Judge and Jury

by William Bernhardt

  “No. But nothing Sweeney said restricted questions to members of the press. He said, and I quote, Are there any questions? So I asked him a question.”

  “What did you ask him?”

  He watched the jury with a little side-eye. They did appear interested. He couldn’t be sure how much of they believed, but at least they weren’t dozing off. “I asked about his connection to the cartel, of course.”

  “Did he deny it?”

  “You heard the recording. I don’t think he ever actually denied it. Instead, he launched into a completely unrelated attack, first on my father, then on me.”

  Maria took a few steps toward the jury box. “Mr. Pike, I’m sure you know what some people may be thinking. What you call attacks, the defendant calls facts. Or his constitutionally protected opinion.”

  “If he had stopped at saying my father was convicted of murder, I might agree with that. There is much we don’t know about that case, much I believe was covered up, but he was convicted. But Sweeney didn’t stop there. He said my father was a dirty cop. That’s just a flat-out lie. He was never even accused of misconduct the entire time he served the public as a police officer. In fact, his record was exemplary and he was up for promotion.”

  “I’m sure they will say the murder conviction makes him dirty.”

  “No. That term suggests he did something dishonest as a police officer. That he was on the take. That’s a lie.”

  Maria nodded. “Was there anything else in the defendant’s statement you found slanderous?”

  Dan leaned forward a bit. “Much. He talked some nonsense about a murder gene.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That’s a reference to a pop psychology idea currently in vogue in some circles. I might add that there is no scientific basis for it and it has never been adopted by any reputable scientist or scientific agency. But it has been featured on television programs and shows up on the internet in tweets and such. The idea is that an inclination toward violent crime is hereditary. He was basically saying my father was a murder and therefore so was I. Which is a complete lie on all counts.”

  “Just to be clear, Mr. Pike, have you ever committed a murder?”

  “Never.”

  “Do you feel you have violent or murderous tendencies?”

  “Just the opposite. I have a reputation for keeping a level head when others might lose theirs. But if people heard him say I had the murder gene, are they likely to hire me as a lawyer?”

  “I understand. Was there anything else Mr. Sweeney said that you found offensive?”

  “Yes. He suggested that both my father and I have ties to organized crime. We don’t. We never have. No one, other than Sweeney has ever suggested that we do. It’s a complete falsehood. And an ironic one since, as I said, there are many indications that Sweeney has ties to a major South American cartel and has for decades. This could be the true explanation for his enormous wealth and—”

  “Objection,” Caldwell said. “The witness has answered the question.”

  “Sustained.” Judge Fernandez looked at Maria directly. “Anything else, counsel?” Clearly, he thought her job was done.

  “Just one more question, your honor. Mr. Pike, do you believe these statements by the defendant have injured you?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “I know they have. I’ve had no new potential clients contact me since the incident. I normally get several a week. Part of it, I think, is the defendant’s suggestions that I’m dishonest or associated with crimelords. But part of it is simply that the defendant is a rich and highly prominent member of our city—with a reputation for taking strong action against his enemies. No one wants to get on Sweeney’s bad side. Similarly, no one wants to be associated with the lawyer he has declared to be his public enemy number one.”

  “Any other damage you’ve suffered?”

  “Yes. I...personally have experienced a great deal of...mental anguish. As you can imagine, this is a painful memory the defendant gratuitously trotted out in public. I know my father was wrongfully convicted. That’s why I’ve devoted so much time to investigating it. Sweeney did this for a specific purpose. To hurt me. Which it did.”

  “Thank you. Pass the witness.”

  He took a deep breath. He’d survived the direct examination, which was the softball part of the ballgame, but he was breathing deeply, his heart was racing, and he feared sweat was trickling down the side of his face. He’d practically melted, and that was with his friend asking the questions.

  But the worst was yet to come.

  Chapter 25

  Fabian Fuentes was perhaps the only member of the cartel who appreciated Zoom conferencing. Perhaps that was because he was younger than most of the Old Guard smugglers he assisted. They still favored meeting in bars and restaurants and smoke-filled hideaways—which were increasingly difficult to find these days. But Zoom conferences were possible anytime you had an internet connections, and so far as he knew, the FBI had not yet discovered a way to hack into them. As long as he remembered to cancel the automatic recording, he thought this was the safest way to do business with people from a distance.

  Roberto watched the door outside his hotel room. A cheap joint like this was more likely to attract attention from panhandlers and the homeless than law enforcement, but he wanted no interruptions of any kind. Jose set up the conference, and once he was done, Fabian sent him on a pointless errand. Little pitchers have big ears, as his father always said.

  The image that appeared on Fuentes’s laptop was grainy, but he supposed he shouldn’t complain given that this image originated on a different continent.

  His leader was not one to mince words. “Report.”

  “We completed the first round of deliveries. All went as planned. We will send the take by the usual means.”

  “Will I be pleased?”

