Steve Martini - The Judge

“And what is that?” I ask him.

Stinegold sits looking at the carpet, wincing from the stand.

There, on the small swatch of carpet, are a dozen balled-up pills, fibers from the mauve blanket caught on the sharp bristles of the carpet.

“Mr. Stinegold, in your examination of my client’s vehicle did you find any trace of fibers from that blanket, either in the trunk or the passenger compartment?” It is a question to which I already know the answer, contained in Stinegold’s report.

It is not as if they are surprised by this. They have known from the inception that it is a problem with their case. But the manner in which it is presented makes it look as if Stinegold has been hiding it from the jury. All the ways to make a bad impression.

“Mr. Stinegold. Did you find. .?”

“No.” It is the final thing that he offers to the jury. That and a plaintive look that is worth a thousand words.

They have discovered Oscar Nichols.

“How the hell?” says Acosta. We are in the lockup of the county jail, Harry, Acosta, and I. The judge sits on the other side of the thick glass, speaking through the microphone implanted in the shield between us. We are at this moment sitting shell-shocked, and contemplating the havoc that this one witness could wreak on our case.

“How did they find him?” Acosta is looking weary, the effects of stress with each new witness, every new revelation, the peaks of our case, and the valleys that are certain to come.

“He came forward,” I tell him. “Of his own volition.”

This seems to unnerve Acosta more than the fact itself, that a man he believed to be a friend would do this.

Word of this has come in the form of a motion from prosecutors to call Nichols in their case. Affidavits attached to the motion reveal that Nichols called Kline’s office three days ago and disclosed that he had information, supposed admissions made to him by the defendant.

It appears that regardless of the damage we have dealt to Kline’s evidence-the undermining of hair and fibers, and his avoidance of the metal scrapings-Nichols has been troubled from the inception by a single gnawing notion: that his old friend may be guilty of murder.

It is the timing that is most troubling. Kline has done something now, we are not sure what, to smoke him out.

“It figures,” says Harry. “Nichols sitting alone in chambers each day, wondering if somehow it would come out. The admission?” he says.

“I admitted nothing,” says Acosta.

“You made death threats,” says Harry.

“Bitter words that meant nothing,” says Armando.

“Well, now I guess we’ll get a chance to see what the jury thinks.” Harry has the final word.

For Nichols it must have been a long, anxious wait. A sitting judge sweating bullets, wondering if death threats uttered to him in confidence would somehow find their way into the record. It is the kind of thing that could undo a judicial career, a lot of questions by the Commission on Judicial Qualifications if he was found to be withholding evidence.

“Why would he do it? Why would he tell them?” says Acosta.

“Covering his ass,” says Harry.

“But why now?” says the judge. “Why this particular time, when things were going so well?” He looks to Harry, then me. The thought has crossed our minds.

“Maybe he knows something we don’t,” I say.

Some dark evidence. The thought suddenly settles on Acosta. This is how they would pry Nichols loose, something so damning in its implications that even a friend of long standing could not ignore it.

“What could it be?” he says.

“No doubt we’ll find out,” I tell him.

“Yeah. When they dump it on our heads like a ton of shit,” says Harry.

To Acosta sitting behind the glass, it would appear that the final rat has now left the ship.

This has been a continuing theme for the past two weeks. First, his bailiff, who had been with Acosta for ten years, told him that he was under strict orders to report any telephone contacts with the judge and advised him not to call again.

Then, last week, Acosta called his clerk to ask a favor, something he wanted from his office. She would not take his call and did not return it. Kline has been putting pressure on these people through the judges to cut him off. Isolation as a weapon.

The sense that he is now alone seems to have settled on Acosta like the angel of death, his only remaining partisan besides ourselves being Lili. According to him, they are closer now than at any time in their marriage.

“We got one thing,” says Harry. “Nichols’s name isn’t on their witness list.”

“True,” I tell him. “But it’s likely that Radovich will carve an exception. Kline is arguing that there is no way the cops could have discovered Acosta’s threats unless Nichols came forward.”

“He is undoubtedly right.” Acosta seems to come out of some dark reverie on the other side of the glass. “There is only one explanation for this: Oscar came forward because he thinks I am guilty.”

This has just dawned on him.

“Yeah, well.” Harry is looking at him. Nichols may not be alone in this thought.

“His intuitions we can keep out,” I tell him. “Right now I’m worried about what he’ll say on the stand. And, if possible, how to keep him off of it.”

The test as to whether Nichols can testify is one of good faith. If the police could not have uncovered the damning threats made by Acosta to Nichols, there is no way they could have disclosed the information to us in discovery or put Nichols on their witness list. While we were under no duty to disclose this information ourselves, it is another matter now to deceive Radovich, to tell him that we are surprised by the disclosure. He would probably not believe us in any event.

There is a certain equity in Kline’s argument that Radovich would be certain to pick up on. If Acosta has not been sufficiently truthful with his own lawyers to alert them to this, death threats that he made, a ticking bomb in the middle of their case, who better to suffer the slings and arrows than the defendant himself.

“Kline will play on it, that Nichols’s conscience got the better of him,” says Harry. “This, and the fact that he is a sitting judge, will put the flourish on his credibility,” he says.

We mull over the options, few as they are.

Harry suggests that perhaps we could stipulate. A last-ditch effort. What he means is a settled statement, something sanitized and agreed to between the parties that would summarize Nichols’s testimony without letting him on the stand.

“We could file off the rough edges,” he says. “The jury might not pay much attention.”

“Why would Kline go for it?” says Acosta. He may be in a funk, but he has not lost touch with reality.

“We argue surprise,” says Harry. “That it’s an eleventh-hour witness. Try to get Radovich to pressure him. It is, after all, a possible grounds for appeal.” The defendant’s ultimate trump card. “Something we can try to bargain with.”

We talk about it, Harry and I. While it may not succeed, it is the best among a poor batch of alternatives. While we are talking, arguing the fine points of how to approach this, Acosta seems mired in his own dark thoughts. He sits behind the glass, hands coupled, fingers steepled under his chin. Suddenly, in midsentence, he cuts us off.

“There is another alternative,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“I could talk to him,” he says. “Call Oscar and ask him to visit me.”

“No way,” says Harry.

“He is still a friend,” says Acosta. “No matter what they showed him,” he says, “I believe he would listen to me.”