Trial and Error

Thirty

Steve sat at the defense table, slumped and frowning, in blatant disregard of his rules of courtroom behavior. He’d taught Victoria that a trial lawyer should always project confidence.

“It’s your courtroom. Not the judge’s. Not the jury’s. Not the snoring bailiff’s. Let everybody know you’re in charge.”

Victoria delivered her opening statement with competence and ease. Clearly she’d learned her lessons.

Steve had a blank yellow pad on the table in front of him, his client Gerald Nash beside him. Victoria was doing just what Steve expected. No frills, no riffs, no fancy footwork. Just solid, likeable lawyering. She started by reading the indictment. Prosecutors often do that. The formal language tends to convey to the jury that Zeus himself had leveled the charges.

“The Grand Jurors of the State of Florida, duly called, impaneled and sworn to inquire and true presentment make…”

Steve briefly considered an old trick.

“It’s just a piece of paper, folks.”

Then he would tear the indictment in half. But Victoria would be ready for the stunt. She’d seen him do it before.

“I’m going to give you a preview of the evidence,” Victoria told the jury. “But before I do, there’s one image I want you to see.”

She picked up a poster board and positioned it in front of the jury. A head shot of Sanders in his dress whites. Handsome. Rugged. Still alive.

Nice move, Vic.

He’d always told her to humanize her clients. Now, while the State of Florida was technically her client, she wanted the jurors to connect with the late Chuck Sanders.

“This is Lieutenant Commander Charles Sanders,” Victoria said. “He grew up in a small town in South Carolina and worked summers as a lifeguard. He earned a swimming scholarship to Vanderbilt and enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps because he wanted to serve his country. In the U.S. Navy, he survived the most rigorous training known to the military, and he became a Navy SEAL. A decorated war hero in Desert Storm, he…”

Steve tuned her out and watched the jurors. All twelve were transfixed. Victoria was a natural. Poise and presence. You didn’t have to hear her words. Just look at her in her double-breasted jacket and matching skirt that fell just below the knees. Brown pinstripes, wide lapels. Gucci or Prada or Fendi. One of the Italian designers; he couldn’t tell them apart. Victoria looked great whatever she wore. Smart and stylish and sexy.

At that moment, Steve was aware of two conflicting feelings. Despair at the knowledge that he would lose the case, and a reservoir of warmth, an ocean of love, for the woman who was going to defeat him.

“Now Charles Sanders is dead,” Victoria continued. “Killed as a direct result of a crime committed by the defendant, Gerald Nash.”

She pointed toward the defense table, her pin-striped arm steady, her lacquered nails glistening.

The jury turned toward Nash, who winced and squirmed in his chair. In his ill-fitting suit with its lumpily knotted tie, he couldn’t look more guilty if he’d been foaming at the mouth and howling at the moon.

Victoria smoothly moved on to a discussion of the elements of the crime, describing exactly how Nash’s actions fit every one.

Steve drifted off again. Victoria had been right the day before when she said he had no defense. Sure, he may have solved a mystery. He knew what Sanders was doing and who he worked for, but so what? Steve had spent so much time tracking down loose ends, he hadn’t done the scut work of defending his client. Now he needed to do something he’d never done before in a criminal trial. When the judge turned to him, Steve would politely decline to give his opening statement. He would wait until after the state rested its case, then belatedly concoct something to say.

This strategy-or lack of strategy-violated yet another one of his rules, based on the psychological concept of “primacy.” People are more receptive to information at the beginning of an event than in the middle or at the end. Sure, some lawyers believe in “recency,” that people remember best what they hear last. But Steve always told Victoria to get off to a quick start.

“A flurry of punches, knock ’em out in the first round.”

But here he was, reserving opening statement until after he heard the state’s evidence, because he had no winning strategy.

Speechless.

He scanned the gallery. Marvin the Mavin and Teresa Torano sat in the front row, holding hands. They nodded with approval as Victoria crisply explained the difference between peaceful protests protected by the First Amendment and trespasses and larceny, which are crimes.