  Fabian chose his words carefully. “It cannot compare to our previous operations. But something is better than nothing.”

  “That is not sufficient.”

  “Agreed.” Fuentes stared at the man, almost eighty, yet just as sharp as he had been twenty years before. More gray, more wrinkles around the eyes, thinner lips. But if anything, that made him appear more foreboding. “When you are ready to resume our previous enterprises, I will be prepared to assist.”

  “It’s too soon. Tell me about the Great White Whale.”

  That could be a reference to only one person. “He has been weakened. He is still in the lawsuit. He attracts too much attention.”

  “You will have to deal with him.”

  “He has served us for more than two decades. And until recently—”

  “You will have to deal with him.”

  Fabian drew in his breath. “Understood.”

  “His new enterprise threatens us. Just as the lawyer does.”

  “That man survived the assassination attempt, though his witness did not. He is mired in the same lawsuit.”

  “Who was behind this assassination?”

  “You know who. There is only one possibility.”

  “Another reason to deal with him. He is not stupid. He must realize we have lost faith in him.”

  “I will meet him as soon as the lawsuit is complete and he is no longer in the limelight. If he does not—”

  Fuentes stopped mid-sentence. He heard something outside the motel room door.

  He drew a finger to his lips, silencing his leader.

  Was it his imagination?

  No. Someone was out there. What happened to Roberto?

  He slowly pivoted toward the door...

  A sudden burst of gunfire slammed into the thin wooden door like pistons shredding Swiss cheese. Fabian flung himself behind the bed, barely dodging the bullets. They pummeled the walls and dresser and bed for half a minute.

  Then it stopped.

  Was the shooter still there? After making so much noise, he could not remain exposed for long.

  All at once he heard a thunderous thuddin
g sound, followed by the door slamming open.

  The assassin’s foot was still raised. He stride forward, automatic weapon in hand, scanning for his target.

  Fuentes did not give him time to find it. He withdrew his knife from a holster inside his right pant leg and flung it with expert speed and accuracy. It hit the assassin’s carotid artery. He made a gurgling sound. His eyes rolled up in his head. Then he collapsed, staining the crappy thin carpet.

  Fuentes slowly rose. The bullets had destroyed his laptop. He would have to complete—to update—his report later. He needed to flee before the authorities arrived. After so much noise, police were an inevitability.

  He paused briefly, staring at the dead man on the carpet. This was the assassin, the one who had killed Jaquith and almost killed the lawyer. He was certain of it.

  And now the assassin had been dispatched to kill him.

  This could only mean one thing.

  To his sorrow, he found Roberto’s body outside. Of course, the bastard had taken him out quietly. Probably snuck up and stabbed him in the back. His most loyal lieutenant. Dead.

  The game had changed. The players on the chessboard were forming new alliances.

  And no one would be safe until the game was over. No one.

  Chapter 26

  Caldwell rose but remained behind her table. Was she afraid of getting too close? She seemed as robotic as ever, but then again...on closer inspection, did her lip curl just the tiniest bit when she spoke his name? Was there just the slightest hint of a sneer on those lips?

  “Mr. Pike, let’s start with your sad story about all the anguish you’ve suffered since this incident that you instigated. How many calls from new clients do you normally get per week?”

  “I’ve never counted. Several.”

  “What’s several?

  “As I said, I’ve never—”

  “Two?”

  “More than two.”

  “Four.”

  “I’ve never counted.”

  “And how many of those new clients do you normally accept?”

  “As many as I choose. And time permits.”

  “Mr. Pike, isn’t it true that you receive a regular salary from the managing partner of your firm?”

  “Yes.”

  “And isn’t it true that he assigns your cases?”

  “Yes. But we are free to take additional cases as time permits.”

  “Don’t you normally take those on a pro bono basis?”

  “If I want to.”

  “So how can you claim that you’ve lost money? You’ve kept your salary. At best you might have lost clients that you weren’t going to change anyway.”

  He tried to keep his cool. “I might have taken a case for a fee, if the right case came along.”

  “But you can’t say with any certainty that would have happened?”

  “I can’t predict the events of an alternate universe in which your client didn’t slander me, no.”

  “So you can’t calculate the amount of your alleged loss.”

  “Not with that degree of precision. But damage to my reputation is a great impairment to my work. An attorney lives and dies by his reputation.”

  He regretted saying it as soon as he did, but the words were already out of his mouth.

  “Ah,” Caldwell said. “If that’s true, then your reputation probably died the day you got Emilio Lòpez off the hook—and he started a gang war that killed six innocent people.”

  Dan licked his lips, trying to recover. “I obtained an acquittal for Emilio because he wasn’t guilty. The so-called eyewitness couldn’t see clearly and was being misled by the police. I’m not responsible for everything he does later for the rest of his life. My job as defense attorney is to make sure he isn’t railroaded for a crime he didn’t commit. Which I did.”

