Prime Witness

by Steve Martini

  “Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall?” he says. He’s gesturing with a hand, subtle, keeping the movement below his waist, as we walk, motioning toward one of the corner booths off in the distance. I’m in no mood for gossip. My mind is on other things, missing sleep. But I look. There at the table is Adrian Chambers, fitted out in a three-piece suit, his face illuminated under the chin by candle light, the visage of some evil genie. Next to him with his back to me is a head of silver-gray, nodding in animated conversation. As I focus, this has me doing a double take, uncertain whether my eyes have deceived. But as I look again, first impressions are confirmed. Sitting at the table with Adrian, indulging himself in boisterous conversation, is Roland Overroy, the two men laughing, in synchronous harmony, no doubt, I suspect, at my expense.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “I‘ll can him,” I say. “Fire the sonofabitch on the spot.” I’m talking about Overroy. I am back in the office, after lunch, storming around my desk, unable to sit and talk coherently, so palpable is the undirected energy driving my anger.

  In light of the subject matter, the calming voice comes from an unexpected quarter. Lenore Goya is telling me to cool down. To think before I act. She’s in one of the client chairs that I am now dancing behind.

  “After all,” she says, “they were only having lunch.”

  “If you believe that,” I say, “I’ll leave a tooth under my pillow tonight.”

  She smiles, gives me a look.

  “So maybe they weren’t just having lunch,” she says. “How do you prove it?”

  “It answers one question,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “How all those little details got into the Johnson letter, Chambers’s missive to the grand jury,” I tell her. I’m talking about the tire tracks on the dirt road, near where the Scofields were found. There is only one way Chambers could have known about that. If someone with information, on the inside of our investigation, told him. On the short list of available candidates, people in positions of trust who might kick dirt on our case, leak information to the other side, Roland now has my vote.

  “You think he would do that?” she says.

  Does Howdy Doody have wooden balls? I think this, but do not say it.

  Still, she reminds me that this is not a private law firm where I can fire an associate on mere suspicion, though in Overroy’s case Lenore would clearly like to make an exception.

  “In civil service,” she says, “you get a hearing, and the burden is on the employer to produce evidence of cause to terminate. Take a shot and miss, and he will sue you on a dozen different theories of discrimination.”

  She is, of course, right.

  “So what am I supposed to do, look the other way?”

  “Seal him off from the case,” she says, “like a Chinese Wall, so that he cannot do us more harm.”

  In a small office, where everybody talks, this would be difficult.

  Lenore is of the school that believes all is possible “if you give him enough rope.” She would live with the hope that eventually Roland will do himself in, that the brass coating his balls and between his ears will in time end his career.

  I am not so patient.

  Before I can say more, Lenore drops some pages on my desk, three pieces stapled at the top.

  “I don’t want to add to your woe,” she says, “but it ain’t good.”

  I read. It’s a minute order from Judge Fisher, the results of our points and authorities on the Kellett case. This does not come as any great surprise. The court has ruled that unless we charge Iganovich with the Scofield murders before the jury retires to deliberate its verdict, that prevailing law would bar us from any further prosecution of the Russian for these crimes at a later date.

  “He doesn’t mince words,” I say.

  Lenore shakes her head. “Chambers has put us in a box,” she says, “with no way out.”

  She is right. If we have miscalculated. If Chambers has no alibi for his client on the date of the Scofield murders and if evidence later surfaces implicating the Russian in those crimes, I will be the biggest goat this county has ever seen.

  Goya’s about to open discussion on this again when the phone rings on my desk. It’s Sharon at reception.

  “Judge Ingel, line one for you,” she says.

  I punch the button on the phone.

  “Your honor.” I grit my teeth.

  It’s a feminine voice on the other end. “The judge will be with you in a minute.” Ingel’s clerk. I love the self-important people who do this, call you and leave you hanging on the phone listening to the hyperventilation of some underling.

  Lenore is making questioning eyes at me, then reads my lips as I silently form two words: “the Prussian.”

  No sooner is this done than I hear his voice on the phone.

  “Mr. Madriani,” he says. “Are you busy?” His voice is stiff. No small talk here.

  “I have time to talk,” I say.

  “I wonder if you might have a few minutes to meet with me, here at the courthouse?”

  “Certainly. No problem. When?”

  “Now.” He says it like I should have read his mind.

  “Something specific?” I ask.

  “We’ll talk when you get here,” he says and hangs up. I suspect that most telephone conversations with this man probably end this way, with the other party feeling that perhaps they are in trouble. It is how people like Derek Ingel assert their authority.

  “What did he want?”

  “Beats me,” I tell her. “Command performance in chambers now.” I grab my coat and head for the door.

  “Probably wants you to waive opening argument so he can catch an extra luau.” She’s talking about the judge’s scheduled vacation, the force now driving our entire trial schedule.

