The Judge (11 page)

"Brittany Hall?" He nods.

"I was angry. They set me up," he says. "Who?"

"The cops," he says. The defense of every John: entrapment. "The entire prostitution thing was a setup," he says.

"And you were angry. You called her a liar. What else?" I say. There's a lot of rolling of eyes here, resolve turning to concession. "I might have said something else."

"What?" This is like pulling teeth.

"Maybe ... I don't know. I might have wished her dead," he tells us. "I would think you might remember something like that," I tell him. Acosta shrugs.

"You told somebody you wished she was dead?"

"I might have said something like that. Called her some names," he says, "and wished she were dead."

"Terrific," I say. "Can you remember the exact words?" "Is that important?" he says.

"If the cops have talked to the witness," I tell him.

He puts fingers to forehead, like the Great Karnak summoning all his powers.

"I think I might have said that death was too good for the cunt." The Coconut's loose translation of wishing someone dead. "Wonderful. And this death wish. Who was it made to?" I ask.

"You have to understand," he says. "After the arrest none of them would talk to me. They passed me in the hall as if I were a ghost. People I had worked with for twenty years pretended they didn't know me.

My own clerk called in sick the next morning. Can you believe it? My own clerk. And the others were laughing at me..."

"Who did you make the statement to?" He gives me a large swallow, his Adam's apple doing a half-gainer from the ten-meter platform. "Oscar Nichols," he says.

Nichols gets my vote for "Mr. Congeniality" on the bench, every-man's judge on the superior court. Lawyers all love him because, like the village harlot, he is easy. An African-American in his early sixties, quiet and soft-spoken, he is judicious to a fault, seeing every side of ever)' issue so that he is terminally paralyzed by indecision. Given his way, he would massage every case so that no one loses. I am not surprised that it was Nichols who became Acosta's psychic shoulder to cry on in his time of trouble.

Even so, I am sucking air, breathless. I have a client trained in the law who makes statements to a sitting judge that may now be construed as a death threat against a dead witness.

"He was a friend," says Acosta. The operative word no doubt being the one that puts this in the past tense.

"You don't know any felons?" I ask him.

As soon as I utter these words I regret them. The expression on Acosta's face at this moment is not one of anger or arrogance, but something I have not seen before. It is the lost look of anguish. It is a natural inclination that we hide our vulnerability from those we dislike or do not trust, and there is a galaxy of suspicion that separates the two of us.

In a world in which one's occupation is interchangeable with his identity, Acosta is now a professional leper. Except for his wife and his liberty, he is a man who has lost it all.

The light on my com-line flashes. A second later the phone rings. I pick up the receiver.

"A gentleman out here to see you." "Who is it?"

"His name is Leo Kerns. An investigator from the D.A.'s office."

"Leo? What does he want?" "Says he needs to talk to you."

"Be right out." I look at Lenore. "I'll be right back." I drop my pen on my notepad, right next to the closing quotation on the Coconut's death threat.

"Don't lose my place." I'm out of my chair, leaving Lenore to cover the bases. Perhaps she'll turn the conversation to something lighter, like Acosta's possible disbarment.

The instant I am through the door, there is a dark sense, one of those premonitions a lizard must get just before becoming roadkill.

Leo has set me up. Standing with him near the reception desk are two other men in suits, hair slicked and neatly cut, well scrubbed, the kind of men who are promoted to be Homicide dicks. I recognize one of them.

"Paul." Leo reaches out to shake my hand, and suddenly I feel like the Judas goat.

One of the other cops steps in front of him.

"Is Armando Acosta in your office? I am informed that he is here in this building," he says. No introduction.

"Who's asking?"

"I have a warrant for the arrest of Armando Acosta." He slaps the paper in my hand, and pushes past me down the corridor. When he gets to my office door he doesn't stop or knock, but throws the door wide and walks in.

"Armando Acosta, you're under arrest for the murder of Brittany Hall. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you. You have the right to counsel. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you..." By the time he finishes this practiced litany, the cop is dragging Acosta through the door sideways, his hands already cuffed behind his back, pulling him by one arm at the elbow. The other cop now joins him. Together they wrestle him down the hall, the two cops like opposing forces out of sync.

Lili is crying in the doorway to my office, being held back, one arm by Lenore.

Acosta has an expression, staring straight at me, wide-eyed, pleading, not with words, but with looks, that appears as one of a drowning man.

