Lassiter

by Paul Levine

  “Kip, until we get past your disciplinary hearing, you can’t cut school,” I said.

  “We’re past it, Uncle Jake.”

  My look shot him a question, and Kip explained. The Commodore had called him into the office. The esteemed State Attorney and distinguished alumnus Alejandro Castiel had placed a call. Vouched for Kip. Charges dismissed.

  “That really pisses me off,” I said.

  “Why, Uncle Jake? We won.”

  “I don’t want to owe Castiel any favors.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have to do something really shitty to him.”

  This time, his look asked the question.

  “I have to destroy him.”

  64 Never Let Them See Your Fear

  The next morning, I drove north on 27th Avenue and passed under the Dolphin Expressway, headed toward the Justice Building. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were pounding out “Gone, Gone, Gone,” and the world was tilted crazily on its axis.

  “Because you done me wrong.”

  At precisely ten A.M., the bailiff escorted Charlie Ziegler from the corridor to the witness stand. The saddlebags under Ziegler’s eyes seemed puffier today, and a mini-bandage on his chin looked like the aftermath of a shaving accident. Sleepless night? Shaky hands?

  He avoided my gaze on his walk past the bar. I wasn’t offended. He didn’t look at Alex Castiel, either. But he shot a glance at the jury.

  Next to me, Amy Larkin seemed composed, her hands folded primly in her lap. I had never encountered a defendant so damned placid when facing life without parole.

  Castiel took his star witness around the track slowly at first, establishing his background in the “adult entertainment industry,” so that my cross-exam would not come as a dirty little surprise to the jury.

  Then Castiel moved to the stalking and the threats. Yes, Ziegler had observed the defendant on a neighbor’s property, watching him. Yes, he had seen her in the lobby of his office building. “Loitering and surveilling,” in Castiel’s words.

  “Do you recall an occasion on which you received a phone call from Mr. Lassiter concerning his client?” Castiel asked.

  “If you’re talking about the incident at the gun range, yes, I do,” Ziegler said.

  “What occasioned that conversation?”

  “I had made a proposal to Mr. Lassiter to set up a fund to search for Ms. Larkin’s sister.”

  Sounding noble, indeed.

  “So you thought that’s what he was calling about?”

  “Yes, but he said—”

  “Objection, hearsay,” I called out.

  “May we approach?” Castiel said.

  Judge Melvia Duckworth waved us forward, and we trekked to the bench for a sidebar, out of earshot of the jury. “Your question clearly appears to call for a hearsay answer, Mr. Castiel.”

  “I’d submit that Mr. Lassiter’s response was an ‘excited utterance’ and therefore an exception to the hearsay rule.”

  “Let’s hear a proffer,” the judge ordered.

  “Mr. Lassiter replied that Ms. Larkin would rather, quote, ‘empty a clip into your gut than take your money,’ close quote,” Castiel recited.

  The judge raised her eyebrows and turned to me.

  “I wasn’t excited,” I said.

  “Your Honor,” Castiel hopped in, “the defendant had just shot out all the tires on Mr. Lassiter’s car.”

  “Three tires,” I corrected him.

  “Mr. Lassiter immediately called Mr. Ziegler to warn him that Amy Larkin was armed and coming after him. The evidence code defines an ‘excited utterance’ as one immediately following a startling event in which the declarant is under stress and is excited. Clearly, this falls under the rule.”

  “I wasn’t excited,” I repeated, drily. “I was calm and rational. As I recall, I was thinking about whether I should buy four new tires and not just three. It seemed a prudent thing to do, given balancing and rotation and tread wear.”

  “Objection overruled,” the judge declared.

  We resumed our places, and Ziegler repeated my regrettable words: “Mr. Lassiter said, ‘She’s got a gun, and she’s headed your way.’ Or something to that effect.”

  The jurors’ eyes switched from the witness to my client. Grave looks. I didn’t like that. Not one bit.

