“How?”
“Told him I might take a piece of your action for myself. That I might finance the defense out of my pocket, take a note from you, secured on Ben’s interest in the firm. You should have seen the look,” I tell her.
“I can imagine.” There is a brief moment of satisfaction. A light, airy smile. Then she turns serious. “Still,” she says, “Skarpellos is nobody to toy with. He can hurt you in a hundred ways, all of them legal. Besides, where would you get the money?”
“Not to worry,” I say. “I can get it.”
If she has to sleep in this place for another night, I may have at least removed one cause for insomnia.
“I have to go now. To prepare for the bail hearing. Harry will be by later to talk to you. While you’re in here, either he or I will be by twice a day. A friendly face,” I tell her. “It will keep you from talking to strangers.”
“Tod will be by later too.”
I’m a bit surprised by this. While he was there for at least part of each day of the preliminary hearing, discreet in the back of the courtroom, I would have thought that by now, with all of her troubles, Tod Hamilton would view Talia as a sure career-stopper.
“Don’t discuss the case with him,” I tell her.
“It’s a little late for that. He knows what there is to know.”
The way she says this, with my recollection of their private conversation the night we talked at her house about the missing handgun, I wonder whether Tod knows more than I do.
“Don’t discuss the case with him. Whatever you’ve told him before may be privileged. He’s part of the firm. As long as I was associated with P amp;S, I could argue that his lips were sealed by the lawyer-client privilege. That may all change now.”
She nods. I think she understands.
“I’ll see you in court this afternoon.”
We put down the receivers, and before I leave, I watch as she is ushered through a heavy steel door at the side of the visiting room.
Nelson is pressing for the sky. He says he’s prepared to ask for three million in bail on Talia. I’m incredulous. I rain fury on him as we talk over the phone.
“It’s outrageous,” I say. “No court will permit it.”
“Not at all,” he says. “Whatever it takes to secure the defendant’s appearance at trial. This is a lady with big bucks. Two hundred thousand-hell, that’s travelin’ money.”
“Her assets are tied up. She’s cash-starved. Three million,” I say, “you may as well move that she be denied bail altogether.”
“It’s an idea,” he says.
“You’re overreaching,” I tell him. “On what grounds? That the lady’s a serial killer-that she’s been out beating up witnesses? She doesn’t even have a passport,” I tell him. It was true. Ben was so busy doing business that he hadn’t taken a vacation longer than three days since he’d married her. And Talia, while bored, hadn’t yet hit on the idea of separate vacations. She found other outlets for her energies, diversions closer to home.
“We’ll see,” he says.
“Listen, ask for some reasonable amount of bail and we’ll do what we can to raise it.” I’m trying a little sugar now. “Talk to anybody. I’m straight. I’ve had clients who are genuine flight risks. I don’t press for low bail if I think there’s the slightest chance that my client will run. It’s not good for business. Judges tend to have long memories.”
Then from a direction I do not see: “Have you considered the possibility of a plea bargain?” he asks.
“What,” I say, “you’re gonna offer her bail if she cops a plea?”
He laughs a little at this. I’ve broken the ice.
“What are you offering?” I ask him seriously.
“Maybe second degree.” He pauses for an instant. “Maybe less. Depends on what your client has to offer.”
“What can she offer?”
“The name of her accomplice.” He says this without missing a beat. The cops have been pissing up a rope for months trying to get a bead on who helped Talia murder Ben. They haven’t for a moment considered the possibility that there was no accomplice, that whoever murdered him, and it wasn’t Talia, may have acted alone.
I tell Nelson this. He isn’t interested.
We are back to bail. He says, “I’ll see you in court.”
That is where we are at two o’clock in the afternoon. Nelson and I are standing before the Honorable Norton Shakers, judge of the superior court. Talia’s in the box, surrounded by oak railing and acrylic screens, as if in some space-age loading pen, near the door that leads to the courthouse holding cells. She’s wearing a jail jumpsuit, overalls in Day-Glo orange with the word PRISONER emblazoned across the back. On Talia the P and the R of the oversized jumpsuit have wrapped around, under her arms. I lean on the railing outside, close to her, a sheriff’s matron behind us.
Shakers is low on the totem pole, recently appointed to the court and with limited experience. He has drawn magistrate duty. It means he’s roused at all hours of the night to sign search warrants and listen to the ramblings of cops on probable cause. He’s yawning and kneading his eye with two fingers when Nelson makes his motion for three million dollars in bail.
It’s the same sorry song he sang to me on the telephone. The defendant is well-heeled. Bail set at $200,000 is an invitation to take a vacation. He emphasizes the seriousness of the crime, the consequences to my client if she is convicted, the inducement for her to run.
I put on my coat of indignation once more, and I tell the court of Talia’s considerable contacts in the community. I flash her financial statement, copies to Nelson and the court, and beat on the theme that excessive bail is no bail at all. The numbers from Talia’s CPA show that liquidity is not among her financial virtues. Everything she owns is tied up in the law firm, a small business account from her real estate company, and the house, which is heavily mortgaged.
The judge sits impassively as Nelson and I claw at each other.
I make a case for reinstating the $200,000 bond. I argue that the lady has been free to roam for three months, since the grand jury indictment, and she has appeared in court on each and every occasion as ordered. “This is a prominent woman in the community,” I say. “Talia Potter is no flight risk,” I tell the court.
“Mr. Nelson.”
“Your Honor. The woman is accused of a capital crime. She may have had no incentive to run before this. But she does now. I submit to the court that anyone faced with the death penalty must be considered a potential flight risk.” He looks steely-eyed up at the bench. “The state does not believe that the presence of this defendant can be guaranteed without the posting of some considerable surety.”
“Seems more than a little excessive to me,” says Shakers. I can see the figures fading fast in the judge’s eyes.
“Your Honor, I have a declaration here, may I approach the bench?”
Shakers nods.
Nelson makes the rounds delivering a copy of this thing, his declaration to the court and one to me.
I look at it. It’s a lengthy statement, fourteen pages, prepared by one of the DA’s investigators and signed under penalty of perjury by a woman named Sonia Baron. I put it on the rail and point to the name so that Talia can see.
“Sony’s a friend,” she whispers, and shrugs her shoulders, like this is news to her.
“For the convenience of the court I have highlighted the pertinent part of this declaration. I would refer you to page eleven.”
I open it and read, a long, rambling statement in an elegant hand, a history of social friendship, of meetings and discourse between the two women over a period of years. It is standard fare for statements by investigators checking every lead, talking to acquaintances, getting background on a suspect. Entire forests have been slaughtered for such irrelevance, and now lie entombed in police files.
Nelson has highlighted with a yellow marker a portion of this rambling discourse, a meeting for coffee between Talia and Sonia at the club one morning shortly after Talia was indicted.