Читать книгу Claim of Innocence - Laura Caldwell, Leslie S. Klinger - Страница 8

I got in the elevator with two sullen-looking teenagers. I needed to focus on Maggie’s case and put my game face on. I couldn’t think about my conversation with Sam right now, so I tuned in to the teenagers’ conversation.

“What you got?” one said.

The other shrugged. “Armed robbery. My PD says take the plea.”

“Why you got a public defender if you out on bail?” The first kid sounded indignant. “If you can get bail, you can get a real lawyer.”

The other shook his head. “Nah. My auntie says she won’t pay no more.”

“Damn.” He shook his head.

“Yeah.”

They both looked at me then. I tried to give a hey-there, howdy kind of look, but they weren’t really hey-there, howdy kind of guys. One of the teenagers stared at my hair, the other my breasts. I was wearing a crisp, white suit that I’d thought perfect for a summer day in court, but when I looked down, I realized that one of the buttons of my navy blue blouse had popped open and I was showing cleavage. I grasped the sides of the blouse together with my hand, and when the elevator reached my floor, I dodged out.

Although I was still in the old section of the courthouse, that floor must have been remodeled a few decades ago, and its hallways now bore a staid, uninspired, almost hospitalish look with yellow walls and tan linoleum floors. I searched for Maggie’s courtroom. When I found it and stepped inside, I felt a little deflated. Last year, when I’d been here for Trial TV, the case was on the sixth floor in one of the huge, two-story, oak-clad courtrooms with soaring windows. This courtroom was beige—from the spectators’ benches, which were separated from the rest of the courtroom by a curved wall of beige Plexiglas, to the beige-gray industrial carpet to the beige-ish fabric on the walls to the beige-yellow glow emanating with a faint high pitch from the fluorescent lights. A few small windows at the far side of the benches let in the only other light, which bounced off the Plexiglas, causing the few people sitting there to have to shift around to avoid it.

Maggie was in the front of the courtroom on the other side of the Plexiglas at one of the counsel’s tables. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, and with her curly, chin-length hair, she almost looked like a kid swimming in her too-loose, pin-striped suit. But Maggie certainly didn’t act like a kid in the courtroom. Anyone who thought she did or underestimated her in any way ended up on the losing end of that scuffle.

No one was behind the high, elongated judge’s bench. At another counsel’s table were two women who must have been assistant state’s attorneys—you could tell by the carts next to their tables, which were laden with accordion folders marked First Degree Murder, as if the verdict had already been rendered. The state’s attorneys were talking, but I couldn’t hear them. The room, I realized, was soundproof. The judge probably had to turn on the audio in order for anything to be heard by the viewers.

I walked past the spectator pews and pushed one of the glass double-doors to greet Maggie. The door screeched opened half an inch, then stopped abruptly.

Maggie looked up, then pointed at the other door. I suddenly remembered a law professor Maggie and I had at Loyola Chicago. The professor had stood in front of an Advanced Litigation class and said the most important thing she could teach us, if we planned to practice in Cook County, was Always push the door with the lock. I’d found she was right. At the Daley Center, where most of the larger civil cases were held, there were always double doors. One of them always had a lock on it, and that one was always unlocked. If you pushed the other, you inevitably banged into it and looked like an ass, and in the world of litigation, where confidence was not only prized but required, you didn’t want that.

From what I had learned through Maggie, though, Chicago’s criminal courts didn’t run like anyone else’s, so I hadn’t thought about the door thing. More than anything, though, I was probably just out of practice. I gave Maggie a curt nod to say, I got it, then pushed the correct door and stepped into the courtroom.

The state’s attorneys turned and eyed me. One, I guessed, was in her forties, but her stern expression and steely glare made her seem older. She wore a brown pant-suit and low heels. The woman with her was younger, a brunette with long hair, who was probably a few years out of law school—enough time to give her the assurance to appraise me in the same frank way as her colleague, but with a lot less glare.

Maggie stepped toward me, gesturing toward the woman in brown who had short, frosted hair cut in a no-nonsense fashion and whose only makeup was a slash of maroonish lipstick. “Ellie Whelan,” she said, “and Tania Castle.” She gestured toward the brunette. “This is Izzie McNeil. She’ll be trying the case with us.”

Both the women looked surprised.

