Compelling Evidence

by Steve Martini

  “It was his mother’s money,” she says.

  “What?”

  “The money for the bail—it came from his mother. Tod doesn’t have that kind of money,” she says. “But his family is wealthy.”

  “Whatever,” I say, as if these details don’t really matter. “His name is on the guarantee with the bondsman; that’s all Nelson needs to know. That’s all he’ll care about.”

  She tells me that the collateral posted for her bail is part of a family trust, Tod’s inheritance.

  “Can’t we keep him out of it?” she says. “He was only trying to help me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but it’s what happens when you withhold things from your lawyer. If you’d told me that Tod was willing to guarantee your bail I would have advised against it.”

  “And I would still be rotting in the county jail.” Her eyes are now ablaze, glazed a little by the start of tears. “Tod was the only one who cared,” she says. In her own way, Talia is telling me that I am no better than Cheetam, that I too welshed on my promise to spring her from jail. Maybe she is right.

  “Do you think they’ll arrest him?” she asks.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  More tears extinguish the fire in her eyes. There’s real pathos here, the kind of anguished expression that often precedes truth.

  “Oh God,” she says. “How did I get into this? How did I get him into this?”

  I think for a moment that she’s talking about her general plight, the fact that she’s charged with murder. Then I realize her words have another meaning, some more specific dilemma.

  She looks up at me with big, round, pleading eyes.

  “He was with me the night Ben was killed,” she says.

  My heart thumps, like someone has slammed me into a concrete wall. I’m speechless, allowing my expression to say it all. Like “What are you telling me?”

  “The night Ben was killed,” she says. “We were together.” She pauses only slightly, taken aback a little as disbelief is replaced by emerging anger in my eyes.

  “I wasn’t in Vacaville. I didn’t leave town. I was at Tod’s apartment.” Then quickly, as if to dispel what she knows is running through my mind, she says: “But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t murder Ben.”

  I am walking away from her now, shaking my head as much in frustration as in fury. Angry with the cosmos of criminal defendants who tell unending lies to their lawyers. Little white ones that shade the truth, or whoppers like this one that plunge a spear through the heart of your case.

  We have wasted untold hours scouring Talia’s credit card records in hopes of producing some verification of her alibi. Harry’s worn a rut in the highway between this city and Vacaville looking for anyone who might have seen her at the property she was supposedly viewing; he’s been talking to neighbors, the postman, kids on the street.

  “Sonofabitch.” I say it to the wall, before I turn and look at her again. “What else?” I say. “What other little surprises do you have?” I wonder if this is only a first crack in the dam, a little leak of real fact, to be followed by a flood of contradictions, a story gone awry, a tale that flies like some wounded duck, conflicted by truth and lies. How many variations on this theme will I hear now that she tells me that her alibi is Tod. A story that, both of us know, even if true will not work.

  “We were together until I left his apartment just before ten,” she says. “The police were there when I got home. Ben was already dead.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  “What could I say? The police told me that my husband had just shot himself. I couldn’t very well tell them that I was off with another man, alone in his apartment.”

  “Observing the social proprieties?” I say.

  “I didn’t want to get Tod involved.”

  I am wondering more about Harry’s theory. Whether perhaps this infatuation, Hamilton’s and Talia’s, is not mutual, and whether Tod may have acted as Harry suspects, as a lone agent in the interests of love.

  “I see. So you spun a little yarn for the cops?”

  “I figured they couldn’t check it out—the trip to Vacaville,” she says.

  I shake my head again, this time looking straight at her. The wonder of it all. Talia fabricating a story the cops couldn’t verify to protect Tod, and at the same time destroying any hope of an alibi.

  “Later I couldn’t tell anyone,” she says.

  Caught in a web of her own deceit, Talia was confronted with the unshakable theory of a male accomplice. To reveal her whereabouts was to serve Tod up on a platter to the cops.

