Prime Witness (3 page)

“Lieutenant, you should take a look at this.” The cop is mud to the ankles of his heavy boots. He’s wearing the togs of search and rescue, an orange jumpsuit with belts and metal rings for every occasion. In his hand he has a plastic bag. Claude takes this in his open palm and examines it. A small, twisted piece of metal. It appears to be broken off from something larger. Dusalt makes a face.

“What is it?” he says.

“Part of a foot-cam,” says the cop.

Claude shrugs, like this means nothing to him.

“Used in climbing ropes. I think you’d better come across the creek and look for yourself,” he says.

Claude moves away from me now, shouldering me out, talking to the officer. Their voices drop and I cannot hear this.

Ignoring me, the two men start toward the creek. Unsure whether I should follow, I walk behind them, a little tentative. Claude turns to look at me. From the pained expression I wonder if he’s going to chew my ass for following, too many footprints messing up the scene.

Then he says: “Forgot my boots.” There’s a stupid grin on his face. Claude has driven here, like me, in the family sedan. His field clothing and boots are locked in a patrol unit back at the county yard. He looks down at his white training shoes, $120 Nike Airs, then shrugs a little. With that he is mud halfway to his knees, following the other cop across the creek. I look down at my $200 Boston loafers, what was handy in the closet when the call came in, and I think to myself, “He who waits also serves.” Curiosity has its limits. I am stranded high and dry on this side of the creek, left to contemplate my circumstances.

What had begun as a case of care-taking for a friend is now a burden that monopolizes every aspect of my life. My wife is furious—ready I think perhaps to leave me—my child neglected, my private practice in Capital City twenty miles away is a shambles, all because this favor for a friend now consumes every waking hour. Two days ago came the crushing blow, a phone call at three in the morning, a voice I did not recognize, a nurse at Good Shepherd’s Hospital. Mario Feretti was dead. The judges of Davenport County now have me strapped and secured for the duration.

I watch as Claude and the other cop move through heavy brush to the base of a large tree. I can no longer hear what they’re saying. But the big cop is pointing up, into the tree. I look, but I can see nothing. Several of the search and rescue guys are moving around. For the first time I notice there’s an evidence tech there with them. Like the reluctant bride, they are helping this guy with something, a heavy belt around his waist. There’s a little argument now, from the technician. “I don’t get paid enough. . . .” he says. His voice trails off. They are cinching this belt down between his legs now. Claude is busy, holding the guy’s evidence bag and talking to him like a Dutch uncle.

One of the search and rescue guys reaches out with one hand, and as he moves I notice it, gossamer in the bright midday sun, floating down like a spider’s web, a sheer strand of rope descending from the trees above. They are clipping this thing to the belt around the technician’s waist.

Three of the bigger rescue guys take hold of the rope and begin pulling hard. The technician is off the ground, the little evidence bag dangling at his feet. The three guys pulling on the rope start singing, a slow mournful chant:

“Haul, haul away, we’re bound for better we-a-ther. . . .”

Before they can finish the first verse they’re all laughing.

“Go slow,” says the tech. “Take it easy.” The man sounds like some kid about to be pushed off the high dive.

“Hang on tight,” says Claude. Another chorus of giggles. The technician is now twenty feet off the ground and rising fast. In three seconds he disappears through a canopy of leaves, like the space shuttle through a deck of clouds. From my angle across the creek I can still see him. And for the first time I can understand why he was not anxious for this duty. The man is now fifty feet off the ground, suspended only by a thin rope.

Claude has the palm of one hand shading his eyes like a visor. But he’s lost sight of the guy. Seconds later he’s tripping through the creek toward me and a better line of sight.

He’s laughing when he gets to me. At the scene of a gruesome double murder it is the kind of jocularity that only men who deal in pain on a regular basis could understand. I feel like an outsider. My sympathies are with the poor evidence tech who is now dangling a good seventy feet off the ground.

Then I see it, above his head in a direct line, a small wooden platform laid in the crotch at the intersection of two large branches. But for the rope going to this thing, it is masked perfectly in the trees.

