The Arraignment

by Steve Martini

  She could have told Metz to take his problems elsewhere, but that wouldn’t prevent him from calling Nick on his own. Supporter of the arts he may be. But knowing Dana, she was looking for a sure way to sidestep a possible embarrassment. Nick’s story of a conflict with Metz and the ease with which he disposed of it seems a little too convenient to be believed. Nick decided he would refer the case elsewhere.

  So who does he call? The one lawyer in town he knows who will not touch a drug case. And kazam, poof, it bounces back to him. Now he is not only able to take the case, he is able to tell Dana that he had no choice. He will take care of her friend, but she will pay the price. That brain would be doing double time with the thought that this would not only give him chits in his marriage but latitude in his practice. How could she complain when it was she who brought this particular client to his doorstep? And after all, he had tried to get rid of it.

  By the time I reach the end of the block, I am smiling to myself, convinced that I have untangled the sordid intrigue of Nick’s marital machinations. I am savoring this little victory so that I fail to hear them as individual reports but instead as a continuous burst, like a loud zipper being opened. The shots resonate off the concrete walls of the buildings around me and echo off the four-story government offices that span Front Street. My arms go up, and I crouch against a wall, the instincts of survival taking hold.

  It isn’t until I hear the sound of screeching rubber on the roadway behind me that I turn. A small dark sedan leaves a cloud of exhaust and burned rubber as it peels away from the curb in front of the courthouse. I can hear the engine hammering on eight cylinders, the raw power of an engine pushed to the limit as the car slides through a left turn onto Broadway. The cross traffic braking, screeching to a stop to avoid hitting it, horns honking. Before I can focus entirely, the car disappears around the corner.

  I look back across Front Street to the main entrance of the courthouse. Two women are crawling on their hands and knees on the sidewalk. A guy helps one of them up, only to have her hands fly up to her mouth as she screams. I can hear it, a piercing high note, even half a block away. She is looking down at something behind her on the sidewalk.

  The gathering crowd has blocked my view. One of the marshals in his blue sport coat exits the courthouse door on the run. He disappears behind the small sea of onlookers, I suspect gone down to one knee.

  Within seconds, two other men in dark uniforms join him, both coming out of the courthouse door on the run. They have guns drawn. One of them is talking into a small microphone clipped to the shoulder epaulet of his uniform.

  Traffic has slowed on Front Street as drivers stop to rubberneck. I weave between cars, horns honking, as I cross over and make my way along the sidewalk toward the front of the courthouse. Other people are running in the same direction now, everybody with the same thought, to see what has happened.

  As I come up behind the throng, I try to edge my way through, shoulders sliding sideways until I find a crevice in the crowd where I can see. There on the ground lying in a river of blood is a body. A man, dark hair, his face turned away from me on the concrete, part of it bloodied and gone. He’s wearing a sport coat gone sideways on his upper body as he hit the ground. His gray slacks are soaking up blood, legs tangled as if he were trying to flee as he was cut down.

  I look for Nick, but I don’t see him. By now at least a half dozen marshals are assembled, trying to gain control, pushing people back, making a path for the EMTs whose ambulance I can hear in the distance. Two city patrol cars pull up in front, their light bars flashing. One of them has a semiautomatic drawn. Then he realizes it’s over, and reholsters it, clipping it down with the snap strap before he starts pushing people back to clear a path.

  People are stumbling, being pushed. An old woman in a long coat and bandanna, nearly goes to her knees. A guy reaches out and grabs her. A look of confusion as she has no idea where these saving hands have come from. Delayed panic ripples through the crowd as stunned silence turns to agitation and people regain their bravado. Curiosity sets in. They press in for a look, and the cops push back, holding the line.

  “Did you see it?”

  “No. I heard the shots.”

  “Anybody hurt?” One of the cops is calling out.

  “Over here.” A man’s voice.

  A city traffic cop, still wearing his cycle helmet, cuts a swath through the crowd. It isn’t until then that I realize it’s not one gathering but two, each orbiting like constellations around their own black hole. There on the sidewalk I see Nick, sitting, his heavy-lidded eyes fixed in a half-closed sightless stare cast at the rivulet of his own blood running down the sidewalk and over the curb. There are little dark dots seeping into the fabric of his coat, too many for me to count. The bullet holes in his chest run downward diagonally across his body, not disappearing until they reach his waist. The impact has blown him back against a concrete planter box, where his body sits slumped like some child’s discarded puppet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Standing on the sidewalk, I can do nothing. Within seconds, a fire engine rounds the corner, followed a minute later by an ambulance. Two EMTs jump off the engine, and, before I can move, they are working on Nick. They hover over him, pulling equipment from their large emergency packs—needles and plasma, an oxygen mask connected to a small tank. I move through the crowd and realize that the other man is Metz. I can see the back of one of the emergency medical techs hunching over him, doing chest compressions.

  In less than three minutes, Nick and Metz are loaded onto stretchers and moved into the ambulance. I can see part of Nick’s face outside of the mask as they wheel him past. It is ashen, a hue of blue-gray. His eyes are partly open, a lifeless expression that you know is not good.

