Steve Martini - The Jury

Tash is carrying a thin leather briefcase under one arm. Whatever its contents, it took the guard less than three seconds to check and clear it on entering the jail.

This morning they don’t take us into the small consultation chamber with its inch-thick acrylic partition, but into a larger meeting room with a stainless-steel table bolted to the floor and plastic garden chairs. The smaller room isn’t large enough for the three of us.

Crone is not there, but I can see him through the windows down below in the dayroom, talking to some inmate, the guard waiting for them. The other man, some behemoth, has just come off the weight machine, covered with sweat and looking like some Nordic bad dream, cheekbones from a horror flick, a blond ponytail, with tattoos on both arms from the pits to the wrists. It could be worse; at least he is laughing with my client. I begin to wonder if Crone has been carrying out fiendish experiments here-Dr. Vikingstein, I presume.

He breaks it up, and followed by the guard, Crone climbs the stairs. A couple of seconds later they unlock the door for him to enter from the jail side.

As soon as he sees us all there, Crone is filled with bonhomie.

“Aaron, I see you’ve met Mr. Madriani, and Harry Hinds. Harry’s an interesting man. Personally, I think he has a way with words.”

“Oh, really. In what way?” asks Tash.

“I think Harry should be writing lyrics for music.”

This gets a snarl from my partner.

“Oh, you’ve written songs?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Tash looks sorry that he asked.

Crone is looking back into the mirror at the other end of the room. I can see him laughing in the glass.

“You have to watch what you say in here, Aaron. I am told they can read lips.” He nods toward the mirror. “How’s everything at the center?”

“People are pulling for you,” says Tash. “They know you didn’t do it.”

“Gee. Maybe they should all talk to Harry.”

Crone is misjudging Harry badly. The man has a boiling point in the vicinity of liquid oxygen and can be just as explosive.

“I’m glad for the support. It means a lot to me. Please tell them that.” Perhaps Crone has a place to return to after all.

“I will.”

“But you didn’t come all this way to tell me that?”

“No. You need to see these numbers,” says Tash. He gestures with a finger, tapping the briefcase under his arm.

Crone holds out a hand.

Tash pulls a letter-sized folder from the briefcase, and from this he draws a single sheet of paper. It appears to be the entire contents of the briefcase. He hands the page to Crone, and the two men study it, Tash looking over his shoulder. Little musings under their breath, nothing said outright as they pore over the page.

Why Crone was doing this, volunteering his time on a project from which he has been suspended without pay, no one could say. But I suspect it is a labor of love, and the fact that he is the ultimate optimist. In his mind at least, he is going back.

Crone traces the page with one finger, his eyes following. He is two-thirds of the way down when he backtracks to the middle. “Here’s the problem.” He looks at Tash. “You see it?”

Tash shakes his head, and Crone smiles, still master of the universe.

“Give me your pencil,” says Crone.

Tash reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and comes out with a mechanical pencil.

Crone takes it and presses the button on the end twice with his thumb to get some fresh lead. He places the sheet of paper against the wall and starts to write. From this distance it looks like he is scrawling numbers, computing in his head faster than his hand can commit the figures to paper. He scratches over some of the printed numbers, formulas from what I can make out, then writes in the margin, making large scrawled arrows pointing back to the printed text.

“You see it?” Crone shoots a glance at Tash, who has a perplexed expression as he follows the pencil scratching on paper.

Tash’s eyes suddenly light up like some kid’s who’s just been given an electric train set for Christmas. “Oh. Of course.” He slaps his forehead with one hand. “Then that means that down here we were off.” He borrows the pencil back and makes his own contribution in the margin.

“You got it,” says Crone.

“That’s held us up for almost a week,” says Tash.

“Why didn’t you come to me earlier?”

“Ask him.” Tash gestures toward me.

“Mr. Madriani, I thought I made it clear. You cannot interfere with my work.”

“No, what you made clear is that you won’t cooperate in your own defense,” says Harry. “In my book, that’s grounds for counsel to pitch the court for an order to withdraw from the case.”

“Go ahead,” says Crone. “I won’t object.”

“Harry, please.” I give him a forced smile, a signal to back off.

“I must have access to Dr. Tash,” says Crone. “I want you to instruct the jail personnel that he is entitled to meet with me whenever.”

“Only your lawyers meet with you whenever,” I tell him. “Dr. Tash is a visitor. No matter what I say, he would be limited to visitors’ hours. I should also remind you that he’s on the state’s witness list as well as our own. That creates a problem. I cannot allow you to talk out of my presence.”

“Besides,” says Harry, “if you do, the conversations can be monitored.”

“Let them listen,” says Crone. “They wouldn’t understand a thing. I would challenge them to make heads or tails of these numbers.” He holds up the piece of paper.

“Then you wouldn’t object if they copied it?” I ask.

“I certainly would.”

“That’s what they may do if he comes here alone.” The fact is they could do so now. Because Tash arrived with us, Crone’s lawyers, the guards in the jail have simply assumed that he is part of the defense team. We did not vouch for him. We merely told them he was with us.

“The guards may not be able to interpret those numbers, but an expert, another geneticist might,” I tell him. “He or she might also be able to tell prosecutors whether what you’re working on has any relevance to the state’s case.”

This produces sobering expressions from Crone and Tash.

“Even with us here,” says Harry, “the D.A. could always put Dr. Tash there on the stand and ask him what the two of you talked about.”

“Is that true?” Crone looks at me.

I nod.

“I could tell them anything I wanted,” says Tash. “How would they know?”

“Then you’d be committing perjury,” says Harry.

He looks as if this wouldn’t bother him much.

“Well, we’ll just have to take that chance,” says Crone. “I must have access to Dr. Tash. You have to understand, we’re at a critical stage. Everything we’ve done for the last five years is coming to a head. You see what’s happened? The delays.”

“Then counsel’s going to have to be present whenever these meetings occur, and we’re going to have to keep them to a minimum. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

Crone looks at me, considers for a moment, then nods. “Very well.”

“No telephone conversations. No meetings,” I tell him. “Unless they are approved by me in advance and either Mr. Hinds or myself is present.”

Crone nods. “Right.”

Tash doesn’t. He just looks at me, steely-eyed down his long, imperious nose, all the while showering me with his benevolent smile. He turns back to scratch a few more numbers on the sheet of paper with Crone looking on. As he writes I realize that Tash is himself part of the fifteen percent that Crone was talking about. He is writing with his left hand.

Jimmy de Angelo is forty-seven, a former street cop turned detective. He has the dour expression and heavy-hooded eyes of a man whose business is death. De Angelo has spent a decade and a half working homicide, and he finds refuge in physical conditioning; the man’s body does not look as if it should belong to the furrowed face with sad eyes that rests upon its shoulders.