Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (26 page)

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Horace, what the hell is wrong with you?" I asked,
alarmed.

"Goddamn lawyers." The stacks of files and documents,
usually organized in the rigorous arrangement required by his
insistence on perfect order, had been scattered all over the desk
and onto the floor. He did not seem to notice, or, if he did, he
did not care. He started to sit down, changed his mind, and laid
his right hand heavily on the near corner of the chair. "You think
you can just walk in here whenever you feel like it?" he
snapped.

"My mistake. It won't happen again." I turned on my
heel and headed for the door.

"Don't go. I didn't mean it," he called after me. I
let go of the handle and swung around. Horace had sunk into the
chair. "It hasn't been a good day," he said, by way of apology.

Warily, I sat down, holding my briefcase in my
lap.

"I'm sorry, Joe," he said softly.

"I saw what you did in there," I said. "What's going
on, Horace?"

"He deserved what he got. Guys like him have never
done anything in their lives. They go to college, they go to law
school, they join some downtown firm so they can lease their new
cars and buy their new houses. They live their little lives and
never think twice about anything except how they can make more
money this year than they did last. The hell with them," he
whispered. "The hell with them all."

Abruptly, he pushed himself up and walked in
purposeful strides across the room to the coat rack. He bent down,
picked up the crumpled black robe, shook it out with one hand, and
draped it over one of the brass hooks. From another hook, he
retrieved his suit coat and struggled into it.

"You want to walk out with me?" he asked. "I've got a
meeting." We walked in silence through the corridor and rode the
crowded elevator down to the ground floor without exchanging a
word. Outside the courthouse we said a brief good-bye. Horace had
followed every detail of the murder trial of Marshall Goodwin. He
knew the case was going to the jury this morning, and he had not
asked a single question about it.

What Horace had not asked, Helen could not wait to
answer. "Jury will be back before three," she said, as soon as I
shut the office door behind me. She said it the way she said most
things, with absolute assurance, as if she had inside
knowledge.

She fluttered all around me while I got a cola from
the small refrigerator and walked through the open doorway to my
desk. As I pulled one arm out of my suit coat, I felt her take it
by the shoulder and then help me out of the other sleeve. I fell
into the chair and looked up at her. Carefully folding the jacket
down the middle, she laid it over the arm of one of the two
wingback chairs in front of the desk and sat down in the other.

"I haven't said this before," she began, looking at
me from under long pointed lashes, each one of them coated black.
"But this was a lot of trouble to go to if you're going to be a
one-case lawyer." With a wave of her hand she encompassed the
things she had done to transform a vacant suite into a functioning
office.

"What's the matter? Don't you think they'll give you
your old job back at the firm?" I asked.

She cocked her head. "Thanks, but if I want to be
dead, I'll do it myself."

"Did you really think I'd ask you to leave your job
if I wasn't sure I was going to do this for good?"

She lowered her eyes, slightly embarrassed. "I knew
you wouldn't do that," she replied, fidgeting. "I just wanted to be
sure." She looked up. "So where are all the clients?"

"What kind do you think we should have? I've been
thinking maybe we should do something more exciting than criminal
law. What do you think about divorce cases?" I tried to look
serious.

"Why don't you do both? Defend the people who shoot
divorce lawyers." She made it sound like a form of justifiable
homicide. A few minutes before three, the telephone rang. "I told
you so," Helen said, without looking up, as I passed her desk on my
way out the door.

There was a verdict. Before the hour was out I would
know whether the jury had decided that Marshall Goodwin was guilty
or whether I had failed to make a strong enough case and he would
walk out, a free man.

The stifling heat had passed. Everyone outside on the
sidewalks walked easily now, under the clean light of the sun,
breathing in the first nostalgic hint of autumn.

I took my chair at the counsel table and waited.
There was not a single place left to sit anywhere in the courtroom.
The door behind the bench swung open, and Judge Holloway appeared.
Lowering herself into the tall leather chair, she rested her arms
on the bench and folded her hands together. "Bring in the jury,"
she said firmly, looking straight ahead.

As if he could have an effect on them even now,
Richard Lee Jones sat straight up and stared at each juror as they
filed into the box. The motorcycle mechanic had been chosen
foreman. He held the verdict in his hand.

Following the time-honored practice, Judge Holloway
inquired, "Has the jury reached a verdict?"

"Yes, we have, your Honor."

The clerk moved across the front of the courtroom.
"Would you hand the verdict to the clerk, please?"

The paper was brought back to the judge, who read it
with as little expression as she might have perused an article in
the newspaper. She handed it back to the clerk.

"The clerk will please read the verdict."

Out of the corner of my eye, I studied the reaction
of Marshall Goodwin as he waited a last few agonizing seconds while
the clerk cleared her throat and began to read. He had a lost look
in his eyes, the look someone gets when they abandon hope. It was
close to what I imagined Nancy Goodwin must have felt when she
waited for the knife. I turned away and watched the mouth of the
clerk pronounce the last few words of the verdict.

Evenly and without emotion, her eyes moving left to
right and back again, she read the word guilty and then took a half
step back. Beating her gavel, Irma Holloway quieted the crowd.
"Sentencing will be in thirty days," she announced.

It was over. There was nothing more to do except
gather up my belongings and run the gauntlet of reporters waiting
outside. When I turned to go, there were only a few stragglers left
in the courtroom.

