Art Drysdale stood up, reached his hand over the desk. ‘Done,’ he said.
‘Line Six.’ Mr Zapata was back up at the podium. ‘I’m sorry, there was a scheduling conflict, my mistake. The trial will be in Department,’ he looked down again, making sure, ‘Twenty-four, Judge Thomasino.’
Leo watched Line Six being led out in his yellow jumpsuit. Time was standing still. It wasn’t yet noon and he’d just had a recess. His blood was rushing. Well, it was done. It was possible that Ms Rogan would never understand the significance of the change of department. Art would make sure he would be forewarned on any other Zapatas, and the whole thing would never have to come up again. Still…
He shook himself, chilled in the hot room.
‘On the arraignment calendar, line one thirty-seven,’ the clerk intoned. ‘Penal code section 187, murder.’
Suddenly the chill was gone. Something about murder cases got your attention, even when you were already familiar with them. This was the one he and Elizabeth Pullios had discussed after the indictment on Thursday -Owen Nash. They were dragging their feet over in Muni and the D.A. wasn’t going to stand for it. On Friday, Art Drysdale told Chomorro it would hit this morning, and they were going to move ahead if not with haste then with dispatch. Send a little message to the junior circuit.
Line 137, May Shintaka, had surrendered on the grand-jury indictment and bailed again. She was in the gallery, Chomorro had noticed her earlier this morning, the one flower in a field of weeds. This was Line 137? He raised his eyebrows, then looked back down. Now she stood, unbowed, at the podium. Next to her was David Freeman, about the best defense attorney in the city. The defendant and her rumpled attorney were a study in contrasts. Leo theorized that Freeman’s sloppy dress was a conscious ploy to appeal to juries as a common man, one of them, regular folks.
But regular folks didn’t make half a million or so a year.
‘Mr Freeman,’ he said, ‘how are you doing today?’
Freeman nodded. ‘Fine, thank you, Your Honor.’
During his recess with Art, Elizabeth Pullios had come into the courtroom and sat at the prosecution table with her second chair, one of the new men. He nodded to them.
‘Is the prosecution ready to proceed?’
‘I object, Your Honor.’ Freeman, wasting no time.
‘We are, Your Honor.’ Simultaneously, from Pullios.
‘Grounds?’
Freeman’s voice rose. ‘As Your Honor knows, Municipal Court continued proceedings on this matter until after Labor Day.’
‘Well, you’re in Superior Court now, Mr Freeman. What’s the point?’
‘There is no evidence to support -’ Freeman stopped, started again. ‘The preliminary hearing would have revealed insufficient evidence to proceed to trial, Your Honor.’
‘Evidently the grand jury doesn’t agree with you. They issued an indictment.’
‘Your Honor.’ Pullios was standing. ‘The people -’
Chomorro brought down his gavel. ‘Excuse me, Ms Pullios. I understand the people’s position here. Mr Freeman, we’re not going to debate the evidence at this time. That’s for a jury to decide. Perhaps a request for a shorter continuance in Municipal Court could have avoided this problem.’
‘Your Honor, my client should not be subjected to the expense of a trial on this charge. I’m going to move for remand back to Municipal Court.’
Chomorro smiled. Freeman was pulling out the stops early. ‘I’m afraid that option is foreclosed, Mr Freeman.’
Defense counsel didn’t seem to take a breath. ‘This hurry-up show trial is clearly motivated by state’s counsel enjoying the publicity of this high profile -’
‘Your Honor, I object!’
Chomorro nodded to Pullios. ‘I think I would, too.’
Freeman kept right on. ‘- to say nothing of the blatant racial and class discrimination evidenced by -’
‘Mr Freeman! Enough. I remind you that this court operates under the grand-jury system. I will not tolerate these outbursts. The prosecution says it is ready for trial. If their evidence is weak it seems to me that should be to your advantage. All right, then.’
Chomorro didn’t even have to look down to see where the next trial was going. ‘It sounds like there will be extensive motion work in this case. I’m sending the whole matter – arraignment, motions, pretrial and trial – to Department Twenty-seven, Judge Fowler. Forthwith. You can fight it out down there.’ He brought his gavel down again, allowed himself a small smile. ‘Goodbye, Counsel. Now.’
It wasn’t a long walk down the hallway, so there wasn’t much time for Hardy to tell Pullios about his relationship with Fowler.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Have you discussed the case with him outside the office?’
‘No, no place, in fact.’
‘Then I wouldn’t worry about it.’ It was another opportunity to remind him of their respective positions, so she took it. ‘Besides, you’re not the attorney of record here. I am. You’re assisting me.’
‘I think if Freeman even gets a whiff of it, though, he’ll move to dismiss.’
‘Freeman moves to dismiss if the bailiff has a runny nose. So what?’
‘So I’m a little worried about it.’
She stopped and faced him. ‘Dismas, look. He’s not your father-in-law anymore, is he?’
‘No.’
‘So essentially it boils down to the fact that you’ve met the judge socially. Well, I’ve met the judge socially and we get along like pickles and milk. I wouldn’t be surprised if Freeman’s met him socially. Hell, they’re both in the rich men’s club, they probably play poker together. Maybe they trade stock tips. It’s irrelevant. Judge Fowler and you are not related, legally or otherwise. It’s not an issue.’
Pullios, Hardy thought, was good on things that weren’t issues. She was good on everything. It got to you.
Pullios got to the doors of Department 27 and held one of them open for Hardy. ‘Age before beauty,’ she said.
The orbits had aligned themselves.
Friday had been a busy day, a couple of prelims, some plea bargaining, a lunch with four of the office gang, nobody even thinking about homicides.
Frannie and Hardy had made love twice over the long Fourth of July weekend. The first time, Friday night, intense and silent, then the closeness, body to body, lying there, talking until after midnight.
Saturday was the picnic with Moses, his current girlfriend Susan, all the Glitskys, and Pico with Angela and their kids. And Rebecca was healthy again, finally – her jolly gurgling wonderful little self. Baseball, beer and barbeque. America’s birthday party on another miracle of a warm day.
Then Sunday morning they went out for brunch and shared the best paella in the city. Afterward, back home, Frannie telling Hardy it was okay, Rebecca might remember that her parents had laughed and wrestled a lot when she’d been a baby, but it probably wouldn’t damage her psyche.
On Monday, the sixth, back on his own center again, Hardy and Frannie had spent the morning stenciling some pastel horses and dolphins onto the wall in Rebecca’s room. In the afternoon he did a little work in his office, asking if Abe could get hold of May Shinn’s phone records for the day Owen Nash had been killed. He realized that if she had made a call on that day, their case was in trouble, and as far as he knew, no one had checked those records. He asked Abe if they could pinpoint flurries of gas or water use, electricity, anything that might indicate somebody had been home, and Abe had told him no, those utilities weren’t monitored that way.
Celine wasn’t clouding things. Hardy knew that Pullios in a hurry was not the imperial wizard of detail, and after his oversights on Thursday with the grand jury, he was simply double-checking himself.