Fowler welcomed counsel to his courtroom. He barely got a word in before Freeman predictably requested his continuance. The district attorney was using this as a publicity vehicle, there was racial discrimination. Hardy heard it with half an ear.
Fowler listened to most of it, nodded sympathetically, then touched his gavel to its block. ‘We’ll set a date now, Mr Freeman, and before that, if there is good cause for continuance, you can make a motion.’ He smiled. That was the end of that story. The trial would begin about when the Municipal Court would have held the preliminary hearing. This was a good sign.
The judge adjusted his robes and addressed the courtroom. ‘Mr Freeman,’ he said, ‘did you have the opportunity to exercise a challenge in Department Twenty-two?’ Defense counsel had a one-time right to challenge the judge to which the trial had been assigned, on no grounds whatever. If Freeman didn’t like Andy Fowler for any reason on earth, he just had to say so and they would go back to Calendar for another department.
But Freeman barely rose to answer the question. ‘No challenges, Your Honor.’
Fowler paused a minute, his face darkening. ‘Mr Freeman?’
Freeman was still fiddling with his binders, laying out papers, whispering to May. ‘I said no challenge, Your Honor.’
The judge seemed to be moving things around behind the rim of his desk. He leaned back in the high chair, arms straight out before him. His frown was pronounced. The instant passed. ‘Would defense counsel approach the bench, please?’
Hardy became aware of a growing stillness in the courtroom as Freeman pushed his chair back, patted May on the shoulder and stepped up before the judge. Fowler leaned over and there was the briefest of whispered exchanges, after which he straightened up, hit his gavel and announced a recess. He would see Mr Freeman in his chambers.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Pullios asked Hardy.
‘I don’t have a clue. Maybe they’re trading stock tips again.’
Jim Blanchard from the Tribune came up and touched Elliot on the shoulder. ‘You got a call upstairs. Some girl.’
Jeff had been trying to get Hardy’s attention since the recess was called. He knew there was an element of cheating in it but he had to get caught up, since he hadn’t given five minutes of thought to anything but Dorothy Burgess since Thursday night. He thought he would use Hardy to catch up, grab back the inside track he seemed to have lost to both the local and national media over the long weekend.
And now it looked as though something between Freeman and Fowler was happening right here at the outset. He wanted to be here when the judge returned to court, see if an explanation would present itself.
But Dorothy – it had to be Dorothy – was the priority. There would be other stories. He would not have traded the last four days for anything – not for his job, not even for the use of his legs.
Hardy and Pullios appeared to be in some kind of argument. He wasn’t going to get anything out of them, so he grabbed his crutches and awkwardly crabwalked out of his row in the gallery, then out the doors.
In the reporters’ room he picked up the telephone. This is Jeff Elliot,‘ he said.
‘Mr Elliot,’ she said. ‘This is Ivana Trump. You’ve got to stop pestering me.’ Jeff lowered himself into the school desk. Dorothy’s voice got lower. ‘Jeff, you’ve got to get over here. You’re not going to believe what I found.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not sure what it means, but Maury’s been out all morning and I finally got to typing up the paperwork on that story you were working on, the May Shintaka bail?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You’ve got to come see this, the collateral on the bail loan. You said you needed a paper trail, someplace to start. This looks like the trailhead. But you realize you’re going to have to pay for this information.’
‘Of course.’
‘It won’t be cheap.’
He smiled, remembering the bartering system they’d developed over the weekend to pry secrets from each other – secrets they couldn’t wait to tell. ‘I’ll be ready,’ he said.
Andy Fowler sat back down, banged his gavel, and continued the trial until September 14, at nine-thirty.
‘Your Honor!’ Pullios was up.
‘Counsel?’
‘Permission to approach the bench?’
The judge nodded and motioned her forward. She walked firmly, with none of her usual sway. ‘What is it, Elizabeth?’
‘Your Honor, with respect, the state would be interested in the substance of your conference with defense counsel.’
Fowler, gravitas intact, glared down from his elevated position. There was no love lost between these two. ‘With respect, Counsel, what I do in my chambers is none of your business. But -’ He leaned forward with his hands folded in front of him – ‘but you’re right, we must avoid even the appearance of impropriety. You think defense counsel and I are colluding?’
‘No, of course not, Your Honor, I -’
‘But you think it may look like that to others. I appreciate your concern. Do you read the newspapers, Elizabeth? Watch television?’
Pullios stared at him. ‘Yes, Your Honor, occasionally.’
‘You might have noticed that this Owen Nash murder has attracted more than a modicum of publicity.’
‘Yes, Your Honor.’
‘Well, in keeping up with this story over the past week or so, it occurred to me that a fair trial might be hard to obtain in San Francisco. I was quite certain defense counsel would move for change of venue. And, as you’ve no doubt noticed, Mr Freeman made no such motion. I wanted to make it clear to him that this strategic decision – if it backfires – could not be used later on as grounds for a mistrial. How’s that?’
‘That’s very fine, Your Honor, thank you. No disrespect intended.’
Fowler allowed himself a chilly smile. ‘Of course not, Counsel. An honest question.’
After Fowler left the bench Pullios stomped out of the courtroom, leaving Hardy to gather their papers and eventually follow along. Freeman came over to the prosecution table and told Hardy he hoped there were no hard feelings about their initial meeting in the visitors’ room at the jail.
‘None at all.’
‘You know, if you wouldn’t mind a little free advice, I wouldn’t recommend using my client’s little slip about being on the Eloise. She really wasn’t there.’
Hardy smiled. ‘That seems debatable, doesn’t it?’
Freeman had his hands in his pockets, his leg thrown casually over the corner of Hardy’s table. ‘I’ve listened to the tape several times. The way you phrased it, it will come out as a trick question. It will only cast the prosecution in a poor light, make the playing field uneven.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t want that.’ Hardy finished picking up the papers, closed the briefcase. Thanks for the tip,‘ he said. ’I’ll pass it along.‘
Hardy was beginning to get used to it. These trial attorneys played a no-limit game and didn’t go about it according to Hoyle. How could Freeman get the balls to offer such advice? Did he think he was so green he’d be taken in by so transparent a bluff?
But the more Hardy thought about that, the more it made no sense at all. So maybe it wasn’t a bluff, it was a double reverse. Which made it a very effective bluff, if it was one.
Slick, he thought, walking along the hall back to his office. You had to admire it.
What did Freeman really want? He wanted to win. In a circumstantial case like this, if he could cause the prosecution to have doubts about bringing up any evidence whatever, it could only help the defense. On the other hand, on the surface his advice was sound – Hardy hadn’t planned to bring up May’s slip of the tongue, which had seemed to imply she’d been on board the Eloise because not only was it in itself unconvincing, Hardy didn’t want to introduce into the record his impropriety in visiting May in jail without her attorney present.