: Margolin: The Last Innocent Man

The shirt? While it wasn’t the most common type, there had certainly been enough of them in Portland. And the car? That was simple enough to check on. Too simple. Ortiz felt his gut tighten. He was afraid. Afraid he had made a terrible mistake. If Gault owned a beige Mercedes, then Larry Stafford might very well be innocent.

GREGORY WAS FINISHINGsome dictation when David entered.

“You’re on the bar ethics committee, right?” David asked, sinking into a chair.

“Yes. Why? You haven’t done anything unethical lately, have you?” he asked, half joking.

“Let me give you a hypothetical and tell me what you think.”

Gregory turned off his dictation equipment and leaned back. His eyes narrowed with concentration and he cocked his head slightly to one side.

“Assume that a lawyer represents A in a bank-robbery case and A is convicted. Later B hires the lawyer to represent him in an unrelated legal matter. While the lawyer’s client, B tells the lawyer, in confidence, that he committed the bank robbery for which A has been convicted, as well as several other robberies. When the lawyer suggests that B confess to the authorities so that A can be released from prison, B refuses. What can the lawyer do to help A?”

Gregory sat thinking for a moment, then took a book from the credenza behind his desk. He rifled the pages until he found what he was looking for. He read for a few more moments. David sat quietly, staring past Banks through the window toward the foothills. He felt a wave of pain in his stomach and placed his hand over his belt line, gently massaging where it hurt.

“I’d say your lawyer has a problem,” Banks said. “According toWigmore on Evidence and the Canons of Ethics, a client’s confidential communications can be revealed only if the client sues the attorney, in which case the attorney can reveal those confidences that bear on his defense of the client’s charges, or if the client tells the attorney that he is planning a future crime, in which case the attorney can make those disclosures necessary to prevent the future crime or protect those against whom it is threatened. If the communication is in confidence and made while the client is seeking legal advice, the confidence is permanently protected.

“I’m afraid that the lawyer can’t help A in your hypothetical.”

David sat quietly, thinking. Gregory had confirmed what he had believed all along.

“What if the lawyer decided to violate the Canons of Ethics and breach the confidence?”

“He could be prevented from revealing it in court, and the client could successfully resist being forced to corroborate it. You’d have a tough time convincing the authorities to let A out of prison under those circumstances.”

The pain in David’s stomach grew worse. David took a deep breath and hoped that Gregory would not notice his discomfort.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Gregory asked.

David desperately wanted his friend’s help but knew he could not ask for it. How could he reveal what he had done and still maintain Gregory’s respect?

“No, Greg. It was just a hypothetical question.”

Gregory wanted to pursue the matter, but, instead, he asked, “Shall we go to lunch, then?”

“I’m sorry, Greg, but I’m going home. I don’t feel well.”

“Dave, are you sure I can’t help you?” Gregory asked. “If there’s anything bothering you…”

David shook his head. He smiled weakly. “No problem. Just an upset stomach.”

He stood up.

“See you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Banks replied. His brow furrowed, and he did not move for several minutes after David left the office.

“WHY ARE YOUinterested in Thomas Gault?” Norman Capers asked.

“I’d rather not say, Norm,” Ortiz answered.

Capers shrugged.

“Hell, what do I care? If it will help put that bastard away, I don’t care if I never find out.”

Ortiz was surprised by Capers’s reaction. Norm was an experienced, professional prosecutor who had been in the DA’s office a long time. He rarely let himself get emotional about a case.

“You don’t like his writing style?” Ortiz inquired lightly, hoping to egg Capers on.

“I don’t like that bastard, period. I’ve prosecuted a lot of people, but he…I don’t know how to put this. Julie Gault…Whoever did that really enjoyed his work.”

Capers paused and examined a thumbnail.

“You know, he was cracking jokes all through that trial,” he continued. “Treated the whole thing like it was a comedy put on for his amusement. Oh, not when the jury was around. Shit, as soon as they filed in, he’d sit up straight and put on this sad look. And on the stand…You know, he actually broke down and cried.

“It was all phony. After the jury went out, he turned to me and winked. But he was terrific on the stand and that’s all those people saw.”

“You think he’s capable of killing someone?”

“Gault? He’s some sort of whiz at unarmed combat. Don’t you know his background?”

Ortiz shook his head. “I wasn’t involved in the case, so I didn’t pay that much attention to it. Just scuttlebutt around the station house and the articles in the papers.”

“Our Tom is a killer, all right. You know he was a mercenary in Africa all those years. There’s a screw loose there. A big one. When he was living in Hollywood, he got into some pretty nasty fights, and I hear he’s been in a few here.”

“Is he a womanizer?”

“Gault? If it moves, he’ll fuck it. And he’s mean there, too. We spoke to a couple of ex-girl friends during our investigation. He’s beaten up more than one. Very vicious and with a smile, like he was really enjoying himself. That boy is very sick and very clever.”

And, Ortiz thought, Motor Vehicles lists him as the owner of a beige Mercedes.

David drove aimlessly for an hour, then went home. He was exhausted, and the pain in his stomach had increased. As soon as he was through the doorway, he poured himself a drink. He knew alcohol would aggravate his stomach, but the pain from self-accusation and self-pity was far worse than physical discomfort.

The first drink helped very little, so he poured another. His conversation with Gregory Banks made him realize how alone he was. He recalled a scene from George Orwell’s 1984. The State had devised a torture. A helmet was fastened over a man’s head. The front of the helmet contained a small cage, even with the prisoner’s eyes. In the cage was a rat, and separating the rat from the man was a movable partition. The privilege between attorney and client, like that ghastly helmet, locked David in with Gault’s secret, where it could gnaw at him, torturing his every waking moment.

Even if there was no privilege, David would be helpless. He had no proof, other than Gault’s confession, that Gault had killed Darlene Hersch. If Gault denied that he had confessed, how could David prove him a liar? David wasn’t completely convinced himself that Gault wasn’t playing with him. David had learned enough about Gault while he was representing him to know that the man had a very wide streak of sadism in him. David remembered how he had felt during that moment when Gault had stood behind him with the open switchblade. Every moment of his life would be like that if he betrayed Gault’s trust.

And there was something else that tortured David. He had always had his pride. Now he had lost his pride, but only he and Jennifer Stafford knew why. If he went to the authorities, Gault would make David’s affair with Jenny public. Everyone would think that David had thrown Larry Stafford’s case to get Larry out of the way so he could continue as Jenny’s lover. He would be disbarred, disgraced, and no one would believe his accusations against Gault.