The Deep Blue Alibi

Forty-one

Suicidal lovebugs-coupling in the air-smacked the windshield, dying instantly in one last orgasmic splat. So many peppered the Smart that Steve swore the miniature car swerved with each machine-gun burst of pulverized bugs.

Just after two a.m. they approached Sugarloaf Key, Bobby asleep in the passenger seat, a good trick in the tiny cockpit. On the way south, Steve rehearsed what he would say to his father, but he still didn't know quite how to do it.

Just how do you say to your old man: "Gotcha"?

It had taken several hours and three run-throughs of voir dire to tie Herbert Solomon to the conspiracy. At first, Steve had made a mistake focusing solely on his father when watching the video. As with a football game, you can't just keep your eye on the quarterback.

His father's role in the scheme was subtle. It did not require him to speak a word. After questioning each prospective juror, Pinky Luber had paused and scribbled a note to himself. Nothing unusual there. Most lawyers jot down their impressions before being called on to accept or challenge. Studying Luber, Steve discovered a "tell." Like the poker player who fingers his chips or stares down his opponent before bluffing, Pinky had a tic, too. Just before writing his note, Pinky always shot a look at the bench. Herbert Solomon never returned the look. Invariably, at this moment, the judge poured himself a glass of water. His old man must have had an iron bladder, because he took a drink each time Pinky finished with a prospective juror.

It wasn't until the third viewing that Steve saw the signal.

The lid of the pewter water pitcher.

When Herbert left the lid up, Pinky kept the juror on the panel. When Herbert closed the lid, off went the juror. Each and every time.

Steve remembered that pitcher. It sat on his father's bench for years. There was a matching tray with an inscription from the Florida Judicial Conference. Distinguished Circuit Judge of the Year. Maybe there was still time for a recount.

Herbert Solomon was hip-deep in the conspiracy. Pinky Luber had won seventeen straight murder trials with help from a clerk who stacked the panel and a judge who pruned an already bloodthirsty group into a lynch mob.

It was a brilliant, if blatantly illegal scheme. Herbert Solomon had presided over hundreds of capital cases. He could read jurors better than any prosecutor, and his help would be invaluable to Luber. The poor defense lawyer, meanwhile, was outgunned, three to one.

There was little chance the conspiracy could be discovered. As long as there were some African-Americans on the juries, who would notice that the larger panels themselves were skewed? Not the ever-changing cast of defense lawyers. Only the judge, the prosecutor, and the clerk who hatched the scheme. But why did they do it? And why, years later, did Pinky Luber implicate Herbert in a zoning scandal? There seemed to be no connection between the rigged murder trials in which Herbert was a player and the zoning bribes where he wasn't. And just what was the link between those two events and the suit to get back Herbert's Bar license?

When Steve was a rookie lawyer and was stumped by a case, his father told him: "Whenever you find a loose thread, pull it to see where it leads." Steve had done that. It all led back to the stacked juries and his father's startling willingness to break the law. Still, Steve had more questions than answers. Turning the little car onto the gravel road that led to his father's houseboat, his mood plunged. There would be no joy in proclaiming "gotcha." Herbert was already a broken man. But what took him down that path? Why did he violate his oath? Why did he risk everything?

"Jesus, Dad. Why?"

"Why!" Herbert Solomon fumbled with the drawstring of his ratty old terry-cloth bathrobe. "You drive all the way down here and wake me up to ask why'd ah do it? What kind of a shlimazel are you?"

"A Solomon shlimazel."

"Go home! Don't bother me."

"Quiet. You'll wake Bobby."

Steve had carried the boy to the hammock, where he was purring contentedly.

"Ah know what you're doing," Herbert fumed. "You want to show how smart you are. Well, congratulations. Top of the class."

"I'm not so smart. I still can't figure out why you rigged those juries. And years later, why did Luber say you took bribes in those zoning cases?"

They were in the galley of the houseboat. Herbert poured some rum over ice but didn't offer any to his son. "His son, Barry, that's why Pinky lied."

"I didn't know Luber had a son."

"Barry's dead of an overdose. Back then, he was a punk, in and out of trouble. The state had him on drug charges at the same time the corruption task force was all hot and bothered about Pinky. If he didn't cooperate, they'd come down hard on his boy. Pinky flipped on some small fry in the zoning department, but the government wanted more. Problem was, Pinky didn't have more."

"So he gave them the Chief Judge of the Circuit," Steve said, figuring it out. "Pinky nailed you to protect his son."

"Barry Luber got probation, Pinky got eighteen months, and ah got what you might call a life sentence."

"That son-of-a-bitch," Steve said.

"Blood is thicker, son. Blood is always thicker."

They both chewed that over a moment. Then Steve said: "That leaves only one question. Why'd you do it? Twenty-some years ago, why'd you stack those juries?"

Herbert sipped at his rum. After a third sip, he sighed: "Two words. 'Willie Mays.' And ah don't mean the Say Hey Kid. Ah mean the stone-cold killer."

