The Tenth Case

by Joseph Teller

  Even with suspension looming and Jaywalker working hard to please the three-judge panel by disposing of as many of his remaining cases as possible, he still managed to find time each day to spend an hour locked up across from Samara in the twelfth-floor counsel visit room, and to remember each afternoon to request that she be brought back over again the following day.

  Each day she asked him if he'd come up with any ideas to get her out, and each day she reaffirmed her willingness to do whatever it would take on her end. Each day he told her he was thinking about it, working on it, and that he'd come up with some ideas that he was playing around with in his mind. At the beginning of the week, these were lies, meant simply to placate her and put her off. But as the week wore on, Jaywalker found that his assurances were begin ning to take on a life of their own, and he spent his evenings trying to concoct some scheme or plan that might just convince some judge to set bail. And by week's end, he'd actually come up with the seeds of an idea, however pre liminary and far-fetched.

  In the meantime, the case against Samara continued to mount.

  * * *

  On Monday, Nicolo LeGrosso had called to tell Jay walker that he'd succeeded in interviewing both Barry Tan nenbaum's next-door neighbor and the doorman who'd been on duty the evening of the murder. Both of them re iterated the accounts they'd given the detectives. The neighbor was as certain as she could be that it had been Barry and his wife "Sam" she'd heard arguing, and that after Sam had left there'd been no more voices. And although the doorman no longer had the logbook to show LeGrosso (the NYPD detectives having taken it), he was absolutely positive that Mr. Tannenbaum's only guest that evening had been his wife.

  Nicky also reported that he'd struck out on trying to identify and interview the cabby who'd driven Samara home from Barry's the night of the murder. His subpoena to the Taxi and Limousine Commission had come back "no record." Either Samara had lied about taking a cab directly back to her place, or the cabby had taken her off the meter, pocketing the fare for himself. Other than Samara's word, there was no way of knowing.

  On Wednesday, Tom Burke had phoned. "You owe me ten bucks," he announced.

  "What for?" Jaywalker had forgotten what they'd bet on, but he was pretty sure from Burke's smug tone that it was Samara who was going to turn out to be the big loser.

  "The knife," said Burke. "The one found behind the toilet tank at her place?"

  "Right."

  "Preliminary DNA tests show it's got Barry's blood on it. Ditto the blouse and the towel."

  "You got the report already?"

  "Not yet," said Burke. "They're way backed up over there. I got a phone call this morning, though, and I thought you'd like to know."

  "Thanks," said Jaywalker. "You've made my day."

  "Come on, don't tell me you're surprised."

  "No, I'm not surprised."

  "And, Jay?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Sorry about the suspension thing."

  "Thanks, Tom. I'll be okay."

  "They going to let you wind down your cases?"

  "Seems like it. Some of them, anyway."

  "Jay?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Keep this one, if you can. God knows she's going to need you."

  Burke had called again the following day. "I still don't have the DNA report," he said. "But they phoned to tell me they've quantified the odds of its being anyone else's blood on the stuff besides Barry's."

  "I can hardly wait," said Jaywalker. In the old days, back when all they could do was type blood by group, such as A Positive, AB Negative or O Positive, the best they could typically tell you was that fifty or sixty percent of the population could be excluded as suspects. Then, with the advent of HLA testing, the figure jumped, reaching the nineties. But DNA was a different story altogether. Now the numbers suddenly lifted off and soared into the strato sphere. And it was those numbers, typically described as "astronomical," that had completely revolutionized the science of identification.

  "You ready?" asked Burke.

  "Sure. Lay it on me."

  "The odds that it's not Barry's blood are precisely one in twelve billion, six hundred and fifty-two million, one hun dred and eighty-nine thousand, four hundred and twelve."

  Although Burke had read off the numbers deliberately enough for Jaywalker to copy them down, he hadn't both ered. He knew his DNA, and as soon as he'd heard the twelve billion part, it had been enough for him.

  There weren't that many people on the planet.

  By Friday Jaywalker had been told that he could keep enough cases to know that Samara's would be among them. He broke the news to her through the wire mesh of the twelfth-floor counsel visit room.

  "That's terrific," she said. "Have you come up with a plan to get me out?"

  "Let me ask you a question first."

  "Okay."

  "Remember that stuff they say they found behind the toilet tank at your place?" He was careful to include the words "they say." Omitting them would have told her that he was willing to accept the detectives' version as true.

  "Yes," she said. "The knife, the blouse and…"

  "The towel."

  "Right. What about them?"

  "You told me you didn't know anything about them, right?"

  "Right."

  "Are you absolutely sure?"

