“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, everyman’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 every 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 with 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.
CHAPTER 8
The 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 Rorschach 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 uptilt 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?”