  Before I can turn for my car, the ambulance and its cargo are gone. I would guess to the trauma center, but given the medical facilities in this town I would have better odds playing roulette. Instead of guessing, I head to the car and ply the cell phone. It takes me ten minutes of calling information before I find the right hospital, only to be told that the ambulance has arrived but no information can be given out. The nurse wants to know if I am family. I tell her no. She asks my name and phone number. I tell her I will call back later and hang up. There is nothing I can do. In a daze, I head for the office. One of those episodes when you drive, arrive at a destination, and don’t know how you got there. I’m parked on the street outside my office, sitting in the driver’s seat, not knowing how long I’ve been here.

  I shake my head, wipe my forehead. For a moment I think I am imagining it. But my hands are trembling. I turn the key in the ignition halfway and turn on the radio, and push buttons for local stations. I break into one of them and hear the words:

  “. . . outside of the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego. At this time we don’t know how many people have been injured. Again, it was a drive-by shooting.”

  I reach for the control and turn up the volume.

  “According to confirmed reports, two men are dead.”

  My mind has already registered the fact, but hearing it somehow makes it real.

  “The identities of the two victims are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. According to police, the motive for the shootings is unknown. There have been no arrests and police say the investigation is continuing. We’ll bring you further details at the hour.”

  The rest of that day and the day after seem largely a haze of nightmarish images, of dark dreams that I can escape by awakening only to discover that I am not dreaming.

  Fortunately, the cops do not get around to me until three days after the fact. At first, I thought maybe my name might have been on Nick’s calendar. When they didn’t show up that first day, I knew it wasn’t.

  A double murder involving a prominent lawyer in front of a federal courthouse is front-page news. The local channels and the papers are hitting it hard, the cops fanning the flames, feeding them information, none of it favorable to
Nick. As a criminal defense lawyer, Nick was infamous, the kind of advocate who took no prisoners in a courtroom. It has already been leaked that there was an envelope with four thousand dollars in cash in Nick’s coat pocket when they undressed the body at the morgue. That there was a name scrawled on the envelope is all that authorities are saying. It is enough for readers to draw unsavory conclusions.

  The police are saying nothing about motive, though reporters have ferreted out that Metz was under indictment. They have referred to Metz only as a prominent businessman. The key clue for the press is Nick. They have dwelled on the fact that he specialized in major narcotic cases both in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and in private practice, and from this they have pieced sketchy conclusions, offering just enough for readers to speculate.

  As for the authorities, they are saying nothing. Under the circumstances, Nick’s passing is not likely to result in the dedication of any lofty limestone memorials by civic groups.

  Cameras and a steady gaggle of reporters have been staked out in front of the security gates leading to Dana’s house down in the Cays. I have seen the images on the nightly news—the widow in dark glasses being chauffeured through the phalanx by friends, one in particular, a tall gentleman, slicked-down dark hair with a little gray at the temples, and wearing a sport coat and slacks that look as if they were flown in for the occasion from Saville Row.

  Dana is fortunate to live in a gated community where they are not trampling her front lawn and poking through her windows on ladders with their cameras. Security has kept the media herd huddled out near the Silver Strand and away from her house.

  This morning Harry is in the office early, ready to run interference when the cops finally show up. We have been expecting them. I have told Harry about Nick’s electronic handheld device. As with most things electronic it is a mystery to Harry, though he thinks I should turn it over to the cops and let them figure it out. I want to know more about it, and whatever information is inside, before I do that.

  I hear the voices in the outer office—some lieutenant of detectives and his partner. I miss their names. They want to see Mr. Madriani.

  Harry stalls to give me time to prepare myself. In a voice loud enough to raise Nick, he asks what it’s about. The police are no doubt tracking backward over the hours before Nick’s death, piecing together the people he met, whom he talked to. They have either caught up with Marge, the waitress at the grease spot under the Capri Hotel, who gave them my description, or Dana. She would have known that Nick and I had a meeting that morning. If my guess is correct, and Nick was doing a head job on his wife with Metz, she would have given the cops my name. Nick would have laid it on thick, telling her how he tried to get me to take the case and how I refused.

  No doubt it has occurred to her that had I taken Metz on, it might be me who was lying on the slab at the morgue instead of her husband. There has been little else in my own thoughts since the event. Guilt, alleviated by the thought of my daughter Sarah as an orphan.

  Seconds later there is a knock on my door. Harry’s head pops through, followed by his body, as he slides through the crack and closes it behind him.

  “Two of them,” he says and hands me a business card, official police stationery with the city’s seal and the name Lt. Richard Ortiz, Homicide Division.

  “May as well show them in.”

  “You don’t have to talk to them,” he says.

  “It’s either now or later. Besides, what’s to hide? They probably know more than I do, at least let’s hope so.”

  Harry gives me the look of a lawyer whose client has just refused to take good advice. Sullenly, he opens the door wide. “You can come in,” he says.