“With you and Marty?” Ellie said, referring to Maggie’s grandfather.

Maggie grunted in sort of a half agreement.

“Haven’t I met you?” the brunette said to me, her eyes trailing over my hair, my face.

“Yeah…” Ellie said, doing the same.

I used to have to make occasional TV statements in my former role as an entertainment lawyer for Pickett Enterprises. But after Jane Augustine’s murder last spring, my face had been splashed across the news more than once. Sometimes I still drew glances of recognition from people on the street. The good thing was most couldn’t exactly place me.

I was about to explain, but Maggie said, “Oh, definitely. She’s been on a ton of high-profile cases.” She threw me a glance as if to say, Leave it at that.

I drew Maggie to her table—our counsel’s table, I should say. “Where’s your grandfather?”

Maggie’s face grew serious. She glanced over her shoulder at a closed door to the right of the judge’s bench. “He’s in the order room. Said he wanted a little time to himself.” She looked at her watch. “The judge gave us a break. Let’s go see how Marty’s doing.” Maggie called her grandfather by his first name during work hours. Maggie and her grandfather had successfully defended alleged murderers, drug lords and Mafioso. They were both staunch believers in the constitutional tenets that gave every defendant the right to a fair arrest and a fair trial. Those staunch beliefs had made them a hell of a lot of money.

I put my hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait, Mags,” I said, my voice low. “Tell me what’s been going on.”

She blew out a big breath of air, puffing her wheat-blond curly bangs away from her face. “I really don’t know. He’s been working around the clock on this case. Harder than I’ve ever seen him work.”

“That’s saying something. Your grandfather is one of the hardest-working lawyers in town.”

“I know!” She bit her bottom lip. “This case just seemed to grab him from the beginning. He heard about it on the news and told me we had to represent Valerie even though she already had a lawyer.” Maggie named an attorney who was considered excellent. “My grandfather went to the other lawyer and talked her out of the case. And he’s been working on it constantly for the last ten months. I’m talking weekends and nights, even coming into the office in the middle of the night sometimes.” Maggie shook her head. “I think he pushed himself too much, and he’s finally feeling his age.”

“That’s hard.”

Maggie nodded, then shrugged. “So that’s basically it. I was ready to handle the opening arguments today after we picked the jury. And we had all the witnesses divided. But we got here and he started talking to our client, and his knees just buckled. He almost went down. I had to catch him.” More chewing her bottom lip, this time on the corner of it. “It was so sad, Iz. He gave me this look… I can’t describe it, but he looked scared.”

I think we were both scared then. Maggie’s grandfather had always held a tinge of the immortal. He was the patriarch of the family, the patriarch of the firm. No one ever gave thought to him not being around. It was impossible to imagine.

“Shouldn’t he see a doctor?” I asked.

“That’s what I said, but he seemed to recover quickly, and he said he wouldn’t go to the hospital or anything. You know how he is.”

“Yeah. It would be tough to force him.”

“Real tough.”

“Okay,” I said, putting on a brusque voice and standing taller. “Well, before we talk to your grandfather, update me on the case. Who is your client?”

Another exhale from Maggie sent her bangs away from her forehead. She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was near us. The state’s attorneys were on the far side of their table now, one talking on a cell phone, the other paging though a transcript.

“Her name is Valerie Solara,” Maggie said. “She’s charged with killing her friend, Amanda Miller.”

“How did the friend die?”

“Poisoned.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It was put in her food. The state’s theory is that Valerie wanted Amanda out of the way because she was in love with Amanda’s husband, Zavy.”

“Zavy?”

“Short for Xavier.”

“Any proof Valerie did it?”

“The husband will testify Valerie made overtures toward him prior to the murder, which he turned down. A friend of Amanda and Valerie’s will testify that Valerie asked her about poisons. Valerie was the one cooking the food that day with Amanda. It was her recipe, and she was teaching it to Amanda. Toxicology shows the food was deliberately contaminated and that caused Amanda’s death.”

“What does your client say?”

“Not much. Just that she didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean not much? How are we going to mount a defense if she won’t say much?”

“We handle this case the same as any other,” Maggie said. “First, we ask the client what happened. Then the client chooses what to tell us. Usually we don’t even ask the ultimate question about guilt or innocence because we don’t need to know. Our defense is almost always that the state didn’t meet their burden of proof.”

