The Attorney (18 page)

It is the reason I am here this morning, at the DA's office in an attempt to put out the fire, before it turns into a barn burning. The DA's office has called. I think they are worried; the publicity, the kind that can lead to appeals, is getting out of control.

Ruben Ryan sits behind his desk, fingers interlocked, hands clasped behind his head as he sways in the black leather high-back chair. Ryan is a career prosecutor, one of three in the DA's office who try the high-profile murders in this county. He has twenty years with the office, the grim countenance that goes with the experience, and a bottle of antacid tablets the size of a mayonnaise jar to prove it.

"You expect me to believe your office had nothing to do with the release?"

"I don't care what you believe," he says. "I'm telling you what I know.

We're investigating," says Ryan.

"Who else besides you and your investigators had access to those press releases Suade printed?" I ask him.

"I understand you had one." Which begs the question of how I got it, though he doesn't get into this.

"Why would I give it to the media? Turn them loose on my own client?"

"Adverse pretrial publicity? Open the door on appeal?" he says.

"Some defense lawyers have been known to do that, you know.

Maybe you want a change of venue?"

"Right. Mojave in August," I tell Ryan. As if we could get away from the fallout. We'd have to go to the moon.

He concedes the point with an expression of disinterest.

"You come to town, you learn how it's done down here. Maybe a little different from what you're used to." He says it as it the Constitution doesn't apply south of the Tehachipis.

"Do you want to hear what we have to offer or not?"

"I'm listening." It is our first meeting, and although it is cordial, there is a clear agenda. Ryan wants to stay ahead of the curve of public perception.

He is assuming that within a month, because of leaks and intense publicity, the public numbers will show that most of the voters think Jonah is guilty. Once this view takes hold, in a high-profile case, you don't want to lose it in a jury trial. It can have a bad effect on reelection which, when an incumbent is thrown out, can turn an entire office on its ear. One way to avoid the risk is to deal early.

Ryan jacks up the expression on his face a little, what you see from some actors on the screen getting ready to make a pitch.

"Your client is old," he says. "He's gonna die in the joint--that is, if we don't do it for him first."

"You're telling me you think you've got a death case here?"

"I'm telling you we can make special circumstances if you wanna press the issue."

"Press away," I tell him.

"We will. It's also possible," he says, "she was shot outside the car, maybe leaning in the window." This is one of the finer points of the law. The statute on firstdegree murder in this state was amended a few years ago to deal with the rash of drive-bys, defining it as first-degree murder whenever the shooter shoots to kill from inside a car and the victim is outside. Such facts would make the death penalty available.

"Maybe you can explain to the jury how she got her cigarette butts inside the killer's ashtray. Long arms? And the powder burns on her clothes?"

"You want to run it up the flagpole and find out?" he says.

"There's a lot of angles here. Your client is not gonna be well loved.

An eighty-million-dollar winner in the lottery. There's a lotta people spend their hard-earned money and don't win."

"Is that what this is about?"

"I'm just telling you the dynamics," says Ryan.

What he's trying to do is hammer me with everything he has, blast from a shotgun to see what penetrates and what doesn't. This before he gets to his offer, making it look like some sweet deal.

"We believe there's a chance we could show she was a witness with information of criminal wrongdoing," he says.

"What are you talking about?"

"We're talking about the murder of a witness. Another separate special circumstance under the code," he says. "Grounds for the death penalty."

Now he's more than reaching. He's dreaming. "That requires a witness in judicial proceedings. I don't recall anything Suade was talking about having been filed on by your office or anybody else.

In fact, the allegations against my client were investigated and dropped. If that's your case," I tell him, "let's go to trial, and I'm not waiving time. Not to speak ill of the dead," I say, "but your victim was publishing a lot of lies."

"Maybe that's why he killed her?'" says Ryan. "Couldn't control his rage." He allows the thought to settle on me for a moment, that a lie will work just as well as the truth for motivation.