  A moment later, two men step into my office. One of them is tall, slender, dark hair cropped close, a face with a lot of crags and eyes set so deep that I would need a diving bell with lights to tell their color. There is a certain hungry look about him, human descendent of the vulture family. I would guess he is in his mid-thirties. From his looks, any mirth has been long since squeezed from him by his occupation.

  The other guy is built like an Ohio State linebacker—short blond hair, neck like a bull, and biceps that are stretching the arms on his sport coat. He is younger.

  “Mr. Madriani, I’m Lieutenant Ortiz.” The tall vulture is in charge. “My partner, Sergeant Norm Padgett.”

  Before I can say a word, a rush of panic sets in, adrenaline high. My eyes pass over Nick’s Palm device on the far corner of my desk where I’d dropped it this morning after finding it in my coat pocket. It’s too late now.

  “Have a seat,” I say. If I reach over and grab it, they may wonder why. If Dana told them Nick had one and they didn’t find it in a search of his office, they would be looking for it.

  “Would you guys like coffee?” I ask.

  They both decline.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Harry rests part of his weight on the credenza against the far wall of my office and settles in. The sergeant turns to look at him.

  “I’m sorry. You’ve met my partner, Harry Hinds.”

  “We met,” says Ortiz. “This is a confidential investigation,” he says.

  “I understand,” says Harry. “We’ll keep it between the four of us.”

  “I think my partner would prefer to stay,” I tell him.

  “We could do this downtown,” says Ortiz.

  “In which case I’ll get my coat,” says Harry.

  Ortiz looks at him from the two dark sunken holes in his skull.

  “Last time I looked, my state bar card was still good,” says Harry.

  “Is there a reason you would need a lawyer?” Ortiz asks me.

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re not under any suspicion, as far as we know,” he says.

  “That’s good to hear. I’ll make a note,” says Harry.

  The cop doesn’t smile, but he says, “Fine.” First skirmish to our side.

  “We just have a few questions,” he says. “I suspect you know why we’re here?”

  “Why don’t you tell us?”

  Every once in a while my eyes drift toward the handheld device on the desk. I’d like to reach for it casually and just sweep it into one of the drawers of my desk. But I don’t dare.

  “I’m sure you’re aware of the shooting outside the federal courthouse earlier this week. A double homicide.”

  He waits to see what I will say. Maybe some lame thing like I’ve read about it in the paper. I don’t say anything.

  “From what we understand you knew both of the victims, a Mr. Nicholas Rush and a Mr. Gerald Metz.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “I knew Mr. Rush. I was acquainted with Mr. Metz, having met him once.”

  “Good. Thank you.” A pat on the head from Ortiz. “And I take it you were aware of the shooting?”

  “I am.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  I look at him. We duel with eyes.

  “I’d like an answer.”

  “I heard the shots.”

  “You were there?” he says.

  “I was across the street, about a half a block away walking the other direction when it happened. By the time I turned to look, it was over.”

  “Did you see the car, the vehicle with the shooter?” asks Ortiz.

  “Just for an instant. It was going the other way, away from me. What I remember is that it was a dark sedan. I couldn’t tell you the make or model. I didn’t get that good a look.”

  “And of course you didn’t see a license number?”

  I shake my head.

  “You probably wouldn’t,” he says. “We don’t think it had any plates. They were removed by whoever stole it, before the shooting. We found the vehicle late last night abandoned on the other side of town. I’m sure you’ll read about it in tomorrow’s paper,” he says.

  “Did you get any fingerprints?” says Harry.

  �
�That you won’t read about,” says Padgett.

  “How well did you know Mr. Rush?” says Ortiz.

  “We did business from time to time. Referred clients. That sort of thing.”

  “Were you close socially?”

  “We would get together for lunch once in a while. See each other at bar meetings.”

  “We’ve been told that you talked with him the morning he was killed.”

  “We had a brief conversation.”

  Padgett takes out his notepad.

  “Can you tell us what it was about?” asks Ortiz.

  “In general terms?”

  “We can start there.”

  “It was business. A client who was referred to me by Mr. Rush.”

  “Would that client have been Mr. Metz?” asks Padgett.

  “I’m going to suggest that he not answer that,” says Harry.

  “I thought you were just watching and listening.” Ortiz looks at him over his shoulder.

  “Sometimes I hit the ball back,” says Harry.

  “Fine. Why shouldn’t Mr. Madriani answer my question?” he says.

  “The identity of a client, before there has been any public representation,” says Harry, “is a matter of attorney-client privilege.”

  I smile at Ortiz. “Aren’t lawyers a pain in the ass?”

  “Does that mean you represented Mr. Metz?” says Ortiz.

  “No. It means that I’m not going to answer your question.”

  “Why not? What’s to hide?” says Padgett.

  “The identity of a former client,” says Harry.

  “Who is dead,” says Padgett.

  “Assuming that that client was Mr. Metz,” says Harry, “which is the very question you’re asking, and we’re declining to answer.”

  They run up a dead end. I can tell by the body English that Padgett doesn’t want to leave it. Ortiz takes the higher road and chooses to ignore it.

  “We’re informed that you had one meeting with Mr. Metz to determine whether or not you would take his case, and that you declined.”