Key Witness (18 page)

“You said solving the crime of the century would probably do it? You remember saying that?”

“Yes.” Galeygos was salivating, thinking about that lost lunch. He could wrap this up now and call that other client, still make the lunch date.

Dwayne leaned forward and kept his voice low, in case the deputies were monitoring the conversation, even though it was against the law to, and they told you they didn’t: “Listen up careful to what I’m about to tell you, and then you can decide where we go with it.”

“B
EFORE WE BEGIN,” GALEYGOS
said, puffing up like a peacock, “I want to lay out some ground rules.”

He and Dwayne were in an interview room in Alex Pagano’s suite of offices on a Sunday afternoon. Alex Pagano was the district attorney. Pagano was an ambitious man—it was an open secret that he was going to run for the House next year, and eventually for either the Senate or the governorship.

Galeygos and Dwayne were with the man himself and his chief aide, the number-one deputy DA. Since Pagano was a politician, his assistant ran the office on a day-to-day basis. Pagano did the heavy lifting: press conferences, approving and strategizing on major cases, getting reelected.

Galeygos had been his usual skeptical self as he had listened to Dwayne the day before; but after spending a couple of hours with his client the lawyer had gotten on the phone and browbeaten Pagano’s office into meeting with them.

Dwayne, wearing his hospital whites, had been transported from the jail across the street. He wasn’t handcuffed, but two sheriff’s deputies were standing right outside the door.

“Go ahead,” Pagano said, eyeballing Dwayne.

“All pending and outstanding charges against my client will be dropped,” Galeygos stated. “His present sentence will be commuted to time served. He will be put in the Witness Protection Program, his records will be sealed, and he will be given one hundred thousand dollars, which he will use to start up his new life.”

He handed his list of demands to Pagano, who passed it to his assistant without reading it. “How about a Rolls-Royce and a villa in the south of France, as long as we’re asking for the moon?” the DA deadpanned.

“Do we have a deal or do we not?” Galeygos asked belligerently.

“We could give him early release and have any pending state charges dropped,” Pagano said, looking to his assistant, who nodded in agreement. “The rest of it I have to coordinate with the Justice Department. You have my assurance we will act in good faith and do the best we can.”

Galeygos looked to Dwayne.

“If the man here tells me he’ll do his best, that’s good enough for me,” Dwayne said airily.

“That’s
if
—I want to emphasize the word
if
—what you tell us leads
directly
—emphasize that word, too—to a grand jury indictment and a trial,” the deputy DA cautioned. He looked to his boss, who nodded his agreement.

“Fair enough,” Galeygos told him.

M
ONDAY MORNING. WYATT WAS
up, showered, dressed, and out of the house by 6:15, long before Moira and Michaela were awake. Even though the Marvin White case was all settled, he still had great anticipation, and he couldn’t help relishing the sense of satisfaction he felt over the way he’d discovered the incriminating tapes. He might be new at this forum, but good lawyering was good lawyering, regardless of the specific arena.

He stopped downtown at his favorite Greek deli for coffee and a bagel and arrived at the courthouse a little after seven. Court went into session at nine. He had the morning paper with him—he was going to finish the sports and financial sections and reread his motions once, to make sure there were no last-minute glitches.

It was almost empty outside the courtroom; a few other earlier arrivals were scattered the long length of the corridor. He sat on an empty bench and took the motion out of his briefcase.

“Hey, sport. Fancy meeting you here.”

Wyatt looked up from his paperwork in surprise. “Hello, Alex,” he said.

“What is this cockamamie crap I’m hearing?” Alex Pagano teased Wyatt, plunking down next to him. Pagano was wearing one of his $2,200 custom-fitted Hickey-Freeman pinstripes—he was always prepared to look good for a camera. “Since when did you become a defense lawyer for the downtrodden?” he asked. “Saving corporate America from themselves isn’t a big enough arena for you?”

Wyatt smiled without answering. Alex and he were social acquaintances; both were powerful players in their respective arenas, and occasionally served together on various blue-ribbon ABA ventures. “What’s going on to warrant your showing up at twenty after seven on a Monday morning?” he asked Alex.

