As expected, one of the doors opened and Nina was about to step in. But Elliot dismissed her with a wave of his hand and a harsh command not to bother us. The door closed again and he locked eyes with me. I held my hand up to stop him from speaking. It was my turn.
“Walter, there are two things I have to concern myself with,” I said calmly. “Whether I understand the state’s case and whether I can knock it down.”
I tapped a finger on the discovery file as I spoke.
“At the moment I do understand the state’s case. It’s straightforward prosecution one-oh-one. The state believes that they have motive and opportunity in spades.
“Let’s go with motive first. Your wife was having an affair and that made you angry. Not only that, but the prenuptial agreement she signed twelve years before had vested and the only way you could get rid of her without splitting everything up was to kill her. Next is opportunity. They have the time your car left through the gate at Archway that morning. They’ve made the run and timed it again and again and say you could’ve easily been at the Malibu house at the time of the killings. That is opportunity.
“And what the state is counting on is motive and opportunity being enough to sway the jury and win the day, while the actual evidence against you is quite thin and very circumstantial. So my job is to figure out a way of making the jury understand that there is a lot of smoke here but no real fire. If I do that, then you walk away.”
“I still want to know if you believe I am innocent.”
I smiled and shook my head.
“Walter, I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. One way or the other, I need to know.”
I relented and held my hands up in surrender.
“All right, then, I’ll tell you what I think, Walter. I have studied the file forwards and backwards. I’ve read everything in here at least twice and most of it three times. I have now been out to the beach house where this unfortunate event happened and studied the geography of these murders. I have done all of that and I can see the very real possibility that you are innocent of these charges. Does that mean that I believe that you are an innocent man? No, Walter, it doesn’t. I’m sorry but I have been doing this too long, and the reality is, I haven’t seen too many innocent clients. So the best I can tell you is that I don’t know. If that’s not good enough for you, then I am sure you will have no trouble finding a lawyer who will tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether he believes it or not.”
I rocked back in my chair while awaiting his response. He clasped his hands together on the table in front of him while he chewed on my words and then he finally nodded.
“Then, I guess that is the best I can ask for,” he said.
I tried to let out my breath without his noticing. I still had the case. For the moment.
“But you know what I do believe, Walter?”
“What do you believe?”
“That you’re holding out on me.”
“Holding out? What are you talking about?”
“There’s something I don’t know about this case and you are holding back on it with me.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You are too confident, Walter. It’s like you know you are going to walk.”
“I
“Being innocent is not enough. Innocent men sometimes get convicted and deep down everybody knows it. That’s why I’ve never met a truly innocent man who wasn’t scared. Scared that the system won’t work right, that it’s built to find guilty people guilty and not innocent people innocent. That’s what you’re missing, Walter. You’re not scared.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why should I be scared?”
I stared across the table at him, trying to read him. I knew my instincts were right. There was something I didn’t know, something that I had missed in the files or that Vincent had carried in his head instead of his files. Whatever it was, Elliot wasn’t sharing it with me yet.
For now that was okay. Sometimes you don’t want to know what your client knows, because once the smoke comes out of the bottle, you can’t put it back in.
“All right, Walter,” I said. “To be continued. Meantime, let’s go to work.”
Without waiting for a reply I opened the defense file and looked at the notes I had written on the inside flap.
“I think we’re set in terms of witnesses and strategy when it comes to the state’s case. What I have not found in the file is a solid strategy for putting forth your defense.”
“What do you mean?” Elliot asked. “Jerry told me we were ready.”
“Maybe not, Walter. I know it’s not something you want to see or hear but I found this in the file.”
I slid a two-page document across the polished table to him. He glanced at it but didn’t really look at it.
“What is it?”
“That is a motion for a continuance. Jerry drew it up but hadn’t filed it. But it seems clear that he wanted to delay the trial. The coding on the motion indicates he printed it out Monday – just a few hours before he was killed.”
Elliot shook his head and shoved the document back across the table.
