The Judge

CHAPTER 12

“It’s what I told you about Radovich,” says Harry. “He may not know the law, but he has a sixth sense for what is right.” Harry likes the cow-county judge.

“Probably a Democrat,” he says. Hinds would take a bleeding heart every time. When I look at Harry’s clients I can understand why. This morning, however, I will say that Radovich ranks right up there, next to the Almighty, on most of our lists, Lenore’s and mine included. He has granted our motion for a stay. There will be no separate trial on the solicitation charge.

“I thought the argument on joinder went right over his head,” says Lenore.

“Probably did,” says Harry. “But he needed some cerebral hook to hang his hat.” Harry’s looking at the court’s minute order, the single-page document announcing Radovich’s decision. Then he hands it to me. Harry’s take is that the judge was not going to allow Frost to poison a jury pool with obvious lies. Since the question of credibility belongs to the jury, Radovich decided the matter on the issue of joinder.

Though she won, this seems to irritate Lenore. She calls the judge “result oriented.” “The right decision for all the wrong reasons,” she says.

“Don’t knock it,” says Harry. “We won.”

“Winning is not everything,” she says.

“No. It’s just the only thing that counts,” says Harry.

“Forget it. You wouldn’t understand,” says Lenore.

I think she wanted to take Kline down, but only on her own terms; a conquest dictated by intellect, not function. For her, the fact that the judge didn’t catch the legal nuance of her argument cheapens the victory.

While they squabble, I read the court’s order. It informs Kline that if he wants to join the two cases, Acosta’s earlier arrest for soliciting with the later murder, the court will entertain a motion at the appropriate time. Kline was last seen storming out of the courtroom, sputtering something about Lenore’s lack of ethics, her pike sticking out of his ass. What we have here is not the beginning of a trial, but the first skirmish in a brooding vendetta.

This morning we are gathered in my office to talk about recent revelations, the continuing torrent of discovery from the state.

“Does it look like they’re producing from their side?” I ask Harry. I want to know if the state is hiding the ball, or coming clean with their evidence.

Harry has become the custodian of records, and is now swimming in reams of paper, some of them stacked halfway up the walls of his office. It is the thing lawyers do. Hide the trees in the forest.

He is seated in one of the client chairs at a corner of my desk, piles of forms and reports in front of him. Lenore is drifting, a free spirit pacing behind him in the room, one arm across her middle supporting the other elbow, which props up her chin, Lenore’s classic pose of meditation.

“Who knows?” says Harry. “We all play games,” he says.

Harry is a master of this. The fudge factor.

“What would a trial be,” he says, “without some surprises.” If Harry had his way every witness would be delivered to the stand in a package like a jack-in-the-box.

He starts to brief us on what he has. “Prints from the girl’s apartment apparently came up negative. They had trouble even finding her own. Either she had a fastidious housekeeper, or the place had been wiped clean by the killer-except for one smudged thumbprint on the front door.”

This catches Lenore and me looking at each other wide-eyed. She’s giving me a shrug with palms up, like it can’t be hers. This is all behind Harry’s back, out of his view.

“Have they been able to match it to anybody?” I ask.

“They excluded the girl. Other than that, the report’s vague,” says Harry. “But they can do magic with that big computer at Justice,” he says.

This sends a needlelike shiver up my spine.

“Should I send over a tidbit or two, to keep them happy?” says Harry. He’s talking about some of the information from our own investigation, the law of reciprocal discovery.

I give him a vacant stare. My mind is on other things at the moment, the microscopic swirls and ridges on the dead girl’s front door.

“What do you want to do?” he says. “We’re holding the information from the optometrist on the glasses. Should I hold up, or give it over to Kline?”

“I don’t know.” I ask Lenore what she thinks.

“What? I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.” Minds on a parallel course-at this moment, initial panic.

We do a quick inventory of the materials we would be turning over.

“Go ahead,” I finally tell him.

Lenore agrees. “Give it to them, but hold up on our witness list. No sense being too generous,” she says.