“Pursuing justice, of course. Wherever and however it might rear its benighted head.” He cuffed Wyatt lightly on the shoulder. “Watch where you’re stepping in these hallowed halls. It gets slimy down here. You wouldn’t want to slip and fall on your million-dollar ass.”

Wyatt looked at him with a bemused expression, but didn’t respond to that gibe, either. Pagano stood up, made a show of checking the time, then walked away around the corner.

Wyatt watched him. What was that all about? he thought. Alex Pagano hadn’t run into him in an empty courthouse corridor at 7:15 in the morning by accident. Alex was a devious conniver—there was a purpose to every move he made. And why the mocking, the empty words of warning?

Nine o’clock. The courtroom was full. Wyatt sat with Marvin’s mother. Other lawyers and defendants’ families were scattered around the room, waiting for their cases to be called.

He’d gone over the deal carefully. Everything was in order. The woman had been nervous, which was to be expected. Even though she knew her son had done what he was accused of, she was still his mother. She still had hope for him.

In the back of the chamber, half a dozen young black men and a couple of girls, all Marvin’s age, had congregated. Jonnie Rae pointed them out to Wyatt.

“His so-called entourage,” she commented with scorn. “Bunch of damn fools, just like him.”

Wyatt looked them over. Tough-looking kids. He didn’t know what gang clothing or colors were, but they all looked like they were in some kind of informal uniform—long sagging shorts and pants, high-top Nikes, red-checked handkerchiefs tied around their heads à la Deion Sanders. Both girls wore tight hip-huggers and tank tops, and were braless. One girl had at least a dozen earrings in her ears and nose, and through her thin top he could see the outline of another earring in a nipple. A couple of the boys waved greetings to Jonnie Rae, who pointedly ignored them.

He should bring Michaela down here, he thought as he watched them giggling and grab-assing. She should know how the rest of the world lives; seeing this side of life firsthand, instead of viewing it through the safe prism of a television set, would be beneficial in some indefinable but meaningful way. She might even enjoy it, watching her dad in action. She had no real idea of his work—it was too complicated; even he found it boring and unfathomable when he tried to explain a case to Moira. But this stuff, down in the trenches, that they could understand and appreciate, even enjoy.

A side door opened. A bailiff led the morning’s defendants into the courtroom. Officially innocent until proven otherwise, they were nevertheless in orange jail-issue jumpsuits, joined in a line to each other by light waist chains so that one deputy could wrangle the entire herd.

Marvin was situated in the center of the pack. As he saw his friends in the back of the room he raised a hand and flashed a sign. Immediately, a deputy sheriff stepped over to him and said something in his ear. Marvin nodded and dropped his hand; but he was smiling.

The court deputies removed the chains that bound the prisoners together. They were seated shoulder to shoulder in the front row behind the lawyers’ tables.

Wyatt glanced around. The kids were grinning, like they were members of a secret society. He realized with a start that they were, and that he didn’t know anything about it.

It would be good for Michaela to bring her down here, yes; but he was the one that really needed the education. He was going to be representing clients who lived in a world that was completely alien to him, and if he was going to do the proper job for them he had to know and understand that world.

First things first. Put this case to bed. Go to school later on.

As he looked more closely at Marvin’s friends he saw that one of them—a boy roughly Marvin’s age—was with the group, but not of it. He was standing as far apart from the others as possible while still being in the same space.

He was interesting looking. Unlike the others, he wasn’t big and tough-looking. He was, in fact, rather small, almost diminutive. He was wearing an expensive conservative suit, what a rich Ivy League professor or Wall Street colleague of Wyatt’s would wear. Unlike the Wall Streeter or professor, however, this kid had three or four garish rings on his fingers, each studded with a large authentic-looking stone. A large emerald glittered in his left ear. Paper-thin-soled-Italian shoes, a bespoke English broadcloth white-on-white dress shirt, and a silk tie that had to have cost at least $150 rounded out his wardrobe. He lounged with his back to the wall, casually looking over the proceedings with a comfortable air.

He’s got to be a dealer or a pimp, Wyatt figured. No eighteen-year-old kid dresses and acts like this otherwise.

“All rise. This court is now in session, the honorable Alfonse Arcaro presiding.”

