I had not expected to be told I was living the gnome-life today. Excellent.
Hank started rhythmically cracking the eggs into the bowl and throwing the shells into the sink. “So, with Fancy Pants gone, you’re going to handle the trial?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. I think you should get a new attorney.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I don’t have the experience that Christian had.” I smiled. “Or the suits.”
“Pffft.” He flipped a shell backhanded into the sink. “Armor doesn’t make the warrior.”
“No, but a warrior shouldn’t go buck naked into battle either.”
“Unless your camp’s attacked at night. Then you fight as you are.”
Great. Now I was in a renaissance fair. “Fortunately, we haven’t been attacked at night, Hank. We’re being attacked with plenty of notice. So we have time to get you a different lawyer.
“Hmpf.” Hank stared at me. “I took you for more of a scrapper, with the ear and all.” He turned to me, his eyes intent. “Wrestling?”
“The ear?”
He nodded.
I shrugged. “No. I mean yes I wrestled but no that’s not how I got it.”
“So?” He pulled out a knife, a pepper, and a cutting board.
“Hank, we have serious shit to discuss here.”
His eyes grew serious. “Nothing’s more serious than war stories, Nate.”
I sighed. “Then the representation?”
“Then the representation.”
“You know Cade?”
“My jailer?” The knife danced over the cutting board, turning a whole pepper into delicious squares. “Of course.”
“I spent some time training with him.”
Hank lined up a neat pile of red pepper squares with the knife and lit a fire under the pan. “People don’t get cauliflower ear lifting weights.”
“Not lifting. Fighting.”
“With him?”
“Sometimes.”
Hank smiled. “My jailer is a large individual.”
“I’m not small.”
“No. But still.”
I shrugged. “The world has no weight classes.”
“Truth.” Hank dumped the eggs into the pan. There was a sizzle and the smell of cooking egg drifted over. “So what happened?”
“We were sparring. He landed a right hook. My ear filled up with blood.”
“Did it knock you out?”
“No.”
“Did you keep fighting?”
“Sparring. And yes.”
Hank was smiling now. “When was this?”
I wasn’t going to answer that.
“Hank, we’re not talking about fighting. We’re talking about a trial.”
“Don’t see much of a difference.”
“There is.”
Hank jiggled the spatula under the eggs and flipped over the now solid egg-circle. As he sprinkled the peppers along one half and folded the egg-circle in half, he said, “Have you tried cases?”
“Yes.”
“Have you won?”
“And lost.”
“Anyone who fights takes a beating now and then.”
“Hank, this is for murder. If we lose, you’ll die.”
“Which is what will happen at the end of my life, isn’t it?”
I took a deep breath. “But that end could come much sooner.
Hank jiggled the spatula under the egg and flipped then sprinkled the peppers along one half and folded the egg over.
With a different attorney, you have a better chance of going free.”
Hank brought those ice blue eyes back into focus on me. “Will getting a new attorney delay the trial?”
“Only for a little while.”
“But it will delay it?”
“Yes.”
“I want a scrapper, Counselor.”
He flipped the folded eggs to the other side. “And I’m not going to stay cooped up any longer than I have to.”
I changed tack. “I wasn’t supposed to be the lead, Hank. I need more time to prepare. You might as well get a new attorney in the meantime.”
Hank raised his eyebrows. “You need more than two weeks? To argue?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple.”
“Hank, it’s not. There are things that have to be prepared for the trial.”
“Maybe in other cases. Not in this one.”
I waited for his explanation.
Hank smiled. “There’s no question I beat that cowardly shit-bird to death. You just have to explain the reason why.”
He had a point.
Hank slid the omelet onto a plate and handed it to me with a fork. “Is Cyn still involved?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know her?”
“Old friend of the family. So is she?”
“Yes.”
Hank waved before dropping more beaten eggs into the pan. “Then you’ll be fine. She’ll give you all the help you need and I can certainly work you into my busy schedule whenever you want to meet.”
I studied Hank. His face matched his words—he seemed utterly unconcerned at the prospect of me handling his murder trial or that fact that he was facing death. The purpose of this visit was accomplished—I knew where Hank stood. And he wasn’t going to give me the easy way out.
“I’ll need to talk to the Judge,” I said. “We’ll see what she says.”
“You have to tell her the truth, right?”
“Always.”
“Then you be sure to tell her that I want you, that I don’t want a delay, and that I won’t cooperate with anyone else.”
Great. “I’ll talk to you as soon as I talk to the Judge.”
Hank pointed the spatula. “Eat. Don’t waste the heat.”
I did. It was delicious. I was five bites in when Hank said, “Have drug dealers become so precious?” said Hank.
“How so?”
“That we mourn their death?”
I took another bite. “It’s not his death that’s the problem, Hank. It’s your enthusiasm.”
Hank’s eyes glittered. “I do get carried away. But that’s rock and roll now, isn’t it?”