Harry nods. He is probably still adding names from the phone book to our own list of witnesses to keep the D.A. guessing and the cops wasting time checking them out, though the salient experts will float to the surface with the first viewing, as soon as we disclose.

He tells me that the state has not turned over its own witness list. This is a major concern for our side, not only because of the experts, but because we do not yet know whether Oscar Nichols, the judge to whom Acosta unburdened his soul to the tune of death threats against Hall, has told the cops about this.

“We could interview him,” says Harry. “Find out,” he says.

Lenore slumps into the client chair next to him, and finally snaps out of her reverie over the thumbprint.

“That would be a mistake,” she says. “It’s a subtle thing. Maybe Nichols gave Acosta’s comments no credence. A confidence to a friend that in his mind meant nothing. If we go poking around, we elevate this. He may feel compelled to come forward,” she says, “to tell the cops.”

It’s a good point. “We’re better to leave it alone and just wait,” I tell Harry.

He gives me a look, as if to say, “Siding with her again.”

I ask him to take the latest discovered items in order.

“First some bad news, hair and fibers,” says Harry.

“You recall the animal hair?”

I nod.

“Coarse, reddish brown?”

“The client tells us he has no animals,” I tell him. “He’s allergic.”

“Maybe so,” says Harry. “But the cops found hair of similar texture and color on several items of furniture in his house and on the carpets.”

Harry gives me a look that says I told you so.

“There was not a lot, mind you,” says Harry. “But then they don’t need to find a hair ball in his throat, do they?”

“Where’s it from?” I ask.

“Horses,” says Harry. “Seems the Mrs. rides.”

“Lili?” says Lenore.

“Right. A stable out in the country. She leases a horse and takes lessons. According to the report, she started eight months ago. Their theory”-Harry’s talking about the cops-“is that she brought the stuff home, and the judge picked up traces on his clothing. From chairs, whatever. Somehow it got on the blanket that the girl’s body was wrapped in.”

I give Lenore a look. She was with me that day at the jail when we questioned Acosta and heard his emphatic denials.

“It’s pretty hard to forget about something like that,” I say.

“A horse,” says Harry. “You think he would remember a horse.”

“You asked him if he had any pets,” says Lenore. “He doesn’t.”

“I hope he’s more forthcoming if he takes the stand,” I tell her.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” says Harry.

Lenore gives this a shrug. “Hair is not definitive,” she says. “They can only testify that it is similar. A lot of people ride. We could check the stables in the area and get samples. Use our own experts and probably find a dozen horses in different stables that shed similar hair.”

“Yes, if that were all they had,” says Harry. “Then there’s the fibers. The little blue ones found with the body, on the blanket. Remember?”

Harry tells us that the prosecution’s report also confirms the bad news given to us that day by Lano at the county jail. These blue nylon fibers match the carpet found in Acosta’s county car.

“There are a million similar vehicles with carpets of the same kind,” says Lenore. “I’ll bet the city itself owns twenty of them. Maybe more,” she says.

Harry’s pushing for another meeting with our client, something along the lines of a “come to Jesus gathering” with psychic rubber hoses.

“Anything from Serology, the blood typing at the girl’s apartment?” I ask. This could be the clincher, if the perpetrator was injured in the fatal melee. If Acosta’s blood type is there, I would join Harry with the truncheons at the jail in the morning.

“Type A,” he says. “Same as the girl. It’s all they found. Same on the blanket.”

“Did they find any blood in the judge’s car? Anything in the trunk?” I ask.

“If they did, they’re not saying,” says Harry.

They could be holding this for a surprise, but it is a risk. Radovich would dump all over them, sanctions that could include exclusion of the evidence.

“They’ve got four more days ’til the deadline, close of the period for discovery,” says Harry. “They could drop it on us anytime before then.”

“Why would they wait?” says Lenore. “If they had blood in his vehicle, four days is not going to make a difference. We have plenty of time to check it out. DNA is going to say yea or nay.”

I think Lenore is right. I think they looked and came up with nothing. It is therefore better not to put it in the report, though they can be sure we will question them about the absence of blood in the vehicle at trial.