  Castiel moved to the night of the shooting. An assistant handled the projection gear, showing the solarium, the broken window, and what would be the grand finale, the body of Max Perlow. Castiel methodically paced Ziegler through the moments leading up to the murder. A noise outside. The two men walk into the solarium. Perlow waddles up to the window, approaches the glass, and ka-boom, ka-boom. Then the money question.

  “Did you, Mr. Ziegler, see who fired the gunshots?”

  The jurors leaned forward in their chairs. I clenched a pencil.

  Ziegler spoke clearly into the microphone. “I saw a figure outside.”

  “Can you identify that figure?”

  “Not really,” Ziegler said.

  Castiel’s eyes flickered. “Not really?”

  “It wasn’t the woman sitting next to Mr. Lassiter,” Ziegler said. “It wasn’t Amy Larkin. I can tell you that.”

  I’ll be damned. Just as Amy said, Ziegler was doing the right thing. Assuming it was the truth.

  A ripple of murmurs moved through the gallery. Jurors exchanged looks.

  Castiel fixed his face into a mask of Zen-like equanimity. He knew the first rule of trial work: Never let them see your fear. “Now, Mr. Ziegler, do you recall giving a statement to homicide detectives?”

  “Amy Larkin is tall and thin,” Ziegler said, ignoring the question. “The shooter was bigger, stockier. It was definitely a man.”

  A couple jurors exchanged whispers.

  “So that it’s clear, Mr. Ziegler, your testimony directly contradicts your statement to the police, isn’t that correct?”

  “I’d just seen Max shot and was very upset.”

  Castiel stayed calm and did not raise his voice. He’d been doing this too long to pee his pants over a recanting witness. “When you gave your statement to homicide detectives at the scene, the shooting was fresh in your mind, was it not?”

  “With Amy Larkin stalking me, there was some sort of mental suggestion that it must have been her.”

  “ ‘Mental suggestion’?” Castiel sounded amused.

  “Like if you know someone has a green car, if you see a green car, you think it must be them.”

  “Was this mental suggestion, this green-car syndrome, still preying on your mind when you repeated your identification in a written affidavit?”

  “It must have been.”

  “And when you and I met prior to your deposition, you again confirmed your earlier statements, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “More green-car syndrome?”

  “I guess I’d convinced myself.”

  “When Mr. Lassiter deposed you under oath prior to trial, what did you say then?”

  “Same deal. But I was wrong.”

  Ziegler was trying to exonerate Amy, I thought. Only problem, he looked like he was trying. There was something artificial and pre-packaged about the recantation.

  Castiel picked up the wooden pointer he’d used to highlight diagrams of the house and pool deck. He might have wanted to flail his witness with the pointer, but he merely wagged it like a parent scolding a child. “You’ve been upset ever since Ms. Larkin came to town and made those accusations against you, haven’t you?”

  “She accused me of a crime I didn’t commit, so yeah, I was steamed. Probably the way she feels right now.”

  That zinger brought a sharp look from Castiel, but he kept his voice even and untroubled. He made a show of looking at the clock, then at the jurors, and finally at the judge. “Your Honor, perhaps this would be a good time for the lunch break. As you might expect, I am not finished with this witness.”

  Translation: I’ll spend the next hou
r sharpening my scalpel and the afternoon removing his liver.

  The judge turned to me for my assent. “Mr. Lassiter?”

  “I could eat a bear,” I said.

  “Done. We stand in recess for one hour.”

  65 The Alibi

  I had lied to the judge. I wasn’t hungry. My stomach was filled with razor blades.

  An aging sheriff’s deputy swung open the steel door, and I joined Amy Larkin in the windowless holding cell behind the courtroom. We were deep in the bowels of the Justice Building. I made a mental note to spend the next hurricane here.

  When the door clanged shut behind me, I must have been frowning because Amy said, “Smile, Jake. We had a great morning.”

  I sat down on a steel bench bolted to the wall. “Think so?”

  “C’mon, Charlie was terrific.”

  “Only if you like circus tricks. Now cut the bullshit and tell me what’s going on.”

  “What do you mean? Charlie said he was going to do the right thing, and he did.”