"That's a good theory, but in case you haven't noticed, Suade had a lot of enemies. There was a lot of rage out there, and not all of it belonged to my client. I think there was a lawsuit she had against the county. Unless I'm wrong, the cause of action died with her. Maybe you should be looking for some angry taxpayer." I can tell this has an effect. Something Ryan would not like to have to explain to a jury, how the victim came to be suing the county for twenty million dollars over false imprisonment by the presiding judge.

He clears his throat, sits up in his chair, runs a hand through shiny black tresses. "It's why we're talking," he says. "If I thought your man was a stone-cold killer, I wouldn't have you in. But as it is, I'm not anxious to put the old man in the death chamber. That is, if he wants to be reasonable. Cop a plea," he says.

"To what?" He thinks for a second, more for effect, as if he hasn't given the matter thought before this moment, worn a rut in the linoleum between here and the plush-carpeted confines of his boss's office upstairs.

"Second degree," he says. "Your guy avoids lethal injection, does fifteen to life." For Jonah Hale, fifteen years is life. I tell him this. "Besides, you're never going to do better than second degree no matter who your suspect is. That's not a deal; that's your pitch for a vacation. You want the month off, you should ask your boss."

He shifts in his chair, a little uncomfortable knowing he hasn't made a sale, or even come close.

"You can't prove lying in wait," I tell him. "Not unless you've got a witness who saw the car at the scene. You know and I know, there's no such witness."

"Are you sure of that?" I shrug. He's bluffing. I can feel it. "The rest of it," I tell him, "is crap. You want to play with the physical evidence? Was she inside the car? Was she outside the car? When did the bullets start flying?

Maybe it was a blind date went bad. Take your best shot. But I've seen your forensics report, and it's not a theory you're gonna be able to leap on and ride."

"Maybe we just put your man at the scene and let the jury fill in the blanks," says Ryan. "There's plenty of premeditation and deliberation to go around." Another theory for first-degree murder.

"After all," he says, "a man doesn't come to a party with favors unless he plans to pop somebody."

"The gun?" He nods.

"How do you know it belonged to the killer?"

"Who else?" he says.

"I know you can't pick and choose your victims, but you ought to at least try to learn a little bit about them." He looks at me, not exactly sure what it is I am trying to say.

Then it dawns: "You're telling me she was killed with her own gun?" I can see the eyes, windows to the mind, venturing the next guess, but not stating it, that perhaps this is something Jonah has shared with me.

"I'm not telling you anything. You're forming conclusions. But I wouldn't discourage the thought. You may want to do some homework."

Suddenly Ryan's eyes are scanning the desk, looking at the closed file with Jonah's name on it, wondering if anything is in there that he's missed.

"How did you know she owned a gun?" he asks.

"You don't really expect me to tell you that." This puts him deeper in the hole, wondering if I'm just shoveling against the tide, making it up as I go.

"So what do you want? Short of dismissal?"

"I don't know that my client would take anything. I'm not sure I'd be prepared to recommend he take anything." Nothing like bar gaining from strength.

"That could be a big mistake."

"For who? Him or you?" I offer an expression, make a face, like maybe this is the best we can do.

Ryan is silent. Then, slowly, he says, "It's against my better judgment.

The only reason I would even consider it is your client has no prior record. No history of violence. And he's old."

"Spare me the justifications," I tell him.

"And it would depend on whether I can confirm that she owned a gun that matches the ballistics, that that weapon is unaccounted for," he says.

This is a big problem for him, wondering where I got this, assuming my client has knowledge.

"What would depend?" I say.

He hesitates for a second to demonstrate how painful this is.

"We might be willing to do voluntary manslaughter," he says at last.

It is obvious he has already cleared this with higher-ups.

"And?"

"And your man does six years." I shake my head. "Not a chance. Maybe three years, out in two, and I still have to sell it to my client."

"I can't do that," he says.

"Then it looks like we tried and failed." I start to get out of my chair.

"You shouldn't be hasty," he says. "Your client could end up spending his golden years eating off a stainless-steel tray, wearing prison blues--or worse, wondering how he came to be strapped to a gurney with his arms exposed. We've got him tied to the scene four ways from Sunday."

