Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (5 page)

In the center of the hall, surrounded by dozens of
round tables for ten, was a long, narrow, rectangular table where I
found Horace and Alma. I took the empty chair in front of my name
card between Alma and a woman whose smile seemed uncertain about
the difference between cynicism and disdain. Though she was at
least seventy, it was not difficult to imagine that she had once
been very beautiful and cruel.

"Joseph, let me introduce Madame Natasha Krupskaya,
the prima ballerina who has graciously consented to spend the
season as adviser to our company."

To my surprise, Alma spoke to her guest in Russian.
Madame Krupskaya nodded and, looking up at me, said in slow,
halting English, "How do you do?" Turning back to Alma, she laughed
and said something in Russian, something that, from the intonation
and the gesture she made with her eyes, sounded very much like a
question. Alma answered briefly.

Bending close to me, she whispered, "She asked how
many ballerinas you've slept with."

I shot a glance at the aging dancer, quite prepared
to believe that her own list of lovers would make a volume of
innumerable chapters. She ignored me.

"And you said?"

Alma looked at me, her round eyes open wide. "All of
them."

Most of the elegantly dressed men and women at the
center table were members of the ballet company's board of
directors, elected neither because of their capacity for sound
advice nor their knowledge of the arts, but because they had money
to spend and had been convinced this was a good way to spend it.
Old or new, money was always welcome.

Alma shoved her chair back and I started to get up.
"No, I'll just be a minute." In a seamless motion, she was on her
feet and moving toward the stage at the front of the hall.

"And just how many ballerinas have you slept with?" I
asked under my breath.

Raising her head, Natasha Krupskaya studied me. "Do
you think love should be bounded by convention, Mr. Antonelli?" she
asked, in perfect English.

When Alma reached the stage and began to speak,
everyone stopped what they were doing. She spoke for less than a
minute, offering words of welcome and an amused warning that after
dinner no one would be allowed to leave until the speeches had been
given. That was all, but the soothing effect of her voice was so
pronounced that she was already off the stage, on her way back to
the table, before people resumed their conversations.

"You should have been a lawyer," I said, when she sat
down next to me. "Juries would have done whatever you wanted them
to do."

"Are you accusing my wife of duplicity?" Horace
laughed.

"No. I'm accusing her of charm."

Alma's black eyes glowed. "Is there a
difference?"

"Duplicity becomes charm when you are so attracted by
the effect you don't care about the cause."

I looked up. Russell Gray, the chairman of the board,
was sitting directly across from Alma. In his early forties, twice
divorced, he represented some of the oldest money in town. He had
long, expressive fingers, the hands of a musician, and fine,
delicate features suggesting the kind of ambiguous sexuality that
can antagonize men and attract women. His voice was a tremulous
whisper, like someone short of breath, and whenever he said
something he thought especially interesting, he would tilt his head
coquettishly to the side, his eyes still on you.

"Lawyers are duplicitous," he went on, resting his
elbows on the white tablecloth and spreading open his hands.
"Artists are charming. Alma is an artist."

When she demurred, Gray reminded her that she had
been a member of the New York City Ballet.

"Yes, but only for two years."

"Why only two years?" someone asked.

"She met me," Horace explained.

"By far the best thing that could have happened to
her," Gray remarked, with a languid wave of his hand.

I was caught off guard by the generosity of the
sentiment. He saw the look of surprise on my face."Don't you think
so, Mr. Antonelli?" Leaning back, he crossed one arm across his
chest and pressed his finger against his lip. There was a brief
glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.

"Best thing that could have happened to both of
them," I replied.

Perhaps because he found it embarrassing, Horace
changed the subject. "I just want everyone to know that Alma isn't
the only one with a serious interest in the arts. When I was a kid
I wanted to be an actor. That is, I wanted to be an actor until I
found out that they always wanted me to play the same role. I was a
little militant in those days," he added, as an aside. "I told
them: Iago or nothing!"

"But Othello is one of the greatest roles of all
time," Gray protested, laughing amicably.

"Not the way I saw it. He should have figured out
what was going on."

"That would not have been much of a tragedy," Gray
replied.

"No, but it would have been a lot closer to justice,
and maybe that would have been a better lesson."

"Maybe," Gray conceded, "but it wouldn't have been
better art."

"You mean, not as charming?"

"Yes, in a way."

"Then, more duplicitous?" Horace asked, pressing the
point.

Shrugging his thin shoulders, Gray replied, "I don't
really know."

Alma had barely touched her salad and had ignored her
entree. Exchanging a glance, she and Gray were on their feet.

"I'm afraid I have to borrow your wife," Gray
remarked, walking around the table to take Alma by the hand.

Horace and I watched as they moved from table to
table, visiting briefly with everyone who had paid for the
privilege of being there.

"What do you think of him?" Horace asked.

"He's all right," I replied indifferently. "Why?"

"No reason. He treats Alma well. I just have a
problem with people who never had to work for anything." He shook
his head as if to clear his mind. "Doesn't matter. Tell me," he
said, his arm over the back of Alma's empty chair, "what did you
decide? You want to do this thing?"

Across the dimly lit hall, I noticed
Gilliland-O'Rourke, standing relaxed at a table. Draping my arm
over the top of Horace's, I pulled my knee up onto the empty chair
between us.

"Did you know she was going to be here?"

"Tell you the truth, I never really thought about it.
Everybody is here. Why?"

