Steve Martini - Prime Witness

We are jogging across the square, around the fountain. Denny is falling behind.

If Ingel kept quiet, the three of them may still be sitting there, idly arguing about the sophistry of jury instructions.

“How would Chambers recognize Coltrane’s name?” says Denny.

Henderson’s still running a half-step behind, literally and figuratively.

“Who do you think hired Cleo?” My words come out in little half breaths.

“Chambers?” says Denny.

“Right.”

It was Henderson’s little scrap of paper, the note scribbled on the corner torn from the yellow pages that gave me the answer. The owner of the property along the Putah Creek, where the Scofields were found, was “A.C. Associates,” Adrian’s firm, his little empire of limited partnerships. It was in the phone book, that little fact I looked up after running into Chambers with Harry by the jail in Capital City.

Coltrane has already told us that he was hired over the phone, paid in cash through the mails, that he never met his employer on the Putah Creek job, did not know his name. Like star-crossed lovers, their paths met not by design, but chance, the happenstance that is a single gravel access road on isolated land near a river, a road which each man used for his own purposes.

As we race up the courthouse steps my mind is on Lenore. I try to calm myself with assurances that Adrian is, after all, a lawyer. There would be no purpose to more violence. But then I am dealing with Adrian Chambers. And he has already killed twice.

Claude placed two phone calls before we left the jail; the first to Ingel’s courtroom, an attempt to warn the judge. There was no answer. This is not unusual after hours. The second call went to the county SWAT unit. It will be a while before they can assemble, maybe a half hour. The guys who make it up come from all ends of the county.

When I reach the front door to the courthouse I find it is locked. I shade the glass with one hand. A dim light is on back near the county clerk’s office but no guard, no marshal on duty. Or maybe he’s busy making his rounds.

“Come on.” I’m down the steps heading for the garage in the back. The door in the basement, the one leading to the library, will be open, the lawyer’s entrance for after-hours research.

By this time Henderson is falling out badly, a half block behind us by the time we reach the rear of the building and the underground. I don’t break stride, but am through the door inside and heading down the hall for the freight elevator, Claude right on my heels.

We get inside. I look. No sign of Henderson. We can’t wait. I push the button for the fourth floor and the heavy grated door comes down.

A minute later Claude and I are outside the large double doors to Department Four. The courtroom is pitch dark, but through the tall slots in these doors, bulletproof acrylic, I can see lights on in the back, at the clerk’s station near the judge’s chambers. I listen for voices, but with three inches of oak and steel between me and the inner room, I can hear nothing.

I reach up and tug on the heavy handle of the door, just a little. It opens an inch. Still no sound.

“They probably have the door to the judge’s office closed,” I tell him.

“Probably,” says Claude. He is fishing at the bottom of his pant leg for something wrapped around his ankle. He hands this to me. It’s a small semiautomatic pistol, something he carries for backup.

“The safety’s here,” he says. He whispers.

I shake my head, hand it back to him.

“I’d shoot myself.”

He makes a face, like he doesn’t believe this.

“Or somebody else,” I say.

“That’s the idea,” he says.

“No. You keep it. Besides we don’t even know if there’s anything wrong in there.”

Claude looks at me, something he reserves for the foolish.

“Listen, they’re expecting me. The phone call. Why don’t I just do the lawyerly thing. Go inside and take a look. You can watch from the door. If I hear voices talking back there, when I get up past the bench, I’ll give you the high sign. You come inside and wait in the hall back there.” I point to a place lost in shadows just below the bench.

“Then what?” he says.

“I’ll go into the chambers and listen. Believe me,” I say, “you can hear what’s going on back there without going inside. I’ve done it.”

“Yeah.” He’s waiting for the rest of the plan.

“If they’re talking about jury instructions, I’ll waltz in, give the judge some happy horseshit. Tell him that fire trucks are downstairs, that there’s smoke coming out of the basement and they want everybody out of the building. When they’re filing out, you take Chambers,” I say.

He looks at me, an Old World expression, sagging wrinkles around the nose, like this sounds as good as anything.

He drops the little pistol in his jacket pocket and comes up with something bigger from under his coat. A blue steel thing with a muzzle like field artillery.

Crouching outside, I reach up and pull the door handle again. I rise to full height and step inside, into the dark little foyer, a four-by-four section that opens onto the courtroom itself. I check the door behind me to make sure that it has not somehow locked on me. I look into the courtroom. The bench at the far end is completely lost in shadows. Only vague outlines and the brass tips on the flags can be seen. There’s not a sign of movement. A steady shaft of bright light comes from the hall off to the left of the bench, leading to the clerk’s station in the back. Still no sound of voices, only the constant hum of central air, little grids in the high ceiling.

I move silently down the center aisle toward the railing in the bar. When I get to this I use two fingers like flesh forceps to open one side of the swinging gate, step through and quietly close it behind me.

I turn and look. I can see Claude watching me through the slot in the door, the glint of lights, in the hall outside, off the barrel of his gun. Someone else has joined him, a hulking figure several feet behind, hovering over his shoulder. Denny no doubt, catching up.

I’ve now made my way along the side of the bench, to the steps leading to the judge’s chair. In the dim light I can see the two spear-tipped flags and the judge’s chair, which at this moment has its high back swung around facing me. I try to focus my eyes in the darkness.

There is something bizarre about the chair, a curious deformity like some tumor growing on its back side. The leather in the center, up high, has taken on a large distorted bulge.

I have seen enough to know that it is time for Claude to join me, here in this room. I turn to the door, to the twin slots at the rear of the room. I look. Claude is gone. There’s no one there. I watch for a moment to see if maybe he’s just moved away, perhaps shifted position. Nothing.

My eyes are back on the chair, high on the bench. I look. No shadows of movement, no voices from backstage. Quietly I slip off my loafers and in stocking feet climb the wooden steps of the bench. At the top, I reach out with one hand toward the back of the chair and give it a gentle push.

Like a carousel it spins slowly on its axis, until, in the half light from behind I make out the form of a man, his features distorted, propped in the chair. His eyes are wide ovals, jaw hanging, mouth open. Amid the black robes, the river of blood merges with dark cloth and disappears into the folds. Imbedded in his chest is one of the sharpened metal stakes taken from the evidence cart down in the courtroom. Derek Ingel isn’t going on vacation.

I am frozen in place, my feet seemingly cemented to the floor. I cannot move. For several seconds I remain, my gaze glued on the Prussian’s dead face.