Steve Martini - The Jury

“Will Dr. Crone be returning to the university?”

“I’m assuming that he will, if he wishes to do so.”

“Will they take him back?”

“I see no reason why they wouldn’t.” I opt for diplomacy rather than candor.

One of the reporters from a local station has me repeat a couple of the sound bites so that her camera, which was not functioning at the time, can pick this up, recorded for posterity.

Harry and I finally work our way clear.

“A fair day’s work,” he says. “How did you know about the agent in the jail?”

“I didn’t. But I sensed that Tate had something or he wouldn’t have given in that easily.”

“What about the civil claim?”

“I think we should take it slow and easy. Give Crone time to put things back together. Who knows, maybe the university will take him back. If so, any economic claim would be limited. Besides, I don’t think he would have much of a case. They did find physical evidence in his house. There was evidence that he and Jordan had argued. There was certainly probable cause to arrest.”

“His attorneys’ fees alone are approaching seven figures,” says Harry. “You heard Coats in chambers.”

“An angry judge. Ask him to evaluate the case tomorrow, you’ll get a different answer. Besides, somehow I can’t see Crone suing. I think he’s had his fill of courtrooms for a while.”

Harry looks tired. “You want to grab a drink?” he says.

“I’d love to, but I have to pick up Sarah. I’ll give you a call at home tonight.”

He turns, heads toward his car, swinging his briefcase as he walks. From behind, looking at him in the fading light of day, Harry is the vision of a kindergarten kid on his way home from school.

I pick up Sarah at school, and we have dinner at the mall. She has plans to go to a friend’s house for an overnight birthday party, so we do some shopping for a present and head home. She gathers up her things, showers and changes while I hone my skills as a gift wrapper.

By seven-thirty I drop her off at her friend’s house and head for the office. I have learned to use downtime, when Sarah is away with others, to get work done so that I can maximize my time with her. My daughter is growing up in front of my eyes. There is not much time left. One day I will look and she will not be there, off at college or married.

I decide to straighten up the office, get a little work done so that I will be free to do something with her on Saturday.

The bright lights on Orange Avenue emit an ethereal glow in the evening mist that drifts in off the Pacific. Heavy traffic is backed up, Friday night, a constant stream of cars pulling into the parking lot across the street at the Del Coronado. Its wedding-cake roof, gingerbread and twinkling lights studded by palm trees, their palmettos swaying on ocean currents, exude an aura of fantasy; spiderweb to the flies of tourists.

On the other side of the street, the quiet side, the blue neon sign for Miguel’s Cocina flickers and buzzes as I walk under the adobe archway and through the garden leading to the office.

Harry and I are miles from lawyers’ row here. Instead we have taken a small cabaña in the courtyard amidst a number of other businesses. We peddle no image. If clients want to pay for such luxuries, they can do it across the bridge in the large high-rise firms of the city.

Outside our office, the overhead light on the little cabaña porch is on. There are the strains of music from the bar at Miguel’s, and the flicker of candlelight coming through the windows of the Brigantine as patrons settle in for dinner.

I climb the two steps to the wooden porch and work my key in the lock. I feel for the light switch in the dark and flip it. The overhead fluorescents flicker on, bathing the outer reception area in bright light.

The kid with the dolly has done his job. Six transfer boxes of documents are stacked against the wall, delivered from the courthouse. The lid is off of the one on top. It is lying on the receptionist’s desk along with a bunch of papers strewn out next to it. Harry must have come back to the office after all, gotten tired and left. I’m wondering if he’s at Miguel’s or the bar at the Brigantine. If so, he’ll be back.

We have had to rent a large storage shed a few miles away to archive documents, and we are already running out of space. Monday the secretaries will go through these boxes with Harry, thin out the essentials, trash the rest and have the kid with his truck pack them away in storage. One of the secretaries will code the boxes with numbers and enter a description of the contents into a computer file so that if we have to go looking, we can find what we need. We will save these for at least six years. The friendliest client on the planet can sue you for malpractice. Lawyers on appeal in criminal cases will tell you that you have an obligation to admit to being incompetent counsel if that will help your client get out of the joint. I have never succumbed to this philosophy, though I will turn my records over to them without hesitation if they wish to look.

I leave the boxes and head for the disaster that is my office. I open the door, swinging it wide, turn on the light, stand and stare. For weeks I have been stacking up correspondence, putting things off until after Crone’s trial. The surface of my desk looks like the floor of a pulp mill. There is paper everywhere.

It’s always the problem, where to start? I hang my coat up, roll up my sleeves and start with the in basket. I grab a stack of papers, incoming letters. The secretary has opened each of these envelopes, the contents taken out and unfolded then stapled together in the upper left-hand corner along with the envelope in case a postmark date is critical. The basket is overloaded and separate stacks of unanswered letters lie in piles next to the wooden tray.

I work with the correspondence in one hand, a small portable dictating device in the other. The device is missing its mini-cassette. I check the drawer of my desk. I’m out.

I head out to the reception area and start rummaging through drawers for an empty cassette. That’s when I hear it. The sound of a metal filing drawer sliding closed, then clicking shut. It comes from Harry’s office down the hall. He’s slipped in, and I didn’t see him.

I head toward the office, open the door; Harry is silhouetted, for some reason standing in the dark behind his desk.

“Why don’t you turn the light on?”

He doesn’t answer. I stand there smiling, Harry in the dark, some kind of a weird fucking thing on his head. The thought that enters my mind-latest Harry toy, shooting a bright beam of light onto his desk. His head comes up, and the beam catches me square in the eyes. I shield them with one hand. Then I realize it isn’t Harry. The figure is too big, boxy shoulders, the rest of him lost in shadows. All I can see is an outline cast against the light coming in through the window from Miguel’s behind him.

For a fleeting instant we are frozen, time and space, standing there looking, adrenaline beginning to kick in, fight or flight, chemistry acting.

He makes his decision, heads for the open window behind him, knee on the credenza. In an instant half of his body is through the open window, agile and quick for a man so large.

“Who the hell. .?” Careless bravado, I’m around the desk. I step on something large and soft. I trip, lash out with one hand at the intruder’s upper body before he can clear the window. I catch him by one hand just above the wrist. The stupid things we do. I lose my grip, but my fingers latch onto something in his gloved hand, a file, papers. Bare skin against cloth, I win, the file comes free.

Before I realize what is happening, I feel the shock. With the other fist clenched he hits me dead center in the chest. The impact is like a freight train moving through. I sail back against the desk, hitting it with my butt, landing flat on my back on the top. The pressure in my sternum makes me think he’s broken something. The last thing I see is the bright light on his head as it focuses on me, eyes blinded, blackness beneath the light. Then he is gone.