The Last Innocent Man Page 7

  “And up on the mountain? Who shot at her there?”

  The boy’s right hand raised slowly and began to pick at a whitehead on his cheek. The tip of Seals’s tongue licked his lower lip, then darted back into his mouth.

  “Well?”

  “Uh…well, there was Zack. He done it first, right after we left her. Then we drove off some and Sticks said we should make sure. So we turned around and Sticks asked Zack if he could take a shot and Zack give him the gun.”

  David watched T.S. closely. Remembering anything seemed to exhaust him. He wondered what it would be like to go through life with a brain that worked so slowly.

  “T.S., did you ever shoot the gun?”

  The hand dropped from the pimple and T.S. looked afraid.

  “No, honest. They don’t say I done it, do they?”

  “I want to know.”

  “No, no. Zack said he’d let me try, but I was too bummed out. I said no and Sticks just took another shot.”

  “What do you mean, bummed out?”

  “I was tired,” T.S. said, sagging back in his chair, as if he had forgotten that he had been frightened only seconds before. He went back to worrying the pimple.

  “T.S., just between us, if you hadn’t been tired, would you have shot her?”

  T.S. considered the question and David wondered why he had asked it. What difference did it make? He had won. T.S. would be a free man after he testified at the trials of his former friends, and David would have earned his fee. Why did he need to know the truth about this idiot boy who would soon be at large again?

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said. The pimple burst and white pus squeezed through his fingers. David felt cold and alone. The empty room was suddenly too close, and he wanted to get out.

  “The district attorney has offered us a deal, T.S. She feels that she needs your testimony to convict Sticks and Zack. If you are willing to testify against them, she will grant you complete immunity. Do you know what that means?”

  T.S. shook his head. His fingers were at work on another pimple.

  “It means you go free. That they drop the charges against you for shooting Jessie.”

  The fingers still worked, the stare was still vacant.

  “I can go home?” he finally asked.

  “After you’ve testified.”

  “I have to testify in court?”

  David nodded.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” he said. Seals was trying to piece it together. David leaned back and let him think. He was floating and he needed some air. Dizzy. If he had some water.

  “I guess it would be okay,” T.S. said finally. There was no excitement, no elation. David wondered if Seals even cared. For T.S. the world was a torment where everything was too complicated. He was a man made for prison where the rules and regulations set him free from the arduous task of having to make decisions.

  “You’ll have to get on the witness stand in court and say exactly what happened, and you’ll have to take a liedetector test first, so the district attorney can be sure you’re being truthful. Will you do that?”

  “If you say so,” the boy said. He had stopped picking his face apart and thought for a second. “I can really go home?”

  “Yes, T.S.”

  T.S. smiled, but only for a brief moment. Then he looked at David.

  “You know, the guys in here said I was lucky to have you as my lawyer. They said you’d beat the rap for me.”

  David stood to go. It was very warm in the narrow room and he needed air badly. He looked down at the idiot boy at the table and saw him back on the streets, the way he’d be in six months or a year. Back on drugs. Doing…what? Would he pull the trigger next time? Would there be a next time? David knew there would be, because he could see with his own eyes what Tony Seals was. His hands began to itch as if they were very dirty.

  “I thought you’d gone home,” Gregory Banks said.

  David was sitting in his office in the dark. His jacket was folded over the back of a chair on the other side of his desk, and his tie was undone. He had turned his desk chair so that it faced the river, where a tugboat flowed with the current like a firefly tracing the path of a piece of carelessly thrown black ribbon.

  “Just thinking,” David said. He sounded down.

  “Want to talk, or should I leave?”

  David swiveled around and faced his friend.

  “Do you ever wonder what the hell we’re doing, Greg?”

  Banks sat down.

  “This does sound serious,” he said, half joking.

  “I just made a deal with the DA. Tony Seals is going to get complete immunity.”

  “That’s great!” Gregory said, puzzled by David’s mood. He was close to the Sealses, and he knew what this would mean to them.

  “Is it? What do I do six months from now when Tony kills someone and his parents want to hire me because I did such a good job today?”

  “The DA made the offer, Dave. You were just representing your client.”

  “Jah, mein Herr, I vas chust following orders,” David said bitterly.

  “Why don’t you tell me what brought all this on.”

  “I don’t know, Greg,” David said. Gregory waited patiently for him to continue. “I guess I’ve just been taking a good look at the way I earn my living, and I’m not sure I like what I see. There are people out there hurting other people. The cops arrest them, the prosecutors prosecute them, and I shovel the garbage right back into the street. You know, that’s an apt metaphor. Maybe they should start calling us sanitary engineers.”

  “I think you’re getting a little melodramatic, don’t you? What about that kid you helped out? The college kid who got busted with the marijuana. He was guilty of a felony, right? Should he have been convicted? If you hadn’t beaten that case, he wouldn’t be in medical school. And you beat that case using the same legal arguments you used to get that heroin dealer off last year. You can’t have two systems of justice.”

  “Maybe not, Greg. Your arguments, as always, are very logical. That’s what makes you such a good lawyer. But I just made a deal today that is going to permit a very sick young man, who made a young girl dig her own grave and left her to die, to walk out of jail scot-free.

