David Rosenfelt - Open and Shut

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

To Debbie, who makes everything possible, and worthwhile, and fun

And to Heidi, Ross, and Brandy, who have given me the gift of pride

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The “I couldn't have done it without my teammates” speech, which I ordinarily find insufferable, is unfortunately so accurate here that I'm compelled to give it. So, in no particular order, I would like to sincerely thank:

My agents, Robin Rue of Writers' House in New York on the book end and Sandy Weinberg of the Summit Talent and Literary Agency in LA on the film side. They are two of the most talented, honest, dedicated people I've had the good fortune to work with.

The many terrific people at Warner, including but certainly not limited to Jamie Raab, Susan Richman, Bob Castillo, Colin Fox, Julie Lu, and most especially Sara Ann Freed, an outstanding editor who is responsible for any coherence the book might possess. All of them could not be more supportive of a first-time author who doesn't have a clue what he is doing.

Jerry Esbin, David Matalon, and Steve Randall, three friends who were there for me when I needed them, and who taught me that big business can be intelligent and human and a lot of fun.

My legal advisers for the book: George Kentris of Findlay, Ohio, and Eric Weiss of Clifton, New Jersey. They generously lent me their remarkable expertise, and if the book doesn't sell and I find myself forced to commit a serious felony, it'll be in Findlay or Clifton.

Al and Nancy Sarnoff, who provided help in any way they could, and in their case that is considerable.

Those who read the book in its early drafts and offered gentle criticism, which is the only kind I can really tolerate. They include Debbie Myers, Heidi, Ross, Lynn, Rick, Mike, Sandi and Adam Rosenfelt, Stephanie Allen, Betsy Frank, Emily Kim, Jerry Esbin, Steve Randall, Robert Greenwald, Joe Cugini, George Kentris, Amanda Baron, Holly Sillau, Edna, Abbey and Sandy Silver, Nancy Carter, Roz Wagner, Suzanne Jarmusz, Nancy and Al Sarnoff, and the entire, wonderful Heller family.

Robert Greenwald, an extraordinarily talented director and producer, and an even better friend, who has gone out of his way to help me in every way possible. It was Robert's encouragement and counsel that is the only reason I am writing today. I leave it up to the reader to decide whether or not that is a good thing.

I would welcome feedback on the book from all readers at dr27712@aol.com.

THE LINCOLN TUNNELIS A SCARY place. Especially now, at the end of the workday. I'm one link in an endless chain of drivers, all moving our cars through an atmosphere of one hundred percent pure carbon monoxide. Tunnel workers patrol walkways along the walls; I assume they are there to make sure no car achieves a speed above three miles an hour. Their lungs must have a life expectancy of an hour and a half. Surrounding us all are thousands of tons of dirt and water, just waiting for a crack to come crashing through.

I usually avoid this tunnel. It is one of three main passageways between New York City and Northern Jersey, where I live. I prefer the George Washington Bridge, where oxygen is plentiful and it doesn't feel like I'm driving through an enormous MRI machine.

The fact is, I don't come into New York that often, and when I do it's rarely during the absurdly misnamed “rush” hour. But I needed to go to the NYU law library to do some research for an appellate case I'm handling, and I was stuck in court all day, so here I am.

I have two choices. I can ponder my impending death by suffocation under all this mud and water, knowing my loved ones will forever wonder whether my final resting place was in New York or New Jersey. Or I can think about the case, and what my strategy will be if the Court of Appeals turns us down. I go with the case, but it's a close call.

My client is death row inmate Willie Miller, a twenty-eight-year-old African-American convicted of murdering a young woman named Denise McGregor in the alley behind the Tea-neck, New Jersey, bar where he worked. It's a case my father, Nelson Carpenter, prosecuted seven years ago, when he was the State District Attorney. Ironically, it's also my father's fault that I'm on the case now.

I think back almost two years to the day I was at home watching the Giants play the Redskins on television. It was a frigid, windy, December Sunday, the kind of day that passing would be difficult, so each team would try to run the ball down each other's throats. My father had come over to watch the game with me. He was never a big football fan, and my fanaticism about the Giants was clearly learned elsewhere. But he had been joining me to watch the games with increasing regularity since my mother died a year before. I don't think it's that he was liking football any more; I just think he was liking loneliness even less.

It must have been halftime that he brought it up, since if it were during the game I never would have heard him. “Do you remember the Willie Miller case?” he asked.

Of course I did. My father had sought and received the death penalty; this was not something I was likely to forget.

“Sure. What about it?”

He told me that some information had recently come to his attention. He wouldn't tell me how, or even what the specific information was, but he said that he had learned that a juror lied in voir dire, a significant lie that could result in a new trial if revealed to the court.

He was grappling with what to do with the information, since revealing the specifics would amount to breaking a privilege. Yet as an officer of the court he felt uncomfortable with concealing it, since Willie Miller was entitled to have the truth come out.

“How would you feel about representing him on an appeal?”

“Me?” I'm sure my mouth was stuffed with potato chips, so it probably came out “Mnnpphh?”

“Yes. You could have an investigator look into it, find out the facts without me having to tell you, and then go to the appeals court.”

The case, as I remembered it, was open-and-shut. Willie Miller, even when seen through my skeptical defense attorney's eyes, was a murderer. I was not about to get involved in an appeal based on a technicality. What if it succeeded? I'd have to go through a trial I was bound to lose.

“No thanks.”

“It would be important to me.”

There it was, the sentence from which there was no defense. In my family, when you asked a favor of someone, it was acceptable to refuse. But once the person said that it was important to them, it crossed a line and became an absolute imperative. We did not use those words frivolously, and they carried an awesome weight.

“Then I'll do it.”

“You've got no chance, you know.”

I laughed. “Then why the hell is it so important to you that I enter the swamp?” That is how we referred to legal cases that dragged on forever with little or no chance of ultimate victory.

“Because the man is on death row.”

The Giants kicked off to start the second half, the Redskins drove the length of the field for a touchdown, and I was on a case that might well leave me forever stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel.

But, no! Suddenly, without warning, a burst of speed by the cars ahead lets me gun the accelerator to almost five miles an hour. At this rate, there's a chance I might make it home in time to leave for court tomorrow morning.

THERE IS NOTHINGLIKE A GOLDEN REtriever. I know, I know, it's a big planet with a lot of wonderful things, but golden retrievers are the absolute best. Mine is named Tara. She is seven years old and the most perfect companion anyone could ever have. She is also funny and playful and smart. The only problem she has ever caused is that I spend so much time with her in the mornings that I am almost invariably late for work.