Steve Martini - Prime Witness

“ I‘ll can him,” I say. “Fire the sonofabitch on the spot.” I’m talking about Overroy. I am back in the office, after lunch, storming around my desk, unable to sit and talk coherently, so palpable is the undirected energy driving my anger.

In light of the subject matter, the calming voice comes from an unexpected quarter. Lenore Goya is telling me to cool down. To think before I act. She’s in one of the client chairs that I am now dancing behind.

“After all,” she says, “they were only having lunch.”

“If you believe that,” I say, “I’ll leave a tooth under my pillow tonight.”

She smiles, gives me a look.

“So maybe they weren’t just having lunch,” she says. “How do you prove it?”

“It answers one question,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“How all those little details got into the Johnson letter, Chambers’s missive to the grand jury,” I tell her. I’m talking about the tire tracks on the dirt road, near where the Scofields were found. There is only one way Chambers could have known about that. If someone with information, on the inside of our investigation, told him. On the short list of available candidates, people in positions of trust who might kick dirt on our case, leak information to the other side, Roland now has my vote.

“You think he would do that?” she says.

Does Howdy Doody have wooden balls? I think this, but do not say it.

Still, she reminds me that this is not a private law firm where I can fire an associate on mere suspicion, though in Overroy’s case Lenore would clearly like to make an exception.

“In civil service,” she says, “you get a hearing, and the burden is on the employer to produce evidence of cause to terminate. Take a shot and miss, and he will sue you on a dozen different theories of discrimination.”

She is, of course, right.

“So what am I supposed to do, look the other way?”

“Seal him off from the case,” she says, “like a Chinese Wall, so that he cannot do us more harm.”

In a small office, where everybody talks, this would be difficult.

Lenore is of the school that believes all is possible “if you give him enough rope.” She would live with the hope that eventually Roland will do himself in, that the brass coating his balls and between his ears will in time end his career.

I am not so patient.

Before I can say more, Lenore drops some pages on my desk, three pieces stapled at the top.

“I don’t want to add to your woe,” she says, “but it ain’t good.”

I read. It’s a minute order from Judge Fisher, the results of our points and authorities on the Kellett case. This does not come as any great surprise. The court has ruled that unless we charge Iganovich with the Scofield murders before the jury retires to deliberate its verdict, that prevailing law would bar us from any further prosecution of the Russian for these crimes at a later date.

“He doesn’t mince words,” I say.

Lenore shakes her head. “Chambers has put us in a box,” she says, “with no way out.”

She is right. If we have miscalculated. If Chambers has no alibi for his client on the date of the Scofield murders and if evidence later surfaces implicating the Russian in those crimes, I will be the biggest goat this county has ever seen.

Goya’s about to open discussion on this again when the phone rings on my desk. It’s Sharon at reception.

“Judge Ingel, line one for you,” she says.

I punch the button on the phone.

“Your honor.” I grit my teeth.

It’s a feminine voice on the other end. “The judge will be with you in a minute.” Ingel’s clerk. I love the self-important people who do this, call you and leave you hanging on the phone listening to the hyperventilation of some underling.

Lenore is making questioning eyes at me, then reads my lips as I silently form two words: “the Prussian.”

No sooner is this done than I hear his voice on the phone.

“Mr. Madriani,” he says. “Are you busy?” His voice is stiff. No small talk here.

“I have time to talk,” I say.

“I wonder if you might have a few minutes to meet with me, here at the courthouse?”

“Certainly. No problem. When?”

“Now.” He says it like I should have read his mind.

“Something specific?” I ask.

“We’ll talk when you get here,” he says and hangs up. I suspect that most telephone conversations with this man probably end this way, with the other party feeling that perhaps they are in trouble. It is how people like Derek Ingel assert their authority.

“What did he want?”

“Beats me,” I tell her. “Command performance in chambers now.” I grab my coat and head for the door.

“Probably wants you to waive opening argument so he can catch an extra luau.” She’s talking about the judge’s scheduled vacation, the force now driving our entire trial schedule.

When I arrive, Ingel’s courtroom is dark, but the door is unlocked. A single shaft of light from the clerk’s station backstage bathes the bench in an eerie glow. This place appears much larger, somehow more imposing and ominous in this half-light. The double flags hanging on their stanchions, sharp brass spear-tipped points on these poles, and state seal behind the judge’s chair, up high, take on an imperial quality in the shadows, something from the reign of Tiberius, images of Roman legions, something no doubt Ingel would spare no effort to foster.

I introduce myself to his clerk. She remembers me from my last visit and asks me to take a seat while she calls the inner sanctum. I can hear voices behind the closed door, nothing intelligible, just the hum of human discourse. Apparently the judge has been waylaid since his call to me, some business he must first finish. The intercom buzzes inside, voices die, the clerk announces me, and then as if through a hose, “Tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.”

I have often wondered why, with the confidences that are bared in such places, their builders construct them with the acoustical integrity of a paper-walled Nippon summer palace.

“He’ll be with you in a moment,” she says. I nod, smile at the redundancy, and listen as the voices again accelerate to speed, though the volume is now turned down.

I cool my heels looking at my watch. Ten minutes go by. I read a magazine, wishing I’d brought some work with me from the office. When I look at my watch again I have been here twenty-five minutes. I’m into another article when the intercom buzzes on the clerk’s desk.

“Yes sir.” She hangs up.

“Mr. Madriani, you can go in now.”

I straighten my tie and open the door.

Ingel is behind his desk, imperious and stiff, looking as ever himself, like a warmed-over cadaver. I had assumed his earlier audience was concluded, that his company had left by way of the door leading to the main hallway outside. But now I see Don Esterhauss, chairman of the supervisors, seated in one of the client chairs across from the judge. I turn to shut the door.

Nothing can prepare me for the juvenile rush I feel as I swing it closed and see the other faces. Seated on the couch, behind the door, at opposite ends are Adrian Chambers and Roland Overroy, a reprise of their role over lunch, each of them looking at me, studying my response.

I stand there frozen in place, until this becomes awkward. The judge motions me to take a seat, the client chair that is left. When I don’t move, he gets up and makes a charade of introductions, anything to ease the unpleasantness.

“I think you know Don Esterhauss,” he says.

“Yes,” I say, but I don’t look at him.

Don’s not quite sure whether he should get up to shake my hand, so he stays where he is, smiles and nods.