  “It’s what we argued about the night you came here asking about the gun,” she says. “Remember, when you left the room. Tod wanted to tell you. I wouldn’t let him.”

  “Hurray for Tod,” I say. “Too bad you didn’t take his advice.”

  She’s back to studying the loops in the carpet, her eyes downcast, arms folded, forming a kind of revetment around her breasts.

  “How did you come by the story, the trip to Vacaville?” I ask her.

  It was typical of Talia. This, it seems, was a cover story designed for Ben, in case he called looking for her at the office. According to Talia, the county administrator charged with selling the estate for taxes had called her. Someone, an unidentified source, had given the administrator Talia’s name and phone number as a potential buyer. She was scheduled to go that day, alone, and use the realtor’s lockbox key to view the property. Talia decided she had better things to do.

  “Instead you went over to Tod’s.”

  She nods. There’s just a touch of shame in this gesture. “He took the day off. We were going to play tennis.” She’s picking lint off her slacks with long, delicate fingernails. “We did other things,” she says.

  It’s her way of telling me that they rolled between the sheets all day, round-eyed lust in the afternoon.

  I’m at the window, staring out at the yard, my back to her.

  “What do we do now?” she asks.

  I give a little shrug. “We go and listen to what Nelson has to offer. If it’s good, maybe we take it.”

  “No,” she says. “I won’t do it. I won’t confess to a murder I didn’t commit.”

  “Noble,” I say. “But it may be preferable to the alternative.” I don’t have to draw Talia a picture. I have spoken to her already, in graphic terms, about how executions are carried out in this state. This conversation, which took place in the county jail, had a purpose: to impress upon her the risk she is running if she continues to insist on a trial, to reject the DA’s overtures of a deal.

  “I can’t do it,” she says.

  “I can’t put you on the stand any longer.”

  “Why not?”

  “So you can tell them you went to Vacaville?” I look at her like a child robbed of its innocence. “I can’t suborn perjury. On the stand you would be asked where you were that day. You would be confronted with your statements to the police at the house.”

  I can tell by her expression that Talia has finally come to understand her dilemma. If I put her on the stand she cannot lie. If she tells the truth she plays into Nelson’s hands, she produces her accomplice. Moreover, she admits that she lied to the police concerning her whereabouts the night of the murder. I can hear Nelson to the jury: “A woman who would lie to avoid a mere social stigma, the embarrassment of an affair with another man, might also weave tales to cover up murder.”

  If I am to represent her, Talia can no longer take the stand in her own defense. She will have to live with her story never given under oath, of a trip to Vacaville that no one can prove, a lie to be buried under the cloak of constitutional privilege and the right of silence.

  His name is etched deep in gold on the oak plaque next to his office door. Duane Nelson has the corner slot, Sam Jennings’s old office, with a view to the courthouse across the street. Harry and I are ushered in. I’ve left Talia at home. I can’t trust he
r judgment. Loose lips, a slip of the tongue, some untimely emotion—at this stage, each can be fatal. I will call her if we need to confer, in the event that Nelson makes us a deal too good to decline.

  He rises from behind the desk as we enter and extends a hand; a broad smile spans his lean face. He’s haggard. The duties of this place are wearing on Duane Nelson.

  I greet him by surname and he corrects me.

  “Duane,” he says. “Let’s dispense with the formalities.”

  He’s not alone.

  “I think you know Detective Lama.”

  Jimmy Lama keeps turning up, like a bad penny. His hand starts to move out from his side to take mine in greeting. This is a show of professionalism for Nelson’s benefit.

  “We’re acquainted,” I tell Nelson. I make no effort to shake Lama’s hand, but leave it drifting in space. He pulls it in and wipes it on his coat like a dirty knife.

  “Harry Hinds, my Keenan counsel,” I tell them.

  Harry shakes hands with Nelson and gives a little nod toward Lama. He uses me like a blocking back, as if I’m in his way, preventing him from being more cordial. From twenty years of criminal practice Harry’s formed his own sense of Lama, the sting of salt in an open wound.

