Black River (13 page)

“Either of which is okay with you.”

“Sure,” she says. “I’m not
looking for anything permanent. I just want to make sure I’m not
tearing up some other girl’s world.”

“Then?”

“Then it all goes to hell,” she said.
“We been together maybe two weeks, and all of a sudden he’s
not showing up at my place after work anymore. Doesn’t say a
word, just stops coming over.” She bumped herself off the desk
and put a hand on her hip. “So I see him at work and say,
‘Hey, what’s the deal? Haven’t seen you
lately.’ And you know what he tells me?”

“What?”

“He tells me to get over it. Says he’s
moved on and I should move on too.” Her free hand joined its mate
at her waist. “Like I’m some snot-nosed kid or
something.”

“Ah,” Corso said. “The woman
scorned.”

She laughed. “No, no,” she said, “I
was okay with it. I’m still thinking I woke this guy up after a
long hibernation, and now he’s running amok.” She shrugged.
“It figures. You know how guys are.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Until I tell my friend Susie about
it—Susie’s the one in payroll—anyway, a coupla days
after I tell her about it, she calls me one night and tells me she went
through his personnel file and guess what?”

“He’s already had a sexual harassment
complaint filed against him.”

“Bingo.” She began to smile. “Now
I’m starting to get pissed. So I get the name and find an excuse
to go over to the North Hill Shop, and, lo and behold, he ran the same
number on her he ran on me.” She raised her voice and added a
singsong quality. “
I haven’t been with
a woman in years. I’m not sure I still know what to do
.
Oh my, oh my.” She shook her head disgustedly. “He gives
her the same damn song and dance.” She cut the air with her
hand. “Unbelievable.”

“And then he dumps her too.”

“He doesn’t even bother to tell
her
. She has to find out on her own.” Corso
waited. “Yeah. She comes back to the shop one night for
something she forgot, and there he is sitting there in the parking lot
in his truck mauling some little Asian honey.”

“Not good.”

“Damn right it’s not good. Turns out this
jerk is risking our lives. We’re having unprotected sex with a
guy who’s screwing the known world.”

“Ah.”

“I hadn’t even thought about a complaint
until she—the other girl—told me that’s why she filed
one.” She nodded slightly, as if once again confirming her
decision. “I decided she was right. This guy was putting our
lives at risk. Any trouble I could make for that jerk was okay with
me.”

A buzzer sounded out in the shop.

“I gotta go,” she said and headed for the
door. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “As far as
I’m concerned, Donald Barth got exactly what he
deserved.”

“Thanks for your time,” Corso said.

She gave him a wicked smile. “Come back
sometime.”

“It’s been years,” Corso said with a
grin.

She burst out laughing. “Yeah, sure.”

Friday, October 20

5:05 p.m.

W
arren Klein paced back and forth in front
of the jury like a lion in a cage. Ray Butler stood ready at the easel,
which held a picture of the collapsed back wall of Fairmont Hospital,
taken from a slightly different angle, so as to exclude the tiny foot.
Renee Rogers sorted through a mountain of paperwork on the prosecution
table, handing Klein folders whenever he strutted her way.

“Mr. Rozan,” Klein said, “can you
tell the jury the magnitude of an earthquake that could be expected to
cause damage of this nature?”

Sam Rozan looked like your local greengrocer: bald
little guy with a big mustache and thick wrists. Turned out he was
chief earthquake engineer for the State of California and an expert of
world renown. A man whose consulting résumé included
every major planetary shake in the past fifteen years.

“That would depend almost entirely upon soil
conditions.”

“Have you had occasion to inspect the soil around
the Fairmont Hospital project?”

“I have.”

“What were those conditions?”

“The ground is virtually undisturbed.”

“Virtually?”

“None of the signs of ground failure are present
at the scene.”

“What signs would those be?”

He counted on his fingers. “Ground cracking,
lateral transposition, landslides, differential settlement.” He
stopped with four fingers in the air. “And at the extreme end of
the spectrum, the liquefaction of the soil beneath the
structure.”

“So you’re saying that—”

“Objection.” Elkins was on his feet.
“Mr. Klein is leading his own witness, Your Honor. If Mr. Klein
wishes to testify—”

“Sustained,” Fulton Howell said.

“I’ll rephrase the question,” Klein
said.

Turned out he didn’t need to. Rozan spoke up.
“None of the ground conditions consistent with damage of that
nature were present.”

“None?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Having satisfied yourself that ground failure
was not to blame, did you and your colleagues make a subsequent
examination of the site in order to ascertain other possible causes for
the collapse?”

“Yes. My staff and I conducted a full-scale
on-site investigation.”

“Were you able to come to a conclusion as to the
cause of the tragedy?”

“Absolutely.”

