the seats in the auditorium.

  “I want to talk to you,” he says. This is no request. He wags a finger in my face, backs out, through the stream of bodies jostling in the doorway. He finds a quiet area outside, in front of the building, on the steps. Once there he turns on me quickly, mincing no words.

  “I don’t know how you got here,” he says. He means my appointment as prosecutor. “I had hoped for somebody,” he searches for the right word, “more competent,” he finally says. “Judge Ingel talked to you?”

  I nod.

  “Then you know why I’m here,” he says.

  “I do. And you have my sympathies,” I say.

  He looks at me, something halfway between meanness and a surly smirk.

  “I don’t want your fucking sympathies,” he tells me. He suddenly loses the clipped tones of affected English. “You can shower all of that on the suckers inside,” he says. “What I want is a look at the file, everything the cops have, in the Collins case,” he says. He looks at me stone-faced. He knows I cannot give him this, confidential files on a pending murder investigation.

  “Everything is being done that can be,” I tell him.

  “Is that so?”

  “It is,” I say.

  “I can give you some help,” he tells me.

  “In what way?”

  “I have access to people in Capital County who have made offers of assistance.” He’s talking about special treatment for a member of the bench. He tells me some cops, old friends, are willing to dog leads for him in their spare time. They will no doubt be given special treatment the next time they come looking for a search warrant or take the stand in his court. Such is the common currency in the halls of justice.

  He tells me Davenport is a cow county. “You know as well as I that they have limited resources. I have no intention of sitting back and watching as they close the books on my niece,” he says.

  “No one’s closing the books.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I look at the files.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” He’s picking lint off the shoulder of my coat now, his message that I do nothing right, not to his
level of expectations, even to the point of my dress.

  “Your honor.” I back away a full step. The lint on my shoulder belongs to me.

  “I’m not looking for an argument or a difficult time. You know as well as I that the files in a pending case are not public,” I say. “They are not available to anyone but the investigators working the case.”

  Cold beady eyes, like some Aztec high priest about to do sacrifice on an altar of stone. In this moment he is, I am sure, measuring the myriad ways a judge can screw over a hapless lawyer. I suspect he has made promises to his sister that now, because of my intransigence, he cannot keep.

  “What I would have expected,” he says, “from someone like you.” Then his forefinger is in my face, manicured and long, and shaking with anger. “Don’t fuck up,” he says. His expression cold and dead.

  Then I hear the click of hard heels as he turns and leaves me standing alone on the steps.

  Against my own better judgment I have drawn the private duty with family members, along with Claude in a smaller conference room off the main auditorium. I can hear table-pounding and loud voices outside, in the other room. Emil is having his own come-to-Jesus meeting with the press.

  We are seated around a large table now, conference style, Julie Park’s parents, her father Kim Park, a physician from Southern California at one end of the table. The Sniders are next to him, then Mr. and Mrs. Collins and Acosta. Next to him is Rodney Slate’s mother. I am told that his father is hospitalized with a serious heart condition, no doubt worsened by the loss of his only son.

  Acosta is silent in this meeting, his brooding eyes on me every second. He has always been one for the appearance of propriety. It is one thing to bend the rules, to slip a peek at official files, another to come here dripping saliva and demanding blood with the unwashed masses. That would be unseemly. He would rather backdoor me with Ingel. So here, he will sit, bide his time and listen to the others, ever the proper jurist, the soul of restraint.

  There’s a young kid in his teens seated next to Mrs. Snider, a strong family resemblance. My guess is that this is a younger brother of the victim, Jonathan Snider. At the other end of the table is a man in a blue serge suit passing out business cards. He flips one down the table in my direction.