Steve Martini - The Judge

He insists that if his men conducted a search they had good cause.

“Did they have cause to beat the crap out of Mr. Madriani?”

“I’m told he resisted,” says Hansen.

“And Ms. Goya. Did she resist, too?”

Hansen doesn’t answer this.

“I’ve seen her face,” says Radovich. “She’s wearing a steak on one eye.”

Hansen just stands there and takes it, the professional punching bag.

“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all,” says Radovich.

He has been told privately that the men involved have now been suspended pending an inquiry by Internal Affairs. Radovich has confided at least this much to me. The city attorney’s office, for reasons of liability, has instructed the department not to discuss any pending disciplinary actions. So we play the lawyer’s dance, no apologies from them, no quarter from us.

“Well, Mr. Kline. I am very troubled as to what to do,” says Radovich. “The press is having a field day with this. If word of it gets to the jury, there is a chance of a mistrial.”

“Surely you can instruct them to disregard it,” says Kline.

The jury is not sequestered. While they have been instructed not to read press coverage of the trial or to listen to television or radio reports, everyone knows that such admonitions are regularly ignored.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” says Radovich. “I want your reliable source in my chambers tomorrow morning at eight-thirty. I want to know where this information came from. If there was any attempt on the part of the state to taint this jury by undermining defense counsel.”

“I don’t know that we can do that,” says Hansen. “Produce the witness,” he says.

“Why not?”

“I’m told the information was given in return for a guarantee of absolute confidentiality.”

“Do I have to issue a court order?” says Radovich.

Kline is not even offering moral support to the chief on this. As far as he is concerned, Hansen is on his own.

The chief raises an issue as to the court’s jurisdiction, something he no doubt has been briefed on by the city attorney’s office. The raid on my house is not a matter properly brought before Radovich.

Kline winces when Hansen attempts to take this tack. Radovich goes ballistic. He actually comes up out of his chair and leans on the center of his desk, less than a foot from Hansen’s face. The two men are nose to nose.

“You jerking my chain?” he asks the chief.

“No.”

“Then have your man in here tomorrow morning. We’ll discuss the fine points of my jurisdiction some other time.”

He then turns to Kline. “These are your people. I want your guarantee.”

The prosecutor talks to the chief briefly in one ear, they confer, then Kline guarantees the appearance.

“I also want your word,” says Radovich, “that there will be no further replays of this.”

This it seems does not require a conference.

“Not from us,” says Hansen.

“I don’t want to play word games, either,” says the judge. “That means you don’t go handing this thing off to some other agency to play midnight marauders under another warrant. Do I make myself clear?”

The two men nod in unison like some part of a drill team.

“Good,” says Radovich. “Now let’s get out of here and try this case.”

We are nearly down the hall leading from the judge’s chambers, the jail guard with one hand on my client’s arm, when Acosta leans back into my ear and whispers, “That was not so bad. I think in fact it may work for our benefit with the judge in the end.”

Acosta is not feeling the pain in every part of my body at this moment the way I am.

It has been a fitful night; only four hours of sleep. I put Sarah down just before nine, showered, read some documents in preparation for tomorrow morning’s session in Acosta’s trial, and was in bed by eleven. I set the alarm with low-volume music for three in the morning, but was awake before it went off.

I rise and put on an old pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of running shoes with thick rubber soles. It has been drizzling outside for more than an hour, so I slip a dark nylon Windbreaker with a hood over my head.

On the way down to the stairs I check on Sarah. She is asleep, with most of the blankets kicked to the bottom of her bed. She sleeps with a small doll’s comforter pulled up over the upper part of her body to her shoulders, leaving her little legs covered with goose bumps. I cover her and she stirs just a little before falling back into a deep slumber, little mewing snores.

I head down the stairs, through the hall, into the kitchen, where I can see the remnants of the raid three days ago. There are missing drawers that were smashed on the floor and a cabinet door that was pulled from its hinges. The shelves inside the yawning hole of the cabinet are empty, as the dishes were pulled down onto the tile countertop and broken. Those that survived were swept onto the floor and crushed underfoot. There is a major dent in the enamel of my refrigerator door where I am told one of the cops laid into it with a cast-iron skillet. After photographing the damage, I swept up the mess with help from friends, including Lenore, who was in pain the entire time but refused to leave. She is certain that Kline is behind all of this. She is single-minded in her enmity toward the man. My own suspicions lie elsewhere. Some confirmation of this I have acquired over the past two nights.

Lenore saw the white powder and has asked me several times what I did with it. I have not told her.

I head out the back door into the yard, and around to the side of the house, the narrow passage that dead-ends at a fence separating this from my front lawn. It is dark, but I do not use a flashlight. A bright beam could attract a neighbor, or worse.

The dirt path along the side of the house is open, with only some ivy growing on the fence that separates my yard from the neighbor’s. Overhead are the eaves of my house. If I move flush against the siding, I am sheltered from the spray of fine rain that is coming down.

About halfway along the path I see the small window. One of its panes is now broken, covered instead by a piece of black plastic that I have tacked up from the inside of the bathroom.

I try to visualize the layout of my neighbor’s home. Unlike my own, it is a single-story ranch-style, a gentle pitch to the roof.

On the other side of the fence I can see the eaves of my neighbor’s garage, just a few feet away.

As quietly as I can I boost myself onto the top railing of the fence, then rise slowly on my feet, standing on the railing. I balance like a tightrope walker for an instant before I lean, catching the edge of their roof with my hands. I lean forward, muscling my weight with my arms, and swing one leg up. I shimmy my body until I am lying prone at the edge of the roof. As I do this, one foot drags on the edge of the rain gutter, making a noise like hard rubber dragging across a washboard.

The shake shingles are slick with rain. The lower part of my body is already soaked. My jeans are now sodden, three pounds heavier than when I put them on. I lie silent for several seconds, waiting to see if lights will come on below in my neighbor’s house. The sheet-metal gutters and downspouts are dripping their metallic cadence; this seems to have covered the noise of my foot scraping the edge.

On my stomach I crawl toward the back side of the roof. It is a hip roof that rises from three directions toward a peak in the center. From there the garage roof runs a ridge until it joins the main part of the house itself and then cuts in valleys and angles in two directions, front and back. The valleys are all lined with metal flashing. Tonight they are running like rivers.