“She’s good,” Nash whispered, sounding alarmed.

Of course she is, Steve thought, I taught her everything. No, that wasn’t true. A person isn’t a dolphin. You don’t blow a whistle and hold up a mackerel to teach a person how to try a case. They either have the innate talent or they don’t.

Some people can throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour and knick a slice of airspace sixty feet, six inches away.

Some people can recite eighty-verse limericks from memory without blowing a line.

And some people can tell a story that will move a dozen strangers to either condemn or exonerate another human being.

While Steve mulled over these thoughts, Victoria began wrapping up, warmly thanking these good folks for leaving their jobs and families to come downtown and help do justice. The good folks beamed back at her, mighty proud to be of service.

The courtroom door opened and a woman took a seat in the last row. Mid-twenties, maybe. Difficult to tell her age because she wore wraparound sunglasses and a little white tennis jacket with a high collar turned up. Maybe it was the sunglasses. Maybe it was the style of her upswept blond hair. Or maybe it was the courtroom setting. Whatever the reason, Steve thought of Lee Remick in the classic movie Anatomy of a Murder. A woman of mystery and dubious credibility.

His client followed his gaze and seemed to squint. “Huh,” Nash said.

“Huh, what?”

“For a second, that woman looked like passion.”

It took Steve a second to realize Nash meant “Passion” with a capital “P.” Passion Conner. His girlfriend and accomplice, who’d hung him out to dry.

“But it’s not her,” Nash said.

Steve tried to get a better look at the newcomer. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Passion’s not a blonde.”

“You ever hear of beauty salons?”

Steve stood and took a step toward the gate that led to the gallery. The woman looked up at him, her body stiffening.

Steve moved through the gate and headed for her.

“Mr. Solomon!” Judge Gridley called out.

Steve ignored him. The woman bounded to her feet. She moved toward the door.

The judge hit his steam whistle. Spectators jerked up in their seats.

The woman pushed through the door to the corridor.

“Mr. Solomon! Ms. Lord hasn’t finished her opening. You don’t jump off a moving train-”

“Sorry, Judge. But nature calls.”

“Now?”

“Those cafeteria burritos, Your Honor.” He was out the door before the judge could reply.

In the corridor, Steve wheeled left, then right. Caught a glimpse as the woman turned a corner at the escalators. Six flights down to the lobby. He could beat her there by taking the stairwell.

He ran to the stairwell door, nearly knocking over two young lawyers in spiffy suits, sniffing the halls of Justice for fresh business. Steve took the steps two at a time, vaulting over the bannister to cut corners at each landing.

The floors flew by.

He burst through the door into the lobby.

The usual suspects. Cops. Corrections officers. Clerks. Public defenders, prosecutors. Spectators and witnesses and downtown lawyers. Milling about, buzzing like bees in a hive.

Steve waited at the bottom of the escalator. No blonde in a tennis jacket, with or without sunglasses. Maybe she got off the escalator on one of the higher floors, then switched to the elevator. Steve hurried to the elevator bank. A dozen people poured out of two cars. She wasn’t among them.

Damn.

No use standing here. He had to do something. And he had to get back to the courtroom before Judge Gridley held him in contempt.

Steve took the down escalator up, catching stares from the security guards and glares from the people he passed, going the wrong way. From lobby to second floor, then second floor to third.

And there it was.

A blond wig sticking out of a trash can. A white tennis jacket jammed underneath.

“Mr. Solomon.”

A man’s sleepy voice.

Elwood Reed, in his baggy bailiff’s uniform. Reaching into his pocket.

Oh, shit. Am I gonna be handcuffed?

“Judge thought you might need these,” Reed said, handing Steve a small bottle of pills.

Steve peered at the label. “Equilactin?”

“Judge says it’ll help form solid stools.”

“Well, he oughta know,” Steve allowed.