“That I could find, yes.”
“And what did you do when you discovered Corwin Pierce was in jail awaiting trial?”
“I did what I was asked to do. I reviewed the file and passed it on to Mr. Maddox.”
Maddox rises again. “Objection, Your Honor. I fail to see any relevance whatso—”
“Overruled. Have a seat, Mr. Maddox. And please do everything humanly possible to remain in it during the rest of Mr. Corvelli’s cross-examination of Detective Tatupu.”
“Do you know what Mr. Maddox did with Corwin Pierce’s file after you gave it to him?” I say.
Tatupu shakes his head. “You would have to ask him.”
I turn and face both Maddox and the jury. “Oh, I’m quite sure Mr. Maddox will be asked that very question at some point under oath.” I spin back to Tatupu. “But tell me, Detective, did you become curious about what Mr. Maddox intended to do with Corwin Pierce’s file after you gave it to him?”
“Of course.”
“You wanted to find out?”
“Sure.”
“To that end, Detective, what, if any, steps did you take?”
Maddox is up again. “Objection. Is the detective the one suddenly on trial here?”
Maxa looks up. “I believe you are, Mr. Maddox.”
The gallery erupts with talk and movement.
Maxa lifts her gavel and threatens to clear the courtroom. “The objection is overruled. Please answer the question, Detective.”
“I followed up by checking with the Hawaii Department of Corrections.”
“And what, if anything, did you discover, Detective?”
“That Corwin Pierce was subsequently transferred from the OCCC to the Halawa Correctional Center.”
“On whose authority, Detective?”
“On the authority of Deputy Prosecutor Luke Maddox.”
As the gallery again alights with hushed conversation, Judge Maxa stands. “I think maybe it’s time for me to see both lawyers in chambers.”
I hold up my right hand. “Just one last question, Your Honor.” I don’t give her time to refuse the request. “Detective Tatupu, are you familiar with a man named Turi Ahina?”
“I am.”
“How so?”
“I believe Mr. Ahina is a client of yours.”
“More than a client,” I say, stepping away from the podium toward Judge Maxa’s chambers. “It should be noted for the record that Turi Ahina is more than just a client of my firm. And that Deputy Prosecutor Luke Maddox knows it.”
CHAPTER 53
“You know who the fuck I am?” Maddox shouts the moment we step back into the hallway outside Judge Maxa’s chambers.
“A prosecutor,” I say calmly. “At least for the time being.”
We’re close enough to each other that I can smell the coffee on Maddox’s breath, the breasts of our suit jackets magnetized by ire, the two of us squaring off and brushing against one another like manager and umpire following a blown call on a play at the plate. Then he grasps my lapels, and I his, and through sheer rage I overpower him, slamming him into the blah yellow wall with all the force I can muster.
I don’t know who throws the first punch. All I know is that our bodies collide with violent force and before I can consider the consequences we are both on the floor outside Judge Maxa’s chambers tearing at each other like sharks.
Maxa’s clerk, a number of court officers, a few lawyers all rush to intervene, to attempt to separate us, but punches are already landing, many to Maddox’s pretty face and a few to my own and there’s blood, lots of blood, more blood than you would ever expect as a result of a brawl between two lawyers at a courthouse.
It’s then, as Jake and Court Officer Perry pin me up against the far wall, blood spilling down my chin onto my starched white shirt and blue silk tie, that I realize the fire has returned to my gut.
Minutes ago in Judge Maxa’s chambers, Luke Maddox looked as though he might soil his pants. The way things were left in the courtroom, much of the media and all of the jury undoubtedly had dozens of questions they would have liked to ask. Maxa cut things off before things went too far—before, as Jake said, she couldn’t put the shit back in the horse.
“These are very serious accusations, Mr. Corvelli,” Maxa said to me.
All of us, Jake included, were standing in her chambers, the tension so thick it seemed to suck up the air. Maxa remained standing in her long flowing black robe, her jaw set so tight it couldn’t have been broken with a hammer.