  When I arrive, Ingel’s courtroom is dark, but the door is unlocked. A single shaft of light from the clerk’s station backstage bathes the bench in an eerie glow. This place appears much larger, somehow more imposing and ominous in this half-light. The double flags hanging on their stanchions, sharp brass spear-tipped points on these poles, and state seal behind the judge’s chair, up high, take on an imperial quality in the shadows, something from the reign of Tiberius, images of Roman legions, something no doubt Ingel would spare no effort to foster.

  I introduce myself to his clerk. She remembers me from my last visit and asks me to take a seat while she calls the inner sanctum. I can hear voices behind the closed door, nothing intelligible, just the hum of human discourse. Apparently the judge has been waylaid since his call to me, some business he must first finish. The intercom buzzes inside, voices die, the clerk announces me, and then as if through a hose, “Tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.”

  I have often wondered why, with the confidences that are bared in such places, their builders construct them with the acoustical integrity of a paper-walled Nippon summer palace.

  “He’ll be with you in a moment,” she says. I nod, smile at the redundancy, and listen as the voices again accelerate to speed, though the volume is now turned down.

  I cool my heels looking at my watch. Ten minutes go by. I read a magazine, wishing I’d brought some work with me from the office. When I look at my watch again I have been here twenty-five minutes. I’m into another article when the intercom buzzes on the clerk’s desk.

  “Yes sir.” She hangs up.

  “Mr. Madriani, you can go in now.”

  I straighten my tie and open the door.

  Ingel is behind his desk, imperious and stiff, looking as ever himself, like a warmed-over cadaver. I had assumed his earlier audience was concluded, that his company had left by way of the door leading to the main hallway outside. But now I see Don Esterhauss, chairman of the supervisors, seated
in one of the client chairs across from the judge. I turn to shut the door.

  Nothing can prepare me for the juvenile rush I feel as I swing it closed and see the other faces. Seated on the couch, behind the door, at opposite ends are Adrian Chambers and Roland Overroy, a reprise of their role over lunch, each of them looking at me, studying my response.

  I stand there frozen in place, until this becomes awkward. The judge motions me to take a seat, the client chair that is left. When I don’t move, he gets up and makes a charade of introductions, anything to ease the unpleasantness.

  “I think you know Don Esterhauss,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say, but I don’t look at him.

  Don’s not quite sure whether he should get up to shake my hand, so he stays where he is, smiles and nods.

  “And of course you know Mr. Chambers, and Roland from your own staff.” I’m still looking at these two. He does not linger long on this. I think Ingel senses molten lava close under the surface with me.

  “Sitdown,” he says. He makes this a single word, no longer an invitation, but a command.

  I settle into the chair, turn it a little sideways to keep my back away from the couch, as a feeling of foreboding washes over me.

  Ingel engages in a little small talk, something to take the edge off, how law in a small town is more intimate, less formal than across the river. Soon he will be telling me that this excuses breaches of professional ethics. He knows he is walking on the thin edge here, that I could complain that his closed door discussions out of my presence are ex parte, a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Called to answer, he would no doubt insist that Roland represented my office in this meeting, notwithstanding Overroy’s lack of authority to do so. And he would win. My problems with Roland are an internal affair, an open office pissing contest which the courts would no doubt tell me I am solely responsible to manage.

  Ingel asks me if I would like some coffee. I decline.

  “I hope I won’t be here that long,” I say.

  He gives me a sharp look.

  “I’ve a lot of work to do,” I explain.

  “Well, then we should get to it. We’ve been talking for a few minutes,” says Ingel, like this is news.

  “Covering some ground,” he says. He’s arranging a number of things on his desk, a paperweight, some files, finally stops to toy with his coffee cup. He will not look me in the eye, but continues to talk.

  “Roland,” he says, “ran into Mr. Chambers at a county bar function a few weeks back, introduced by a mutual acquaintance,” he explains.

  My mind conjures images of Eve’s encounter with the serpent, though clearly Roland is not so innocent.

  He tells me that they had occasion to discuss what he refers to as just “some things.” The judge presents all this to me as rather fortuitous. The good luck of a chance meeting.

  “Birds of a feather,” I say.

  Adrian stiffens. Ingel gives me a look.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” I tell him.

  Ingel issues a pained expression and goes on.

  “One thing led to another,” he says, “and resulted in our discussion here today.”

  “And what’s that?” I say.

  “Emm?”

  “Your discussion here today?”

  Ingel knows that I can sense the subject matter. But I will force him to say it out loud.

  “Well . . .” He looks at the couch and wonders, I think, if he shouldn’t have one of these two carry this load from here. But there are no volunteers.

  “Well, they started exploring some common ground,” he says. He gives me a quick sideways glance, then looks away before he finishes his thought. “The Putah Creek cases,” he says. There, it is out.

  With this I come up out of my chair.

  “No. No. Now sit down,” he says. “I want you to hear this out. I know this is sensitive. I also know that you weren’t told. Roland has informed me of this.”

  “Then he’s told you more than he has me. Maybe he can explain to me what he’s doing discussing a case for which he has absolutely no responsibility, or authority,” I say.