  “How do you know he didn’t commit the crime? The charges were dropped, weren’t they? After you pulled some courtroom stunt?”

  He knew what she was doing. Trying to make him the shyster Sweeney portrayed him as. Playing on ignorant stereotypes about criminal lawyers. “After I impeached a witness whose eyesight made it impossible for him to positively identify my client, there was no credible evidence against Emilio. Because he didn’t do it.”

  “So you say. But there’s no question about the fact that he participated in the later shooting that killed all those people, is there?”

  He took a deep breath. “No.”

  “Could your association with that mass murderers perhaps be what killed your reputation?”

  Maria rose. “Objection. Argumentative.”

  “I’ll withdraw the question.” Because the jury had already heard it and knew exactly what she was implying. Caldwell glanced at her notes and moved on to the next topic. “You’ve been accused and tried for murder yourself, haven’t you? Just like your father?”

  He could see concerned expressions on the jurors’ faces. This was a troubling detail. “Accused and, as you very well know, exonerated. Throwing that at me shows how completely disingenuous—”

  “My point is that a highly public trial on a murder charge might do some damage to your career, don’t you think? Might also be a reason why clients have stopped calling.”

  Some clients might think, if he can get himself off the hook, he can get me off, too. But he wasn’t going to say that. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “More than possible. Probable.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “And as my colleague mentioned in his opening, for a long time you were romantically involved with the mayor of this city. And what a surprise—she was accused of murder too. Twice.”

  “That was a complete frame. My case may have been an honest mistake. The case against Camila was a calculated conspiracy.”

  “Except, as it turned out, she wasn’t exactly pure as driven snow, was she?”

  “Now you’re referring to an entirely different matter.”

  “Answer the question. Was your girlfriend Camila completely law-abiding?”

  His lips tightened. “No.”

  “Do you suppose that relationship might’ve done some damage to your reputation?”

  “Not for anyone who bothered to get the facts.”

  Caldwell raised a finger. “We don’t live in a world where all people take the time and trouble to get the facts, do we? We live in a world where people make ill-informed judgments based upon snippets and factoids they find posted to online bulletin boards or tweets. Whether the person in question knows all the facts or not, is it possible your relationship to the mayor could’ve prevented clients from calling you?”

  His jaw clenched. “I suppose it is possible.”

  “In that murder trial against you, it emerged that some evidence stolen from a police-evidence locker was found by the police in your office.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. I think the police planted it.”

  “Mr. Pike—how many fairy tales do you expect this jury to swallow?”

  “I didn’t steal that flask. I would never do that. And quite frankly, even if I did, I wouldn’t leave it in my own office. That’s just stupid.”

  “Was dating a criminal smart? My point is that you have a long history of doing things that most people wouldn’t deem to be smart. And yet, you still do them.”

  “Objection,” Maria said.

  “I will sustain that one,” Judge Fernandez said. “It wasn’t really a question.”

  “And then there was the remark about organized crime. Dr. Sweeney didn’t actually say you were involved with organized crime, did he?”

  “He strongly implied it.”

  “And by that, you mean, that’s what you heard. But your paranoia is rather clear at this point. Have you heard anyone else say that they took this remark to mean that you were some kind of gangster?”

  “My colleagues all thought—”

  “Other than your close personal friends. I don’t think they were likely to toss you much bu
siness.”

  Dan drew in his breath. This was not going well and he knew it. She was scoring point after point on him, very effectively. How could someone who was so good at conducting cross-examinations be so poor at being crossexamined? “I haven’t discussed it with other people. For obvious reasons.”

  “So you don’t know whether these comments have caused you any damage?”

  “I know they have. Common sense tells me they have. People don’t hire lawyers associated with organized crime.”

  “Someone involved in organized crime might, don’t you think? They need lawyers too. More than most people.”

  “That’s not the kind of client I want.”

  She pounced. “So now you’re saying it’s not that you can’t get work. It’s that you’re turning down work because you're so choosy about your clientele.”

  “That’s not—”

  “In fact, there are many factors that could have damaged your professional reputation that have absolutely nothing to do with my client.”

  “Your client has been at the heart of every—”

  “Let me rephrase. There are many factors that could have damaged your reputation before my client made the statements that are the basis of this lawsuit, right? Is that at least theoretically possible?”

  He shrugged. “Anything is possible. That doesn’t—”

  “Mr. Pike, can you identify a single client you would have hired you but didn’t because of Dr. Sweeney’s comments?”

  “I have no way of—”

  “So your answer is no. You can’t identify any specific damages you’ve suffered.” She turned a page in her notebook. “You objected to my client’s comment about a ‘murder gene.’ But your father was convicted of murder, and you have been accused of the same crime. Correct?”

  “The murder gene idea is pseudo-scientific balderdash. There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that such a thing exists.”

  “Let’s not be too hasty, Mr. Pike. There is in fact a great deal of evidence to suggest that genetic destiny can override free will.”