With that, Hank let me finish my omelet as I tried to figure out how I was going to get new counsel on the case when my client didn’t want them. A short time later, Hank joined me.
And yes, it was delicious.
Cyn was still at the table typing away when I got back. “Did you get to him first?” I said.
She didn’t look up. “What are you talking about, Nathan?”
“Did you tell Hank to keep me on?”
“Mr. Braggi is perfectly capable of making decisions for himself. And no.”
Danny stuck his head out of his office. “Judge Gallon’s bailiff called.”
I gave Cyn a glare, which she was totally oblivious to because she never took her eyes off her work. Then I said, “What did she want?”
“A telephone pretrial.”
“When?”
“Five minutes. I emailed you the call-in number.”
“Thanks. This isn’t finished,” I said to Cyn.
“We’ll find out in five minutes,” she said without pausing.
I went to my temporary office, turned on my tablet, and loaded the Braggi file just in time to call-in. When Stacy had Jeff and me on the line, she connected us to the judge.
“Judge Gallon here. Do I have Mr. Shepherd?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And Mr. Hanson?”
“Yes, Judge.”
“Nate, I understand that Mr. Dane has passed away.”
“He has, Your Honor.”
“My condolences.”
“I hadn’t heard, Nate,” said Jeff. “Mine too.”
“Thank you both.”
“Will you be participating in arrangements?”
“No, Your Honor. He’s being taken back to Minnesota and his fa
mily is handling things there.”
“The reason I called the pretrial is that I assume you’re going to be asking for a continuance while you sort this out,” said Judge Gallon. “Since we’re only about two weeks away, I wanted to bring this to a head now.”
“We might not be, Your Honor.”
“Might not what?”
“Be asking for a continuance.”
There was silence on the line for a few beats before Judge Gallon said, “And how could that be?”
“Because I could be handling the case.”
“As lead attorney?”
“We’re still working that out, Your Honor, but that’s what my client wants.”
“I see. I assume you would still need a continuance?”
“My client doesn’t want one, Your Honor.”
“That’s not what I asked, Mr. Shepherd.”
Sometimes the truth is the most disarming, effective weapon you have. “Judge, we found out that Christian died today. Can we have until Monday to decide?”
“Of course,” said Judge Gallon. “But I’ll want a decision then. Any objection, Mr. Hanson?”
“Of course not, Your Honor.”
“And Nate, just so you know how the Court’s leaning, I know you’re a skilled attorney and that you’re technically qualified to represent a client as lead counsel on a capital murder case.”
“It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ there, Your Honor.”
“But if you’re going to keep the trial date, you don’t have time for a refresher course. I strongly suggest that you bring in co-counsel who’s been in that arena more recently to do it with you.”
“Lindsey Cooper is already up to speed, Your Honor,” said Jeff.
I chuckled with mirth I didn’t feel. “Aiding the defense now, Jeff?”
“I don’t want to hand Braggi an ineffective assistance of counsel appeal when he gets the death penalty, Nate.”
“So polite. So mean.”
Judge Gallon shifted to her clipped, authoritative tone. “Alright. Email Jeff and the bailiff Monday with your decision, Nate, and we’ll go from there. Anything else?”
“No, Your Honor,” Jeff and I said.
“Then have a good weekend,” she said, and hung up.
“Still there, Nate?” Jeff said.
“Yes.”
“We’ll keep the second-degree deal open until Monday. Can’t say if we will after.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
“See ya.”
I hung up, made a call and found out that Lindsey Cooper was in, then left the office to go see if I could get her to come back onto Hank Braggi’s defense.
14
Lindsey Cooper’s office was in the Barrister Building, an old brick structure dating back to the early 1900s that a variety of attorneys shared office space in. Located right next to the courthouse, it was once the pride of Carrefour and the office of legendary judge William Flintlock. Those glory days were long past now though and using the elevator meant risking a one in ten chance of being stuck in it for half an hour. I couldn’t, so I took the stairs to the fourth floor. Three solo offices were set up there and I went to the middle door which said, “Lindsey Cooper, Attorney at Law.”
Carrefour wasn't big enough to have a public defender's office so what it had instead was a list of practitioners who would take individual appointments from the Court. Lindsey was a couple of years ahead of me in law school and had built her solo practice on those appointments. That's how I had first run into her, when I was a prosecutor fresh out of law school. Since then, Lindsey had developed a thriving family law practice; Carrefour was big enough to manufacture a steady stream of divorces, custody disputes, and child support arrearages. She continued to take appointments on criminal cases though, both from a sense of obligation to what got her started and to keep her trial skills sharp.
With the advent of telephone answering programs, most solo practitioners didn't have a secretarial staff and Lindsey was no exception. When I opened the door and knocked, Lindsey called, “Back here, Nate,” and I let myself in.