  Overroy starts to open his mouth, but Ingel cuts him off.

  “I don’t think that would be productive,” he says. “Not now. For the time being,” he says, “I think we can just say that he was operating under my auspices. To see if maybe we could bring this thing to a conclusion short of a long and costly trial,” says Ingel. “Something that I think you would agree is in everyone’s best interest.”

  I am stunned by the duplicity and boldness of this, the brazen manner in which it is announced.

  “I assured him that you would take no reprisals for his actions in this regard.” Ingel’s talking about Overroy, who now sits on the couch next to Chambers, his head seeming to float like shit in high cotton, an insolent grin planted on his face. Roland now sees himself beyond my reach, a diplomat on my turf, but with immunity. With this, there will be no end to his mischief.

  “Roland,” says Ingel, “and Mr. Chambers have had several meetings, and with time running out on us, nearing trial,” he says, “they have narrowed the issues. We thought maybe it was time to talk settlement, a possible plea.”

  “If Mr. Chambers wanted to talk plea bargains he should have approached me, not one of my deputies assigned to other cases.”

  “Agreed,” says Ingel. “It was not done entirely according to Hoyle, but then no one planned it,” he says.

  He expects me to accept this. Assurances from on high.

  “Since he’s taken it upon himself to negotiate for my office without authority, all I can say is that I hope that Roland’s been hard-nosed on behalf of the people,” I tell him.

  “He’s done a good job,” says Ingel.

  Roland beams.

  “Then can I assume that the defendant’s ready to stipulate to the death penalty?”

  “I told you.” Chambers is moving to get up. “I warned you that this would be a waste of time. There’s no talking to the man,” he says. “Let’s forget it.”

  He’s up off the couch, briefcase in hand, all the maneuvers of a well-drilled routine. If I were alone, this is where I would wait to see if he would actually leave, cross the threshold and slam the door, or whether he would continue to carp over my desk a litany about justice and the clogged courts.

  As it is, we’ll never know. Ingel pleads with him to sit down.

  “We’ve come a long way,” he says. “Let’s not lose it now.”

  He makes this sound as if there’s already some done deal.

  Grudging, looking at me cross-eyed, Chambers slowly settles back into the couch.

  To all of this Esterhauss is a silent audience. Lawyer talk and a lot of bile. I think he is intimidated, and more than a little embarrassed at what is shaping up to be the ugly marketplace of justice.

  “Mr. Madriani,” says Ingel. “There’s a great deal at stake here. I wouldn’t want your ego to get in the way. You should consider very seriously the terms and conditions that have been discussed. I will expect you to.”

  Chambers gives just the slightest perception of a smile.

  The message is clear, the trial judge is demanding that at a minimum I entertain this offer, however absurd.

  I have from the inception not seen this as a case susceptible to settlement by plea bargain. There are no minor players here, co-conspirators for whose testimony we might offer some deal. From what we know, Iganovich acted alone to commit multiple murders, calculated in separate acts, not something that lends itself to theories of mitigating circumstances. The hideous repetition leaves little middle ground. These crimes are not some blind act of passion, at least not in the way a normal mind could comprehend, that might justify anything less than the maxim
um penalty.

  “It appears I’m a captive audience,” I tell Ingel.

  He gives me a look that could scorch paper.

  “Mr. Overroy, maybe you or Mr. Chambers.” He motions them to fill me in on the details.

  Overroy makes the move, his eyes not on me, but Esterhauss. He sees this no doubt as the close in his pitch to replace Mario on a permanent basis. A prosecutor with his eye fixed firmly on the fiscal bottom line, someone the county fathers could embrace, pragmatic and politically malleable as plastic.

  “It’s straightforward,” he says, “no mysteries. We’ve worked out a plea of guilty,” he says, “to multiple counts of first-degree murder. Mr. Chambers has already discussed this with his client, explained to him the risks of going to trial.”

  This risk, of course, is a death sentence, something that Roland proposes to deal away. It is the only basis for a deal, and his only bargaining chit.

  He’s talking around me, trying to convince Ingel and Esterhauss of the wisdom of this move. He talks about the evidence, conversant, as if perhaps he’s been rifling our files at night. To listen to Roland, the case for the state is at best a toss-up, a possible loser on the circumstantial evidence.

  I cut him off before he can get deeply into details.

  “If our case is so weak,” I say, “why would you want to cop a plea?” I put this to Chambers.

  “Maybe you should discuss that privately with your own deputy.” He’s talking about Overroy and his assessment of our case.

  “Why would I want to question the monkey, when I can talk to the organ grinder?” I say.

  Mean slits from Roland, though Esterhauss laughs, unable to keep it in.

  Overroy tries to ignore this, rolls with the punch and keeps going.

  “Mr. Iganovich has consented, generally, to the terms discussed,” he says.

  “Is this true?” Ingel asks Chambers.

  “More or less,” says Adrian.