The aged jurist laboriously climbed up onto his chair. “Call the first case,” he rasped.

Wyatt had checked the morning’s docket earlier. They were fourth up. The first three cases were simple; they would be finished and out of here in less than an hour.

As the third case was being settled, Thelma Fuller, the assistant DA handling the case, whom Wyatt had met earlier, came into the courtroom and took a seat at the prosecution table. As she passed Wyatt, seated on the aisle in the spectators’ section, she gave him a fleeting, almost mocking smile.

Alex Pagano entered on her heels, accompanied by his chief deputy and another official-looking man. They strode up the center aisle, passed through the gate separating participants from spectators, and sat down next to Fuller.

A low buzz went up in the room. Judge Arcaro looked down from his perch, interrupting the case in progress.

“Good morning, sir,” he greeted Pagano cheerily. “It’s nice to see you this morning.”

“Always a pleasure to be in your distinguished courtroom,” Pagano replied. He turned and looked back at Wyatt for a moment, making sure they made eye contact. Then he directed his attention to the front of the room.

An alarm instantly went off inside Wyatt’s head: something is wrong. And somehow, it involved him.

The case ahead of them was concluded.

“Call the next case,” Arcaro said.

“People versus Marvin White,” read the clerk of the court.

Wyatt walked forward and took the vacated seat of the lawyer ahead of him. He took the proper documents from his briefcase and laid them neatly on the table in front of him. He remained standing. The bailiff led Marvin to the table, where he stood next to Wyatt.

Across the two-foot divide, Fuller stood in place. There was nothing in front of her—no documentation, nothing.

“Are you ready to proceed?” Arcaro asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Wyatt responded. He turned to Fuller—since they had agreed upon a plea bargain, it was her responsibility to introduce it to the judge.

She didn’t say anything; instead, Pagano stood up next to her. “We have a complication in this particular case,” he stated, glancing over at Wyatt. “We ask that the defendant be bound over for another forty-eight hours.”

Wyatt responded like he’d been shot out of a cannon. “On what charge? The prosecution and the defense have agreed upon a resolution of this case, Your Honor. They’ve given us no cause to agree to any extension. In fact, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Pagano ignored him, focusing on the bench. “As defense counsel knows, this situation involves potential implications and charges that could be far-reaching and consequential,” he said. “We may have need of this defendant in the next two days. It’s important that he be immediately available to us.”

“Your Honor, I strongly object to this. The prosecution gave us their word on a plea and now they want to change it around, and they haven’t explained their request.”

Arcaro cocked an eye at Pagano.

“Some new evidence just came to us, Your Honor,” Pagano said smoothly. “We will be happy to share it with defense counsel; we haven’t had the time yet, we’re still sorting it out.”

“That is absolutely—” Wyatt began.

Arcaro cut him off: “Objection overruled,” he decreed. “The defendant will be bound over until Wednesday morning at this time.” He peered down at Pagano, a bantam eagle on his perch. “You’d better have your ducks lined up, sir.”

“We will, Your Honor. Or we’ll abide by our previous agreement, to the letter.”

“Request immediately release on personal recognizance,” Wyatt demanded.

The judge nodded. “Any objections?” he asked Pagano.

“Yes, Your Honor. The defendant has a lengthy juvenile record, and he is at this time unemployed. In addition, he presently has no permanent address, as he has been kicked out of his house by his responsible parent. We ask bail should stay at what it was originally set.”

“Objection!” Wyatt called out again.

“Overruled!” Arcaro answered, equally loud. “Bail will remain set at twenty thousand dollars.” He banged his gavel down, hard. “Next case.”

Fuming, Wyatt watched as Marvin was led out to be returned to the jail.

“Don’t worry,” he told Marvin. “You’ll be out of here the day after tomorrow.”

He didn’t bring up the issue of bail. Twenty grand—two thousand to the bondsman. They might as well have asked for a million.

“What was that all about?” Jonnie Rae Richards asked in bewilderment as Wyatt escorted her from the courtroom. “You said it was all taken care of.”

“There’s a problem with the police,” he told her. He had to be careful; she couldn’t know of the existence of the tapes—that information couldn’t go out into the community; it was too inflammatory. “Marvin might have to be a witness.”