The jury seems relieved by this news. They are admonished by the judge, instructions not to talk about the case, and excused for the day. Radovich has other business this afternoon.
We wander away, Harry and I, back to the table.
“That was not too bad,” says Acosta.
“We dodged a bullet,” I tell him.
Harry is looking at him as if perhaps the child knew what she was saying, that Acosta’s voice is what she heard that night. Harry has never fully boarded this train that is the defense.
Someone, one of the clerks, has given Kimberly some jelly beans. It seems they are trying to coax Binky away, to put him back on the evidence cart. The child wants to take the animal home.
When I look over my shoulder I notice that Kline has completed his business outside of court. He is huddled near the back of the room, conferring with Hovander, a briefing on the morning’s developments, trying to determine how much damage they have done to us.
As I study them, Hovander is watching the antics at the witness stand, laughing. Two clerks and a bailiff are trying to reason with Kimberly. They are locked in a contest over the bear, which must go back on the evidence cart. More jelly beans are in the offing. The child stuffs two of these into the bear’s mouth.
The only one not laughing by this point is Kline. As they say, “perhaps you had to be there.” Like the only sober man in a party of drunks, he stands stone-faced, mesmerized, and listening to the laughter as tiny fingers and candy disappear into the furry confines of the little animal.
CHAPTER 27
“We’ve got a minute. Have you given any thought to what we talked about the other day? Kline’s comment?”
Lenore and I are in my office with the door closed. Harry is outside at reception, on the telephone, about to join us for a meeting.
“I’ve racked my brain,” says Lenore. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. The man’s paranoid.”
The subject here is Kline’s private conversation at the fund-raiser, his ruminations that Lenore knows something she is not saying.
“You want my best guess?” she says.
“Shoot.”
“He’s trying to sow seeds of dissension,” she tells me.
“Why?”
She laughs. “With Kline, injecting strife into somebody else’s life is a major career goal. He’s certifiable.”
I don’t buy this. Kline’s words were not idle banter. There is something major that Kline doesn’t know about his own case. The trick is to discover it before he does.
Lenore has been studying me in silence for several seconds as I consider this.
“You think I’m holding something back?” she says.
“No. No. It’s possible that it could be something we already know, but haven’t put together.”
“Tell Kline to give you a clue,” she says. “You can play lawyer’s dozen with him.”
“Right.”
“You know everything that I know. He never gave a hint as to what it was?”
“No.” I scratch the budding beard on my chin. We are out of court today and I have given my face the day off.
“But I think it narrows to two possibilities,” I say. “Your conversation with Hall that day in the office. He seems to have deep-seated concerns that she told you something she didn’t tell him.”
“First sign of paranoia,” she says.
“Maybe. Could be why he fired you.”
This seems to spark her interest.
“Why would she confide some dark secret in me?”
I give her an expression that is a question mark. “Maybe he figures two women talking. . She might have more confidence in you.”
“If she did, it had nothing to do with gender,” she tells me.
“Still he’s preoccupied with the thought,” I say.
“I’m sure you could fill a casebook with his obsessions,” she says. “What’s the other?” she asks.
“Hmm?”
“You said there were two possibilities?”
“Oh that. Just a guess,” I tell her.
“What is it?”
“The fact that they found your print on Hall’s front door. It’s possible that he thinks if you went inside. .”
I leave the thought to linger.
“He thinks I found something?”
“A possibility.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
This sets her mind to churning. “You didn’t tell him about the Post-it with Tony’s name?” she says.
“Do I look like a fool?” I ask.
“You think he knows something about it?”
“Not unless you told him,” I say. “There are only five people who know about that note. One of them is dead, there’s Tony and Acosta, and the other two are sitting here in this room.” I am too defensive by half, and it provokes her curiosity.
“What are you going to do about the note? You haven’t told me,” she says.
“For good reason,” I tell her. “Suffice it to say, you will not be called to testify.”
“Then you’re dropping it?” she says. Lenore has another agenda. Tony. Blood is thicker than water.
“It’s not something we should talk about,” I tell her.
“But you’re not going to put me on the stand and ask about the note on the calendar?”
“No.”
There’s a palpable sigh at this point. “I’ll tell you,” she says, “I’ve had a few sleepless nights.” There is some tenderness in this as she talks.
Lenore’s loyalties with Arguillo are deep-seated, more than mere kinship. It is the kind of hook that is set in childhood, growing up on the mean streets. In an intimate moment a few months ago, her guard down, she put this in perspective. She told me of an incident when she was twelve, a group of kids, some of them older, three of them nearly adults, had wanted to get physical in ways that she did not. What evolved is that Tony and a buddy saved her from a gang rape, and took a beating for their troubles. She has never forgotten it.
“I know you have a duty,” she says. “But the note was a dead end, a meaningless scrap of paper.” There is obvious relief that I am not going to use this.
She smiles, then says, “Can I tell Tony?”
“Tell him what?”
“That he’s off the hook.”
Lenore has taken my assurances a step too far.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you said you’re not going to call me.”
“True. I am not.”
She gives me a mystified look, and then it settles on her. “You’re not going to call Tony?”
“I can’t say anything more.”
There are elements of the case, now that she is out, that I cannot share.
“You’re making a mistake,” she says. “You won’t get a thing out of him.”
“Why? Because he won’t tell me?”
“Because there’s nothing to tell,” she says. “They had a date, and it was canceled. The only reason he had me remove the note was because of. .”
“I know. Embarrassment,” I finish before her.
“Exactly,” she says. “If you put him on the stand he’ll have no choice but to deny everything.”
I give her arched eyebrows. “Even the fact that they’d set a date, he and Hall for that evening?”
Her expression confirms that Tony would lie, even about this.
“Then he’d be committing perjury.”
“It’s irrelevant,” she says. “The date was canceled.”
“Only if the jury believes him.”
Clearly Lenore does. “But you have no evidence,” she says. “Without my testimony you can’t confirm that the note existed. Even if I testified, if I were able to produce the note, it would be hearsay.”
“It’s a possibility,” I tell her. “Let’s just say that I have a different scenario. Something I can’t discuss.” I don’t want to get into this.
“You know something else?” she says. This seems to take her back several steps. “What is it?”
I can hear Harry’s voice in the outer office. You can usually hear Harry without a phone, though at the moment he is shouting.
“What the hell’s going on out there?” I say.
She’s closer to the door than I am but ignores me.
“Are you going to tell me or not?” she says.