Steve Martini - Prime Witness

While I have done all within my power to keep Roland out of the Putah Creek cases, I now discover that he has been busy, lobbying, backdooring the sheriff on matters concerning these prosecutions. Overroy has convinced Emil that an encounter between law enforcement and the survivors of the Putah Creek victims would be a politic thing at this time.

“This is a major mistake.” I am talking to Johnson in the confines of his office. We are alone.

“It’ll be a disaster,” I tell him, this proposed meeting with the Putah Creek survivors, a gathering of angry and dazed parents, families who are likely at this stage to blame anyone handy for their grief.

Overroy has demonstrated more cunning in this than I had credited to him. Rather than an overt play for Johnson’s support before the board of supervisors, he has maneuvered himself into a position to advise the sheriff on the political fallout of these killings. His bid for support will no doubt follow.

“They want a meeting,” says Emil. “Whataya want me to do? I can’t say no.”

The “they” in Johnson’s plaintive capitulation is the county’s victim-witness program, a bureaucracy of its own making that has spawned a perpetual money machine for a horde of loosely wrapped psychic healers and self-described counselors. These people take referrals of crime victims and send the bill to the state for payment under the crime compensation act.

“Roland met with Maggie Wilson yesterday,” Emil tells me. “It’s all arranged. The meeting is this afternoon,” he says.

Wilson is the victim-witness coordinator in this county, the crime victim’s answer to Don Corleone in drag. To defense attorneys trying to stave off a long term for their clients, she is known as “Attila the Hen,” a woman who missed her calling on the committee of vigilance. Alas, for Maggie Wilson, justice is blind reprisal.

I roll my eyes. “Tell them I scotched it,” I say. “You can blame it on me. Tell them we will meet with them privately at the appropriate time, when we have specific details to reveal. Right now there is nothing to tell.”

This slows him for only a second as he considers his options.

“Roland thinks it’s a good idea,” he says.

“Roland would,” I tell him. Overroy has no concept of the dictates of a fair trial. It has not dawned on him that a public gathering of the victims will turn out the press like buffalo at a watering hole. He will poison the potential pool of jurors for a thousand miles.

Since the last set of killings, life in Davenport resembles nothing so much as festivities under the big top. One enterprising soul armed with the university’s student mailing list is now marketing a stun gun packing 60,000 volts, packaged as a collapsible umbrella; no doubt his version of “Singing in the Rain.”

Emil is sprawled in his overstuffed swivel chair, his cowboy-booted feet propped in the center of the desk, on top of a pile of police reports and booking sheets that have been sent up the chain for his review.

“Listen to me, Paul.” His voice is edging toward some southern homily. “It’s no big deal. We can hold their hands, pat ’em on the ass, tell ’em we’re workin’ around the clock to find the killer. It’s the truth,” he tells me. “Hell, all these folks want is some assurance, a little public recognition that they’re in pain.”

I’m getting worried. Emil is beginning to talk like victim-witness with heavy jowls and a southern accent, the sensitive redneck.

“The judges won’t like it,” I tell him. “It’ll be a circus. Prejudicial pretrial publicity,” I say. Usually the judges don’t get involved until later, but in a notorious case, they may make an exception. Such a meeting would be a spawning ground for new and additional arguments on appeal. I get a vision of Ingel’s steely eyes, anticipate the phone call that will no doubt come when he hears of this.

He looks at me, an arched eyebrow. This has his attention. The wrath in the black robes. He thinks for a moment, weighs the anger of four superior court judges against the organized lynch mob that can be victim-witness and its followers.

“Well, you work it out with them. You talk to the court and they’ll understand,” he says. “You’ve got their respect,” he tells me.

Now I’m getting my own haunches stroked by Emil, sunshine and southern bullshit.

“Listen, Emil.” I inject a little calm in my tone, my levelest attempt at sound reason. “I’ve dealt with these people, victim-witness before,” I tell him. “And they will not be satisfied. Give them a public forum and they will pillory both of us.”

“You worry too much,” he says. “It’s just a little private get-together. Trust me,” he says. “It’ll be OK.”

From its opening gavel Emil’s meeting with victim-witness has the decorum of a mud-wrestling match.

As I expected, Maggie Wilson sandbagged him, stacking the crowd with community activists and campus organizers, anybody looking for a cause, and an audience-share on the five o’clock news.

Claude and I stay in the back, not far from Roland Overroy, whom I saw lurking in the shadows behind a pillar.

Maggie Wilson has arrogated a seat up close, in the front row, a pulpit for some cheerleading-a good place for roasting a southern hot dog. When Emil invited her to join him on the rostrum she smiled, then politely declined.

Then the press showed up. Wilson encouraged the guys with the boom-mikes to stick them in Emil’s face. Reporters peppered him with questions about Iganovich and his whereabouts. The audience got personal about the investigation, demanding details on the method of death and other particulars at the crime scenes. This cut too close to the bone, questions Emil could not in good conscience answer. The crowd became abusive. After several minutes of this, Emil’s southern pride is in full retreat. He has called a recess, time out to patch wounds in his corner.

“Sonofabitch,” he says as he joins us in the back of the room. Emil is puffing hard. He has loops of perspiration the size of a draft-horse harness under each arm.

“Fuckin’ A,” he says. “They’re kicking my ass.”

I could say I told him so, but in his current mood he would probably deck me.

“Any ideas?” he says.

The crowd is busy getting coffee, taking a leak. For the moment Emil seems relieved that at least they are not doing this on him.

Claude makes a suggestion.

“We could get the families of the victims out of here, into a private room, strip the gathering of its legitimacy,” he says. “Announce that they are now meeting privately with other officials.”

This would leave Emil to deal with the hangers-on, the wannabe grievers and those looking for a social cause. They will get twenty minutes of campaign oratory with periodic admonitions not to backtalk or question Johnny Law.

Emil dispatches Claude and two of his deputies to buttonhole the families for a private gathering away from the press and public, his own form of latter-day segregation. Emil heads back to the rostrum and I turn to grab a drink from the fountain in the hall outside. People are still milling in as I push through the door. It’s when I run into him, a swiping action banging shoulders. We stop in mid stride and he looks at me with deadly dark eyes, something from the Spanish Inquisition.

“Mr. Madriani,” he says, dusky and brooding. My name rolls off his tongue, the affectation of some early California Don. Armando Acosta’s hair is slicked back, his suit an impeccable dark pinstripe, little kerchief in the pocket matching his maroon silk tie. I could retire on the metal in his cuff links, to say nothing of the three-thousand-dollar gold watch on his wrist.

For an instant I am tongue-tied. It is awkward.