“So you never asked her if she did it or not?”

“She says she didn’t. Told us that first thing.”

“If she didn’t, who did?”

“She hasn’t given us a theory.”

Just then, a sheriff stepped into the courtroom. “All rise!”

The judge—a beefy, gray-haired guy in his early fifties—zipped up his robe over a white shirt and light blue tie as he stepped up to the bench.

“The Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session,” the sheriff bellowed, “the Honorable—”

The judge held his hand out to the sheriff and shook his head dismissively. The sheriff looked wounded but clapped his mouth shut.

“Judge Bates,” Maggie whispered. “He hates pomp and circumstance. New sheriff.”

I nodded and turned toward the judge, hands behind my back.

“Counsel, where are we?” the judge said.

Maggie stepped toward the bench and introduced me as another lawyer who would be filing an appearance on behalf of Valerie Solara. That drew a grouchy look from the judge.

“Hold on,” he said. “Let’s get this on the record.” He directed the sheriff to call the court reporter. A few seconds later, she scurried into the room with her machine, and Maggie went through the whole introduction again on the record.

“Fine,” the judge said when she was done, “now you’ve got three lawyers. More than enough to voie dire our jury panels.” The judge looked at the sheriff. “Call ’em in.”

“Excuse me, Judge,” Maggie said, taking a step toward the bench. “If we could have just five more minutes, we’ll be ready.”

Judge Bates sat back in his chair, regarding Maggie with a frown. He looked at the state’s attorneys for their response.

Ellie Whelan stepped forward. “Judge, this has taken too long already. The state is prepared, and we’d like to pick the jury immediately.”

The judge frowned again. I could tell he wanted to deny Maggie’s request, but Martin Bristol carried a lot of weight in Chicago courtrooms, even if he wasn’t present at the moment. “Five minutes,” the judge barked. He looked pointedly at Maggie. “And that’s it.” When the judge had left the bench, Maggie nodded at the door of the order room. “C’mon. Let’s go see how Marty’s doing. It will help that you’re going to try this case. You’re one of his favorites.”

We walked to the door, and Maggie swung it open. Martin Bristol sat at a table, a blank notepad in front of him. He was hunched over in a way I’d never seen before, his skin grayish. When he saw us, he straightened and blinked fast, as if trying to wake himself up.

“Izzy,” he said with a smile that showed still-white teeth. “What are you doing here?”

“Izzy’s looking for work, so I’m going to toss her some scraps.” Maggie shot me a glance. She wanted it to seem as if she was hiring me as a favor, not as a way to save her grandfather.

“I’d really appreciate it,” I said.

“Of course,” Martin said. “Anything for you, Izzy.” His posture slumped again, the weight of his shoulders appearing too much to hold.

“Mr. Bristol, are you all right?”

Maggie took a seat on one side of him. After a moment, I sat on the other side, a respectful distance away.

A moment later, when he’d still said nothing, Maggie put her hand on his arm. “Marty?”

Again, he didn’t respond, just stared at the empty legal pad, his mouth curling into a shell of sadness.

There was a rap on the door and the sheriff stuck his face into the room. “He’s had it,” he said, referring to the judge. “We’re bringing in the prospective jurors now.”

Maggie’s eyes were still on her grandfather. “Izzy and I can handle the voie dire. We may not open until tomorrow, so why don’t you go home?”

He sat up a little. “What have I always told you about jury selection?”

“That it’s the most important part of the trial,” Maggie said, as if by rote.

“Exactly.” He straightened more but didn’t stand.

“I think you should go home. Get some rest.”

His gaze moved to Maggie’s. I thought he would immediately reject the notion, but he only said simply, “Maybe.”

“Let us handle it.” Maggie nodded toward the courtroom. “I’ve already told the judge that Izzy was filing an appearance.”

Again, I waited for swift rejection, but Martin Bristol nodded. “Just this one time.”

“Just this once,” Maggie said softly.

Martin pushed down on the table with his hands, shoving himself to his feet. “I’ll explain to Judge Bates.” He slowly left the room.

Maggie’s round eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, watched him. Then she met my gaze across the table. “You ready for this?”

My pulse quickened. “No.”

“Good,” she said, standing. “Let’s get out there.”