Harry tells us about the note on Hall’s calendar, the one showing a meeting between the girl and Acosta on the afternoon she was killed. Harry thinks the judge is lying to us. We talk about this for several moments, what the note could mean, always returning to the same point. We have no answers. I am at least relieved that this is now out in the open, no longer something that might slip out in an unguarded moment in front of Harry.

“Any murder weapon?” says Lenore.

“Nothing,” says Harry. “Not a word. They may fall back on the theory that she struck her head in a fall. Some heavy furniture near the scene. You should get over and look at the place,” he says.

“Right,” I tell him. “Make a note, Lenore.”

She gives me a look to kill.

There is a little more miscellaneous stuff, and Harry runs through it.

“The girl’s little black notebook,” he says. “Phone numbers and the sort.”

This raises an eyebrow from me.

“Nothing too interesting. Some cops’ phone numbers. To be expected,” says Harry. He has a photocopy of this book and hands it over to me, pages stapled at the top right-hand corner.

“I would expect,” says Harry, “that she would have cops’ phone numbers. She was a groupie. A wannabe. Police science major. There’s other numbers in there, too.”

“Right,” I tell him. I thumb through it quickly, maybe thirty pages. No deep revelations, though some pages are missing. I ask Harry about this.

“Yeah. The pages for the letters A, I, K, and L,” he says. “Cops say they were ripped from the book. They don’t have ’em, either, and they don’t know why they were torn out.”

“She has the number for Vice,” I tell him.

Harry shrugs. “She worked there.

“The pathology report is now in.” Harry’s already moved on while I am still reading. He gives us a rundown.

“The rape kit exam was negative for any indications of sexual trauma. According to the medical examiner, and I quote, ‘There is no evidence of trauma and no foreign matter,’ pubic hair for the uninitiated,” says Harry, “‘found in or near the victim’s genital area. No semen found in the vaginal vault.’ Seems sex was not on the perp’s mind,” says Harry.

“Next, ligature wounds, really bruises. These were found front and rear on the victim’s throat.”

Harry drops the report on the corner of my desk and comes out of his chair, going behind Lenore.

“Hey!” she says.

“Thusly,” says Harry. He has placed both of his hands around Lenore’s neck from behind, both forefingers meeting in the center of her throat, squeezing her Adam’s apple like a pimple.

“Cut it out,” she says.

“No, there was no knife,” says Harry, his hands still on her throat. Harry’s pressing his luck.

“They found a four-finger pattern across the lateral anterior portions of the throat, with opposing bruising at the nape of the neck, here,” he says.

His hands come off her throat not a moment too soon. Lenore’s hand has just reached the stapler on my desk.

“It’s not clear after that whether she fell, was thrown down, or was struck with something heavy and blunt.”

According to Harry the pathology report leaves all three as possible scenarios. The cops are leaving all options open at this point.

We talk about scrapings from under the woman’s fingernails. “A little interesting dirt and lint,” says Harry, “but no foreign tissue.” From this Harry deduces that the victim had very little time to react before she was killed, or at least rendered unconscious.

“Normal reaction when someone takes you from behind by the neck,” he says, “is to come up with the claws extended.”

It does make sense.

Harry settles into his chair again.

“Cause of death?” I ask.

“Fracture of the skull, massive brain hemorrhage,” says Harry. “Now ask me if you think he’s capable.” Harry’s talking about Acosta.

He gets looks from both of us.

“Fine,” he says. “Stick your heads in the sand. But consider for a moment that there is every indication that this is a crime of passion, heat of the moment, not something planned or calculated,” says Harry. “I would agree that the judge is not a candidate for cold-blooded murder.”

“You have amazing confidence in our client,” says Lenore.

“We may be doing him a disservice by circling the wagons,” says Harry. “We defend on the murder charge, and he goes down, it’s his life we’re talking about. All the eggs in one big basket.”

“So what are you proposing?” she says.

“Maybe manslaughter. An accident. An argument that turned violent and got out of control,” he says.

“You forget: He says he didn’t do it.”