Claude has now made his way back across the creek. He is trying to shake mud and water from his shoes with each soggy step.

I’m looking up at the technician. “What is it?” I say.

“Probably bird watchers,” says Claude. “The rope looks like it’s been there for awhile. Some of those people are crazy,” he says, “goofier than the birds they chase. But we’ll check it out.”

The evidence tech has made it to the platform. Holding the rope with one hand for dear life, he tries to maneuver himself up onto this perch with the other. This doesn’t work. Only as a last resort does he release the other hand from the rope, lunging for the platform. He bounces off the wood out into thin air, suspended only from the harness at his waist. He flips upside down. He’s clutching frantically at the rope again, finally righting himself.

Claude is chuckling to himself. “Good move,” he says. “You have a positive talent for clinging to high places. You should go far in the world.” There’s laughter across the river. This is not having a good effect on the man in the trees.

Words echo down: “You come up here and do it.”

“You’re doing fine,” says Claude. He’s laughing to himself again.

On the second try, the guy makes it onto the platform, belly down like a beached whale. He’s motionless now, lying there on the edge. I think he’s either resting, or else he’s paralyzed by vertigo.

“What do you see?” says Claude.

There’s heavy breathing from above, some muffled words, then the clear message: “Some fucking asshole in muddy tennis shoes.” The man hasn’t entirely lost his sense of humor. Still, he hasn’t moved an inch since arriving on the platform. He’s clinging to it like a treed cat. I am thinking maybe they will have to go up and get him down. Given the sorry sense of humor, I am wondering if maybe they might not prefer to shoot him out of the tree.

“Tell us what you see,” says Claude. “Let’s process it and get down.”

Several seconds pass, with nothing. But the man is now moving around a bit on the platform. He’s gotten to his knees, though he still clings to the rope with one hand.

“Find anything?” says Claude. “Tell us what you see.” He’s getting impatient now. Several seconds pass with silence, then the words filter back from the trees.

“Blood,” says the tech. “There’s blood up here.”

I look at Claude Dusalt. He is no longer smiling.

Chapter Two

I
can see Harry hasn’t shaved in two days. He seems a bit chastened but happy, at least for the moment, to see me. He should be. I have a release order signed by a justice of the Court of Appeal to get Harry Hinds out of jail.

Harry’s invited over to dinner tonight, to talk about how to parcel up my practice, until I can crawl out from under the Putah Creek prosecution. Nikki went to get the makings for dinner. I came to get Harry.

“Fucking Acosta,” he says. The Honorable Armando Acosta, the judge from hell, carries a torch for the two of us. A product of the bad blood spawned during Talia Potter’s murder trial. It seems Harry has not been as fortunate as I. He has not escaped Acosta’s wrath. Since Talia’s trial, the Coconut has been taking his revenge on Harry. Always the political tactician, Acosta would never undertake anything so obvious as a frontal assault on a lawyer with whom he has had personal differences. Instead he lies in ambush for Harry, who had only a small part in Talia’s case, baiting him at every turn. With Harry this is not difficult.

“The man’s an asshole,” says Harry. “Certifiable,” he adds. His voice has gone up a full octave in these five words.

Everyone in the little booking room, mostly cops and their collars, can hear him. Harry was just slightly more tactful in court, the antics that landed him here. The jailer at the counter, a sheriff’s deputy I have not seen before, is no doubt taking mental notes. Acosta will probably know of this latest slander within the hour. Fifteen years of criminal defense practice has not made Harry Hinds a favorite with the deputies who do jail duty. Harry takes the little envelope containing his personal effects from the property clerk. I nudge him by one arm toward the door, before he can do more damage.

I’ve managed to steer clear of Acosta’s court for seven months, ever since the verdict in the Potter case. To do this I’ve had to affidavit him twice. This is the process used by lawyers in this state to remove a judge from a case without stating the reasons. I cannot challenge Acosta for cause, his obvious bias, the thinly veiled animus he harbors toward me. To do so would be to invite the fury of his brethren on the bench. Such are the unwritten rules of this Sanhedrin we call the judicial branch.