  “Yes, well,” Nelson fills the awkward silence, “Lieutenant Lama has recently joined our office. He’s been appointed to head up the DA’s division of investigation. So I thought he should sit in.”

  “Lieutenant?” I say. My voice has gone up an octave in obvious surprise. “I guess congratulations are in order.”

  Lama’s not sure whether to smile. He’s considering the source.

  “Maybe we should get started.” Nelson’s trying to put a face on it, this thing between Lama and me.

  “Please,” he says, “have a seat.”

  Lama settles back onto the couch against the wall, to the right of Nelson’s immense cherry-wood desk. The DA drops into the wine-colored leather executive chair, button heaven, huge with a rolled and tufted headrest, something from a cattle baron’s bordello. Harry and I take what’s left, the two client chairs across from Nelson. They’ve arranged everything but bright lights in our eyes.

  Nelson presses a button on the ancient wooden intercom that seems to take up a quarter of his desk.

  “Marsha, could you come in for a second?”

  A young secretary enters, blond and bubbly, maybe three years out of high school. She has the body of an angel, all swept up in an hourglass silk dress that clings like plastic wrap. From appearances, Marsha does light typing and heavy gofer duty. Lama’s all eyes, but careful in his looks, something less than his lecherous self. He’s new, unsure of where he stands yet with Nelson.

  “Would anyone like coffee?” Nelson’s offering.

  Harry and Lama place orders and Marsha leaves.

  “Guess it’s my party,” says Nelson. “Well, no mystery. I thought it would be wise to see if we can identify any common ground, see if there’s any way we can save the county the cost of an expensive trial.”

  “Civic of you,” I say.

  Nelson laughs a little and opens a file on his desk.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard yet?” he says. “The judge assigned to the case?”

  I look at him, all eyes.

  “Armando Acosta,” he says.

  The Coconut. The chief prosecutor in a county such as this possesses many advantages of office, not the least of which is an intelligence system with pipelines to every police precinct and courtroom in the city.

  “You should get notice this afternoon,” he says. I can tell from Nelson’s tone this news is supposed to concern me. I have drawn a judge, a man anxious to flash a message of law and order to the voters before the law forces him to run for election in a year.

  Actually I’m surprised. With a shortage of Latino candidates, and affirmative action being what it is, the grapevine is full of rumors that Acosta is headed to the court of appeals.

  Nelson wastes no time, launching into the evidence, the strength of their case, the overwhelming circumstances, all of which he says point to my client as part of a conspiracy to kill her husband. He’s not giving anything away. It’s a rerun of the evidence trotted out in the preliminary hearing, no indications that they’ve altered the theory of their case. If you believe him, the cops are making little headway on identifying Talia’s co-defendant. But it’s only a matter of time, according to Nelson. I think this is a little bob-and-weave for our benefit. By now they must know about Tod. He’s done everything but light himself in neon.

  Lama chimes in, as if to advance the company line a little. “The lady had so many lovers it’s hard to get a fix,” he says.

  “Spare me,” I tell him.

  “We’ll get him,” says Lama. Like most of what Jimmy Lama has to say, this comes off sounding like the cheap threat it is.

  “We have a carefully constructed case here,” Nelson cuts in. “We take no short cuts,” he says. “I’m not interested in that. I want the people who did the crime.”

  While these words are delivered to me, Lama sits quietly looking at his boss, a little rebuked.

  “If you ask me,” he says, “I will tell you the truth. I believe that your client did it. Otherwise I would never have charged her. I’m not interested in political points, but convictions. Only convictions.” He pauses, making a little angle with pointed fingers under his chin. Then a slight tilt of the head, a little expression of concession.

  “Still, I can accept your position. You believe your client is innocent. It’s always more difficult to settle a case when a lawyer believes in his client,” he says. “I can accept that.”

  “No,” I tell him. “It’s always more difficult to cut a deal when a client knows she’s innocent.”

