Steve Martini - Prime Witness

This morning, early before court, Lenore prepped with Lloyd Tolar, our first meeting with him face-to-face. The guy is harder to get ahold of than the pope, but apparently a little more lascivious.

She tells me he is tall, gray-haired and distinguished, the kind of witness juries fall in love with. They went over his evidence, a cordial conversation of Y incisions to the human body, from crotch to breast bone and, between the liver and spleen, he asked her out to lunch.

“Randy old goat,” she says.

Trying to get ahold of Tolar I should have known. From what she tells me, I could have sent him Lenore’s picture clipped to her business card and saved myself a dozen phone calls.

“He says it won’t be necessary to put on the profile experts when he is finished laying out his evidence, so devastating will be his testimony,” she says.

It is easy to see where the young intern caught his arrogance, the kid in Tolar’s office the day I went looking for him. It is a required course in medical school. But we don’t argue with the good doctor. Lenore says he has enough gall that he speaks with the authority of a god, and possesses a resume to match.

Today I am forced to confront our missing evidence, the length of cord lost by our photo people.

I look over. The counsel table for the defense is crowded. Chambers and Iganovich form a sandwich with the interpreter squeezed between them. On the other side of the Russian is Bob Haselid, a last-minute addition to the defense team.

Haselid is a young lawyer, a growing reputation as a comer in the bar. He will serve as Keenan Counsel, responsible for the penalty phase of the defense, to save the Russian’s life if we convict and the jury finds special circumstances.

Before we begin I have asked for a few minutes with Ingel and Adrian in private. The bailiff wags a finger at me, then buttonholes Chambers. He leads us both back behind the bench to huddle with the judge.

When we arrive Ingel is busy picking fuzz off his robes, the sticky side of some Scotch tape threaded between his fingers. The life of the busy judge.

He looks at me. “What is it,” he says, “some last-minute ground rules?”

“A problem,” I tell him.

He lays the black garment aside, on the edge of his desk.

“Some of our evidence has been misplaced,” I say.

I get a look, as if meanness is not far below the surface this morning.

“I’m told it’s only temporary, that they will find it.” My effort to take a little of the edge off these tidings.

“What evidence?” Ingel’s gaze is icy.

“A piece of the cord, from the first two murders, the outer plastic sheathing,” I say. In the next breath, before he can say more, I tell him that we have detailed photos, offer this bait to see if maybe he will bite.

“Photographs of evidence are not evidence,” he says, “not in my court.” Unfortunately for me, Ingel, unlike the Coconut, has employed his copy of the Evidence Code for something more than a dense coaster for his coffee cup.

I get a quick tongue-lashing from him, admonitions that he warned me during discussions on settlement not to be looking for judicial dispensations. He questions me, in not too subtle ways, as to which of the charges are affected. He is no doubt probing to determine the effect of this mishap on the murder of Sharon Collins. Ingel does not want to tell Armando Acosta that he was forced by circumstance to dump charges in the murder of the Coconut’s niece. When he sees Chambers beginning to take note of this line of questioning, Ingel drops it quickly.

“How did it happen?” he says.

“The commercial photo lab,” I say. “They came in with their equipment to do some pictures. Apparently they misplaced the evidence in processing the film.”

“Threw it out?” says Ingel.

“They tell me no,” I say, “that that is unlikely, your honor.”

“The buck,” he says, “for every fuck-up in your case stops with you, counselor.” He makes it sound like I’m giving excuses.

“They’re confident they’ll find it,” I say.

“Good for them,” says Ingel. “In the meantime what are we supposed to do?”

Chambers smells advantage here, some unexpected boon. In a death case, chivalry is a stranger to the courtroom and defense attorneys, the good ones, give no quarter. He edges in close to the Prussian’s desk.

“We’ll oppose any motion for continuance,” he says. “The defense is ready to proceed.” He reminds the judge that the defendant has not waived time.

There is more than a week left before the sixty-day period will run requiring a dismissal for failure to prosecute. But Ingel makes clear that he is not entertaining any motions to continue.

“We’ve picked our jury,” he says. “I’m not about to let them sit around and chew on the facts of this case while the prosecutor looks for missing evidence.”

The less charitable might accuse the Prussian of hearing Hawaiian strings, but in point of fact he is right. There is nothing more dangerous than a restless jury once empaneled. Left to their own devices there is no end of mischief they might get into, speculation about the case they are about to hear, suppositions on the evidence.

Most of the jurors have read news accounts of these murders, seen the white-sheeted bodies, the cleaned-up aftermath of these crimes on their television screens.

“We are ready to go,” says Ingel, “and go we will, on this trial this morning.”

“I’m not asking for a continuance,” I say, “just some latitude.”

Ingel looks at me like he doesn’t know the word.

My tactic in coming here is not deep. The continuum of cord is the common thread of evidence running through my case. It was presented to the grand jury and is highlighted in that transcript, which by now Chambers has read and dissected. That a piece of this is now missing is not something likely to elude Adrian.

When he sees it he will make an immediate motion to dismiss the first two counts of murder, Julie Park and Jonathan Snider. Knowing the Prussian and his attitude toward me, I don’t want him to make a snap judgment from the bench on this. So I raise it here in private, off the record, a rehearsal to help temper his judgment. I ask Ingel for some leeway, to hold off on any motion to dismiss until we have time to find the cord, to give me a little license in presenting my case until then.

He is noncommittal.

He reminds me of my opportunity to settle the case, the proffered plea bargain on six counts of murder. If he could, Ingel would order me to don sackcloth while he shovels ash on my head. For a moment, I think maybe he would like to reopen negotiations, but suspects that Adrian, now sensing blood on the water, is not so keen. Instead he says nothing.

“How critical is this evidence?” he says. He wants a damage assessment on my case, here in front of Adrian, how the missing piece of cord fits in.

I give him the facts, but stop short of summing them up, that two counts of murder are now hanging perilously on a slender thread.

The sense of relief in his face when he discovers that the count on Sharon Collins is still intact is nearly palpable. He will not have to carry bad news to Acosta, at least not yet.

Adrian sees his opening. “I move for dismissal,” he says, “on Park and Snider, the first two counts, your honor.”

Ingel holds him off, palm outstretched.

“Is this the only evidence linking the defendant to these crimes?” he asks. “The missing piece of cord?”

I tell him it is not. “The fact that we can link evidence in the defendant’s van to the murders of the second two college students, this together with the fact that all four killings involved a similar MO,” I say, “provides a nexus to the defendant.”