by David Ellis
“Objection.”
“Sustained. That question is stricken. The question is improper.”
She nodded her head, acknowledging the court’s admonition, but she wasn’t looking at the judge. She had reached the witness stand. She placed a hand on the railing. “Is it worth it, Eddie? Get out of a drug-dealing beef and fall into a murder beef?”
“Man, I want my lawyer.”
“The truth is, Eddie, that Alex never said any of those things to you. Right? You lied to stay out of jail, isn’t that the truth?”
“I want my lawyer.”
That was fine. That was better than a denial.
“He never said any of those things to you, because if he had, you wouldn’t have stood for it. You would have killed either Alex or the cop.”
“Object to the form.”
“Sustained.”
She gave a long look at the witness, then at the jury, who seemed quite attentive.
“That’s all I have,” she said.
62
Trust
MORPHEW DID WHAT she expected. He asked for a lunch recess as the hour drew near twelve. With that time, he was going to explain to Todavia, or have his lawyer do so, that there was nothing illegal about a failure to report a crime. He might even give him immunity for the Miroballi shooting, but that would be a bad move for him; immunity acknowledged guilt, some participation. In any event, he would clean this up. He would get Todavia on the straight path on redirect and have him clearly state that Alex alluded to killing a police officer.
“You’re a good lawyer,” Alex said to her as he took a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich Shelly had made this morning. They were in a holding cell below the courthouse. It was dark and depressing and had the faint smell of urine.
She had done all she could with Todavia. Her tricks would not work the second time around, after he was redirected by Morphew.
“You tied him up real good,” he added. “Made him look bad. For a minute there, I thought you were gonna get us all killed. That guy’s C-Street, Shelly. You don’t mess with a guy like that.”
She shrugged. “He said you two were ‘all good,’ Alex.”
“That was before you made him look ridiculous.”
“I hope so. I think the jury believes he’s capable of lying. The question is whether he was lying.”
“He was.”
“Well, I’m saying—it’s all what the jury thinks.” She put down her sandwich. “That was a very damaging piece of evidence, Alex. Not just the part about getting rid of the cop, but the whole conversation.”
It was damaging to her, at least. If this story were made up, that meant that the prosecution had a hand in it. Dan Morphew had fed lines to a witness in a pinch. She was not ready to make that assumption about Morphew. She’d seen that kind of prosecutor, but she didn’t think Morphew was capable. Add to that the fact that Shelly’s father was the county attorney’s political ally, and it didn’t wash. The jury knew none of this, of course. They had to be viewing Todavia’s testimony with some skepticism. But Shelly had to concede that, in the end, she thought Todavia was telling the truth.
“You talk to Ronnie lately?” he asked.
She shook her head no. “Not for a few days. You?”
“No.” He wiped his mouth. “I think he’s trying to be careful about not talking to me, since he’s a witness and all. But you’re not gonna call him, right?”
“Doubt it. Don’t see why I would.”
Ronnie had offered his testimony, in whatever form she wanted, on so many occasions she had lost count. He would willingly lie for Alex. Whatever corroboration Shelly needed, he would provide.
“You told him, didn’t you?” he asked.
She had told him. She had confronted Ronnie in that conference room right after her conversation on the cell phone with Joel Lightner, who had reported a strange visit by Ronnie to a man named Robert Eldridge. That kid is acting weird, Joel had said to her. He’s up to something.
Why, she wondered, had she chosen that moment to confront him with the fact that she knew he was her son? She wanted to tell herself that the timing was right, or she had an irresistible urge. A mother’s urge.
Nonsense. The evidence had been building up against the boy. He was seen consorting with Todavia. He was at the scene of the murder. Alex’s defensive overreaction every time she broached the subject of Ronnie only confirmed her suspicions. She knew why she had chosen that moment for the heart-to-heart.
She was going to warn him.
I know you were involved. I won’t say anything but don’t do anything stupid. Stay away from Todavia. Keep your mouth shut. Stay as far away from that courtroom as possible.
Something had made her stop. Ethics? Rules? Something like that. Something about right and wrong, she assumed in hindsight. Regardless, she hadn’t warned Ronnie. She hadn’t said anything about his involvement in the shooting of Officer Miroballi.
Instead, in that moment when her heart had raced and she felt the building perspiration, she had simply said, I know I’m your mother.
She had put forth all of the information to him—her personal check of the birth records, Alex’s admission, her father’s knowledge—to spare both of them the embarrassment of his possible denial. That, unfortunately, did not do the trick. He still denied it, first with a laugh, then more adamantly, until finally he was throwing things. Out-of-control angry.
So what the hell are you gonna do now? he had asked. You’re not gonna help Alex now?
I’m still going to help him, she had said.
How are you gonna help? You gonna say self-defense? Or someone else did it? Which one?
She had refused to answer. She couldn’t. Not anymore. If Alex chose to do so, against her wishes, that was his prerogative. But she could no longer assume that Ronnie and Alex were on the same side.
That, of course, had sent Ronnie into even more of a rage. He had finally stormed out without another word. It was the last she had spoken to him.