Klein looked at the jury box like a kindly uncle.
“For the sake of clarity, Mr. Rozan, are you saying that you were
absolutely able to reach a conclusion, or that you believe the
conclusion you reached to be absolutely true?”

“Both,” Sam Rozan said, without hesitation.
“The reasons for the structural failure were staring us in the
face. It was a no-brainer.”

The room caught its collective breath, waiting for
Elkins to get to his feet and fight for his client, but Bruce Elkins
remained seated and impassive.

“How so?”

“The building didn’t meet any of the
established specifications for seismic-resistant design.”

“Which are?”

Rozan waved a hand. “There is, of course, no
ideal configuration for any particular type of building.” Klein
opened his mouth to ask another question, but Rozan went on.
“There are, however, a number of basic guidelines.”

“Could you enumerate those guidelines for us,
please?”

Rozan went back to his fingers. “One: the
building should be light and avoid unnecessary masses. Two: the
building and its superstructure should be simple, symmetric, and
regular in plan.” He looked over at the jury box. “You
don’t want the building to be too much taller than it is wide.
Three: the structure needs to have considerably more lateral stiffness
than structures in nonseismic regions.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the stiffer and lighter the building,
the less sensitive it will be to the effects of shaking.”

“How is it possible to build a structure that is
both stronger and lighter at the same time?”

“That’s accomplished by the quality of the
materials in conjunction with the quality of the
workmanship.”

“And you say that the Fairmont Hospital was built
without any of these qualities?” Klein looked to the jury and
aimed his palms at the ceiling. “How can it be, Mr. Rozan, that a
publicly funded structure in the most seismically active area of the
country would be allowed to be erected without these
safeguards?”

“It was not constructed according to
specifications.”

Klein looked astonished. “Surely there must have
been some system of checks and balances in place to assure that seismic
guidelines were being adhered to?”

“On a project of that size, you’d normally
have a pair of state building inspectors working full-time on the
site.”

“Was that the case?”

“Yes, it was.”

“That would be Joshua Harmon and Brian
Swanson.”

“Yes, it would.”

“Have you or any member of your staff spoken to
either of these gentlemen?”

For the first time, Sam Rozan looked confused.
“That wasn’t possible,” he said tentatively.
“As you know, they…both of them were—”

Suddenly Elkins was on his feet.
“Objection,” he said in a weary voice. “It’s
obvious where Mr. Klein is heading with this, Your Honor.”

“I’m merely asking an expert witness about
the standard procedure for an investigation of this nature.”

Elkins made a rude noise. “Mr. Klein seeks to
inflame the jury with facts not entered in evidence. He
seeks—”

Fulton Howell had heard enough. “Approach the
bench,” he said.

As Elkins and Klein shuffled toward the front of the
courtroom, Renee Rogers rocked her chair back onto two legs and
whispered to Corso, “Maybe Warren does have a trick or two up his
sleeve. This is very slick.”

Corso arched an eyebrow. Rogers checked the bench,
where the muted discussion continued. “Ordinarily, we
couldn’t include anything about crimes other than those with
which the defendant is charged.” She flicked another glance at
the front of the room. “Hell, we can’t even bring up crimes
the defendant’s been convicted of. Except, in this case, where
he’s asking an expert witness about his method of
investigation….”

The sound of shoes snapped her head around. Klein wore
victory on his face. “Mr. Rozan, allow me to rephrase my previous
question,” he began. “When assigned an investigation of
the scope of Fairmont Hospital, where do you and your staff generally
begin?”

“With the on-site inspectors.”

“Always?”

“It’s the professional protocol.” He
shrugged. “A courtesy.”

“But in this case you were not able to do
so.”

“That’s correct.”

“Why was that?”

“Once again, Your Honor—”

The judge waved Elkins off. “Allow the witness to
answer.”

“I must take exception—”

“Exception noted, Mr. Elkins.”

Klein stepped in close to the witness. “Once
again, Mr. Rozan, could you please tell us why you were unable to
question the on-site inspection staff?”

“They were dead.”

“Move for a mistrial on the grounds
that—”

“Motion denied,” the judge snapped. He
waved his gavel at Bruce Elkins. “As I explained to you during
our sidebar, Mr. Elkins, so long as Mr. Klein’s questions
regarding Messrs. Harmon and Swanson are solely directed toward
establishing Mr. Rozan’s method of investigation, the information
may be entered into evidence.”

Klein’s right shoe squeaked as he hustled toward
the prosecution table. “The Alameda County file,” he said
in a stage whisper.

Rogers handed him a bright yellow folder. Klein strode
past the jury, headed for the front of the room.

“The People would like to introduce into evidence
two autopsy reports provided by Mr. Eugene Berry, who was, at the
time, medical examiner for Alameda County.”

“This is an outrage!” Elkins stormed.