She was on her cell phone when I walked into her office. She raised her hand to me then said, “Oh, go to hell, Spencer. If you had a witness, you would have produced him by now. And you know you don't have any prints so there's no way you can put my guy at the scene.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, of course he resisted, the cops detained him without cause! Last time I checked, you're allowed to be at a Taco Bell at three in the morning. Shit, it's their whole business plan. Fine, talk to Victoria and then get back to me with an offer that doesn't include time. Sure, see you at volleyball Tuesday.”
Lindsey had straight, shoulder-length brown hair and an appealing face that engendered a belief that she was telling the truth. I'm almost certain that she knew it. She was a little taller than average and was always busy so she always looked a little bit tired. She hung up the phone, waved at the chair, and said, “What's going on, Nate? I'm pretty sure I sent you all of the file materials.”
I looked around at an office strewn with the wreckage of dozens of files, a state that was not at all uncommon for a trial lawyer. “Sure?”
“All this way to insult my housekeeping? I have missed you.”
Probably not the best opening to enlist someone's assistance. “No, it wasn’t the documents. My lead counsel is dead.”
“Shit, really?”
“Really.”
“I'm sorry. Out of town guy right?”
“Minnesota.”
“So what do you need—wait a minute, you're not looking to boomerang this thing back around on me, are you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Not exactly.”
She stared, silent.
“I'm not letting go of the boomerang. But I do need your help.”
“My schedule is remarkably free of murderers, Nate. I enjoy that.”
“I'd still be the lead.”
“Thinking of taking some ‘me’ time.”
“We've still got the backing of the Minnesota firm.”
“Maybe get my hair done.”
“Danny would do all the research.”
“Run a 10K.”
“I'll do most of it—open, close, most of the witnesses.”
“I’ve been meaning to write a book.
“Or all of the witnesses.”
“In fact, I might not do anything at all. That's kind of the point of not having a murder trial on your calendar.”
“Judge Gallon might not let me stay on unless you join me as co-counsel.”
The smile left Lindsey's face and she looked at me in the same way she had when I had watched her eviscerate a cop who had planted a gram of cocaine in a car during a traffic stop gone bad. “Has anyone had the balls to ask you if you're emotionally equipped to handle this case?”
I didn't drop my eyes. “Some people have danced around the edges. No one has asked me directly.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Can you handle this case without losing your shit?”
“Is that the technical term?”
“Yes.”
“I can.”
“This seems awfully close to home, Nate.”
“It is.”
“You know I'm sorry about Sarah.”
I knew she was. She'd come to the funeral. I nodded.
“But a murder trial is no place to work through it.”
“I'm fine.”
“I don't know how that's possible.”
“I'm not the first person to lose their wife, Lindsey.”
“I didn't say you were. But this seems like dancing right up to the edge.”
“We don't make the facts, Lindsey. We just present them.”
She stared at me. “You'd really be taking the lead?”
I nodded. “You just keep me honest and guide me around the traps.”
“I suppose it's at the public defender rate?”
“What
kind of friend do you take me for? It's at the Friedlander & Skald rate.”
“Which is?”
I told her.
“Jesus Christ, Nate, why didn't you say that in the first fucking place. I’m in.” She leaned back. “Is Jeff's deal still on the table?”
I nodded. “Hank made his views on that pretty clear to me.”
Lindsey shook her head. “Me too. Doesn't make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. Any objection to getting started right now?”
“And leave all this?” Lindsey stood and snapped her tablet shut. “You’re lead counsel. Lead away.”
We left for my office, driving separately. It was on the way that the realization really hit me.
I was neck deep in it. I would be defending Hank Braggi at his murder trial.
15
“All right,” I said. “We have two weeks until the trial. We're going to organize today so that we get a jump on the weekend.”
The trial team was sitting around the conference table in our third-floor temporary office. I was at one end, Cyn was at the other, and Lindsey and Danny were on either side.
“We know he did it,” said Lindsey. She had this trick where she could make a pen spin in a circle between her thumb and forefinger and she did it now as she spoke. “So what’s the strategy?”
“Self-defense,” I said. “Well, you know what I mean, defense of another but essentially self-defense. Our theme is that Dillon Chase was a scumbag who was shooting up an unconscious woman who wasn’t a user and that Hank Braggi did what anyone of us would do when confronted by the same situation.
Lindsey’s pen spun faster. “That would've been fine if Braggi had tackled him. How are we going to explain bone-breaking?”
“I’m thinking a combo of outrage at seeing an unconscious woman assaulted combined with righteous anger at the heroin epidemic.”
“Do you think Judge Gallon will let you get away with that?”
“To a point.”
“Enough of a point?”
“I guess we'll see.”
The pen slowed. “We’ll need to talk to Gerchuk, see how he’s going to describe the cause of death.”
“I did. The description’s not good.”
The pen stopped.
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