It was obviously not the reaction she had hoped to elicit. The anger and frustration, she could understand. He was entitled to a number of adversarial feelings toward the mother who gave him up years ago. That wasn’t it. It was the other part of his reaction. He had seemed worried. Fearful. It had gone a long way toward confirming her suspicions about Ronnie. He had been keeping close tabs on this case—one would presume out of brotherly love and concern—and he seemed quite concerned that he no longer knew where the fingers were pointing. He was being shut out, and that scared him.
Was she doing her job here? Yes, she had proceeded to have yet another conversation with Alex on the subject, and he had responded in exactly the same way the second time: Forget Ronnie. He wasn’t there. I won’t say he was. Stick with self-defense.
Yes, she could say that she was following her client’s wishes and putting forth what, under the circumstances, was the best case. A case of self-defense. Sure. A panel of lawyers investigating her ethical performance would probably say she did everything she could do and then took her best shot for her client.
“Todavia’s testimony,” she said to Alex now. “About your conversation. Getting rid of Miroballi.”
“It didn’t happen, I’m telling you.”
“The jury could believe it, Alex.”
He nodded gravely. “But I thought you turned it around on him okay.”
“Well, it opened a door. It gave me a reason to point the finger at him. A reason that I didn’t have before now, because I didn’t know about this conversation.”
Alex raised his hands in defense. “There was nothing to tell. It didn’t happen.”
She shook her head. “The point is, Alex, that I had his head on a guillotine in there. It’s still there, I think. We could make a case against Todavia.”
“No,” he answered, before she had even elaborated.
“Alex.” She opened her hands. “The jury would happily buy that. I was playing some lawyer games in there with him, but I think
it worked, and it worked because it made sense. If Todavia thought Miroballi was going after the Cannibals, that did mean him. He was in danger. He would have a good reason to eliminate Miroballi. And the jury is ready to believe that.”
Alex did not seem ready to accept that. “If you’re saying I didn’t do it, that means you’ll point at anyone.”
“I won’t point at Ronnie.” She was surprised at the speed of her response. “I’m talking about Todavia.”
Alex ran his fingers through his hair and stood up, paced the small cell. After a long moment, he shook his head. “No. We stick with our story.”
She lacked the energy to fight. Now was not the time to decide this, anyway. Shelly hadn’t even made an opening statement yet. She could walk this tightrope, she felt. In her cross-examinations during Morphew’s case-in-chief, she could dance along the line between self-defense and implicating Eddie Todavia.
“God, Alex,” she said, more to herself. “If I had known this about Todavia, I could have spent the last three months building something against him. I thought this was a kid you saw once a year. Now I hear you’re having conversations about Miro—”
“We didn’t have that conversation,” he said, snapping around from the bars of the cell door. “Just”—he waved his arms—“you did good today. You made him look like a liar. Don’t make him out to be a killer. Just let it go, all right?”
Alex nodded at the guard, who appeared at the cell door.
“Time to head up,” he said.
“Right.” Alex seemed eager to end the conversation.
Shelly walked over to him as the guard fumbled with the lock on the door. She whispered in his ear. “You don’t want me going after Todavia because he’s connected to Ronnie. Is that it?”
He broke free of her as the guard opened the door and put him in handcuffs. Alex would be taking the back elevator up to the courtroom, like all prisoners, while Shelly took the elevator on the other side of the hallway.
“Stick to the story,” Alex said as he walked away with his armed escort.
63
Identities
THE AFTERNOON MOVED quickly. Morphew put Eddie Todavia back on the stand for redirect and basically asked him the same questions. He made sure that the jury understood that Alex really, really said that he “had to get rid of that cop.” He emphasized that, while Todavia had allowed for the possibility that Alex was joking, Alex did not smile, smirk, or laugh when he made that comment, nor any of the other comments.
Shelly saw no utility in an extended recross. She asked Todavia if he had ever heard of the word sarcasm. She asked him if he had ever made a joke without smiling. “You heard the one about the rabbi, the priest, and the elephant with three legs?” she asked with the most serious expression she could muster. The witness stared at her, and she back at him. One of the jurors picked up on it, and pretty soon several of them were smiling.
She didn’t know what it was with her and comedy all of a sudden. She was usually accused of lacking an appropriate sense of humor. She had stumbled upon it, though, and it seemed to be working to her favor with the jury. She considered working on a monologue for tomorrow.
A forensic specialist with the County Attorney Technical Unit next testified that the bullet that penetrated Ray Miroballi’s brain had traveled approximately five to six feet. Shelly did not quibble with the estimate. There was nothing of a technical nature with which Shelly could quibble, so she did the next best thing with an expert of this kind—asked the witness questions she could not answer that helped Shelly’s case:
“This forensic analysis you performed doesn’t tell you whether the slain officer had his gun drawn, does it?”
“It doesn’t tell you whether the slain officer had intended to shoot the person who shot him?”
“You were not able to look at the weapon used to shoot the officer, were you?”
Of course, the witness could not speak to any of those issues, which allowed Shelly to make a closing argument in her questions.
