Landon took in a long breath and exhaled. It was as if he was the only one in the room who breathed at all.
“An argument could be made, and I’ve made it to myself, that the appropriate course of action is to abstain from voting. The matter would then go forward as if I was not present, and the vice president would break the forty-nine to forty-nine tie.”
Landon imagined the president leaning forward in his chair, praying that Landon had devised a way to salvage the nominations.
“But that would leave the people of the State of California unrepresented, with no one to stand in their place and act for them, in the most important confirmations in our nation’s history. It is for that reason I will vote against…”
P resident Duncan pressed the mute button on the remote and stared at length at the screen, at the now-vacant podium in front of which a CNN reporter stood.
“Mr. President?” Stuart Sheridan asked.
“It’s all down the tubes. Every bit of it.”
“But we can nominate-”
Duncan shook his head. “Landon took us all down. The Democrats are going to own the nominating process.”
“But…”
“We did everything right. Everything. How the hell were we supposed to know?”
Chapter 93
"Are you going to be there?” John Porzolkiewski asked Gage in the visiting room at the San Francisco jail.
Gage shook his head. “There’s no reason. But are you sure you don’t want a lawyer?”
“You know what you told me when I first got arrested? You told me not to waste the money.”
“That was a different situation.”
“It was worse than different.” Porzolkiewski smiled. “You were the one who got me arrested, then told me to trust you to figure out what happened even though you didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t do it.”
Gage smiled back. “It makes you look like an idiot when you put it that way.”
“Thanks. That’s a confidence builder an hour before court.” Porzolkiewski glanced at the new indictment lying on the table. “Isn’t it ironic? I got charged with going after the same guy twice. Two different ways at two different times. I wonder if it’s ever happened before.”
“That’s all the more reason to let Skeeter Hall help you. It was his and his associates’ research that helped us figure everything out and he’d like to do more.” Gage tilted his head toward the waiting room beyond the two sets of security doors. “He’s sitting out there with one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the city.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve got to do this alone.”
“Except it’s pretty complicated. Legally. Medically. The DA could still bring in an expert to testify that Palmer wouldn’t have died from the poisoned prescription if he hadn’t already been weakened by you shooting him. That would make you guilty of the homicide.”
Porzolkiewski shook his head. “I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.” He then hunched forward and stared down at the metal table. “You know, I’m not so different from the people who killed my son.”
“You’re a lot different.”
Porzolkiewski rotated his head and looked up at Gage. “It’s just a matter of degree.” He dropped his head again. “I’d almost convinced myself I shot Palmer in self-defense. Right after it happened I wanted to believe he charged me after I wrestled the gun away. I imagined him bearing down on me and me turning my head and firing. But that’s not true. He hit his head against the lamppost and was dazed. I could’ve just walked away.”
Porzolkiewski pursed his lips.
“Then I told myself the gun went off by accident. That my hand was shaking so much I squeezed the trigger. I even acted it out in my cell, imagining myself in front of a jury.”
“But the difference is that you never lied to anybody about what happened.”
Porzolkiewski straightened up.
“Yes, I did. I lied to myself, and not telling the truth was a way of lying to Palmer’s wife. She had a right to know. Every time I think of her tied up… and Palmer. If I hadn’t gone to see Palmer, they never would’ve killed him.”
“Don’t even think it. There’s no way you could’ve known what was really going on. In any case, not everything in the world is your responsibility.”
Porzolkiewski drew back and said, “Seems like a strange comment coming from you. What exactly did you owe me in this thing? Nothing. You owed me nothing.”
“I owed you the truth,” Gage said, “the same thing you owed me.”
Porzolkiewski laid his palm on his chest in an act of contrition. “I understand that now.”
He reached to his left for an oversized envelope, then pulled out a stack of papers and slid them toward Gage. On top was a letter from FourStar Media in Hollywood.
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” Porzolkiewski said. “That’s what they want to pay me for my story.” He pointed at the papers. “There’s a contract underneath. All it needs is my signature.”
Gage slid them back. “Why not? You’re a hero to every parent who lost a child because of corporate greed. Your picture is everywhere on the Internet, and on every television station and in every newspaper in the world.”
Porzolkiewski shook his head and slid the papers back into the envelope.
“I think I’ll pass. This wasn’t about me.”
He propped his elbows on the table, then smiled and arched his eyebrows.
“I’ve been wondering about the condom. Did you happen to ask Brandon Meyer who his girlfriend was?”
“He claims there was no girlfriend. He said he found it on another judge’s bathroom floor a couple of hours before he ran into you. Brandon had to pick it up, otherwise the judge would know he’d seen it.”
“Because the other judge was the one with the girlfriend?”
“That’s his story.”
“Sounds a little lame to me. Did you believe him?”
“Is it important anymore?”
“I guess not.” Porzolkiewski paused, then exhaled like a man standing hands-on-hips gazing down toward a valley trailhead after climbing to a mountaintop. He peered at Gage. “I never thought to ask how you got involved in all this in the first place.”
“A call from Charlie.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t have a chance to say anything.”
“You know what he wanted?”
Gage thought back to Charlie’s last day, his last words, his desperate, pleading voice. For the first time Gage understood the burden he’d carried since those final moments.
“More than anything,” Gage said. “I think he wanted me to finish out his life.”
“The way he would’ve done it himself?”
Gage shrugged. “We’ll never know, but this is how it had to be.”
I understand there’s a disposition in this matter,” Judge Louisa Havstad said, peering down at John Porzolkiewski, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit and standing next to the deputy district attorney. The judge fixed her eyes on the prosecutor.
“Ms. Kennedy, do the People have any objection to Mr. Porzolkiewski representing himself?”
Kennedy shook her head. “No, Your Honor. I met with him yesterday and then again a few minutes ago, and I’m satisfied he’s making a knowing waiver of his right to counsel.”
Judge Havstad then surveyed the courtroom, the reporters packed into the front rows and the broadcast and cable video cameras in the jury box bearing down on Porzolkiewski. Her pale skin and tense stare, combined with the sense of expectation in the courtroom, gave the impression of someone fearing a dam was about to break.
“My concern is that the defendant’s behavior in the early stages of his previous case was somewhat bizarre. I don’t want to see this proceeding turn into a spectacle.”
“I don’t believe that will happen,” Kennedy said.
Havstad turned her gaze toward the defendant.
“For the record, Mr. Porzolkiewski, is it your intention to proceed without counsel?”
Porzolkiewski nodded.
“You have to answer aloud so the stenographer can take it down.”
Porzolkiewski reddened. “Yes, Your Honor. I want to represent myself.”