Lassiter

55 Clay Pigeons

A criminal trial is not the last half of a Law amp; Order episode. It does not sail along with pithy questions, furious objections, and searing answers. A criminal trial is a slog through the mud, boring and repetitious, with fits and starts and endless downtime. It is played out in an arena cold enough to preserve fish-and hopefully keep jurors awake-under yellow fluorescent lighting that makes even the robust and hearty appear jaundiced and sickly.

The days crawled by as Castiel methodically put on the state’s case. An assistant medical examiner with a Pakistani accent testified as to the autopsy results.

Max Perlow, deceased. Death classified as a homicide. Gunshot wound to the chest. Cause of death, exsanguination. The decedent bled to death.

The bullet tore a wide path through bone and tissue and blood vessels. The M.E. explained that the bullet’s kinetic energy slowed down when it crashed through the solarium window. A slower bullet causes greater tissue damage. He used a blackboard to describe a mathematical equation.

“Kinetic energy equals the weight of the bullet times its velocity squared,” the M.E. said, “divided by gravitational acceleration times two.”

I wouldn’t have cross-examined that, even if I knew how.

The mention of the bullet’s weight segued smoothly to the ballistics tech, who testified that the slug pulled from Perlow was a.38 caliber. He compared the striations of that spent bullet with those of the two slugs pulled from the tires of my Eldo. Yep. All three were fired by the same gun.

The state didn’t have the murder weapon but didn’t need it. The day after the M.E. testified, two witnesses from the gun range told their stories. Both said they saw Amy Larkin slay my innocent Michelins with a weapon they recognized as a Sig Sauer.380. The logical paradigm was simple and straightforward:

Amy Larkin shot my tires with a.38 caliber gun.

The same gun was used to kill Perlow.

Therefore, Amy Larkin killed Perlow.

Then came the physical evidence I’d been expecting. Amy’s finger-prints were on two panes of glass in the solarium windows. A scrap of fabric taken from the jagged leaves of the bayonet plants matched a unitard seized in Amy’s motel room.

On cross, I got both the experts to admit that the prints and the cloth could have been left several nights earlier. That’s what defense lawyers do. Wait for the state to launch a clay pigeon, then try to blast it out of the air. What makes it tough is when the state has more pigeons than you have ammo.

Sitting next to me at the defense table, Amy remained composed. When I glanced at her profile, I sometimes saw her sister. The same angular jawline, the same girl-next-door quality.

I had told Amy that I was still looking for Krista and that I’d found Snake, the biker-turned-reverend. I expected the news to excite her, but she expressed little curiosity, even after my telling her that Snake placed Krista at Ziegler’s party.

I gave Amy a legal pad to make notes. Clients sometimes come up with better questions than lawyers. But Amy didn’t give me any help. She doodled. She drew pictures of a house with four people standing out front. Mom, Dad, and two daughters, a bright sun in the sky. It reminded me of the artwork in the women’s jail, cheerful paintings mocked by the grimness around them.

At one lunch recess, I joined Amy in her cramped holding cell, just down a corridor from the courtroom.

“What’s Ziegler going to say on the stand?” I asked, yet again.

“What did he say when you took his deposition?”

“You know damn well. He saw you outside the window.”

“So …?”

“So I’m wondering if he had a change of heart.”

She was tying the bow on her silk blouse, fumbling a bit without a mirror. “If you must know …”

“If I must know! I’m your lawyer, dammit! When Ziegler came to the jail, what did he say?”

“That he was going to do what’s right.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“The son-of-a-bitch told the cops you were the shooter. He signed an affidavit to that effect for Castiel. In deposition, under oath, he repeated the same thing to me. It’s a big deal to recant. But you didn’t ask?”

“It’s in God’s hands.”

“Let’s hope He doesn’t have butterfingers.”

“Don’t be blasphemous.”

Playing the religion card. It could have been an act. But with Amy, who knew?

We had about two minutes before court would reconvene. For weeks, I’d been pressuring her to tell me what Ziegler had said during his jailhouse visit. This do the right thing bit was the first crack in her can’t tell you armor. I decided to stay quiet a moment. In court, it’s a trick I use to keep a witness talking. Give the room a moment of silence that demands to be filled. I looked into Amy’s green eyes and waited.

“Charlie’s different than I expected.”

“Yeah?”

C’mon, Amy. Talk to me.

“He asked for my forgiveness.”

“For what?”

“For taking advantage of Krista all those years ago. For my being in the situation I’m in now. He blames himself and he’s looking for redemption.”

Ziegler had talked to me about redemption, too. But talk’s cheap, and the man was a born bullshit artist.

“He had tears in his eyes,” she continued, “and seemed truly repentant.”

What’s next? I wondered. Amy and Ziegler as Facebook friends?

She grabbed one of my hands and clutched it in both of hers. “Charlie told me that after all this time, he’s almost certain Krista is dead.”

“Sounds like he might feel guilty about that.”

“I think so, too. But not in the way you mean.”

“How, then?”

“Looking at him, listening to him, I don’t think Charlie had anything to do with Krista’s death. In a strange way, that brought me peace.”

She managed a small, soft smile. Placid and accepting. I tried to measure her sincerity. It’s what I do for a living, but if I had to deal with Amy every day, I’d go broke. From day one, the woman has been a mystery.

“I don’t want you at peace, Amy.”

“Why?”

“To help me at trial, I need you alert and wired. Not in some Zen state. Not the president of the Charlie Ziegler Fan Club.”

“I can only be who I am, Jake.”

Just who the hell that was, I still didn’t know.