They move toward me in the hallway, bouncing off the walls.

"Say nothing," I tell him. "We will talk at the jail." One of the cops pushes me out of the way, nearly sending me through the wall. The look in his eye as he does this makes me think that muscling a lawyer is not work but an act of pleasure. Hammering me while I'm giving advice is a labor of love. They brush papers and a photo off the reception desk, their own tornado heading for the door.

Acosta is not struggling so much as trying to keep his feet in the opposing maelstrom set up between the two cops.

Leo stands looking at me, a hapless smile and a shrug. Why he is here I am not sure. Then it hits me. Leo would service the grand jury, run errands for his boss Kline in the presentation of evidence. My guess is Acosta's warrant is hot off the press. The signature on the indictment is not yet dry.

HE MOST NOTICEABLE ASPECT OF coleman kline are his piercing blue eyes. This morning they drill holes in me, like the twin beams of an industrial laser. I'm sitting in one of the client chairs on the other side of his desk.

There is some taking of stock here, as we size each other up across a million miles of marble. The rose-hued surface of his desk is as barren and cold as the moons of Jupiter. There is not an item on it but for Kline's folded hands, an ominous image.

His office has a sterile quality about it: two corner walls of windows without any coverings, their interior counterparts stark white and decorated by a single small mural, an abstract akin to a Ronchach blotch in color.

"You are a friend of lenore Goya," he says. There is no accusation in his words, merely a statement of fact.

"Lenore and I have known each other for a while," I tell him.

"You should take care not to get drawn into a case out of spite," he says. "Particularly someone else's." I question him with my eyes.

"It's no secret that Lenore harbors ill will toward me. Perhaps this is her motivation for representing Acosta?" There is a little up-tilt to the end of this sentence, so that it is an open question.

"I hadn't heard." Dissembling is a lie only if the other party is deceived. Kline and I both know the truth. He smiles, tight-lipped and straight, a pained expression as if he'd hoped this opening might be more fortuitous, something built on candor.

"Malice can lead one astray," he says. "To take a case for the wrong reasons would be a mistake."

"Sort of like mixing business and pleasure?" I say.

The thought is not lost on him, though he does not smile. The original tight-ass.

"Are you of record in the case?" he asks me.

Lenore made the appearance for arraignment with Acosta, and a quick pitch for bail, which was summarily denied. I tell him this.

"Then you might wish to reconsider your role in this matter."

"Whether it's me or someone else, the judge is likely to obtain vigorous representation," I tell him. "It's that kind of case."

"What kind?"

"High profile," I say. The media circus is already convening. There has been talk of television coverage. A judge charged with first-degree murder does not occur every day.

He mulls over the term "high profile." A judicious look. "I suppose. Though it's a shame."

"What's that?"

"The sort of stuff that seems to rivet public attention these days." "What? Sexual scandal and a fallen judge?" I say.

"Precisely." Life among the tabloids. He is offended.

"Age-old story," I tell him. He gives me a look.

"David and Bathsheba," I say.

"Armando Acosta is not exactly a man of biblical proportions," he tells me.

Finally, a point on which we agree.

"This is all very good," he says. "But you asked for this meeting. I assume you have some purpose?" Bail," I tell him. "I thought perhaps we could work out an accommodation.

Avoid a contentious argument in court." I can tell by his look he is not surprised. Still he gives me all the arguments.

It's a capital offense, Counselor. Special circumstances. The murder of a witness in another criminal case," he says.

"The court has discretion," I tell him. "And has chosen not to exercise it." "You mean the arraignment?" He nods.

"A summary argument," I tell him. "There was no real evidence presented."

He spins in his chair, and takes a book off the credenza from a stack neatly lined between two bookends behind him. A quick glance in the index, and he pages with one thumb.

"I quote," he says. "Penal Code, Section twelve seventy point five: A defendant charged with a capital offense punishable by death cannot be admitted to bail when the proof of his guilt is evident or the presumption of guilt is great." He slaps the book closed. "It's not," I tell him.

"How do you know until you've seen the evidence?" he says.

He has me on that. The fruits of our first motions for discovery have been received only this morning and are sitting on my desk awaiting review.

"Irrespective of your feelings Coward Mr. Acosta, he is a man with considerable contacts in the community, no evidence of flight, even with the swirling rumors in the press. He has a family, a reputation ..."

