Joel Goldman - The last witness

Blues paced once around the small room, stopping with his back to the two-way mirror, and folded his arms against his chest.

"I wasn't there and I didn't kill Jack Cullan."

"I'll be sure to mention that to the judge. You'll be arraigned tomorrow morning in front of an associate circuit court judge, who will set bail. I'm guessing bail will be no less than a quarter million and maybe as much as half a million."

"The judge won't grant me bail."

"Hey, give me some credit. You've got substantial ties to the community. You're not a threat to anyone else. Carlos Guiterriz will bond you out. The bar will be more than enough collateral. You'll be out by lunchtime."

"You don't get it, Lou. Charging me with murder one and threatening me with the death penalty is a power play to make me take a deal. Somebody wants me to go down for this, and keeping me in the county jail until trial will be the next card that gets played. Make an ex-cop spend the winter in the general prison population, and see how long it takes him to find religion. If I don't roll over, they hope I'll get shanked before the trial. The last thing I'll hear is, 'Enjoy your stay at the Graybar Inn.'"

"Harry wouldn't do that."

"Oh, Harry would do it, except it's not up to Harry. He's just carrying water for the chief, or the prosecuting attorney, or whoever doesn't want my case to go to trial."

"This isn't the Conspiracy Hour. Cullan was connected to everybody in town, but he would have had to own everybody-the police, the courts, and the mayor-everybody for you to be right. Plus he's dead. All the IOUs he held have been canceled."

"How are you going to prove I'm innocent?"

"Find out who killed Cullan."

"You'll have to peel the layers off of his life, read every one of those IOUs."

Mason nodded, grabbing the thread that held Blues's fears together. "Cullan was probably killed by someone who wanted to cancel an IOU and who won't mind if you take the fall. If Cullan owned half the people the Star claims he did, there will be plenty of pressure to keep your case from coming to trial. Otherwise, I'll hang every dirty piece of laundry I can find in front of the jury to convince them that someone else did it."

"That's why I won't get bail. Remember something else while you're out there stirring up this shit pot."

"What's that?"

"The killer won't mind killing again to make sure I go down."

Associate circuit court judge Joe Pistone's courtroom was on the eighth floor of the Jackson County Courthouse, a neoclassical monument to the durability of public works projects built during the Depression. It was on the east side of downtown, across the street from city hall, another monument cast from the same mold. Police headquarters, an uninspired squared fortress, was one block east on Locust. The three buildings, all hewn from Missouri limestone, formed Kansas City's triangle of legislative, judicial, and executive order. The courthouse was eight stories and police headquarters was six. City hall loomed over both of them at thirty stories. The branches of government may have been equal on paper, but the daily grind of governing required considerably more people and space than public safety or justice.

Mason passed through the metal detector in the courthouse rotunda, hurrying up to wait for the elevators. The job of operating the courthouse elevators had been one of the last county patronage jobs to succumb to modern technology. Since the courthouse opened in the 1930s, loyalists at the bottom of the political food chain had been rewarded with the stupefying opportunity to sit for hours at a time on a small stool and bounce the elevators from floor to floor. Over the years, they had perfected a herky-jerky stop-and-go technique that left most passengers gasping when the doors opened at their floor. When the ancient elevators and their equally ancient operators were replaced, the county installed new elevators that ran smoothly, but slowly enough to drive even the most exercise averse to use the stairs.

Associate circuit court was the home of rough justice. Rules of evidence and procedure were loosely applied to hasten the endless passage of collection, landlord-tenant, and traffic cases through the system. The judges carried the same honorific title as their circuit court brethren, though many lawyers treated them behind their backs like minor leaguers. The one exception was the criminal defense attorney whose client stood before the judge seeking bail in an amount the defendant could make. At those moments, the lawyers meant it when they called the judge "Your Honor."

Reporters had gathered outside the courtroom, creating a media gauntlet. Mason ignored the questions they tossed in his path, smiling politely without answering until Rachel Firestone stepped in front of him. He recalled her tenacious pursuit of him in the aftermath of the bloody demise of his last law firm, Sullivan amp; Christenson.

"Listen," she had told him. "This story is going to be written whether you like it or not. You are the story. Talk to me."

"Not interested," Mason had told her. "Too many people are dead. Let them be."

Rachel wrote the story, quoting his refusal. She sent him a copy with a note saying she hoped he liked it and asking him to call her. Mason threw the note and the article away.

She had short-cropped dark red hair, alabaster skin, and dancing emerald eyes. Her trim, athletic build matched the nervous energy she radiated like a solar flare.

"Welcome back to the meat grinder," Rachel said. "Care to talk?"

"No."

"Wrong answer. I'll give you another chance later," she said before pushing her way into the courtroom and a seat directly behind the prosecutor's table.

Joe Pistone's legal career had been spent in associate circuit court, the first twenty-five years as a lawyer and the last fifteen as a judge. He had white hair, a thin face, and shoulders that were hunched like those of a man who'd spent his life ducking trouble. He rarely looked at the lawyers or the litigants, keeping his head down and the cases moving.

Judge Pistone's courtroom was small enough to be crowded if more than a handful of people were present for a case. When there was a docket call for first appearances in criminal cases, the courtroom shrank as the jury box was filled with defendants dressed in orange jailhouse jumpsuits, their hands and feet shackled.

There were two counsel tables, one for the prosecution and one for the defense. The pews behind the rail that separated the lawyers and judge from the public were filled with family members of defendants and victims who divided themselves like the bride's side and the groom's side.

Inexperienced lawyers who didn't arrive in time to sit up front wedged themselves into any empty space they could find, while the veterans hung around the judge's bench as if they were at a local bar. Toss in the media pack and the courtroom was standing room only when Patrick Ortiz made his way to the prosecution's table, trailed by two assistants.

"Morning, Patrick," Mason said, extending his hand.

"Lou, good to see you," Ortiz answered, shaking Mason's hand without conviction.

Mason was six feet tall, with a hard, flat body kept in shape on the rugby field and a rowing machine he kept in his dining room. Ortiz was a head shorter and had the irregular rounded shape of someone whose diet was limited to foods that end in the letter O. Mason sat on the edge of the prosecutor's table, a friendly adversary chatting up the opposition.

"I'm here on Wilson Bluestone."

"So I've been told. These are for you," he said, handing Mason a copy of the police reports. "You'll get the rest in discovery."

"I'll keep that in mind," Mason answered as he skimmed through the pages.