“I’m well aware, Your Honor,” I told her.
Maddox began to speak but Maxa immediately cut him off. “I don’t think you should say a word right now, Mr. Maddox. You can only get yourself in deeper. Regardless of the truth of Mr. Corvelli’s allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, I suggest you speak to counsel before addressing these issues in any manner in any forum whatsoever.”
Maddox remained quiet after that.
“As for the trial…” Maxa said. “Mr. Corvelli, I’m inclined to grant you a mistrial. Until these allegations can be proved or disproved, I don’t see a reason why you or your client should have to proceed.”
Of course, I cannot prove the allegations without the cooperation of Corwin Pierce, and there is little to no chance of obtaining that. There are records—Flan searched for them at my request—of Maddox visiting Pierce on multiple occasions at Halawa, but there is no way to prove what was said, no way to establish with reasonable certainty that Maddox fed the details of the crime to Corwin Pierce and directed Pierce to confess to the crime to Turi Ahina, knowing damn well it would get back to me and lead the defense down a dark one-way road toward a conviction.
Of course Judge Sonya Maxa is suspicious enough, as she well should be, to grant the defense a mistrial.
“I don’t want a mistrial, Judge,” I hear myself saying. “I intend to win an acquittal.”
A mistrial was precisely what I had wanted when I rose to question Tatupu about Corwin Pierce, it was what I meant when I told Erin that I wouldn’t allow her to be convicted, that I was in complete control. But at some point during my cross-examination of John Tatupu, something in me snapped. I grew angry, angrier perhaps than I’ve ever been in my eights years as a lawyer. I was finally able to hate Luke Maddox, truly hate him, headful of Fukitol or not.
Now Jake Harper and Court Officer Perry stand in front of me, continuing to hold me back. Maxa is staring down at the spill of blood on the floor as it spreads like fire toward her chamber door.
“Go, get yourselves to a hospital,” Maxa says, arms folded across her chest. “Get stitched or stapled or whatever you need to do, because I will see both of you in my courtroom tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp, prepared to question the State’s next witness. And, so help me, you both better look presentable.”
CHAPTER 54
Inez Rios’s direct testimony takes almost an entire day. Luke Maddox, standing tall at the podium with a stitched-up split upper lip and two shiners, deliberately parades the investigator through the history of fire, from its discovery by early man through present day. By four in the afternoon I’m more afraid of fire and its destructive properties than the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. When Maddox finally tenders the witness I know I should suggest to Judge Maxa that we adjourn and call it a week. If I only had a brain.
Instead I limp to the podium, my right knee protesting loudly and violently over yesterday’s hallway brawl. “Good afternoon, Ms. Rios. It’s late in the day and I realize everyone wants to go home, so I’ll just ask you a few questions and perhaps we can resume on Monday—or Tuesday rather, since Monday’s a holiday.”
I glance at the jury to see whether they’re still paying attention, then I get right to the heart of my cross-examination.
“Ms. Rios, you testified earlier today that given Dr. Noonan’s findings as to the cause and manner of death of Mr. Simms, you thought it very likely that this fire was started in order to conceal the crime of homicide, co
rrect?”
“Correct, Counselor.”
“Aside from Dr. Noonan’s determination as to the cause and manner of Mr. Simms’s death, is there any physical evidence to support this claim?”
“Of course,” she says. “The fire was clearly started in the honeymoon suite where the murder of Mr. Simms took place.”
“Location,” I say. “I’m glad you mentioned that, Ms. Rios, because you testified on direct that the point of origin, identified by a prominent V-shaped burn pattern, was discovered on the lower part of the wall across from the bed on which Mr. Simms’s body was found. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.”
“And that location is where the bulk—or say, the lion’s share—of the charcoal lighter fluid was also discovered, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, with trailers heading in the direction of the bed.”
“Trailers, plural?”
“No, I apologize. Trailer, singular. There was one trailer of lighter fluid found heading from the point of origin in the direction of the bed.”
