The head of the nail contained a small amount of gunpowder residue in addition to the gunk from Cimarron’s skull. Actually, she didn’t say “gunk.” She called it brain tissue, and the schoolteacher juror with the lace handkerchief squeezed her eyes shut.
It was a few minutes before six o’clock, and all the technical talk was over, so the judge sent the jury home with the usual admonition against forming opinions or discussing the case with the neighbors, and added the friendly advice about driving carefully with all the tourists in town.
As he stuffed his files into cardboard boxes for the night, H. T. Patterson asked me, “Can I buy you a drink?”
“ Is the law an ass?”
We walked out of the stuffy, overheated courthouse and into the bracing air of dusk in the Rocky Mountains. Snowflakes whirled in a crisp breeze, and a three-quarter moon hung low over Smuggler Mountain. Cars crunched through a new snowfall on Main Street, and exhausted, happy skiers headed back to their hotels, condos, and chalets. I was struck by the utter beauty of the coming night, but at the same time, was overcome by a profound, nameless melancholy, a sense of approaching doom, and an unshakable conviction that I was powerless to affect my own destiny.
CHAPTER 23
If you are charged with murder and plead not guilty, you have several choices. You can simply try a reasonable doubt case. Don’t take the stand, but cross-examine the bejesus out of the state’s witnesses. Magnify inconsistencies, exaggerate sloppy police work, and ridicule the prosecution. With some luck, you might get an acquittal, or at least a hung jury.
Or, if you have evidence the victim attacked you first, plead self-defense. But that admits you did the killing, and you’ll be convicted unless you can convince the jury that you had reasonable ground to believe your life was in danger when you struck back.
Or, you can bravely confront the state head-on. Take the stand and swear you didn’t do it, pure and simple. Well then, jurors might ask, if this rascal didn’t, who did? In which case, it’s useful to have a straw man. Or woman, as the case may be.
Which is what H. T. Patterson wanted to talk about after court. Once the jurors were sent home, promising not to read the newspaper or chat about the case, oaths broken more frequently than marital vows, H. T. Patterson bought me a beer at a local pub not frequented by the chichi Beverly Hills ski crowd. The place didn’t have a view of the ski slopes, and it didn’t have a burning fireplace. It sat in a warehouse/office center across Route 82 from the airport and had dim lighting where even accused murderers could enjoy draft beer in peace. We sat at a round wooden table scarred with cigarette burns, sipped our brews and ate boiled peanuts.
“ I want you to watch your demeanor in court. Don’t be so despondent and dejected, depressed and discouraged. The jury’s going to conclude you think they’re going to convict you.”
“ I do.”
“ Well, don’t show it. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also makes you look sorry for what you did. It’s a face for sentencing, not for trial.”
“ Okay, from now on, I’ll laugh uproariously at every objection.”
“ Don’t be difficult. You know what I’m talking about.”
“ I know. Never let them see you sweat.”
“ Right. You ever hear the story of the two generals watching their forces battle the enemy?”
“ No, but I have a feeling I’m going to.”
“ One general is wearing a bright red cape, and the other asks him why such an outfit on a day of battle. ‘Because, if I’m wounded, my troops won’t see the blood, and they’ll fight on.’ The first general thinks about it and calls to his aide, ‘Fritz, bring my brown trousers.’
That made me laugh, and my laughing made Patterson beam. “Good, much better. Now, you ready to play some poker?”
“ Deal.”
There weren’t any cards, of course. It was a joke that went back to our first case together. Patterson had cleaned my clock in a civil suit in which I had sued a striptease joint where my client, a soon-to-be-groom, pulled a groin muscle in a hot-oil wrestling match with noted stripper Wanda the Whirling Dervish. It was my client’s bachelor party, and Wanda thought it would be fun to see how far apart his legs could spread in a hold called “make a wish.” I don’t remember what damn fool mistake I made in closing argument, but Patterson came up to me afterward and said, “Lawyering is playing poker with ideas, and you just drew to an inside straight, sucker.”
Now he looked at me as a more or less equal. “How do you like the jury?” Patterson asked.
“ I don’t know. I suppose if we had six blacks and six Hispanics, all of whom had been wrongfully arrested and distrusted the cops, I might feel better. But we’ve got a white bread and mayonnaise crowd. You’d never see this in Miami. You remember the jury when the judges were tried in Operation Court Broom?’’
“ Sure do. Ten blacks, one Hispanic, one Anglo.”
“ Yeah, wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“ Miami’s different,” Patterson said.
“ I know. Exotic and yet so close to the U.S. of A. I remember I was trying a case during the Persian Gulf War, and I had a witness flying in from Topeka or Omaha or somewhere normal. Anyway, he takes a cab from the airport straight to the courthouse, and when I meet him, he says how great it is to be in a city where everyone is so patriotic. I figure he’s mistaken some Santeria ceremony for a marching band, so I ask him what he means, and he said that in every neighborhood he passed, people had strung up yellow ribbons for the troops.”
“ What’d you tell him?” Patterson asked.
“ The truth. I said those aren’t yellow ribbons. Those are crime scenes with their perimeters taped.”
“ A common mistake,” Patterson agreed.
“ So what do you think of our jury?”
“ They’re bourgeois and banal, common and conventional, the worst imaginable collection of middle-class, mundane white folk this side of 1950s television. Cimarron was a local lad, and even though he was considered something of an oddball, he’s become a mythic Western hero in his death. Our problem is that his halo now shines on Ms. Baroso. When she accuses you, she speaks for him.”
“ So, what do we do?” I asked without much enthusiasm.
Patterson drained his beer and patted his mouth with a paper napkin. “Destroy her, of course.”
“ She’s very smart, H.T., and very convincing.”
“ So am I,” my lawyer said.
I started to order another beer, then thought better of it. I was working evenings, sketching outlines of questions, reviewing notes.
“ Now let us assume we convince the jury Ms. Baroso is lying about your alleged assault,” Patterson said. “What have we accomplished?”
Lawyers just love rhetorical questions. “We’ve discredited her. If a witness lies about one material fact, all the testimony is in doubt.”
“ Including who attacked whom, and more important…”
“ Who killed Cimarron.”
Patterson smiled at me and waved at the waitress, holding up one finger and pointing to his glass, the international symbol for another drink, s’il vous plait. “So you understand, my large lugubrious friend?”
“ You’re saying we’re not arguing self-defense. I fought back, okay, and maybe I tried to kill Cimarron, or maybe I was just fending him off. Who knows? I certainly don’t. But I didn’t put the nail in his head…”