The judge recessed the proceedings at four o’clock. Shelly sat in her office after five o’clock and reviewed her notes. A Monday evening, the place was buzzing. She much preferred this place on Thursday through Sunday evenings, when even a high-powered firm’s lawyers tended to be around less.
It was possible that there could be as many as four witnesses tomorrow—Officer Sanchez, the other two eyewitnesses, and the county medical examiner. That was probably optimistic, but she had to be ready. She had been over the reports and the evidence a number of times, but she had made a point of not reviewing them over the weekend. She wanted a fresh look at the stuff the night before. She had prepared her cross-examinations of these witnesses weeks ago but was prepared to make adjustments. Then, of course, she would have to make more adjustments on the spot, after the witnesses actually testified. Things always changed once the trial got going; strategies were modified and, of course, witnesses’ testimony could never be predicted with complete accuracy. It was clear from Morphew’s opening statement, for example, that the homeless man was going to say that Alex had two guns and had tricked Officer Miroballi into believing he was unarmed when he threw down the first gun.
She became vaguely aware of someone in her peripheral vision. Paul Riley was wearing a white dress shirt and beautifully patterned tie of powder blue. Matched his eyes. He looked tired. He had been on trial himself until a week ago. But he loved it here, she could see, lived off the energy of the toiling attorneys around him. That could owe to the fact that part of every hour that these attorneys worked went into his pocket. But that wasn’t it with this guy. This wasn’t just a job to him, like with many lawyers. He loved the law. He cherished the competition and high stakes and his rather coveted place in the legal community.
There had been a subtle change in their relationship since their “attorney-client” conversation a few weeks back. Was it because she had confided in him that she had a son? No. Paul had a daughter. He wasn’t a twenty-year-old afraid of commitment. It was the other topic of conversation that day. She had told him that she had some reason to suspect Ronnie. He had strongly urged her to come clean with Alex, of course, and she had done so. But she sensed that he had the same feeling she did—not simply that pointing the finger at Ronnie was a better course of action, but that Shelly had not necessarily done the best job of trying to convince Alex of this. Maybe, she conceded, Paul disapproved of her conduct here, and he was trying to put some distance between himself and Shelly, at least on an intimacy level.
He hadn’t said any of this, which seemed to be his trademark. He spent many an hour with people accused of wrongdoing, often justifiably so, and he had grown comfortable with keeping his judgments to himself. He had spent much of the weekend helping Shelly prepare for the cross-examination of many of the witnesses without offering a word of advice on the best theory of defense. He had never even mentioned Ronnie.
They talked about the day’s events. Morphew’s description of how the shooting transpired. Eddie Todavia’s testimony. Most of Paul’s questions were about the jury. How did they like Morphew? How did they like Shelly? Did they believe Todavia?
They discussed a couple of evidentiary issues. This, more than anything, was where Paul had been most valuable. Shelly had been on trial dozens of times, but the vast majority were in juvenile court, where they never heard of the hearsay rule and most rules of evidence were relaxed; or in civil court, where witnesses rarely took the Fifth and there was scant talk of things like coconspirators.
She slid her chair back from her desk. Her stomach ached badly. She never ate well during a trial but she was usually spared indigestion. She had never felt such stress, and it was only during down moments like this that she noticed its effect on her. She had seen it in her father, as well, the last four years as the state’s chief executive. Each of them had probably aged prematurely from stress, and yet each seemed to want, more than anything else, to remain in these positions that placed such burdens
on them.
“And how are you, Ms. Trotter?” Paul asked. “Other than stressed and sleep-deprived.”
“Shows that much, huh?”
He smiled. “You’re the type, if you aren’t working past midnight and skipping meals, you think you’re not working hard enough.”
She allowed for that. That was a major difference between Paul and her.
“You feeling okay about things?” he asked.
A vague question. “The trial? I think so.”
He cocked his head. “Not really what I meant.”
“Ah. Our privileged conversation.”
“Those rules are more important than the case,” he said. “I know that must seem hard to swallow. But it’s true. And when a case becomes more important than those rules—well, that’s when you know that maybe you shouldn’t be working the case.”
“I’m being lectured now.”
He wagged a finger and gave a soft smile. “Reminded. It gives me comfort, Shelly, to think about that. I get invested in my clients’ welfare just like anybody else. But then I think of the rules that govern my role, and it reminds me that I just have a role. I don’t have this person’s life. I do everything within my power to play my role as best I can, but that’s all I do.”
Her head rocked back. She stared at the ceiling.
“I realize your circumstances aren’t quite the same,” he acknowledged. “But the principle is. Do the best you can, and realize that’s all you can do.”
“Okay.” Easier said than done.
“And get some food tonight,” he said as he left the office.
Her smile widened as he walked out. She realized that he really hadn’t been lecturing. He was trying to put her at ease, in his way.
She picked up the folders and began reading over reports and notes. She couldn’t help but think of the mystery that was Ronnie. So many questions about this boy. Could he really be working with a street gang? A kid with a scholarship, a hardworking, ambitious boy? A caring young man who showed such a willingness to take care of a baby that wasn’t his? And why exactly was it that he had sent Alex to see her that first time at the legal clinic? Why send Alex to do his dirty work—
