Steve Martini - Prime Witness

“They had reason to believe,” he says, “that this was the case. Testimony from their own officers will reveal that this theory in fact was pursued, but to no effect. The police,” he says, “on that stand”-he points to the witness box-“will tell you this.”

I look at Lenore, like how could he know this.

She leans in my ear. “Roland,” she whispers.

She is right, the tripping little fingers of Roland Overroy are all over this, revelations no doubt intended as a show of good faith to Adrian in their negotiations.

“But the police failed,” says Chambers, “to find this critical witness. Perhaps they should have looked a little harder. For it is failure which we have rectified.”

Lenore is leaning toward me to add something, when she hears this, breaks off and looks instead at Adrian, his hands gripping the jury railing.

“We will present a witness,” he says, “who will testify that he is responsible for breaking the window of this van, a man who has cut no deals with the prosecution for his testimony, who is willing to face the penalty for his crime.”

Like this is an assurance of credibility, a single misdemeanor count for vandalism.

“Our witness,” he says, “will testify under oath that when this window was smashed, he intended to burglarize the vehicle, that he opened the doors and went inside. He will testify unequivocally that after entering the van he was disappointed. He will tell you that he found nothing of value to take, no radio or tape deck, no tools, nothing of significance.”

Adrian turns from the jury and looks directly at me. In the instant before he speaks I get a premonition of what is to follow. Then he drops the hammer.

“He will also tell you,” he says, “here under oath, that on the day he smashed the window there was no coiled cord, no tent stakes and no bloody rag in the defendant’s vehicle.”

With this all I get is Adrian’s simpering smile.

Lenore and I are the picture of cool sitting at the table, seeming indifference dripping from us, like perhaps the only thing on our minds is an early lunch.

Inside I am a hot caldron, steaming to get my hands on Chambers’s witness list, buried in the pile of papers in front of me.

Adrian takes his seat. Ingel checks his watch.

“Too late,” he says, “to call a witness. We’ll take the luncheon recess now. Mr. Madriani,” he looks down at me. “You will be ready for your first witness when we convene,” he looks at his watch. “At one-fifteen.”

“Yes, your honor.”

He admonishes the jury not to discuss the case, then smacks the gavel on its wooden base.

This noon Lenore and I order out for lunch from the office, sandwiches in brown bags from the greasy spoon a block away. While one of the secretaries is running for these we are talking strategy, and poring over the list of Adrian’s witnesses. Something which by law we are forced to exchange.

The artifice of his case at this point is beginning to emerge. The defense in a capital murder trial is always a variation on some age-old theme; in this case that somebody else did it.

Adrian will put his own flourish on this old saw. Using the unsolved Scofield murders as a diversion, he starts with our own hypothesis that someone else did the Scofield crimes. That we agree on this premise gives his case a gloss of legitimacy.

From his witness list, the experts assembled, we can surmise the main point of attack, an all-out assault on the factual distinctions that set the Scofield killings apart from the other murders. If someone else did the Scofields, and if the differences in the MO between these crimes and the others appears illusory, Adrian is halfway home.

The flanking move is his secret vandal. A planned coup de grace aimed at the head of our case. If credible, this witness can destroy the only link binding Iganovich to the incriminating evidence in the van.

Lenore and I study his list like some seer perusing tea leaves. There’s a lot of misdirection here. Both sides have seeded these with deliberate distractions, an ocean of red herrings, people with whom they have rubbed shoulders during their investigation, but who have nothing meaningful to offer in the case. In this way it is easy to conceal the handful of actual witnesses, to put the other side to a great deal of work before trial.

For my part, Adrian now has the name of Julie Park’s former hair-dresser, and the guy who read the gas meter at her apartment building, this along with two dozen others whose only knowledge of the facts in these cases is what they’ve read in the papers or seen on the tube.

But one reaps what he sows. For the most part, studying Adrian’s list is a barren exercise. It is a column of names and addresses, the bare minimum required by law. We are also entitled to any written reports of testimony prepared by witnesses. Adrian has kept all of this verbal.

In the frame for this trial we have had little time to check his witnesses, to send Claude and his minions to talk to many of these names, to winnow away the chaff. We are stabbing in the dark as to which of these people is Adrian’s magic pellet, his mystery vandal. I’m scoping down the column of names with the point of my pen, an idle exercise until I hit one that sounds familiar.

“James Sloan.” I look at Goya. “Any bells?”

She shakes her head.

I go down the balance of the sheet. Nothing.

I come back to “Sloan.” I’m wondering where I’ve heard this name. Something recent, in the last several weeks.

I pick up the phone, dial a number. A female voice answers.

“Ester, Paul Madriani across the street,” I say.

Ester Peoples is the docket clerk who handles filings for the criminal courts in the main lobby of the Davenport County Courthouse. I can hear her chewing on something. Another bureaucrat donating her lunch hour.

“Can you check a name for me, on the computer?”

“Sure. How far back?”

“A year,” I say.

I give her James Sloan, spelling the last name. I hear the clicking of keys. Then: “Which one do you want?” she says.

“More than one James Sloan?” I say.

“One guy,” she says, “three convictions.”

“What for?”

“One count arson, reduced to malicious mischief, two counts vandalism. .”

“Bingo,” I say. I get his social security number from Ester, thank her and punch the next line on the phone to call out again. This time I don’t dial, but hit one of the self-dialing numbers up top. Claude does not answer, but on the third ring I hear the voice of Denny Henderson.

He tells me that Claude is on his way over to my office. Dusalt is my first witness this afternoon. We will prep with him only briefly before heading back to court.

“Denny. I want you to pull the most recent booking sheet on one James Sloan.” I read him the social security number, and court file number from Ester.

“Right now?” he says.

“No, yesterday,” I say.

Some grumbling on the line, then dead air. I hold for what seems like ten minutes. Then he’s back on the line.

“Got it,” he says.

“See if there’s the mug photo,” I say.

Some shuffling on the other end. “Charming,” he says.

“You got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me guess, a purple do, done up in spikes, pock marks on the face like the bubbles in a sulfur pot?”

“You know the guy?” he says.

“In a manner,” I say.

The porcelain prince, I think. The men’s john at the courthouse the day I ran into Adrian, the punk with his schlong caught in the mesh of his zipper, Chambers’s erstwhile client.

It was the zippered jacket and weird hair. There was something incongruous in the name “James Sloan” when Chambers went through the charade of introducing us that day. This it seems has held the name like some computer batch file at the edges of my recall ever since.