  “You know, when I got into this business, I saw myself as a knight in shining armor defending the innocent, the unjustly accused. How many innocent people have I represented, Greg? After a while you realize there aren’t any innocent men, only a lot of guilty ones who can pay pretty good for a smart lawyer. So at first you rationalize what you’re doing, but eventually you’re just in it for the money.”

  “Look, Dave, I know what you’re going through. I’ve been through it, too. Anyone who practices criminal law and has a conscience has to deal with the conflict between that idealized crap they teach you in law school and the way the real world is, but the picture you’re painting isn’t accurate either.

  “You are a good lawyer and you do good, honest work. There are innocent people who get arrested. There are people, like that college kid, who are guilty but shouldn’t be convicted. In order to help them, you have to help people like Tony Seals. It’s the system that’s important. It’s the only thing that keeps this country from being Nazi Germany. You think about that.”

  “I do, Greg. Look, I know what you believe and I respect you for it. My problem is, I don’t know what I believe in anymore. I know what I used to believe in, and I’m beginning to think I sold that out when the money started getting too good.”

  Gregory started to say something, then changed his mind. He remembered the agonies he had gone through over this same question. He never had to find an answer, because he’d stopped taking criminal cases, except those that interested him, when he’d started doing more and more work for the union. Greg had made his fortune by winning big verdicts in personal-injury cases and dealing tough at negotiating sessions for union contracts. Getting out of criminal law was no problem for him.

  David was different. He had
no interest in any other area of the law. He had tried to branch out, but he had always come back to his criminal practice. And why not? He made a good living at it and he loved what he did. Only now he was beginning to question his worth because of his work.

  “You want to go get a drink?” Gregory asked. It was quiet in the evening offices. A few associates staying late to work on problems assigned by the partners made an occasional disturbance in the dark rhythms. David stood up and put on his suit jacket.

  “I think I’ll just go home.”

  “I could tell Helen to set another place for dinner.”

  “No, I’d rather be by myself.”

  “Okay. Just promise me you won’t let this drag you down.”

  “I’ll try,” David said, making an effort to smile.

  After David left, Gregory walked back to his office. He looked at his watch. It was late. He was working too damn late recently. He’d have to cut that out. He sighed. He’d been telling himself that since he started practice, what was it, over twenty years ago. That was a long time, twenty years.

  He sat at his desk and started to proofread the brief he had been writing. Poor David. There were advantages to being in your fifties. Growing up was hell and you never really stopped. You thought you did when you got out of your teens. Then you found out that the crises were just starting.

  David was a good boy, though. A sound thinker. What he needed was a case he could believe in. There had been too many hard cases lately. He needed to feel his worth again. A good case would come along. It was the law of averages.

  PART II

  THE LAST INNOCENT MAN

  1

  Judge Rosenthal looked across the courtroom toward the clock that hung above the empty jury box. The last witness had just been excused, and there was plenty of time before lunch.

  “You might as well argue now, gentlemen,” he said to the two attorneys seated at opposite tables in front of the bench. Walter Greaves struggled to his feet. He had been fighting a battle with arthritis, and, the judge reflected sadly, he seemed to be losing. That was too bad. He’d known Wally for thirty years, and he had a genuine affection for him.

  The judge let his eyes wander over to opposing counsel. Larry Stafford provided a perfect contrast to Greaves. He looked so healthy that he made the judge self-conscious about his own physical condition. There had been an upsurge of work during the past few weeks, and he had been passing up his noontime squash games. He was suddenly aware of the pressure of his waistband against his belly. The pressure made him feel guilty and uncomfortable, and he tried to take his mind off it by listening to Greaves’s argument.

  When Greaves sat down, the judge nodded at Stafford. The young lawyer had been before Rosenthal on a few occasions representing Price, Winward, Lexington and Rice, Portland’s largest law firm. Rosenthal considered him to be conscientious and thorough, if not exceptionally bright.

  Stafford was dressed in a lightweight plaid suit that was conservative enough for the courtroom, yet sufficiently summery to fit in with the unseasonably mild September weather. Stafford was just under six feet in height, but his slim, athletic build made him look taller. When he spoke, the pure white of his teeth contrasted with his deep tan. The boy was good-looking enough to be an actor, Rosenthal thought.

  “As the Court is aware, and I set this out in full in my trial memorandum, the Uniform Partnership Act permits a limited partner to have some degree of control over the conduct of the business with which he is involved. Mr. Tish has done nothing more than the limited partners did in the Grainger case or the Rathke case. I don’t want to go into this too much more, because I’d just be repeating the brief, but I don’t see where the plaintiffs have established liability. If the Court has any questions…”

  “No, Mr. Stafford. I’ll tell both of you gentlemen that this question is too close for me to make a decision now. I’ve read your briefs, and I want some time to do some independent research before resolving this. I’ll try to have a written opinion in a week or so. If you have any supplemental authorities, you can submit them in letter form. Anything further?”

  The attorneys shook their heads.

  “Then we’ll adjourn. Have a nice lunch, gentlemen.”