"Yeah, I know about the cigars."

"There's more," he says. "For your information, we haven't finished dotting all the i's, crossing all the t's in our report. There are things you don't know."

"Then why are we talking? Seems to me you're taking advantage, trying to get me to deal when I don't know all the facts." He stares at me, his mouth slowly melting into a smirk. I smile back. The mutual recognition of bullshit.

"Why don't you talk to your client?" he says. "There's no sense you and me sitting here talking if he won't deal."

"Talk to him about what?"

"His state of mind," says Ryan. "Maybe whether he's feeling guilty." An hour later I'm in the office trying it out on Harry.

"I don't know. I don't think he'll go," he says. "He's adamant he didn't do it."

"Do you believe him?"

"I don't think he's that good a liar," says Harry. "It's the thing about people who live ordinary lives. Takes practice to learn how to lie about something like that. A career criminal," he says, "I wouldn't be able to tell one way or the other. So he's either pathologic, or he's telling the truth."

"What about this witness?" I ask him. "You seen anything in their reports?" Harry has become our master of evidence, digesting every scrap of paper coming in on the case, which has now become a deluge.

"Nothing I've seen," he says. "It's too early for a witness list, so they wouldn't have to divulge it yet. But there's no witness statement in the materials they've turned over yet. Did he give you any clue as to what they saw?"

"The car in the alley for a long time before she came out."

"Jonah's car?"

"Ryan wasn't that specific, just enough to make me worry. He was definitely planting the seed, though, telling me there was more we didn't have." Harry's dipping into the jar of pistachios on my desk. He is addicted. He went on the wagon ten days ago, swore off the things after he put on ten pounds. Then a week ago he came back from the store with pistachios in a bag the size of Santa's. Told me they were a present. Since then, he's been camped in my office cleaning out the jar faster than I can fill it, and reminding me whenever it's empty, as if this way he can eat them and the pounds end up hanging from my gut.

"You want some beer to go with those?"

"You got some?" I give him a look and he laughs, closes the lid on the jar.

"So what do we do now?" he says.

"We go talk to our client. Moment of truth," I tell him. "If he's lying to us, he has to know now that he's taking a risk."

"You never told me how you found out about the gun," says Harry.

"Suade's."

"My lips are sealed."

"But you're sure about it?"

"Got the serial number in my pocket," I tell him. "What's more, I am reasonably confident from the look on Ryan's face that the cops didn't find it in Suade's purse at the scene or in her office. If they had, he wouldn't have been sitting there with egg all over him when I told him."

"So Suade's gun is missing."

"It would appear so." I have never told Harry about my suspicions the day I met her, about Suade's hand in her purse. If she had only pulled it out that morning, on me or the drunk lying on the sidewalk, I wouldn't be Jonah's lawyer. I would be his best witness. Or maybe I would be dead. As it is, it is all surmise.

"So what are you thinking? Suade came out to the car with the gun on her? She climbs inside. They smoke and talk. Maybe she loses it somewhere during the conversation and pulls the pistol from her handbag.

They struggle over it. It goes off. Twice" says Harry. He looks at me as if this could be a problem. "Killer panics, dumps the body, dumps the ashtray. But why take the gun if it belongs to Suade?" I don't have an answer.

"Still, maybe we can make a case for self-defense," he says.

"Only if Jonah leads the way."

chapter FOURTEEN.

"i won't do it. no way. you cam make me." Jonah won't sit at the table any longer. He paces the room in front of the door like a caged cat, causing the guard outside to shoot nervous glances every few seconds through the glass.

"We're not trying to make you do anything," says Harry. "But we do have to tell you what they're offering. It's one of the rules," he says. "We get our asses disbarred if we don't communicate the offer."

"And so what are you saying?" Jonah turns to me.

"The court won't take a plea unless it's satisfied there's a factual basis," I tell him. "So it's your call. You're going to have to tell us."