The successful defense of Talia Potter has become the high water mark in my career to date. She had been accused of murdering her husband, a prominent lawyer in this city and a rumored candidate for the nation’s high court. It was the first time that Harry and I had worked together.

Harry is trying to tell me what happened in court, as if retrying his antics to a sympathetic ear will somehow make a difference.

“I know,” I tell him. I’m trying to keep him quiet, at least until we get outside. Things have been escalating between the two of them, Acosta and Harry. Two earlier confrontations resulted only in stern warnings from the bench, a dressing down in public court, in front of Harry’s clients.

Hinds, for reasons I do not understand, perhaps he is just too stubborn, refuses to affidavit the judge, and the Coconut loves it.

I ran into Acosta’s bailiff in the courthouse lobby on my way over here. He couldn’t resist giving me his version of the details in a crowded elevator. “Hinds was back-talkin’ the judge,” he tells me. “Judge Acosta had no choice.” This according to a man who does everything for Acosta including occasional spit-shines on the judge’s pointy little wing-tip brogues.

What happened was chronicled by the court reporter in the record, the version I used in obtaining the release order from the Court of Appeal.

Acosta had set Harry up with some bullshit rulings on evidence. This is one of the Coconut’s specialties. Harry’s objections were each hammered down from the bench, rejected by the court. Hinds sprayed Acosta with a few well-chosen insults. Harry says these were expressed under his breath. “Private thoughts,” he now calls them, like the Coconut somehow invaded his privacy by overhearing these.

Harry gets a little sympathy from me on this. Though some of his more descriptive terms for Acosta might be considered statements of fact by those who know the judge better.

Harry says Acosta has an acute sense of hearing. Unfortunately for Harry the court reporter also had good auditory senses. It seems some of the juicier excerpts from his secret musings ended up as part of the court’s record.

In the end Harry was ordered to pay a $300 fine. There is no dispute about what happened after that. Hinds reached into his pocket, peeled off five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills from a gaudy money clip he carries. He approached the bench and plunked these up high on the wood by the judge’s gavel.

Without being there, I know Acosta must have had fire in his eyes. He is no grocery clerk trained to cashier money. But the judge couldn’t resist one last shot. Looking at the little pile of bills he told Harry: “You must have learned to count at the same place they taught you your manners, Mr. Hinds. I said three hundred.”

Harry looked up at the bench, then told Acosta: “Credit it to my account, your honor. I’m not finished yet.”

Acosta ordered him to jail for thirty days. This was clearly excessive, an argument with which the Court of Appeal has now agreed. Even an insult to the Coconut’s imperious pride does not warrant thirty days in the Capital County slammer.

“You owe me one,” I tell Harry.

“Tell you what, you shoot the prick and I’ll defend you—free,” he says. Harry’s talking about Acosta.

I’m glad that we’ve cleared the jail. Threats against judges, even those in jest, don’t go down well with the local constabulary.

Harry is now checking his wallet, counting the cash that was there when he was booked, bill by bill. Such is his trust of the cops. Jail does not seem to have shaken him much. I think that, like the Man of La Mancha, Harry sees this little episode as part of some noble quest.

The usual throng of humanity is gathered on the steps outside the jail. These are mostly relatives, or significant others of those inside, deciding whether to spring for bail, or to pay next month’s rent.

Harry and I make our way through this army of jailhouse regulars and onto the sidewalk in front of the building. We head toward my car a block away.

Hinds is grousing that he needs a shower. It seems he could not bring himself to use the communal things offered in the jail.

“After all these years I’d like to remain a virgin,” he tells me. Like most defense attorneys, even Harry has his standards. Defending these people is one thing, showering with them is something else.

I tell him we’ll pick up some clothes at his place on the way. He can shower and shave at the house before dinner. My wife, Nikki, will thank us for this thought.

Harry falls behind, finally stopping at the newsstand on the corner. He joins the little mob hustling the vendor for a paper. He hits me up for four bits. It seems the jail budget doesn’t include a daily newspaper. Harry wants confirmation that the world has carried on without him for the past forty-eight hours.

“I’ve got to pick up Sarah at the babysitter’s in ten minutes,” I tell him.