"Mr. Antonelli," said a distinguished-looking man in
his early sixties. He was standing next to the gate at the railing,
waiting for me.

"Yes?"

He extended his hand. "I just wanted to thank you.
I'm Thomas Redfield, Nancy's father."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Redfield. I wish it
could have been under different circumstances."

His handshake was strong and firm. He placed his
other hand on my shoulder. "If it hadn't been for you, he would
have gotten away with it. If there is ever anything I can do for
you... " His hand slipped off my shoulder and he let go of my
grasp. Without another word he turned away.

Somewhere in one of the Platonic dialogues Leopold
Rifkin first told me about is the argument that it is better to
suffer injustice than to commit it. Watching Nancy Goodwin's father
walk out of the courtroom, I had a hard time believing it was a
choice anyone should ever have to make.

In the corridor I stood under the television lights,
surrounded by a mob of reporters."How does it feel to beat Richard
Lee Jones?" someone shouted from the back.

"No one who has the good fortune of having Mr. Jones
as his attorney can ever complain they did not receive a fair
trial. He's one of the best defense attorneys I've ever seen."

Harper Bryce was waiting for me on the courthouse
steps. "That was pretty damn shrewd, Antonelli," he remarked.

I kept on walking.

"The case is over, Harper. There isn't anything more
I can tell you, on or off the record."

On cool days, he had no trouble keeping up. "Two
sentences, and you put Jones in the position of having to explain
how his client didn't get a fair trial when he had him as his
lawyer and then you give him that backhanded compliment about being
'one of the best.' That'll just kill him when he hears it."

"You don't think he's one of the best?"

"That's not the point."

"What is the point, Harper?" I asked, walking
briskly.

"You know damn well what the point is. Jones doesn't
think he's one of the best. He thinks he is the best."

"Maybe he is, Harper. He's damn good."

"He lost."

I stopped still and looked at him. "That's the
mistake everybody makes. The verdict doesn't decide how well you've
done your job. If we had changed sides—if I'd defended and he'd
prosecuted—do you think the verdict would have been different?"

For a moment, he said nothing, the loose folds around
his eyes wrinkling up as he studied me. Nodding slowly, he said
quietly, "Yes, actually, I do."

I started walking again, Bryce right alongside."There
is something I wanted to ask you about. Could we talk for a few
minutes?"

Helen leaped up as soon as she saw the columnist
behind me. "Hello, Mr. Bryce," she said, flashing an almost girlish
smile.

"Aren't you going to ask what the verdict was?" I
inquired when, of her own volition, she brought two cups of coffee
into my office.

"Guilty," she said nonchalantly as she left, shutting
the door behind her.

Cradling the cup in his soft, pudgy hands, Bryce
asked, "How did she know that?"

"Who knows?" I shrugged. "She can always tell as soon
as she sees me... There was a question you wanted to ask?" I
reminded him.

"Kristin Maxfield. What is going to be done about
her?"

I smiled back. "Do you think something needs to be
done?"

"You may have forgotten, but the first time we
talked— our first off-the-record conversation—I distinctly remember
you said that Marshall Goodwin had not acted alone. In fact, I
remember putting something like that in the paper." He bent closer.
"I hope you weren't just using me."

"How could you possibly think a thing like that?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

He put down his cup. "Nothing? You don't think she
was in on it from the beginning? That she knew what was inside when
she took that envelope to Quentin?"

"I'm going to tell you something—off the record," I
said seriously. "I don't know if she knew what was inside that
envelope or not, and I certainly don't know if she played any part
in planning the murder. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she
didn't know anything about it. All I know is that without her
testimony Goodwin could never have been convicted, and I'm going to
give him the chance to get even. I'm going to give him the same
offer they gave Quentin. He tells us everything he knows about
Kristin, and he gets life instead of the death penalty."

Slowly, Bryce got to his feet. "Whatever happens,
it's another great day for journalism. One murder solved, and
someone else is murdered."

He seemed surprised I had not heard. "Not your usual
murder, either. One of the most prominent people in town. You must
have heard of him. It was the headline in this morning's paper.
Russell Gray."

A vague premonition had come over me, which lingered
long after Harper Bryce had left. It was still nagging at me that
evening when I sat at the desk in the library and opened the volume
of Aristotle to the place where I had quit the night before. Only
after the third attempt to get through the first paragraph was I
able to clear my mind.

I went into the kitchen and turned on the small
television on the counter while I made a cup of tea. The weather
report was for intermittent showers the rest of the week. The
kettle had just started to whistle when the telephone rang. Harper
Bryce apologized for calling so late.

"I just wanted to be sure about this story. I'm
assuming you'll be representing her, right?"

Cradling the phone, I turned off the burner and
poured water over the tea bag in the cup.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Harper. I'm
not representing anybody."

There was an awkward silence at the other end.

"Who am I supposed to be representing?"

Harper cleared his throat. "Alma Woolner. She's been
charged with the murder of Russell Gray."

Chapter Eighteen

The blinds were closed, the window a silhouette of
thin striped light."Why didn't you call me?" Horace stared at me
and said nothing.

"I tried to reach you for more than an hour last
night, until sometime after midnight, but you never answered."
Still nothing.

"I came here first thing this morning. I waited
outside for more than an hour, until you got here." I bent closer,
until my hand was touching the edge of the desk. "I know how awful
this must be for you, but you have to talk to me."