  She seemed almost giddy.

  “You’re playing me, Amy. You and your new best friend. Charlie. And you’re playing the court. Problem is, you’re both amateurs.”

  “C’mon, Jake. Charlie torpedoed the case.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “There’s no eyewitness testimony.”

  “Sure there is. Ziegler I.D.’d you half a dozen times before he recanted. You think the jury slept through all that?”

  “Why would they believe a story he says is no longer true?”

  “Because Castiel did a good job impeaching him, and he’s not done yet. Plus all the circumstantial evidence. The matching bullets. The prints. The stalking. The threats. Not to mention my call from the gun range.”

  “You’re saying I’ll still be convicted.”

  “Bet on it.”

  Her smile vanished. “Charlie said this would work.”

  “He’s a better pornographer than lawyer.”

  “And there’s nothing you can do?”

  “Give me your alibi. Unless that’s bullshit, too.”

  “It’s real!” Her face heating up. The anger looked sincere.

  “A name. Give me a name.”

  She toyed with a thought before speaking. “I need to make a call.”

  I handed over my cell, and Amy dialed a number. “Hi. It’s me. Can you come to the courthouse right away? Jake says he needs you.”

  A pause. She listened.

  “I know, but things have changed.” Her eyes flicked toward me. “Jake says Charlie changing his testimony won’t work with the jury. He accused me too many times before. Jake says today was just a circus trick.”

  Amy listened some more, then laughed. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “Said what?” I asked, but she waved me off.

  “An hour, then,” Amy said into the phone. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.”

  She hung up and her face was once again beatific. Not a care in the world.

  “Who the hell was that?”

  “Melody Sanders.”

  That rocked me. “Ziegler’s girlfriend is your alibi? No way.”

  Amy shrugged. “It’s true.”

  “What were you doing with her? And what did she say just now that’s so damn funny?”

  Amy gave me a little smile. “That the circus hasn’t even started yet.” The smile turned into a full-tilt laugh, and I got the feeling the joke was on me.

  “You lied to me. You said you were with a man that night.”

  “A little white lie.”

  “You said it was too dangerous for him to testify.”

  “That part was true. Melody could be killed.”

  “By whom? And why? And how do the two of you even know each other?”

  Amy rolled her eyes at me. “Frankly, Jake, I thought you’d figure it out before now.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “There’s Charlie. Melody. Me.” She gave me a cutesy little smile. “And me. Melody. Charlie.”

  “Yeah, I get it. Melody’s the linchpin between the two of you. She’s …”

  Holy shit.

  Suddenly, it all came into focus. There it was, right in front of me. Where it had been all the time.

  66 A Courtroom Visitor

  Thirty minutes later, I was hustling into the courtroom when my cell phone buzzed. Pepito Dominguez.

  “Quickly, kid. I’m in court.”

  “Melody Sanders is a dead end, Jake.”

  “Thanks, Pepito, but I’m not gonna need any Melody info.”

  “But get this, jefe. She’s really dead. Melody Sanders from Sarasota. Died fifteen years ago in a head-on crash on Alligator Alley.”

  “Got it, Pepito.”

  “You’re not surprised?”

  “You did good work, kid. I’m gonna tell your dad that. Gotta go.”

  Moments later, all the players were in their places. Judge Duckworth reminded Ziegler that he was still under oath and told the jury she hoped they hadn’t tried the eggplant parmigiana in the cafeteria, because she’d lost a couple jurors to it last week. Half a dozen spectators were scattered throughout the gallery, on hand for the free entertainment. A lone reporter from the Miami Herald was slumped in the front row.

  As soon as he was on his feet, Castiel launched his counterattack. Again, he held the wooden pointer as if it were a riding crop.

  “Have you been under a lot of stress, Mr. Ziegler?”

  “My business, it’s always stressful.”

  “Drinking a lot?” A little wave of the pointer, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting his orchestra.

  “Enough.”

  “The defendant showing up in town. Did that bring memories back of her sister, Krista Larkin?”

  “Sure did.”