I stand back from the podium and look up at the ceiling as though trying to formulate my next question. “If, right at this moment, Ms. Rios, you wanted to set me on fire, would you attempt to do so by dousing the jury box with lighter fluid?”
Maddox is up. “Objection, Your Honor! What kind of question is that?”
“Withdrawn,” I say quickly, bowing my head. “I apologize, Your Honor. That question was poorly phrased.” But the jury will sure as hell remember it.
I step up to the podium again. “Let me take you briefly down another road, Ms. Rios. In your report, you state that there were three potential exits in the Simms’s honeymoon suite, correct?”
“Correct, Counselor.”
I count them off on my fingers, inadvertently exposing my bruised knuckles to the jury. “The front door. The door that led to the neighboring suite. And the sliding glass door that led out to the lanai. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“From your investigation you determined that at the time the fire started the sliding glass door to the lanai was closed, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And, unless the front door was somehow propped open, that door was in all likelihood closed as well, right?”
“Right. The front door is designed in such a way that it closes itself.”
“But this third door, this door to the neighboring suite. That door, you determined, was open at the time the fire started?”
“That’s correct.”
“How do you account for that, Ms. Rios?”
“Objection.”
“Your Honor, I’m simply asking Ms. Rios to formulate an expert opinion based on her many years of experience investigating fires.”
“Overruled. Ms. Rios, you may answer the question.”
“In my opinion,” Rios says, “before setting the fire, the arsonist was checking for potential avenues of escape.”
“But that door to the neighboring suite was not, in fact, a potential avenue of escape for the arsonist, was it?”
“No, it was not.”
“Why not, Ms. Rios?”
“Because the second door, the interior door, into the adjoining suite was locked.”
“So, Ms. Rios, are you suggesting that the arsonist discovered that this second door was locked and therefore dismissed that exit as a possible avenue of escape?”
“I think that’s very likely.”
“And yet, Ms. Rios, not a single fingerprint was discovered on the knob of the interior door to the neighboring suite, correct?”
“That’s correct, Counselor.”
“Nor, Ms. Rios, was a single fingerprint discovered on the knob of the exterior door to the neighboring suite, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right, Counselor.”
“And how do you account for that?”
“Well, unfortunately, Mr. Corvelli, we don’t always find fingerprints where we might expect to find fingerprints.”
“Fair enough. But why do you suppose, Ms. Rios, that the first door to the neighboring suite was left open?”
Rios shrugs. “Carelessness?”
“Carelessness,” I repeat. “But on direct examination you detailed all of the quote-unquote ‘painstaking efforts’ the arsonist apparently made to use this fire to conceal the crime of homicide, didn’t you, Ms. Rios?”
“I did.”
“Then what advantage, Ms. Rios, does leaving that door open give the arsonist, if the arsonist set this fire in order to conceal the murder of Trevor Simms?”
Rios shrugs again. “None that I can think of.”
Judge Maxa follows Rios’s answer by asking me if this is a good time to break until next week.
“Just one final line of questioning, Your Honor.” I flip the page on Rios’s report. “Let’s talk briefly about the accelerant, Ms. Rios. The charcoal lighter fluid. In addition to finding the accelerant in massive amounts at the point of origin, and in addition to the trailer leading to the bed, a fair amount of lighter fluid was also discovered in the neighboring suite, correct?”
“I’m not sure I would characterize it as a ‘fair amount.’”
“How would you characterize it, Ms. Rios?”
“I believe in my report I call it a ‘puddle.’”
“And how do you account for that ‘puddle’ of accelerant discovered in the neighboring suite, Ms. Rios?”
“Spillage.”
“Spillage?” I repeat. “More carelessness, Ms. Rios?”
“I suppose so.”
“On direct this morning, Ms. Rios, you characterized the arsonist as ‘meticulous,’ did you not?”
“I did.”
