Michael Connelly - The Fifth Witness

My crew and I were stationed in the backyard at a picnic table with an umbrella. We had come early and gotten the spot. Cisco and Lorna were drinking canned beer and Aronson and I were on bottled water. There was a slight tension at the table and I picked up enough innuendo to understand that it had something to do with how late Cisco had stayed at Four Green Fields with Aronson back on Monday night after I’d left with Maggie McFierce.

“Jeez, look at all of these people,” Lorna said. “Don’t they know that a not-guilty verdict doesn’t mean she’s innocent?”

“That’s bad etiquette, Lorna,” I said. “You’re never supposed to say that, especially when it’s your own client you’re talking about.”

“I know.”

She frowned and shook her head.

“You’re not a believer, Lorna?”

“Well, don’t tell me you are.”

I was glad I was wearing sunglasses. I didn’t want to reveal myself on this one. I shrugged like I didn’t know or it didn’t matter.

But it did. You have to live with yourself. Knowing that there was a solid chance that Lisa Trammel actually deserved the verdict she got made things a whole lot better when I looked in the mirror.

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” Lorna said. “Our phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the verdict came in. We’re back in business big time.”

Cisco nodded approvingly. It was true. It seemed as though every accused criminal in the city wanted to hire me now. This would’ve been great if I had wanted things to continue the way they were going.

“Did you check out the closing price on LeMure yesterday on NASDAQ?” Cisco asked.

I gave him a look.

“You following the Street now?”

“Just wanted to see if anybody was paying attention and it looks like they were. LeMure dropped thirty percent of its value in two days. Didn’t help that the Wall Street Journal ran a story connecting Opparizio to Joey Giordano and questioning how much of that sixty-one mill he got went into the mob’s pocket.”

“Probably all of it,” Lorna said.

“So Mickey,” Aronson said. “How’d you know?”

“Know what?”

“That Opparizio would take the nickel.”

I shrugged again.

“I didn’t. I just figured that once it became apparent that his connections were going to come out in open court, he would do what he had to do to stop it. He had one choice. The Fifth.”

Aronson didn’t look as though my answer appeased her. I turned away and looked across the crowded yard. My client’s son was at a nearby table with her sister. They both looked bored, as if forced to be there. A large group of children had gathered near the terraced herb garden. A woman in the middle of the circle was handing out candy from a bag. She was wearing a red, white and blue top hat like Uncle Sam’s.

“How long do we need to stay, Boss?” Cisco asked.

“You’re not on the clock,” I said. “I just thought we should put in an appearance.”

“I want to stay,” Lorna said, probably just to spite him. “Maybe some Hollywood people will show up.”

A few minutes later the main attraction of the day came out the back door, followed by a reporter and a cameraman. They picked a location with the crowd in the background and Lisa Trammel stood for a quick interview. I didn’t bother to try to listen. I’d heard and seen the same interview enough over the past two days.

After Lisa finished the interview she broke away from the media, shook some hands and posed for some photos. Eventually, she made her way to our table, stopping to ruffle her son’s hair on the way.

“There they are. The victors! How’s my team doing today?”

I managed to smile.

“We’re good, Lisa. And you look fine, too. Where’s Herb?”

She looked around as if searching for Dahl in the crowd.

“I don’t know. He was supposed to be here.”

“Too bad,” Cisco said. “We’ll miss him.”

Lisa didn’t seem to register the sarcasm.

“You know I need to talk to you later, Mickey,” she said. “I need your advice on which show to do. Good Morning America or Today ? They both want me next week but I have to pick one because neither will take seconds.”

I flipped my hand as if the answer didn’t matter.

“I don’t know. Herb can probably help you with that. He’s the media guy.”

Lisa looked back at the gathering of children and started to smile.

“Oh, I have just the thing for those children. Excuse me, everybody.”

She hurried off and went around the corner of the house.

“She’s sure loving it, isn’t she?” Cisco said.

“I would be, too,” Lorna said.

I looked at Aronson.

“Why so quiet?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m not so sure I like criminal defense anymore. I think if you take on some of those people who have been calling, I’ll stick with the foreclosures. If you don’t mind.”

I nodded.

“I think I know what you’re feeling. You can do the foreclosure work if you want to. There’s going to be plenty of that for a while, especially with guys like Opparizio still in business. But that feeling you’ve got does go away. Believe me, Bullocks, it does.”

She didn’t respond to the return of her nickname or anything else I had said. I turned to look across the yard. Lisa was back and she had rolled out the helium tank from the garage. She told the children to gather around and started filling balloons. The TV cameraman moved in to get the shot. It would be perfect for the six o’clock news.

“Now, is she doing that for the kids or for the camera?” Cisco asked.

“You really have to ask?” Lorna responded.

Lisa pulled a blue balloon off the tank and expertly tied it off with a string. She handed it to a girl of about six, who grabbed the string and let the balloon shoot six feet above her head. The girl smiled and turned her face up to gaze at her new toy. And in that moment I knew what Mitchell Bondurant was looking up at when Lisa hit him with the hammer.

“She did it,” I whispered under my breath.

I felt the burn of a million synapses firing down my neck and across my shoulders.

“What did you say?” Aronson asked me.

I looked at her but didn’t answer and then looked back at my client. She filled another balloon with gas, tied the knot and handed it to a boy. The same thing happened again. The boy held the string and turned his cheery face up to look at the red balloon. An instinctive, natural response. To look up at the balloon.

“Oh, my God,” Aronson said.

She had put it together, too.

“That’s how she did it.”

Now Cisco and Lorna had turned.

“The witness said she was carrying a big shopping bag on the sidewalk,” Aronson said. “Big enough to hold a hammer, yes, but also big enough to hold balloons.”

I took it from there.

“She sneaks into the garage and puts the balloons up over Bondurant’s parking space. Maybe there’s a note on the end of each string so he’s sure to see them.”

“Yeah,” Cisco said. “Like, here’s your balloon payment.”

“She hides behind the pillar and waits,” I said.

“And when Bondurant looks up at the balloons,” Cisco concluded, “ bang, right on the back of the head.”

I nodded.

“And the two pops somebody thought were gunshots but were dismissed as backfire were neither,” I said. “She popped the balloons on the way out.”

A dreadful silence fell over the table. Until Lorna spoke.

“Wait a minute. You’re saying she planned it that way? Like she knew if she hit him on the top of the head it would throw the jury?”

I shook my head.

“No, that was just luck. She just wanted to stop him. She used the balloons to make sure he paused and she could come up behind him. The rest was just dumb luck… something that a defense lawyer knew how to use.”