"I ran into her husband. In the men's room, right
after I left you in the lobby."

Horace looked out over the packed dining room. "And I
ran into Marshall Goodwin."

"It must be strange," I said, "talking to someone who
doesn't know that you know things about him."

Horace nodded. "When you're a prosecutor you get to
learn all sorts of things about people. You have any idea how many
people have allegations made about them? You got to see the police
reports about your clients, people formally charged with doing
something; I got to see the reports that were made when there
wasn't enough evidence to bring charges.

"Listen," he said, his eyes searching the room, "some
of the best-known people here tonight, including a couple of our
finer members of the judiciary, have police reports written about
them that they know nothing about."

Removing my arm, I raised my knee and wrapped both
hands around it. "Without more evidence, that's exactly what could
happen to the file I just read."

His hand engulfed my knee. "This isn't just another
murder case," he told me, grimly defiant. "You see
Gilliland-O'Rourke working the room? She's going to run for
governor. This guy is going to become the next DA. I know you have
to be sure in your own mind. I want you to be sure. But remember
something. This isn't one of those cases where you can just decide
that maybe he didn't do it. If there is any credible evidence at
all, you take it to trial. If he isn't guilty, let a jury decide.
At some point, you have to trust the system."

He looked at me for a moment. "I always did." Then,
trying not to laugh, he added, "Except maybe when you were the
defense attorney."

Chapter Four

The first time I went there, I had to force myself to
climb the steps at the entrance of the state prison. When you visit
a client in a county jail, you can get in and out in a matter of
minutes; once you disappear inside the high stone walls of the
state penitentiary, you wonder whether you will ever get out at
all.

Under the watchful eye of a young female guard
dressed in regulation gabardine slacks and crisp white
short-sleeved shirt, I signed the visitor's log. In the small
waiting area, several women, along with a couple of children, stood
listlessly biding their time. On an orange plastic sofa with seats
so low her knees were nearly as high as her shoulders, a
bored-looking woman in her late thirties sat reading a book and
chewing gum. She looked like a regular, one of the wives or
girlfriends who moved to cheap apartments in Salem so they could
visit their men, twice a day during visiting hours. The moment it
was one o'clock, she pushed herself up and, her eyes still on the
open page, walked slowly toward the bank of lockers on the far
wall. After she put both the book and her tattered leather purse
inside a locker, she got into the short line that had begun to
form.

Holding my briefcase with both hands in front of me,
I stood in line, gazing down at the linoleum littered with black
scuff marks, waiting my turn to pass through security. The woman
who had been reading passed through the metal detector and was
stopped. She had to get rid of the gum. A large black woman set off
the alarm and stood to the side, removing her earrings.

I handed my briefcase to the guard. While he
inspected the contents, I began to take off my shoes. Dress shoes
have a thin metal plate inside the sole, and while you can wear
them through any airport detector in the world, they never get
through the sensitive system used in maximum security prisons. My
shoes, keys, fountain pen, and pocket change were handed over. I
had forgotten about my belt, and as soon as the buzzer sounded, I
reached down, unfastened it, and handed it over as well. In
stocking feet, I passed successfully through the narrow wooden
archway and was given back my belongings. I put on my belt and
shoes.

When everyone had cleared security, a guard led us
down a brown carpeted ramp, past a barred window with a view of two
wooden picnic tables in a green grass enclosure surrounded by the
high walls of the prison and, in the distance, the glass windows of
a guard tower. At the bottom, we waited for a cell door to slide
open. Far ahead of us, blue-shirted inmates were going about their
business, the same way that people move about in the courtyard of a
mall.

After only a few steps we stopped again while the
guard inserted a heavy metal key into a steel door and ushered us
into a rectangular room buried halfway in the ground. Vending
machines lined the far wall. On a raised platform next to the rest
room, a uniformed officer sat at a wooden desk, his eyes roving up
and down the long rows of facing plastic chairs, guarding against
illegal narcotics and attempts at illicit contact. When I gave him
my name, he picked up a black dialless phone and reported my
arrival.

A short distance away, the woman who had been reading
a book, the one I was certain was a regular, was sitting across
from an inmate with a crooked nose, sandy colored hair, and the
faded look of someone who had been inside for a very long time.
There was nothing romantic about the way they looked at each other;
they resembled a married couple you might see sitting somewhere on
a park bench, content in each other's company. But an hour from
now, instead of walking home together, he would go back to his cell
and she to her dumpy little apartment. They would eat their
separate dinners, and then the phone would ring—the collect call
she got every night—and on a recorded line they would gradually get
around to the soft obscenities that were as close as they would
ever get to intimacy. It might go on like this for years, until he
was finally released and, after a few short weeks, passion spent,
they discovered that nothing was the way they had always thought it
would be.

The air was heavy with sweat and tobacco. When I
reminded the guard I was still there, he lifted the receiver and
grunted something into it, his eyes moving steadily from one chair
to the next.

For a long time I stared at the clock on the wall
high above the guard's desk, convinced it was broken, until,
unaccountably, the long hand jolted forward and a minute had
apparently passed.

"Mr. Antonelli," the guard was saying. Swinging his
legs out from behind the desk, he rested his elbows on his knees.
"I'm sorry, but he isn't here."

"What do you mean, he isn't here?" I demanded.

He shook his head. "They should have told you out
front. He's over in maximum security." It was not his fault.

"You mean," I grumbled, "I have to go all the way
back out and then in again?"