“Tell me, Ms. Rios, in your twelve-plus years as a fire investigator here in the state of Hawaii, would you say that the individual who set this fire in the Simms’s honeymoon suite is the most careless, meticulous arsonist you’ve ever come across?”
CHAPTER 55
“The question now is, do we put on a defense at all or rest and go straight to closing arguments?”
Leaning against the conference room window, Jake says, “That’s like asking me if I want a drink when you’re standing there with an empty bottle in your hand.”
I sigh heavily. Jake’s right. I’m convinced we did as much damage as we could to Maddox’s case-in-chief, but staging our own defense is another matter entirely. Maddox was leading us down a blind alley with Corwin Pierce and Javier Vargas and we called him on it, raised serious questions about the prosecution’s integrity, just as Johnnie Cochran & Company did to Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden in the O. J. Simpson trial. Bottom line is, though, unless we have another suspect to point to, our only argument to the jury is that the government didn’t meet its burden of proof.
Maddox rested his case earlier today after putting Trevor’s sister Lauren Simms on the stand. Lauren was an effective witness: articulate, sympathetic, memorable. In addition to putting a switchblade in Erin’s hand on the afternoon preceding the fire, Lauren provided that third dimension of a victim that is sometimes so difficult to achieve. Lauren was so good, in fact, that I decided not to cross, not to question her about Trevor’s business dealings with her fiancé Gabe Guidry. If, ultimately, we go in that direction, I’d much rather call Guidry himself during our case-in-chief.
“Who are you thinking about putting on?” Jake asks.
I lean back in my seat, watching Jake watch the rain. “Tara Holland and Isaac Cassel are useless because neither can offer Erin an alibi. And Maddox will kill Tara on cross because she witnessed the death threats. She’ll have to corroborate everything Mia said on direct and we don’t want her doing that.”
“How about Isaac?”
“The best man is another story. My fear is that Isaac will jump at the bit to protect Erin on direct and then bury us on cross. Besides, what can we get from Isaac that we couldn’t get from Mia Landow?”
“That leaves who? B
aron Lee?”
“To testify to the points we already got Alison, Noonan, and Inez Rios to concede to.”
“Maybe we should pull up the knife,” Jake suggests.
“Too late for that,” I say. “Even if the knife has a known arsonist’s prints all over it now it’ll look staged. Besides, if there are no unknown prints on the door knobs or anywhere else in the honeymoon suite, then the true arsonist—assuming there even is one—used gloves. Introducing Erin’s knife as Erin’s knife is just one more reason to convict. We can’t hand Maddox the murder weapon this late in the game.”
Jake finally turns from the window and sits across from me. “Son, I know we’ve had our differences these past six months. Partly because of Alison, yes, but partly because you made a business decision without consulting me. You wouldn’t even hear me out. And that, son, is how you do a lot of things. You’re an alpha dog, I can accept that. But I’m still your partner and I deserve to be heard.”
“Look, I’m sorry, Jake…”
“No need for apologies. What I’m getting at is this: If you want to reverse yourself and ask Maxa for that mistrial, I’d understand. We can’t afford to try this case again, but at least Erin will get another shot. Who knows? Maybe something will turn up between now and then.”
I don’t tell Jake that my refusal of Maxa’s offer to grant a mistrial had nothing to do with our six hundred grand. Instead, I dump a manila folder full of photographs onto the conference room table. Each of us have studied thousands of these ordinary tourist photos of the day and night of the fire for the past six months. I’m certain we didn’t miss anything. But I need a prop to say what I have to say to Jake.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I start. I still haven’t let Jake in on my relationship with Erin, but I suppose now is better than never.
“What’s that, son?”
As I flip through the pictures, I say, “Mind you, this didn’t start until a few weeks after we agreed to take on the case…”
Jake leans forward and crosses his arms on the conference room table.
I set aside a few of the photos. “Let’s get the original digital images of these,” I say, stalling for time. “These are garbage. This guy in the Boston Red Sox cap has red-eye in every shot.”
Night on Fire Page 22
