Steve Martini - Double Tap

“What are you doing here?”

He’s drinking a Diet Coke from a can and laughing at me. “You got more press here than the White House,” he says. “I figure I’m resigning from the state senate next week, so I may as well be where the action is. I got nothing to do up in Capital City.”

This is Nathan, the ultimate groupie. By next week he’ll be trading secrets in Washington, the inside dirt on the trial, what it really means for IFS.

“I thought I’d come and see how you do. Besides, I haven’t been in a courtroom in years. Thank God,” he says, and takes another swig from the can of Coke.

Several reporters, notepads in hand, cruise in my direction through the crowd.

“We’ll have to continue this later,” I tell him.

Inside, the courtroom is already filling up. By the time we convene, every seat will be taken. There is a line downstairs in front of the main door to the courthouse. I would estimate more than two hundred people are waiting to get in, hoping someone will leave and offer up their seat. Two bailiffs, one upstairs and one down, communicate by walkie-talkie, allowing one person into the courthouse at a time as seats are surrendered. It is a test for concrete kidneys and iron bowels. Get up to go to the john and you lose your seat.

The crowd is here to listen to Larry Templeton deliver his opening statement in the trial of People v. Ruiz .

For nearly two weeks now the cable news stations have been playing this up, leading hourly with speculation and hype as to the way the prosecutor will build his case. So many lawyers have now offered their televised guesses as to precisely how Templeton will play it and what kind of magic will be necessary for the defense to counter the state’s evidence that it hardly seems necessary to try the case before the jury. Vicarious courtroom thrills have replaced the soap opera on daytime television. Without scripts or actors, production costs are cheap, since every lawyer in America for an hour of face time in the form of free advertising will offer their guesses and commentary for nothing, which is generally what they are worth.

I have heard my last name mispronounced at least five times on three different stations in the last two days. As I head down the aisle toward the swinging gate in the railing, I hear it whispered in a few places floating on the ether in the courtroom, and notice fingers pointing and a few heads turning. The Middle Ages may have been dark, but if having your every word explored and your image and each gesture exploited on the nightly news is the ultimate reward for life in the age of celebrity, society might do well if we were to regress to more primitive forms of communication. One wonders if the media cynics aren’t right, whether the term free society has become nothing but an excuse for profiteers to transform life into a dissolute electronic flshbowl.

Halfway toward the front of the courtroom I see a head of gray hair as she turns. I am surprised to see Jean Kaprosky seated on the aisle about six rows back. I tap her on the shoulder from behind. She looks up and sees me. “Oh, hi,” Jean says. She grabs my hand and smiles. “I was hoping I might have a chance to talk to you. At least say hello.”

“Where is Jim?” I ask.

“He’s not feeling well. He’s been in and out of the hospital the last several weeks,” she explains.

“I didn’t know.”

“He doesn’t want anybody to know. His health has been slipping lately.” The tone of her voice has a certain finality to it. “He has a hard time getting out and about. I take him to the doctor and that’s pretty much it. My sister is staying with us for a while, so she’s at home with him right now. He wanted me to come and see what was happening here and report back. I told him that I was sure that your case had nothing to do with what happened to us,” she says. “But in Jim’s mind, it’s all connected. You understand.” She gives me an expression as if to say the mind is slipping along with the body. “I don’t know what to say to him anymore, so here I am.”

“Tell him. . well, tell him for me that I hope he’s feeling better soon.”

“I’ll tell him, but I know what he’d like more than that: he’d love to see you, talk to you one more time. Here. Let me give you our address.” Before I can shake loose, she takes a scrap of paper and a pen from her purse and starts to scribble as she talks.

I have known for months that I could not use James Kaprosky as my computer software expert at trial. He was both conflicted in terms of his interests in the case and too ill. If we come to that-if Harry and I are able to get to the evidence surrounding Satz and Chapman, what was going on with the Primis software and whether it could have been a motive for murder-I have already retained another expert.

“Jim told me that he enjoyed the meeting at your office so much,” she says. “He’s mentioned it several times. He said that you and Mr. Hinds were the first two people in years to take him seriously, to listen to the details of what happened. I hope you can read this.” She is scribbling her address, her hands a little palsied. “Jim has lived with all of the misery regarding the litigation for so long it seems the only thing he can still relate to. He still gets phone calls from one of his lawyers every once in a while, but they all sort of drifted away. I think they felt so bad because of the result. And I suppose because we had such hope. The meeting in your office, while it dredged up a lot of bad stuff, was in its own way therapy for him. I suppose you could call it closure,” she adds.

“I wish there was something more I could do. It’s an awful situation. The loss of your business, his health.”

“No. No. Don’t feel bad. Come and see him.” She presses the note with their home address into my hand. “I’ll tell him that we talked, that I saw you.”

I wish her well. “Say hello to him for me.” Then I head toward the counsel table.

Harry is already there waiting for me. At the table next to him is a young intern we have hired to operate the laptop, the computer that will be connected to the overhead visualizer aimed at a large projection screen for presentation of evidence to the jury as the case progresses. Jamie Carson is a UC law graduate waiting for his bar results, and is a possible addition to the firm. Harry has been working with him for months to gin up the computer, scanning in copies of police reports, crime-scene photographs, all of the documentary details that are likely to come in by way of evidence.

As I swing through the gate, past the railing, I notice that Harry’s earlier fears have been realized. Two custom-made boxes, the one at this end with a step leading up to it, are spanned by wooden planks, each twelve feet long and two inches thick, arranged on top of them. In the center there is a third box to keep the spans from bouncing like a diving board. This entire affair has been set out in front of the jury box in preparation for Templeton’s opening statement.

The prosecutors are not yet here. My guess is they are huddled backstage somewhere, probably in a room near the holding cells, putting the final touches on their opening and coordinating the visuals that have already been approved by the court for presentation at this point. Most of these are neutral, arrived at by stipulation: photographs of the outside of Chapman’s house on the beach and of the rocky outcrop overlooking the ocean behind it, and a large aerial of the house taken from a police helicopter. There is a close-up of the murder weapon, a.45-caliber automatic, just as the cops found it in the flower bed near the seawall at the back of the yard, and another shot of the screen that was pried off the window and left propped against the side of the house where the killer gained entry. None of these present much controversy. All of them would no doubt be admitted into evidence even if we were to object. To save time and avoid the appearance of foolish disputes in front of the jury, we have stipulated to their use.