"Yes. I give you his reputation," says Kline. Touche. "You don't really think he's going to run?" I say.

"It's been known to happen. But let's set all of that aside for the moment, my feelings about your client, whether the court would even accept an argument for bail even if we did acquiesce. Let's set all of that aside. Just for the moment," he says.

There is something coming. The odor of sinister thoughts. He studies me like an insect under glass.

"You talked a moment ago," he says, "about an accommodation." "I did?"

"Yes. You said perhaps we could come to some accommodations." His eyes get round and inquisitive.

"A manner of speech," I tell him.

"Ah. Then you're not offering anything in return?" We are down to it. All Baba's nickel and dime, Coleman Kline's Casbah of justice.

"Just checking. Wanted to make sure I understood," he says.

"What can we offer? Certainly he's not going to cop a plea." He shakes his head, makes gestures with his palms open and down low, just off the surface of the desk, evidence that this is the farthest thought from his mind.

"Still." He speaks before his hands have even hit the desk. "Your client has not been very cooperative," says Kline. "He did refuse to talk to the police when they tried to interview him."

"Well. We apologize for the insult," I tell him. "But I'm sure the cops weren't stunned by his silence."

"Perhaps not. But you'd think an innocent man would be anxious to clear himself as a suspect."

"Oh. So you think he can be cleared?"

"He might have been if he'd talked to us. How can we know all the facts when your man won't cooperate?"

"I hope you took pains to explain that to the grand jury," I tell him. This draws his eyes into little slits. "It's not I who is sitting here asking for bail," he says.

"Good point," I tell him. "And what exactly was it, what kind of information did the police want that might have cleared my client?" I ask.

He finally eases back in his chair, the fingers of both hands steepled under his chin.

"For starters," he says, "information as to where he was at the time that Brittany Hall was killed." He wants to know if we have an alibi.

To tell him that we do not would be to give aid and comfort. It is the one thing he cannot get in discovery, anything that is testimonial from our client. Kline has more brass than I would have credited.

"To know that," I tell him, "we'd have to know the exact time of death. "

"Ah," he says, smiling. "There's the rub," he says. "How so?"

"For the moment we are able to fix that only within broad parameters." "How broad?" I say.

"Within a six-hour period."

"That's not broad," I tell him. "That's the cosmos." "We're working on it," he tells me.

I'll bet. Unless Hall was seen alive by a witness or spoke to someone within a short period before her body was discovered, time of death is a matter of conjecture upon which medical evidence is a vast swearing contest, their experts versus ours.

"Still," he says, "I would assume that if you had an ironclad alibi you would have given it to us by now?" This is a fair assumption, but he would rather be certain.

"As the first syllable suggests," I tell him, "assumptions have a funny way of biting the holder in the ass." Absent an alibi, the next best ploy is to keep Kline guessing. Investigators who are trying to exclude an alibi don't ha-"e time to do other damage.

"It seems there is no basis for accommodation," he says. There is no anger here, just a statement of brutal fact.

"A capital case, we must assume your client to be a flight risk. Certainly a risk to public safety," he says. "I could not in good conscience agree to bail." I start to talk, but he cuts me off.

"It's been nice," he tells me. He's on his feet, walking me to the door.

"You really should reconsider your position in the case," he says. "At least inform yourself as to Ms. Goya's motives." Suddenly I find his hand inside of mine, bidding me farewell, smoother than I could have imagined. His office door closes and actually hits me in the ass. I am left with the certain assessment that Coleman Kline is not the lawyer simpleton I'd been led to expect.

"T The man is angry because his ego has gotten him in over his head," she says. This is Lenore's answer to Kline's assertion of a vendetta.

Tonight she stands in the doorway to my kitchen, the tips other thick dark hair grazing her shoulders, the whites of her eyes flashing in contrast to her tawny complexion. Her hands are on her hips. Lenore cuts a formidable and enticing figure when she is angry.

"Think about it," she says. "He was willing to take on Acosta on the misdemeanor because it was low risk, high theater," she says. "A judge on the hook. Now he has to do the murder case or lose face in the office." Lenore tells me that at least three of Kline's senior deputies, people who were there before the change of regime, are entertaining thoughts of challenging him in the next election. These are civil servants whose job protection carries more armor than a medieval knight. Backing away on the murder case, handing it to subordinates to try, would be an admission by Kline that he is not up to the job.