  "Yes," she said. "Why?"

  "They've found Barry's blood on them."

  Shrug time.

  "Who could have put them there?" he asked.

  "I don't know. Whoever killed Barry and wanted to make it look like I did it?"

  "From the time you got home after leaving Barry's, until the police showed up and arrested you, was there anyone else in your place, besides you? Think carefully."

  She seemed to do just that for a moment. What Jay walker had no way of knowing was whether she was genuinely trying to reach back three weeks earlier and remember. Or had it suddenly dawned on her what a terrible trap she'd put herself into? Half of him expected her to break down right then and there and confess. The other half, knowing Samara, knew better.

  Liars tended to stick to their lies, however absurdly. Years ago, after he'd informed a client that a full set of his prints had been found on a demand note left behind at a bank robbery, the man had looked Jaywalker squarely in the eye and said, "Hey, what can I tell you? Somebody must be using my fingerprints."

  "No," said Samara. "No one else was there."

  "So how could those things have gotten there?"

  "I have no idea," said Samara, this time without hesita tion. "I guess the cops must've put them there."

  Somebody must be using my fingerprints.

  "So, have you come up with a plan?" she pressed.

  "Sort of," said Jaywalker, amazed that she could re cover quickly enough to change the subject without miss ing a beat.

  She leaned forward.

  "Not now," he said, looking around. "Not here." Al though his words and glances were meant to convey that there were too many eyes and ears nearby, the truth was that Jaywalker's sort of plan suddenly seemed foolish and unworkable. On top of that, Samara's cavalier attitude, in the face of a truly damning piece of evidence, upset him more than he was willing to admit. If she wasn't willing to level with him and trust him with the truth, how could he possibly become a co-conspirator in a scheme to get her bailed out on false pretenses?

  "When?" she asked him.

  "Monday," he said. "We're due in court for your ar raignment. We'll talk then."

  She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms in front of her breasts and pouted, but it was only a little pout. Monday was only three days away, after all, and even in the world that Samara Tannenbaum inhabited, where there was no past and no future, and everything was about imminent peril and instant gratification, three days was evidently something she could handle.

  11

  DID YOU SAY BAIL?

  "Samara Tannenbaum," read the clerk, "you have been indicted for the crime of murder, and other crim
es. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?"

  "Not guilty," said Samara.

  This was the moment when Jaywalker would normally ask the judge for bail. But they were in front of Carolyn Berman again. She was the one who'd frozen Samara's bank account last month, then modified it only to the extent of allowing her to retain counsel at the rate of seventy-five dollars an hour. Besides, she was a woman, and experience had taught Jaywalker that, as a rule, women judges were tougher on women defendants than male judges were. It was a rule that took on even more meaning when the de fendant happened to be not only a woman, but a young, pretty woman, and one of immense privilege.

  So Jaywalker said nothing.

  He liked saying nothing, another fact that set him apart from every other lawyer he knew. He especially liked saying nothing at a time like this, when the media were as sembled in the audience behind him—the print reporters, the gossip columnists, the entertainment-show beauties and the sketch artists peering over their pads in their bifocals. Afterward, outside the courtroom, when they would follow him, train their floodlights on him and poke their microphones in his face, he would elaborate on saying nothing and tell them, "No comment."

  "Part 51," said the clerk. "Judge Sobel."

  At last they'd caught a break of sorts. Matthew Sobel was a gentle person, a judge who wore his robe with mod esty, and treated lawyers and defendants with respect. While he was no "Cut-'em-loose" Bruce Wright, or Mur ray "Why-are-you-bringing-me-this-piece-of-shit-case?" Mogel from the old days, you could count on getting a fair trial in front of him, and ending up with a reasonable sentence even if you lost. What's more, he was openminded on the issue of bail. And he was a man.

  "Judge Sobel asks that you pick a Tuesday," said Judge Berman.

  "How's tomorrow?" Jaywalker asked.

  "Too soon."

  Again that old problem of papers having to make their way from one courtroom to another, in this case from the eleventh floor all the way up to the thirteenth.

  "A week from tomorrow?"

  "Fine," said Judge Berman. "Next case."

  Afterward Jaywalker met with Samara. This time, how ever, they enjoyed the semiprivacy of a holding pen, a close cousin of a feeder pen. Since Samara was the only woman who'd been brought down for court so far that morning, she had the pen to herself, and they spoke through the bars, close enough to touch—a fact that Jaywalker was acutely aware of.