“Right,” says Harry.

“What, a little hair and fibers and you want to fold the tent and go home?” she says.

“And a motive to kill for, and a possible witness who heard him make death threats, and no alibi, and a note on her calendar with his name on it, and maybe his thumbprint on the front door, and God help us if they find a witness who saw him in the area that night,” says Harry. “How much more do you want?” says Harry.

“A lot of surmise,” she says.

“Yeah. That’s what death cases are made out of,” he says, “surmise.”

“Maybe you’ve been doing misdemeanors too long,” she tells him. “Lost your edge.”

“I don’t need this crap,” says Harry. He’s out of his chair. “Call me when you’re finished,” he tells me. Then Harry turns for the door. The last thing I hear is the pane of glass rattle in the frame of the door as Harry slams it behind him.

Lenore rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I went too far. But I sense that he resents me.”

“You have to cut Harry a little slack,” I tell her. “Give him a break. He’s not big on women in the workplace.”

“I’ve noticed,” she says.

“You have to get to know him. He’s a good man. A good lawyer and a friend,” I tell her.

“Hey, I’m a friend, too.” She says this almost defensively, so that there is some pain evident in her expression.

Almost without thinking, I’m on my feet, my arm around Lenore’s shoulder. “I know you are. I’ve never questioned that.”

She turns toward me, and for an instant our eyes lock, one of those psychic meetings of the mind, and there is in this instant the unstated fact: Lenore is now much more than a friend.

I am treading the middle ground here between Harry and Lenore. I tell her I will talk to him, try to smooth things out.

“Not on my account,” she says. “He doesn’t see his way to a defense. We can’t use him unless his heart is in it.”

“He will warm to the notion,” I tell her. What I do not tell her is that I am not far behind Harry. I am troubled by what was an obvious deception on the part of Acosta: his failure to tell us about his wife and her horse.

“So how do you see the defense playing out?” I ask her.

“The same as you,” she says. Lenore is a quick study. “What we have is a judge who was driving a serious grand jury investigation into police corruption. I think perhaps he didn’t know how close he was cutting to the bone.”

“You mean the skimming by the union?” I ask.

Lenore’s brow furrows. “That and other things,” she says.

“You mean the dead cop? The drug raid?”

“I don’t know,” she says. This is a touchy subject with Lenore. It may involve Tony and she knows it.

“Let’s just say it’s not unheard of for a city to have a few bad cops, engaged in what some might call ‘private enterprise.’ Shaking down drug dealers, some extracurricular raids where drugs and cash disappear and no charges get filed. It is what your friend, uhh. .” She’s at a loss for a name.

“Leo Kerns,” I say.

“Yes. Leo Kerns. That is what he told you, isn’t it?”

“So you think they set him up on the prostitution sting?”

“It is a serious possibility,” she tells me.

“And the murder?”

“Convenient,” she says. “Who knows why the girl was killed, or who did it? But no one can deny that the judge had a powerful motive, and was sitting in a vulnerable position when it went down.”

“And a lot of circumstantial evidence pointed his way,” I say. “You think they may have helped the case along a little, some of the boys in blue?”

“Planted evidence?” she says.

I nod.

“I don’t like to think so,” she says. Her law enforcement side is showing. “But in for a penny, in for a pound. If they killed one of their own, it was probably a mistake, but if so, doctoring some evidence would be a minor infraction, at least in their minds.”

“Are you telling me something?”

A whimsical look from Lenore. “Just theorizing,” she says.

She gets up from her chair and moves toward the door, an indication that in her mind there is not much left to discuss.

“As I said, there are a lot of cars with those fibers, and the horse hair is nonspecific. We should not jump to any conclusions,” says Lenore. “And of course the cops, no matter what else we might think, did not kill that girl.”

As she says this I am still perusing the copy of Brittany Hall’s phone directory, the little book with its missing pages. It strikes me that they were on a first-name basis. Someone went to such trouble to remove the letter L from this little book, and still missed the entry under the Gs: a phone number and a name in parentheses-the name of Gus Lano.