The Hidden Man

able to give you the final lead, the home run in your case. Ernesto Ramirez, a high-ranking ex-member of a street gang-the Latin Lords-to which your client, Senator Almundo, had been connected, was going to deliver the message to you that day. The government’s theory was that Senator Almundo had led an extortion ring that terrorized the city’s west side, resulting, among other things, in the death of a local businessman, who was unwilling to pay the obligatory protection money. You’d found Ernesto Ramirez on your own, some extracurricular due diligence on your part, and hit a potential gold mine: Ernesto was going to offer you proof that the storekeeper hadn’t been murdered by the Columbus Street Cannibals but, rather, by a rival street gang, the Latin Lords. The revelation would shatter the underlying premise of the government’s case.

Day had turned into night, which had forced you to cancel with Talia, who decided to take Emily and go anyway. By ten o’clock that evening, you were in a real mood, wondering whether you had missed a weekend with your family over a red herring. When your office phone rang, it hadn’t even occurred to you that Ernesto always called on your cell, not at the office.

Mr. Kolarich, I’m Lieutenant Ryan with the State Troopers. I’m afraid I have some bad news, sir.

I drove back from the cemetery with the windows down, breathing in the earthy, foul smell of the autumn air, the deadening leaves and mold, the crisp air whispering across me in a crosscurrent, wondering why I still made this daily trip to Talia’s and Emily’s graves but unable to stop. It was my one hour a day, my break, but it only made reality all the more gut-wrenching.

I closed my eyes as I pulled up to a traffic light outside the cemetery, trying to squeeze the sights and sounds from my mind, knowing that I could push them away but not wanting to.

Looks like they died on impact, the state trooper tells you. You accept the statement without question, wanting to believe it was a painless death, knowing that an infant child in a car seat probably would have survived the impact but unable to fathom the possibility, the probability, that neither of them had died on impact, that both of them had drowned.

“You’re in a special place now,” I said aloud, cursing a God that would have let this happen but needing now, more than ever, to believe in His heaven. “You’re in a special place and it doesn’t matter what happened.” A horn honked behind me and I opened my eyes, a considerable distance having opened between my car and the one in front of me, the light green. I gripped the wheel with white knuckles and took deep breaths, my heart rattling against my chest, my arms trembling.

You were supposed to live. You were supposed to have a childhood full of happiness and then become an artist or a doctor or a-you were supposed to fall in love with someone and have children of your own and be compassionate and warm and loving and happy and I-I wasn’t-I wasn’t there when you needed me. I wasn’t there ever. Not ever.

I slammed on the brakes and stopped just short of the SUV idling at a light in front of me, two children in the backseat turning their heads. I wiped thick, greasy sweat from my forehead and struggled to breathe. This happened, from time to time, when I let it get the better of me. I would calm in a few minutes, and it would wash away to my default mode.

That’s what happens to those of us who get to live. We fight through, grit it out, and move on to something better. It’s the dead who have to settle for what they had.

10

I MADE IT to the detention center by two o’clock, having calmed down from my lunch appointment. I had to get my act together for Sammy’s sake. And I was pretty sure I could do it. If there is one thing I took from my father, it was that ability to compartmentalize. He was a bitter, insecure asshole who could charm a rattlesnake when he turned it on. My version came in a different flavor-I was about as charming as a rattlesnake-but I could focus when the need arose.

I wondered, briefly, how Sammy would feel about his lawyer being pretty sure he could handle his case, but by then a guard was showing me back to the glass conference rooms. You get to know these guards, who are usually your typical robotic public servants, and it always pays to get on their good side. That’s always been my instinct, being nice to the staff, because they can make your life easier, though I wasn’t really sure what good it was having a prison guard on my side. Either way, for some reason entirely unknown to me, prison guards are not big fans of defense lawyers. And most of them, I’ve seen more humor in a hungry alligator. This guy pushed the door open like he didn’t want anything to do with me and pointed at the table where I was to sit.

“This is great, thanks,” I said to the guard. “I’ll start with a shrimp cocktail, and maybe I can see a wine list?”

The guard didn’t see the humor. “You being smart?”

“That was my first mistake. I’ll talk slower next time.” I opened the small file that Smith had given me on Sammy’s case. Sammy and I hadn’t discussed the details of the case yesterday. It was enough for us, yesterday, to simply reconnect after a long separation.

The case file was relatively small, but sufficient to tell me that the state had a pretty decent case against Sammy.

Griffin Perlini had answered his door on the evening of September 21 at about nine o’clock, whereupon he was greeted with a bullet from a.38 special through the forehead. A neighbor saw a man in a brown bomber jacket and green stocking cap running down the hallway. A married couple, strolling the sidewalk outside, positively ID’d Cutler as the man they saw passing them at a sprint, coming from the apartment building where Perlini lived. And a security camera from a convenience store down the street caught Sammy’s eight-year-old Chevy parked outside.

I’d reviewed a copy of that tape, typically grainy footage with a real-time clock running in the corner of the screen. The camera was positioned in the store’s back corner, providing an overview of the entire shop, including the front register, and continuing to a small area outside the store. At the time of 8:34 P.M., a beat-up Chevy sedan pulled up next to the convenience store, parking mostly out of the camera’s sightline but, alas, the rear end of the car was in full view-including the rear license plate, which confirmed it was Sammy’s beat-up Chevy. The car remained there until 9:08 P.M., at which time it drove away, out of the camera’s view. The time frame matched up perfectly with someone who drove to Perlini’s apartment, got in and killed him, and left. The only silver lining was that the camera could not, at any point in time, show the front of the car, or who got in or out-but Jesus, it wasn’t exactly a quantum leap here.

Once the police visited his house to inquire, Sammy didn’t exactly acquit himself well. He was asking for a lawyer before he had the door open. Then he changed his mind, at the police station, and unleashed a tirade against Griffin Perlini before they even mentioned why they were questioning him. He never outright confessed but that’s like saying Custer never outright surrendered.

I reviewed the list I had made:

1. Neighbor witness-saw man in brown jacket, green cap fleeing

2. Married couple-ID’d Cutler running from apartment building

3. Security video-Cutler’s car parked down street

4. Police interview-Cutler brought up Perlini’s name spontaneously

The case against Sammy looked pretty solid. Eyes at the scene, his car on camera at the scene, and a statement tantamount to a confession. But what was missing from all of this was what, in my opinion, was the most obvious element of the defense.

Sammy had pleaded a straight not-guilty. What he should have pleaded was a diminished-capacity defense, probably temporary insanity. He should admit he killed Griffin Perlini and tell the jury why-because Griffin Perlini was a child sex offender who had preyed on Sammy’s sister, Audrey. No jury would convict Sammy on those facts. Hadn’t his public defender explained that to him?