  After hearing the conditions of his suspension, the weekend had rejuvenated him somewhat. It had also given him a chance to get over his annoyance at Samara's apparent lack of concern over Barry's blood having been found on the items hidden in her town house. He leaned forward against the bars and spoke to her in hushed tones. She, the better part of a foot shorter than he, listened intently, her face turned upward, her eyes meeting his, her lips silently mouthing his words as if to commit them to memory.

  They spoke for twenty minutes like that, until a correc tions officer interrupted them to explain that he had to bring Samara back upstairs, so they could use the holding pen for an "obso," a mental case, someone who had to be segregated from the general population and kept under observation.

  Riding down the elevator and walking out into the midmorning daylight, all Jaywalker could think of was Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who'd made news by getting caught on tape and sent off to federal prison for things she'd said to her client during a jailhouse visit.

  What am I doing? he asked himself.

  Talk about an obso.

  A week went by. Jaywalker managed to dispose of the first case on his list of ten and dutifully reported the fact to the disciplinary committee judge monitoring his prog ress. Outdoors, there was a noticeable chill in the air each morning, prompting him to put away his two summer suits for warmer ones, and the October evenings seemed to settle in earlier and earlier with each passing day. At home alone in his apartment, Jaywalker found he was filling his tumbler of Kahlúa a little fuller each night, and draining it a little more quickly.

  A copy of the DNA report arrived in the mail from Tom Burke, confirming the fact that the blood found on the knife, the blouse and the towel found in Samara Tannen baum's town house had indeed been her late husband's, to a certainty factor of 12,652,189,412 to 1.

  Samara continued to be brought over from Rikers Island each morning and returned each evening. In between her bus trips, Jaywalker saw her each day in the twelfth-floor counsel visit room. They talked very little about her case, even less about her chances of being granted bail on her next appearance. But he could see she was doing her homework, holding up her end of the bargain. The shadows beneath her eyes had darkened and widened into deep hollows. Her hair had taken on an unwashed, dead quality. Her lips had dried and cracked, and the lower one had shrunk visibly, until it was now almost normal in size.

  She was, in a word, wasting, wasting away before his eyes, like some third-world refugee from a famine or a plague.

  "Perfect," he told her.

  They made their first appearance before Judge Sobel the following Tuesday. The media was barely in evidence this time. Jaywalker's strategy of keeping their courtroom sessions as brief as possible and saying nothing quotable afterward had evidently had its desired effect. And by de laying his arrival to the late afternoon, daring those who'd showed up early to wait around all day, he'd managed to thin their ranks even more.

  A judge's courage tends to grow, Jaywalker had learned, in inverse proportion to the size of his audience. Fill a courtroom with spectators and press, and even the best judge, even a Matthew Sobel, will posture and play to them, however subtly and even unconsciously. Wait until the end of the day, when the rows of benches have emptied, and your chances of getting what you need for your client multiply almost exponentially.

  "Is your client all right?"

  Those were literally the first words out of the judge's mouth, upon seeing Samara brought into the courtroom.

  "No," said Jaywalker. "Actually, she's not."

  Samara was permitted to sit at the defense table, facing the judge. Sobel had no doubt seen photographs of her; everyone had. But the photographs unfailingly depicted a stunningly beautiful woman, a diminutive version of the trophy wife in every respect except for her hair, which was dark and straight, instead of the expected bimbo blond.

  The woman Judge Sobel was staring at now looked like an advanced-stage AIDS patient who'd survived a train wreck. In addition to the wasted look she'd developed over the month of her incarceration, she sported a gash across her forehead and a black left eye, noticeable not so much because of its discoloration, which blended almost seam lessly into the dark hollow beneath it, but because the eye itself was swollen nearly shut and tearing visibly. Tufts of her hair appeared to have been pulled out, and she reached for the side of her head repeatedly, a gesture that only served to draw attention to the large white bandage that covered her hand.

  "Is this in honor of Halloween?" Tom Burke asked, perhaps in the hope that a bit of levity might break the silence that had enveloped the courtroom.

  Jaywalker turned in Burke's direction, fixing him with a hard stare but saying nothing, choosing instead to let the remark twist in the air.

  Judge Sobel finally found his voice. "Come up," he motioned the lawyers, "and tell me what's going on."

  At the bench, with the court reporter taking down every word but the spectators unable to hear, Jaywalker spoke softly. "Not surprisingly," he explained, "my client imme diately became a target on Rikers Island. She's white, she's rich, she's small and she's pretty. Was pretty, at least. Anyway, she tried to be a trooper, putting up with the ha rassment as long as she could. The breaking point came when she was sexually assaulted. That's when she finally reached out for help. The problem was, she didn't know whom to reach out to. Instead of calling me or asking to see a captain, she phoned the corrections commission."