“Nine’s more civilized than three. Etta coming?”
“She didn’t say one way or the other. If she wants a ride, she’ll call.”
He said something like mpfh again. I took it for good-bye and hung up.
The building was full of activity. Most of the tenants were free-lancers who rented offices downstairs and studio space upstairs by the hour. The studios were in use around the clock, usually bigger productions by day, small stuff at night whenever time became available.
Because the elections were only a month and a half away, the studios were solidly booked by political hack crews producing spots for the end-of-campaign TV blitz. All night long candidates walked the corridors in heavy makeup and perfect light-blue shirts. Working vampire hours.
I knew the people across the hall were doing spots for Marovich. I had seen them hard at it. After I locked my door, I stopped outside their office and listened. Someone was tuned to Satellite Network News, doubtless on the lookout for usable video bites to cannibalize from Ralph. Because Marovich would be footing the bills, I hoped Ralph gouged them more deeply for anything they used than the fifteen hundred I had cut for thirty seconds of Etta.
That was a cruel thought, I thought. I should give Mr. District Attorney Marovich a chance. Thinking, no time like the present, I knocked on the neighbors’ door.
Chapter 12
I gained entry to my neighbors’ office by pulling out a Pass Go card. That is, my business card. I knew my name would carry some cachet with another filmmaker, entree at least, but the version I handed him read: Countryside Film Productions, Margot E. Duchamps-it’s my legal name-and my San Francisco number. I also carry a version with my professional name-Maggie MacGowen-the one I acquired when a TV station genius at my first job decided that Margot Duchamps wasn’t perky enough for western Kansas, and stamped me with my husband’s name.
Circumstances define which card I pull out. Name recognition that might open certain doors, might get other doors slammed in my face. I play it by ear. My ear said Baron Marovich had acquired some idea who Maggie MacGowen was and would not be especially eager to speak with me, perky or not.
I learned from my across-the-hall colleagues that Marovich had a taping scheduled upstairs at ten-thirty. That gave me time to get pizza, take Casey home, and drive back again.
I needn’t have hurried; it was nearly eleven before Marovich dragged into the studio for retooling-a fresh shirt and new makeup.
My card was on the makeup table among half-a-dozen messages when Marovich sat down on a high wooden stool and gave his face to the makeup woman.
Marovich was a surprise to me. I had expected the D.A. to be slicker than snot. Face to face, I found him to be very bright, very attractive, and thoroughly personable. We hit it off right away. I think that I represented to him the possibility of some free media exposure, which he cannily courted. He also seemed to like my legs, though he was having some trouble buying my reasons for wanting a word with him.
“I’m working on a documentary about a group of kids who grew up in the projects,” I said. “Seems to me that every time I turn around I bump into Charles Conklin, or his tailings. If he’s going to be a recurring presence, I need to have some blanks filled in. You probably know more about him right now than anyone. I’d like to use you as a source.”
Marovich was getting the shine powdered off his face, so he couldn’t frown properly when I said the C word: Conklin. But he got across his displeasure about the topic.
“Miss Duchamps,” he said, hardly moving his lips, “I’d like to help you, but right now it’s a question of time. I don’t have any. My family thinks I’m a stranger, and the way things are going I won’t see them again, awake, until after the first Tuesday in November. Obligations at the office, demands of a campaign-you understand, I’m sure, why I can’t help you.”
“Absolutely,” I said. He couldn’t turn his head and I didn’t like talking to the side of his face. So I pulled up a second stool next to him, leaned my elbows on my knees and talked to his image in the mirror. “I understand how a campaign can put pressure on a family. Any time a parent is away from home for an extended period there can be disastrous ramifications. Take Conklin’s son, Tyrone, as an example. Tyrone is in Central Juvenile waiting to be tried for murder.”
He laughed. “Are you suggesting that if I don’t go straight home my kids will end up in the slam?”
“Nope. I’m sure your wife is a paragon and has things well in hand. Tyrone Harkness’s mother was a junkie.”
“Might explain a lot,” he said.
“It might. The two young witnesses against Conklin grew up on the same block as Tyrone. One of them was a hooker, the other one is a librarian. The question is, what made the difference?”
Mention of the witnesses made a shadow cross his face. But he still liked my legs well enough to hang in with me.
I leaned closer to him, aiming to project befuddled sincerity. “I find the ‘what if’s’ to be absolutely compelling, don’t you? What if Tyrone’d had a father who could provide him with a safety net, some guidance? Would the boy Tyrone is accused of killing be sitting down to dinner tonight with his family? Would his own two babies now have a role model and guide to see them safely through the perils of childhood?”
“Vicious cycle.”
“Yes it is,” I said. “Charles Conklin’s conviction trails an endless wake of grief. If the man was innocent, if he was wrongfully deprived of all those years he should have been with his family, then it is truly a gross tragedy. But after `oops,’ what can be said?”
“Oops is a good start,” he said, smiling, cracking the makeup that filled in his crow’s feet. The makeup person was holding a white card behind his head so she could see in shadow, as the camera would, any stray wisps of hair. Marovich was being very patient with the fussing.
“Why do I feel I’m being interviewed?” he asked.
“Just conversation,” I said. I picked up a comb, dampened it with hairspray, and smoothed some fluff that had breached the surface of his helmet of salt-and-pepper hair. “You do see the poignancy?”
“Uh huh,” he said, dubious. “Let me first correct one misstatement. I have never suggested that Conklin was innocent. His guilt or innocence is irrelevant. What is relevant is this: Charles Conklin was convicted on tainted evidence. He has a right to a new trial. But after fourteen years, a trial would be an exercise in futility. Justice demands he be set free.”
“Do you believe he’s guilty?”
He shrugged. “Guilt is an altogether different issue.”
I pressed, gesturing with the comb. “When you go on national television with that jackass evangelist and say nothing when he gets red in the face asserting Conklin’s innocence, and you sit next to his defense attorney and nod when she lisps out her rage at the injustice of sending a poor lamb to prison, then it seems to me you express tacit agreement with them.”
“I was merely one viewpoint on a panel,” he said, defensive.
“An awfully quiet one. You looked like a fellow traveler. I heard no debate about fine points of the law, only protestations of the man’s innocence.”
He drew back to look at me directly. “Jesus,” he said. “You’re tough. In my defense I say again, guilt is not the issue.”
“Maybe not in court, but in the real world guilt is absolutely the issue. The witnesses and the investigating cops, and I suppose the jail-house snitch, are taking a heavy beating. They stand accused of doing something corrupt and cannot defend themselves. They don’t have your access to the media, and the media apparently is not interested in what they might have to say.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.” He eyed the comb in my hand, wary, maybe evaluating how much damage it was capable of inflicting.