Linda Fairstein: Bad blood

“Anything else I-”

“See you at one.”

“Don’t get short with me, kid. I’m with you on this. You just got to be realistic about our chances. I’m sorry if I broke your concentration.”

“That’s not all you’re trying to break.”

I put Amanda Quillian’s photograph back in the folder and replaced it on the cart.

“So you got up here early to avoid running the gauntlet into the courtroom, you brought all the exhibits with you-and I guess you’ve made your peace with Amanda.”

It was something I did at the beginning of every murder trial, just my own quiet way of getting ready to go into battle. Within the hour, every aspect of this woman’s personal life would be exposed to the jury-and to the public. The most intimate details of her daily affairs would be offered up for dissection-by me as well as by the defense-most of them things she had talked about, if at all, only with people she trusted and loved.

As soon as the doors were unlocked, the first two rows behind me, on both sides of the aisle, would be crammed with reporters from each of the city’s newspapers, and the television and radio stations, as well as stringers for the national media. The bench after that one was reserved for the victim’s family-her elderly mother, two sisters, and several of her closest friends. The rest of the audience would be a mix of locals who braved the intense heat of the June day, some who were courthouse regulars who liked the show-no matter what the crime-and others because cameras aren’t allowed in New York State trials, meaning no gavel-to-gavel coverage of the case on Court TV. And, of course, also attending would be the young Legal Aid lawyers and my colleagues from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, slipping in between their own calendar calls to study Lem Howell’s style or lend me moral support.

I knew my case cold. I knew its weaknesses and more of its strong points than the twelve jurors and four alternates would ever hear. Some of the state’s evidence had been suppressed by the judge in pretrial hearings as inadmissible or potentially prejudicial, and Howell would do his best to limit me even further with every application I made. I had already prepared for the testimony that would be elicited today. I didn’t need this time to do any work.

I had used the last half hour to think about Amanda Quillian. Mike was right-she had talked to me, over and over, through the various forms of evidence he and I had gathered in the months after her death.

I looked at the morgue photograph to remind myself of how eloquently she had told her story, from the outset, by the horrific damage done to her strong, healthy body. I looked at it to remind me of the outrage I had felt when Mike Chapman had first called to ask me to meet him at the medical examiner’s office to see his victim-one of three homicides that had occurred in Manhattan on that cool fall afternoon. I looked at it to remind me that I had been invested with the trust of those who’d loved her to seek some kind of justice for the killer-the killers-of Amanda Quillian.

“Detective Michael Patrick Chapman, Second Grade, Manhattan North Homicide Squad, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth-so help you God?” The powerful voice of my adversary boomed from the doorway that one of the court officers had unlocked for him.

“Lemuel Howell the Third. My very favorite black panther,” Mike said, swinging open the gate that separated the well of the courtroom from the gallery. His reference described Howell’s lean, elegant frame and his skin color, not his politics.

“Alexandra, my friend, good morning.” Lem rested his monogrammed leather briefcase on the floor beside his chair, then stepped over to shake hands with Mike. He reached out his arm to grasp my elbow, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek. Lem had always been a toucher-the arm-stroking, back- rubbing, hand-grasping contact kind, all the while locking eyes and willing you to engage with him.

“Hi, Lem.”

“Looking cool, collected, and with a faint scent of jasmine in that perfume today,” he said, lifting his nose to sniff the air near my ear.

“Lavender, actually. But thanks.”

“You might find this a bit of useful information for your off-duty life, Detective. Coco Chanel believed that women ought to dab perfume on themselves wherever they might like to be kissed,” Lem said, pinching my arm before he let it go.

“Then you should be sniffing a little closer to Coop’s ass than her ear,” Mike said, as Lem winked at me-tapping his long fingers on my pile of folders before returning to his table. “You’re looking mighty fine yourself, Counselor. Guess it’s that razzle-dazzle moment for the jury.”

Lem was as strong on substance as he was on style. He had been one of my first supervisors when I’d arrived in the office as a rookie prosecutor, before he left for a lucrative partnership in the litigation department of a midtown law firm.

Lemuel Howell III had the eloquence of the great black preachers, the brain and wit of a superb trial lawyer, and the looks of a leading man in a 1940s noir film-his wavy hair pomaded into place, straight back without a part. By the end of voir dire-in this matter a four-day exercise weeding through 182 prospective jurors-he had most of them ready to eat out of his hand before they’d heard the first prosecution witness.

He opened the brass locks on the briefcase and placed a sheaf of papers on his desk before removing a thick, gold fountain pen from his breast pocket. Then he smoothed the front of his beige suit.

“And you, Michael Patrick? You’ve detected, deduced, and done Alexandra’s bidding for the better part of a year, and still no perpetrator?”

“If only your client would loosen up and let me know who he paid to do the kill, maybe I could twist Coop’s arm to cut him a deal.”

“He can’t tell you what he doesn’t know, can he?”

“Save that line of bull for the jury.” Mike slapped Lem on the back as Artie Tramm returned with the water pitcher and told us that he was ready to open the doors. “And go easy on her, Mr. Triplicate, you know how Coop hates to lose.”

Triplicate was what the courthouse reporters called Lem Howell, not for the Roman numeral III in his name, but for his habit of phrasing his descriptions in threesomes. Yesterday, in his opening remarks, Amanda’s death was “admittedly savage, barbaric, and the cowardly work of a dangerous madman”; his client was “innocent, falsely accused, and horribly distraught by his wife’s untimely demise”; and the People’s case was “dreadfully flimsy, paper-thin, a gossamer web of fabrications.”

“Both sides ready?” Artie Tramm asked.

I nodded while Lem gave him a firm “Yes, sir.”

Tramm opened the door on the far side of the judge’s bench, which led to the small barred holding pen to which Brendan Quillian had been delivered earlier this morning from his cell in the Tombs. I watched as one of the officers removed Quillian’s handcuffs and walked behind him into the courtroom, to place him next to Howell so jurors would not know he had been incarcerated pending trial.

The defendant was dressed in one of his elegant Brioni suits, probably for the first time since the day of his arrest. He was as tall as Mike Chapman but with a beefier build, and his brown hair was showing streaks of gray, despite the fact that he had just turned thirty-five. He fixed on me with an icy look as he crossed behind his table, a glare made all the more sinister by the cast of his right eye. Brendan Quillian had been blinded in that eye by a childhood accident, and I swiveled away from its glassy, dead stare as he squinted at me.

“Smart move,” Mike whispered, oblivious to the quick exchange. “Howell’s the perfect lawyer for this case.”