  The judge rose and disappeared through a door behind his seat. Larry Stafford started collecting his notes and putting them into his file in an orderly manner. The notes, written in a neat, precise hand, were set out on index cards. Andrew Tish, Stafford’s client, asked for an opinion on how the case had gone. Stafford tucked a law book under his arm and hefted his attache case as he shook his head and started for the courtroom door.

  “No way of telling with Rosenthal, Andy. The guy’s bright, and he’ll give a lot of thought to the case. That’s about all I can say.”

  Walter Greaves was waiting in the hall outside the courtroom.

  “Larry.”

  Stafford stopped and asked Tish to wait for him.

  “I talked with my people, and they’re willing to come down on the settlement offer.”

  “I’ll tell Tish, but I’m going to advise him to hang tough.”

  “I’m just conveying my client’s offer.”

  Stafford smirked and walked down the hall that led to the elevators. The courthouse had four corridors that ran along the sides of an empty central shaft. Greaves picked up his briefcase and walked toward the rear of the building. He did not like dealing with Stafford. He was too cocky. Very…superficial-that was the word. Nothing under the surface. Come on like Mr. Nice Guy one minute, then you find out you’ve been double-crossed. And in this case it had not been necessary to do some of the borderline ethical things the boy had done. Hell, Stafford had him dead to rights. His clients were just trying anything they could to prop up a dying business. Greaves shook his head and moved aside to get out of the way of a young man dressed in jeans and a work shirt. This young man had a dark complexion, a shaggy black mustache, and thick black hair and he was staring down the corridor toward Judge Rosenthal’s courtroom.

  “And then what happened, Officer Ortiz?”

  “My job was to wait outside the residence in case any of the suspects attempted to escape. The other officers went inside to execute the search warrant, and Officer Lesnowski and I waited near the front of the building.”

  “Did you actually take part in the search?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Shortly after, Officers Teske and Hennings exited the residence with the two prisoners and a bag containing evidence. Officer Teske gave me the evidence bag, and he and Hennings drove to the station house with the prisoners.”

  “Did you talk with either of the prisoners or look in the bag?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

  Judge McDonald nodded toward the public defender, who was conferring with his client, a teenage black man accused of possession of cocaine. Ortiz relaxed. He had been cross-examined by this asshole before, and he expected the interrogation to be long and stupid, even though he had no information of interest to anyone.

  But the prospect of cross-examination didn’t bother him. He was happy just being back at work. First there had been the stay in the hospital, then the vacation he had not really wanted to take. The department had insisted, though. It wanted him to rest and get his memory back, because his memory was the only thing the department had left in the Darlene Hersch case.

  He had dropped in on Crosby before going to court, and nothing had changed. No fingerprints, no other witnesses, no leads. Crosby had moved around the edges, not wanting to ask the question directly. Probably under the orders of some department shrink. So Ortiz had answered the unspoken question. Nothing had changed. He still had trouble sorting out what had happened. His memory was getting better every day, but it blurred and faded, and even when his idea of things seemed clear, he could not be sure if what he was seeing was what had really happened.

  The
public defender was still gabbing, and Ortiz shifted in his chair in the witness box. Thinking about his memory and that night had spoiled the feeling of peace he had experienced when he had started giving testimony. It was Darlene that troubled him. He was afraid of the pictures he would see when his memory came back. Afraid that he had been responsible for her death. Everyone assured him that it wasn’t so, but how did they know? How could they be so sure of what had happened that night?

  The public defender looked up from his notes. Ortiz waited for the questions, grateful for a chance to escape from his own thoughts.

  “Officer Ortiz, what happened to Officer Murdock and Officer Elvin after Teske and Hennings left the scene?”

  “They remained in the residence.”

  “Thank you, I have no further questions.”

  “You’re excused,” the judge said. Ortiz was surprised he had gotten off so easily. Maybe the schmuck was learning.

  Jack Hennings, Ortiz’s partner, looked up from his newspaper when the courtroom door opened.

  “You’re on,” Ortiz said.

  Hennings handed the paper to Mike Elvin and went through the door. Ortiz turned toward Elvin to ask for the sports section when he noticed two men talking at the other end of the corridor. His hand started to shake and his chest felt suddenly constricted. The two men concluded their conversation, and the older man walked toward him. Ortiz did not see him. His eyes were riveted on the younger man-the blond. He had started down the hall that led to the elevators, but Ortiz was seeing him in a different place. He was remembering a man with curly blond hair walking quickly along the landing that ran outside the rooms at the Raleigh Motel, and he was seeing a face spotlighted for a moment in the doorway of the motel room where Darlene Hersch had died.

  The older man passed him, and the blond disappeared around the corner.

  “Tell Jack to wait for me,” he said to Elvin. Elvin looked up, but Ortiz was already halfway down the corridor.

  There was no one in the hall when Ortiz reached the corner. He looked up at the floor indicator. Both elevator cars had reached the ground floor. Ortiz walked back toward Judge Rosenthal’s courtroom. The law student who served as the judge’s clerk was reading a textbook in the empty courtroom and munching on a sandwich.