"I read the transcript and watched the video. Pinky had more than enough evidence to convict. He didn't need to cheat."

"That right, smart guy? Then how'd Mays walk the first time, when there was an eyeball witness? Ah'll tell you how. It was right after the McDuffie riots. Everybody in Liberty City thought white cops killed blacks just for the fun of it. The black jurors wouldn't believe a white man who said 'Good morning,' and they sure as hell weren't gonna send a black man to Old Sparky on a white cop's testimony. Ah can't say as how ah blame them, but ah had other fish to fry, if you'll pardon the expression."

"You were supposed to be the judge. Not the prosecutor."

"The prosecutor needed help. The Florida Supreme Court just came down with State versus Neil. Kentucky versus Batson was on the horizon at the U.S. Supreme Court. A prosecutor couldn't exclude jurors solely on account of race, even though jurors would acquit solely on race. Ah did what ah had to do. If we hadn't nailed Mays, he'd have just gone out and killed someone else."

"If that's the way you felt, you should have quit the bench and become a cop. Or a vigilante."

"Did you see the crime scene photos? The bastard slit his ex-girlfriend's throat and strangled their little baby. Then he walked down the street and bragged about it to his homies."

"So Pinky asked you to rig the jury?"

"Hell, no! It was mah plan from day one. Soon as the second Mays trial fell into mah division, ah called Pinky and Reggie into chambers. Ah laid it all out for them. Reggie like to faint when he heard it. But he was a good kid and did what ah told him. He was perfect for the job. He knew half the families in the old Central Negro District. He didn't just exclude blacks we didn't want. He got us black folks who could help get a conviction."

"I don't see how that's possible."

Herbert downed the rest of his drink. "Reggie cherry-picked the master venire list before it came upstairs from the clerk's office. Assigned folks he figured were pro-prosecution to my courtroom. Anyone Reggie thought would hurt the prosecution got shifted to County Court for misdemeanors. Before voir dire, he'd do more trimming. Toss off anyone who wanted out if he didn't like him. Then, right before we're about to pick that first jury, Pinky says: 'While we're at it, let's throw the Jews off, too.' "

Herbert laughed as if Pinky were the new Billy Crystal.

Steve shook his head. "Very funny. A Jewish judge and a Jewish prosecutor acting like Nazis."

"Aw, go call B'nai B'rith and spare me your indignation. You know as well as ah do that Jews are defense jurors. Ever try to get a couple landsmen to go for the death penalty? Good luck, boychik."

"And even after stacking the panel, you still had to signal Pinky which jurors to challenge?"

Herbert poured himself another drink. "He asked me to. Ah was better at seating a jury than he ever was, and Pinky knew it. Funny thing is, we were gonna stop after Mays was convicted. But it worked so damn well. ."

"You did it sixteen more times."

"Looking back now, with the benefit of hindsight. ."

"You wish you'd never done it?"

"Hell, no. Ah wish we'd started earlier. They were all guilty, son. Every last one."

"I'm sure lynch mobs feel the same way."

"Give it a rest. Ah feel a helluva lot better than those damn fool prosecutors who let O. J. Simpson walk. Damn fools tried the case in downtown LA because they wanted a diverse jury. Wanted to be politically correct. Ended up with nine blacks when they would have had one or two, tops, over in Santa Monica. The case was over before it began. The Mays case might have been, too, if we hadn't been proactive."

"Proactive? That a new word for corrupt?"

"Aw, fuck it, Stevie. I know the rules you play by, and they ain't the Marquis of Queensberry's."

"Don't compare what I do with this shit."

"Anyway, ah'm glad you know. I don't have to tiptoe around it anymore. And now you can drop that damn fool lawsuit."

"Why should I? What you did was scummy and made you unfit to be a judge, but you're not going back on the bench. And no one has to know."

Herbert burped out a laugh. "Spoken like a true advocate. Problem is, you're wrong about one thing. That part, 'No one has to know.' "

"Not following you."

"How do you plan to get my Bar license back?"

"By proving that Pinky lied when he accused you of taking bribes in the zoning cases."

"He did, indeed. But when Pinky cut his deal with the state, they made him waive the statute of limitations on perjury. If you prove he lied, he'll go to jail. So he's got to stop you from taking my case to trial."

"How's he gonna do that?"

"He's gonna go back in time, son."

"Meaning what?"

"How many of those seventeen defendants we convicted are still alive?"

"Eight were executed. Three are still on death row.

Six were sentenced to life." Steve did the math, maybe not as quickly as Bobby could have. "So nine are still breathing."

"Pinky knows the number, too. Read their names to me. Told me, if you take him down, he'll fess up as to what we did twenty years ago. What do you think happens then?"

"Nine guys get new trials."

"Nine murderers. Worst of the worst. Ah can't let that happen, son. Witnesses are gone. Evidence is degraded. Files are lost. How many of those nine do you think would walk?"

"No way to tell. Some, I guess."

"Even one is too many. Especially the one named Mr. Willie Mays."