  “The young woman you had employed who’d disappeared.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Even though you had nothing to do with her disappearance, did you feel badly for her family?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is it possible that your testimony has changed because you don’t want to see Krista Larkin’s sister also meet an unhappy fate?”

  “That’s not it. Amy wasn’t the one outside the window.” Hanging tough.

  The courtroom door opened with its customary squeak. I turned. A tall, attractive woman in a gray business suit walked in. Limped in, actually. She had a noticeable hitch in her gait. She wore sunglasses, and her reddish-brown hair was tied back in a bun. Her overall appearance was that of a mid-level executive at a local bank.

  I turned back and saw Ziegler lift out of his seat. He was caught in an awkward half crouch, his mouth open, trying to form the word “no.”

  Melody Sanders. Or so she called herself. He had no idea she was coming. He didn’t want her here.

  She walked up to the front row, wincing just a bit as she sat down. A pinkish scar ran from her left ear diagonally across her cheekbone, stopping just short of her mouth. She removed her sunglasses. Smiled at me. She mouthed a greeting, “Hello, Jake.”

  I thought I was ready for this moment, but I wasn’t. The last time I had seen her, she was flipping me the bird and hopping into Ziegler’s Porsche, headed for some porn shoot. My throat was parched, and my voice wobbled. “Hello, Krista,” I said.

  67 The Damn Ugly Truth

  Alex Castiel had been watching Ziegler. Then he swiveled toward the gallery. For a second, no sense of recognition, but as he focused on Krista Larkin, Castiel’s face fell into slack-jawed disbelief.

  He looked back at Ziegler, then his eyes returned to Krista. Yep, still there. Finally, his look turned to me. He seemed to be asking how much I knew.

  A lot, old buddy. I know what happened after you carried Krista into the Fuck Palace all those years ago.

  I’d had everything wrong. I’d mistaken the dragon for the knight, and vice versa. Charlie Ziegler was gruff and profane but ultimately had a heart. Alex Castiel polished his exter
ior to a fine gloss, but inside he was the beast.

  And me? I was the guy who failed to rescue a girl eighteen years ago but had a chance to make amends today.

  That’s right, Alex. It’s fallen on me to save my client and ruin your life.

  Castiel was glaring at me. In just a few seconds, he had gone from confusion to fear to blinding hatred. Suddenly, the wooden pointer in his right hand snapped in two, the cra-ck as loud as a gunshot.

  “Mr. Castiel, anything further?” the judge prompted.

  “Not at this time, Your Honor.” Castiel dropped into his chair and struggled to keep his emotions in check.

  On the witness stand, Ziegler kept a grip on the rail. I got to my feet and approached. I could let him go. The state would rest. I’d tell the judge I had a newly discovered witness not on my list. An alibi witness. Krista Larkin. Castiel would object, but the judge would allow her testimony. It would almost certainly be reversible error not to.

  Or …

  I could take a shot at Ziegler first. Krista’s existence was no longer a secret. What did he have to lose by confronting Castiel with his past?

  “Mr. Ziegler, first I want to thank you for the courage to correct your earlier mistaken testimony.”

  “Objection!” Castiel snapped, letting me know that he hadn’t left the building. “This isn’t an awards banquet.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Duckworth agreed. “No speechifying, Mr. Lassiter.”

  I turned sideways to the witness stand and looked toward the gallery. My granny taught me it was impolite to point, so I merely nodded my head in that direction. “Do you know the woman who just walked into the courtroom?”

  He didn’t answer. I listened to the whine of the ancient air conditioner. A spectator coughed. A juror’s swivel chair squeaked.

  Finally, Ziegler said, “Melody Sanders.”

  “Has she ever been known by another name?”

  He was barely audible when he said, “Krista Larkin.”

  “For the record, just who is Krista Larkin?”

  “Your client’s sister.”

  Several jurors gasped. The mystery woman—the presumed deceased mystery woman—was in the room. The jurors stared intently at her, aware she must play an important role in the shooting of Max Perlow, but not knowing just what.