“I am merely attempting to corroborate Mr.
Rozan’s testimony as to why he was unable to conduct his
investigation according to his established pattern of
inquiry.”

“Continue.”

He waved his fistful of reports at the judge. “We
can either have the reports read into the record in their entirety or
we can stipulate that the circumstances of death surrounding Mr. Harmon
and Mr. Swanson fall under the umbrella of common
knowledge.”

“So stipulated,” Howell said. “But
you will limit your stipulation to the barest facts of their
disposition.”

Klein turned to face the jury box. “Seven weeks
after the collapse of Fairmont Hospital, Mr. Joshua Harmon and Mr.
Brian Swanson were found floating in San Pablo Bay. Each man had been
shot twice in the back of the head. The medical examiner lists these
wounds as the cause of death.”

Klein dropped the reports on the desk of the court
clerk and walked back over to his witness. “You said earlier, Mr.
Rozan, that you believed the causes for the collapse of Fairmont
Hospital were”—he hesitated, putting a finger to his
temple—“I believe your phrase was that it was a
no-brainer
. Is that correct?”

“Yes. It was.”

“Could you give us an example of what you
meant?”

Sam Rozan looked over at Ray Butler, standing by the
easel. Ray pulled the collapse picture off and leaned it against the
legs. The next photo was of a splintered square of concrete. A yellow
ruler had been placed along the base, for scale, seventeen inches a
side.

“Mr. Rozan, could you give us some idea of what
it is we’re looking at in this exhibit?”

“The picture is of one of the pillars that
supported the rear wall of Fairmont Hospital.” He started to get
to his feet, stopped, looked at the judge. “May I?”

Judge Howell nodded his assent. Rozan walked to the
oversized photo and pointed with a stubby finger.
“Here—where the outer layer of concrete has fallen
off—you can see the honeycombing.” His voice began to rise.
“This is a main structural support. It’s supposed to be
solid.” He brushed the back of his hand across the picture.
“This is unconscionable.”

“Was this defect present in other back wall
columns?”

“It was consistent with virtually every other
pillar and column in the entire structure.”

“To what do you attribute this lack of
solidarity?”

“Everything,” Rozan said quickly.
“The concrete mixing, the placement, the consolidation, the
curing—all of it was cheap, quick, and dirty.” He pointed
at the picture again. “You could peel away the outer layer of
concrete with the kick of a boot.”

Klein walked him through four more photos without
Elkins so much as clearing his throat. By the time Klein thanked his
witness and returned to his chair next to Rogers, the jury could be
heard twisting around in their seats.

“Cross,” the judge intoned.

Elkins stayed seated. “Not at this time, Your
Honor. I would, however, like to retain the right to question this
witness at another time.”

Klein got to his feet. “As would I, Your
Honor.”

“So noted.”
Bang
. The judge sat back in his chair and sighed.
“We’ve run considerably past the customary adjournment
hour. And as Mr. Elkins does not wish to cross-examine the witness at
this time, this seems to be a suitable place to quit for the
weekend.” He looked from lawyer to lawyer. “If neither of
you gentlemen objects.”

Friday, October 20

5:28 p.m.

B
ruce Elkins sat down at the defense table
and looked over at his client, Nicholas Balagula. “You pay me for
my best legal advice,” he said.

Balagula nodded in agreement. “Handsomely,”
he said.

Elkins’s gaze was stony. “I’ve
changed my mind about our strategy. I have an obligation to give you
the opportunity to find new counsel, should you disagree with what I
now consider to be your best legal option.”

“What strategy would that be?” Balagula
asked.

Elkins leaned in close to his client. “I
don’t think we should put on a defense,” he said in a low
voice.

Balagula and Ivanov exchanged glances.
“Really?” Ivanov said.

“At this stage of the proceedings, that’s
my best legal advice.”

“And if I disagree?”

“Then it is my advice that we seek a
plea.”

Balagula waved a hand, as if shooing a fly. “Not
an option,” he said.

Elkins ran a hand over his head. “I don’t
like it either,” he said. “You heard the testimony. If the
state can connect you in any way to the construction conspiracy, prison
could turn out to be the least of your worries.” He held
Nicholas Balagula in an unwavering gaze. “You could very well
find yourself looking at a lethal injection.”

“Why no defense?” Balagula asked.

“Because that way—even if this Lebow person
connects you to the conspiracy—that way you’ll have
grounds for appeal on the basis of having been provided an incompetent
and insufficient defense.”

“Mr. Lebow can connect me to nothing,”
Balagula said.

“That’s not what my sources are telling me.
I’m being told he’s going to testify that he was in the
room when you ordered the falsification of the core-sample test
results.” Balagula started to speak, but Elkins cut him off.
“If that happens, the party’s over. Not me or anybody else
can get you out of this.”

Nicholas Balagula got to his feet. “You do what
you think is best,” he said.