Steve Martini - Compelling Evidence

Acosta reads the jury the critical instruction one more time, and delivers a blistering lecture on what it means: that they may draw no inference whatever from the fact of Talia’s silence in this trial, that they may not discuss the matter or allow it to enter into their deliberations in any way. In this, it is as if he believes that by these words, by these admonitions, he can cleanse the record, as one would unring a fire Klaxon clanging in the night.

The jury, sheepish now, returns to the task, behind closed doors.

We are a somber, ragtag assembly when we reach my office again. Tod and Talia have been hanging to the rear all the way from the courthouse, little conferences between the two of them. I suspect these are plans for appeal, ways and means to carry on with their lives in the event of a conviction.

As the flexing metal gate of the elevator slams open and Harry pushes the door that leads to the hallway, Dee is standing there, her arms held up as if this is some emergency.

“They are back,” she says. “The jury.” This time she says the magic words. “They have a verdict.”

I look at Talia, terror-struck behind me in the elevator. They have barely had time for a single ballot since we left the courthouse, an ominous sign.

The gauntlet of klieg lights and cameras with their laserlike strobes is particularly bad now. They block our access to the courtroom, looking for new file shots and footage for this evening’s news. The word is out as we arrive-a verdict is at hand.

Tod muscles one of the reporters out of his chair on the aisle behind the railing as Harry, Talia, and I take our seats at the table. Tod is in no mood to tarry with the reporter. Arriving with us in our official party, he gives the reporter one mean stare and the journalist decides to hunch down on one knee in the aisle rather than make a scene.

Acosta has instructed the jury to remain in the jury room until they are called. The judge is in chambers. We are the last to arrive. Nelson and Meeks are already seated. The bailiff sends the word back to the clerk, and ten seconds later Acosta comes out and ascends the bench, followed by the clerk. He nods and the bailiff knocks on the jury room door.

They come out in two even lines of six, file into their rows of chairs, and take their seats. The jury foreman has a single slip of paper in her hand as she sits down.

The clerk is ready; the judge bangs his gavel. “This court will come to order,” he says.

A hundred conversations come to a stop in mid-sentence.

“Madam foreman, has the jury arrived at a verdict?”

“It has, Your Honor.”

“Please give it to the clerk.”

There’s a quick exchange here. Acosta takes the slip and peers at it for what seems like an eternity. He then looks at Talia, as if this is somehow expected.

“The defendant will rise,” he says.

Talia and I are on our feet.

“The clerk will read the verdict.” Acosta hands it back to her.

“In the matter of People v. Talia Potter , to the charge of violation of section 182 of the penal code, first-degree murder, we the jury find the defendant, Talia Potter, NOT GUILTY.”

There’s a roar from the courtroom. Hands are over the railing behind us, reaching for Talia. I can feel a hundred open palms patting on my back. Talia’s leaning over the railing into Tod’s arms, tears streaming down her face. Then to me. She whispers in my ear, barely audible. “Thank you,” she says. “I don’t know how I will ever thank you.” There’s a lot of warm wetness against my cheek.

I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing, and she turns to hug Harry.

It is true. There is nothing that exhausts so thoroughly as tension. I slip down into a seat, my chair at the counsel table, and take a single deep breath. Acosta is trying to beat the courtroom back into order with his gavel. Two reporters have somehow gotten into the room with their microphones. They are leaning over the railing behind me for an impromptu interview. I ignore them.

I look over. Nelson and Meeks are like two orphans at their table. It is as if everyone on their side of the room has come over to ours, like the building may topple to this side.

Nelson may want to poll the jury. With the commotion he may not get the chance. Acosta looks at him, and Nelson merely shrugs, as if to say “Why try?”

The judge thanks the jury, but no one hears him. “The defendant is discharged.” He’s now standing in front of his chair on the bench, yelling. “This court is adjourned,” he says. With that he is gone, down the steps, behind the bench, into his dark cavern, the jury still in the box left to fend for itself.

The press is now roaming over them, inside the box, reporters with notebooks trying to find out what happened behind closed doors. The jury foreman is holding court at the railing. The bailiffs have given up on trying to keep the cameras out of the room. Belted with battery packs, the crews are setting up with anything that looks legal as a backdrop-the bench, the jury box with its scene of unseemly chaos. Nelson crosses over, in front of the cameras, as if to give them a special photo op. As I look up he’s standing in front of my counsel table, his hand extended as if in congratulations.

“Well-fought case,” he says. “Good trial.” There is something genuine, unfeigned in this. Some of the print press are jostling to capture these few words, writing them down as if they are holy writ. I take his hand and shake it. This is memorialized for the news by one of the camera crews. Then he leaves. Like that, Nelson and Meeks are out of the room, leaving this party to the victors.

For a moment I am left alone. The reporters have moved around Talia and Harry, asking for reactions. Talia is breathless. Having shed all anxiety, she’s radiant in this moment of victory.

I’m still holding the single item from Sharon’s probate file, the store receipt with the undecipherable script, only one word of which I can read with any certainty-the word “Bernardelli.” I sit dazed, staring at the evidence cart in a far corner, plastic bags with the hair and the monster pellet-and the exquisitely tooled shotgun bent open at the breech, the shotgun claimed by George Cooper from the hardware store after its repair. The shotgun Coop used the night he murdered Ben Potter.

There is a bridge, 900 feet high, over the American River. Some people use it to get to Sutter’s Mill, the place where James Marshall discovered gold. Some people take it to eternity. George Cooper did that on a Tuesday morning in late October.

His house is in utter disarray. I’ve not been here in more than a year. Had I come and seen the bedlam of this place, perhaps I would have known how far over the edge of reality Coop had truly gone.

I’ve brought Nikki to help me. Parts of this task require a woman’s touch. There are personal belongings and mementos everywhere. Things from a lifetime spent in public service. She will carefully package some of the more delicate items, things we don’t want to trust to the movers. Relatives from the East have come for Coop’s funeral and have asked us to oversee the packing and shipping of his belongings to the next of kin.

Harry has come along today, if for no other reason than to satisfy his curiosity.

It is what I have sworn I would never do again, another probate for a friend, this time Coop’s own. I am making no mistakes. Peggie Conrad is doing her magic with Coop’s probate file.

Coop had written to me an epistle of some length, in a scarcely legible scrawl, and mailed it the day he dove from the bridge. In it he apologized profusely for the trial he had put me through, for the torment and agony of Eli Walker’s column, which he had never intended. But as Coop had told me that morning at my house, he never thought I would take Talia’s case.