Ronnie could have worn the coat, obviously. Yes, Ronnie was about two inches taller and thicker in the chest and shoulders than Alex, but how well would any of that come out when he was wearing winter clothing, a long wool coat and cap?
In her lengthy preparation of the cross of Officer Sanchez, Shelly had obviously considered the idea that she could get Sanchez to admit that he didn’t see Alex. She knew he wanted to distance himself from what happened-put it all on his partner-and she thought, in his effort to do so, she could trap him.
Now, she wasn’t sure that she could chalk up his admission to her courtroom skills. She believed that Sanchez was telling the truth. There were a million reasons for him to believe it was Alex without seeing him. Sanchez thought “the snitch” referred to Alex. Alex was arrested that night with Miroballi’s blood on his clothes. And Shelly, almost right out of the gate, had pleaded self-defense, which meant that Alex was the shooter. Maybe he had unconsciously revised his memory and assumed that he saw Alex, until pressed on the point.
The judge adjourned the proceedings at three-thirty. He told Shelly, out of the presence of the jury-and for the sake of a higher court that might review this case-that he wanted to give her some extra time to prepare for the testimony of Ronnie Masters tomorrow. If she did not feel prepared to go tomorrow, he advised her, he would grant her additional time.
“Very good,” she told him. She was not going to thank him. He had screwed her today. He was wrong in allowing all that testimony about what Miroballi said to Sanchez about Alex. She felt sure of it. But she realized that a higher court would need more than that to overturn a conviction. Appellate courts in this state liberally applied the “harmless error” rule, under which a court found that the trial judge made an error but that the error was not enough to warrant a new trial. A fair trial did not mean a perfect trial.
She spoke with Alex at length after the adjournment. He was pleased that Ronnie now had immunity. It meant that his daughter, Angela, would have someone to take care of her. Technically, Ronnie had only been given immunity for obstruction of justice, because that was the only crime to which he had admitted-withholding information from the cops and lying to them. But short of a confession by Ronnie, he would never be prosecuted for anything related to the Miroballi shooting.
After speaking with Alex, she went immediately to Ronnie. Ronnie was being held, pending his testimony, at county lockup, in segregation, but when she arrived there, she was told that the detainee did not wish to speak with her. She demanded to hear this from Ronnie’s mouth. Eventually, the deputy warden was called down. Detainees had the right to refuse a visitor, he told her, but she jumped up and down and threatened enough that he finally agreed to a face-to-face. Shelly wondered if the fact that her father could have this guy fired had anything to do with the change of heart.
She was shown to a small room not unlike the one Alex had been in. Ronnie stood at the doorway of the detainee’s entrance and shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to her,” he told the deputy warden. “I don’t have to talk to her.”
She stared into his eyes, but he looked away. “You sure about that, Ronnie?” she called out.
“I’m sure,” he said to the deputy warden.
Shelly watched him walk out. The door closed. She was out of luck. She looked at her watch as she left the building. It was six-thirty. She had a long night ahead of her. On her way to her office, her cell phone rang. It was, as always, Joel Lightner.
“I’m over at the City Athletic Club,” he said. “I got three guys who said they’ve played hoops with Ronnie Masters at this open gym.”
“Okay.” She was not the least bit surprised. “You have your trial subpoenas?”
“Yeah.”
“Serve them,” she said. “We’ll need those guys in a few days.”
71
Shelly sat at the defense table next to Alex. She had had the benefit of exactly three hours of sleep from the prior evening. There was a point in time at which it did no good to go to bed, because the small amount of sleep one received was woefully insufficient and the brief interlude of sleep left one fuzzy-headed. For Shelly, three hours was the minimum amount necessary, else she would forgo sleep altogether.
She had gone back over everything in preparing for Ronnie’s cross-examination. In truth, she had known, before she started, the questions she would ask. She had made the case against Ronnie in her head for weeks now, gathering information along the way to buttress her position.
She looked at the headline from today’s edition of the Watch.
SECOND COP CAN’T IDENTIFY DEFENDANT
The story borrowed liberally from the prior day’s edition, again noting the turn in developments as defense attorney Shelly Trotter-yes, that Trotter, the governor’s daughter-now appeared to be heading full force down the path that the prosecution got the wrong guy. There was news, according to the article, of a new witness being disclosed by the prosecution for today’s proceedings, but the prosecution had refused to disclose the identity to the media because the witness was a juvenile.
On the front page of the Daily Watch, below the fold, was a story about Governor Trotter’s opponent, Anne Claire Drummond. Her support, in little over a month, had dipped considerably. The story attributed the drop to a combination of two things: first, her initial surge was due to her status as the “new kid,” the fresh-faced challenger (ironic, though, since she had served six terms in Congress), and second, it was still rather early in the race and the voters weren’t hearing much from Drummond. In mid-June, most candidates were spending their time raising money and seeking the support of the critical interest groups-in Drummond’s case, the unions and teachers and seniors. Ideas were being formed, strategies plotted, but the initial glow of her candidacy was temporarily dimmed.
A political columnist for the Watch wrote that the race was “clearly Trotter’s to lose.” The economy was rebounding, security-conscious citizens liked Republicans (even though state government had little to do with antiterrorism), and people just generally liked incumbents, especially G.O.P. governors. Nothing short of the revelation that the governor’s daughter had given up a boy for adoption, who in turn had murdered a cop-and did we mention that the governor had tried to persuade his daughter to have an abortion? — nothing short of that could lose the race for him.
The judge entered the courtroom and asked Shelly if she was ready.
She told him she was. She didn’t tell him that she had been ready for a while now.
Alex fidgeted. He had been put at ease when Ronnie got his deal, but he still was not looking forward to this day. “Don’t push him,” he whispered to her.
“People call Ronnie Masters,” said Daniel Morphew.
“What does that mean?” she asked Alex.
“Just-don’t hurt him too bad.”
She looked at Ronnie as he entered the courtroom. He did not stop as he passed the defense table. He was wearing a button-down blue shirt and khaki trousers. His hair was combed and parted. She thought that a couple of the female jurors, and one of the male ones, found Ronnie attractive. She could see that.
Ronnie spoke with a strong voice as he gave his full name and spelled his last name. He explained that he lived with his mother, Elaine, and Alex in a small home in Mapletown, a neighborhood to the south of the commercial district. Ronnie testified for a long while about his life with Alex.
“I’d do anything for him,” he said. “He’d do anything for me.”
“Would you lie to protect him?” Morphew asked.
“Well, I guess I did do that,” he conceded. “I would always try to help him.”