Steve Martini - Prime Witness

“Thank you for the appraisal, but I’ll wait for the jury’s verdict if you don’t mind.”

He puts up a hand and smiles. “No offense,” he says. “It’s what happens in trials. Things we can’t control.”

Given his creative approach to evidence, I’m surprised that Adrian would concede the possibility.

“I know,” he says, “there could be some rocky places for our side from here to the end. The stuff in the van, the broken window-who knows what a jury will make of it all? That’s why I’m here. My client is nervous. He’s dreaming about death at night.”

He does not make clear whether these visions are of the Russian’s own demise or of some bloody bodies on the Putah Creek.

“You understand,” he says, “that I don’t necessarily agree with this. But he wants me to take one more shot, to get the charges reduced.”

I can’t help myself. “You wanna plead?” I am more than a little surprised that, given the state of our case, he would even broach the subject at this point.

His look at me is almost whimsical.

“Not the same deal, you understand. Your case is not what it was when we started. Major holes in your theory,” he says. “It’s why I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Then it hits me. This man indeed does have crystal balls. Somehow he knows. Someplace he has heard. The leaks continue. Someone has told him that we have the prime witness. The confirmation. At this moment, Adrian Chambers may not know his name, but in his heart of hearts, he knows that Cleo Coltrane will finger his client for the murder of Abbott and Karen Scofield.

“Why so generous?” I say. “It would seem to cut against the grain of nature.”

He makes a face, like these things can happen.

“Second degree, terms to run concurrent, fifteen to life,” he says. “Same deal, we package ’em all. The six,” he says. “No loose ends.”

“And he’d be out in nine,” I say.

Adrian gestures with one hand, a little swivel at the wrist, like whatever happens.

“It’s a certain result for both of us,” he says. “The judge, I think, will go for it.”

He is probably right, Ingel at this moment is not exactly a well of confidence overflowing with faith in my abilities. With Acosta no doubt heckling him from the wings, the Prussian might do anything at this point to avoid an acquittal, or worse, a dismissal of the case by his own hand, for lack of evidence.

Adrian studies my expression like a rug merchant looking for a sale.

Before I can answer, the phone rings, the back line, the one not available to the general public.

“A second,” I say, telling Adrian to be patient.

He waves me on with his cigaretted hand, like go ahead.

I reach over and grab the receiver. It’s Claude.

“Guess who’s looking for you?” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Adrian.”

“I know.”

“He’s there. You can’t talk?”

“Right. Where are you?” I ask.

“We got a problem,” he says.

“No Denny,” I say. I’m watching what I say in front of Adrian.

“No, he’s here all right, with Coltrane.”

I can hear the hum of human traffic and a PA system in the background. Claude’s at the airport.

“Problem is Coltrane won’t talk to anybody but you. He says he made the deal with you. If you’re not there, he wants to see a lawyer.”

This is a major problem for us. If Cleo Coltrane gets legal counsel, the first advice he will receive is to say nothing. It will take a week, maybe a month to negotiate the thicket with a lawyer, concessions on the federal charges. By then my case against Iganovich will be history.

I give a deep sigh. Ingel will kill me. Probably issue a bench warrant for my arrest, but I will have to send Lenore in my stead to talk about jury instructions at four o’clock.

“I’ll be there,” I tell Claude. “Tell him I’ll be there.” I take down the information from Claude, on the little calendar, the one propped up this way so Chambers can’t see. I write “Coltrane” across from the time. Claude estimates four-fifteen. I will have to make myself scarce so Ingel can’t find me.

“Where?” I ask Claude.

“Interrogation room four, ground floor of the jail,” he says.

I write this down next to Coltrane’s name.

“What’s Chambers want?” says Claude.

“Not now,” I say. “We can talk later. See you in a few minutes.”

Claude hangs up.

I look at Adrian again, seated in the chair, seemingly aloof, like he’s doing me some favor, indifferent as he plumbs my being for some answer, a sure result against the vagaries of a jury.

“A problem?” he says.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

He smiles.

“No deal,” I tell him.

Suddenly his leg is off the other, beady little slits for eyes.

“Why not? Your case is in the shit can,” he says.

“Like I said, Adrian. I’d rather take my chances with a jury.”

There are a lot of expletives here, Adrian’s voice running the range to the soprano. I can see the shadowed forms of secretaries outside my door standing idly, listening to this tirade overflow in my office.

He finishes, his face flushed.

I look at him. “Nothing personal, Adrian.” This seems to send him ballistic.

“Fine. It’s your funeral,” he says. “See you in court.”

He slams the door going out, nearly breaking the glass.

I pick up the phone and hit the intercom button.

Lenore answers after one ring. Before she can say anything, I start.

“Listen, I’ve got a problem. You’re gonna have to take the meeting with Ingel and Adrian alone.”

We are standing in a dimly lit little room, not much larger than a closet, Claude and I, looking through a one-way mirror into an interrogation room at the county jail. For the moment it is empty. Denny Henderson is bringing Coltrane up now.

I’ve told Claude about Adrian’s eleventh-hour deal. His suspicious mind is like my own. He believes that Adrian is anxious to cut a quick deal, before this witness can bury his case, place Iganovich at the scene of the Scofield murders and end Chambers’s hopes of fixing doubt in the jury’s mind. How he got news of the witness neither of us can guess. “Maybe the man’s clairvoyant,” says Claude.

I make a face. With Adrian one never knows.

Denny taps on the door to our cubicle as he passes by, the signal that Coltrane is here, to keep our voices down.

I am holding the evening paper, the afternoon edition from Capital City. I pulled it from a rack on the way over here. It is already ablaze with unflattering headlines, the debacle with Tolar on the stand. On the front page is a three-column picture, Iganovich a beaming smile, flanked by his two lawyers. This was taken by one enterprising photographer who slipped into the courtroom in the seconds following adjournment, after Ingel left the bench and before the deputies hauled the Russian back to his cell.

Just then the door to the interrogation room opens. A man enters followed by Denny.

“Sit down there,” says Henderson. He points to a chair behind the steel table bolted to the floor, then leaves the room.

Noise, the shuffling of shoes on linoleum over concrete is piped in through the tinny little speaker screwed to the wall above our heads.

Cleo Coltrane has one of those faces that defies estimations of age. He is medium height, a complexion like chewed rawhide and body to match, wiry and a little bowlegged in worn jeans and cowboy boots. Shots of disheveled dirty blond hair rise from a wild cowlick on the back of his head like the crown on Lady Liberty.

His shirt is a size too big, with imitation pearl snap buttons and a lot of stitching. It hangs on his upper frame looking like a flag in dead air. For all of the wary voice over the phone, his appearance here in this bleak room under harsh light has a certain frontier innocence about it, the artless countenance of the common man.