  His eyebrows go up a bit. “So you don’t think you can sell it to her?”

  I make a face, like “Maybe.” “Depends on what I have to sell.”

  “What would you like?”

  “What is this, buyer’s day?” I ask him.

  “Give me a wish list.”

  I screw up my face a little, like a market merchant about to kibitz with a customer.

  “Manslaughter, second degree.” This means that if Talia did it, if she killed Ben, it was the merest of accidents. I am only one step above simple battery, and only professional shame and the fact that any plea bargain must be approved by the court prevents me from asking for that.

  For a thin man Nelson has a hearty laugh, with a range of control that traverses two octaves. Halfway to a high C Lama kicks in with his own chortle, a cheap chorus to show the boss he’s on board.

  “That’s rich,” says Nelson. He’s catching his breath, his face a little red. “But I guess I asked for it. I had something a little more realistic in mind,” he says. His voice now takes on the sobriety of a pitchman.

  “Listen, this could be very hard on both of us. We can make it easy, and do your client a service in the process. You’ve got a problem. The evidence is stacked in spades against Mrs. Potter. She’s not someone a jury is likely to take sympathy on,” he says. “A wife with wayward tendencies—who kills for money.” He arches an eyebrow as if to show me how he will make Talia out the villain. “All we want is her help, her cooperation. To put this thing behind us. She identifies her accomplice, I’ll drop the special circumstances. No death penalty. She cops a plea to first-degree murder. She gets twenty-five to life. With a kind word from me I’d bet she’d do no more than twelve years. Still be a young woman when she comes out.”

  “Otherwise?” I ask.

  “Otherwise I go for the whole nine yards, first-degree murder with special circumstances. I’ll push hard for the death penalty,” he says, “and I’ll get it.”

  From the corner of my eye I can see Harry swallow a little saliva as he sits in the chair next to me.

  “You’re being more than a little myopic,” I tell him. I convince him to humor me, to play along with my reasoning for a moment.

 
; “Let’s assume, just for purposes of discussion, that she didn’t do it. That the lady’s completely innocent. You’ve offered her a deal she could not in good conscience accept. It may be terribly tempting, a certain result in an uncertain world. How can she deliver up an accomplice who doesn’t exist?”

  Nelson has poker eyes, for if this scenario concerns him, the prospect of some innocent man’s being victimized by my client, he doesn’t show it.

  “Why are you so insistent that she did it?” I ask.

  “You have another candidate?”

  I purse my lips as if to say maybe. But I have no one to deliver to him. If I hand him Tod, he will want to know what evidence I have. If I deliver up the Greek, Lama would spend his days until the trial searching out facts to exonerate him. Given the personalities involved, Skarpellos and Lama, I would suddenly discover that Tony was playing cribbage with a dozen elderly matrons the night Ben was killed.

  “Suspects are your job,” I tell Nelson.

  “I think we’re satisfied with the defendant we have. All we need to know is who helped her. Who carried the body, used the shotgun,” he says.

  “It’s an offer made to fail. Even if she were willing to enter a plea to a crime she didn’t commit in order to save her life, she can’t fulfill the terms.”

  He looks at me, like “Nice story, but it won’t wash.”

  Lama kicks in. “Have you heard,” he says, “we got a photo ID party goin’ down at the office? Seems the lady was a creature of habit. Ended up at the same place every night. A motel clerk from hell says she brought her entire stable of studs to his front door. We got him lookin’ at pictures of all her friends. Only a matter of time. Then the deal’s off.”

  Harry meets this with some logic.

  “To listen to you, our client already had all the freedom she could ask for. Lovers on every corner, and a cozy home to come home to when she got tired,” says Harry. “Why would she want to kill the meal ticket?”

  “Seems the victim was getting a little tired of her indiscretions. He was considering a divorce,” says Nelson. “You have read the prenuptial agreement? A divorce, and it was back to work for your client.”

  Harry and I look at one another.