“But you don’t know that?”
Lenore grasps the significance. If the notation had been left for the cops, it was something that we might have argued. Without intending to, she has single-handedly affected evidence in the case to the detriment of our client.
“There was nothing sinister in it,” she says. “Tony just didn’t want the other cops to see the note. He was embarrassed.”
“Yeah. You can imagine the embarrassment, particularly if he doesn’t have an alibi.”
“You aren’t going to use this?” she says.
I give her a noncommittal look.
“You said. .”
“I said nothing. I said that we both have a commitment to represent a client who is accused of murder.”
“If I have to, I will testify that I took the note off the calendar. That it was pasted right over the notation with Acosta’s name. That it was clear that this meeting was canceled. But I will not name Tony. He didn’t do it.”
“What is it with this guy?” I say.
“I just don’t think he had anything to do with it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “You know as well as I do that if I put you on the stand nobody is going to believe you anyway. They’ll see it as a concocted story. Kline would paint it as perjured testimony to the jury. A last desperate attempt to save a guilty client.”
“With a gleam in his eye,” she says. “Besides, I didn’t save the note,” she tells me.
I make a face, like that cuts it.
“Who tore the pages out of Hall’s little book? The phone numbers?” I say. “The letter A, maybe Tony’s number?”
“I don’t have a clue,” she says. “All I know is what Tony told me, and what was on that note.”
Without a breath, she says: “How do we make it right? What should I do?”
It is a conundrum.
“For the time being, you take a low profile.”
“Disappear?” she says.
“Nothing so drastic. Just make yourself scarce for a while.”
“Leaving you to pick up the mess,” she says.
“That can’t be helped. I will talk to Acosta. If he wants a continuance, I think Radovich would give it to him.”
“And if Kline subpoenas me to testify?”
“We will resist it.”
“And if we fail?”
“Breaking and entering is still a crime,” I tell her. “You take the Fifth. Tell them nothing-on advice of legal counsel.” I wink at her.
She smiles at this. “Let me guess,” she says. She points to me.
“I couldn’t represent you,” I say. “That would be a conflict of interest. I will find someone else to give you this advice.”
Harry wants out of the case. He is telling me that I should pull the rip cord and join him. Defending Acosta is not Harry’s idea of justice on high.
Still, he is frenetically pushing paper in the case. His principal task at this point, which has become a labor of love, is subpoenaing records, including books of account from Lano’s union, and poking around in the police property room for information on the handgun used to kill Zack Wiley.
Harry is a master in the plunder of private papers using legal process. He says we should be able to hear Lano’s howl in our office without benefit of a telephone once he gets service. With these steps we have begun to tip our hand as to the direction our defense will take.
This morning I travel alone to the county jail to talk to Acosta.
When I get there Lili is talking with her husband. It seems they are both expecting me. With Lenore’s departure from the case, we are now at a crossroads.
Acosta looks weary. The monotony of the early stages of any trial is like a narcotic, even when the consequences can be death. His face is drawn, eyes sunken. He has lost a dozen pounds since his arrest, though he says he maintains a little muscle tone working out in the jail gym on the days we get out early from court. He says it is not so hard. It is, after all, a routine.
As for Lili, her life seems shattered. She puts on a brave face, a solid rock at his side, at least psychically, from her side of the thick glass. But you know that in her private moments she lives the agony of uncertainty, trying to figure out what she will do with her life if she loses her husband. As difficult as it is for me to imagine, Armando Acosta is the sun around which she orbits.
After twenty years of professional enmity, I have in the last weeks come to see Acosta in a different light-the broken man, what humility does to ennoble the human spirit.
“I hope you don’t mind that I am here,” Lili says. “We don’t get much time to talk anymore.”
Radovich’s court is dark this morning. He has taken the day off, I think to give us a chance to regroup after the shattering blow to Lenore. The last item of business yesterday, after swearing the jury, was a contentious argument with the media.
Radovich will not allow television cameras to film the trial. He has seen what this does in terms of squandered time.
“Human egos,” he told them, “tend to inflate like balloons at high altitude whenever they find their way in front of a lens.”
To add insult to injury he has imposed a gag order on the lawyers and their agents, the investigators and police, as well as all witnesses on our lists. This has shut down a growth industry for the media.
When the broadcast lawyers stormed the bench armed with First Amendment rights, Radovich told them he didn’t see anything in there about film at five or, worse, live cameras. He told them to sharpen their pencils, and he’d find a place for them in the front row.
While I have no brief one way or the other for air time, there is a dynamic to television that tends to favor the defense, particularly with an elected prosecutor like Kline. In the glitz of television lights, our man is likely to throw out the manual of orderly prosecution. As a result, the state has a burgeoning record of botched high-profile cases, dead-bang winners that have been lost, or juries hung because a D.A. couldn’t keep his eye on the ball, or started chasing media curves pitched by the defense. There are witnesses who will make up any story and stand in line to perjure themselves for their fifteen minutes of fame. And there are judges who will permit this. It is the dawning of the age of stupidity.
“How is Ms. Goya taking it?” says Acosta. “Her removal?”
“She’s angry. Mostly at herself,” I say. “It was a foolish thing.”
“I did not catch the time frame,” he says, “but I assume that she was not with the D.A.’s office when she made this little sojourn?” He means the trip to Hall’s apartment the night of the murder.
“It was right after she departed the office,” I say.
“So there may be questions as to whether she abused authority,” he says. “Impersonation?”
“Let’s not give Kline any ideas,” I tell him.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “But tell me, why did she go there?”
He has a right to know this, but I tell him it is something we must discuss in private, once Lili has left. We talk about where we stand, the consequences of Lenore’s removal. Acosta does not seem shaken.
“It could have been worse,” he says. “It could have happened after the jury was sworn and she had bonded with them. It would have been a fatal loss at that point.”
He may have wielded a meat cleaver from the bench, but he has a deft perception of the trial process.
“As it is,” he says, “you will have the opportunity to step up and fill, before any real damage is done.”
“That raises the first question,” I say. “Where do we go from here?”
“We go on,” he says.
“Radovich would give you a continuance,” I say, “if you wish to find other counsel.”
“You’re leaving us?” says Lili.
“What is this?” says Acosta. “The rats all leaving the sinking ship? You’re not up to the defense?” he asks me.
“Lenore was lead counsel,” I tell him. “It was her case.”
“And you bought in,” he says. He reminds me of my pitch for hard cash, the stiff fees I quoted in our first meeting.
“We have taken a mortgage on the house,” says Lili.