Nelson is huddled with his minions at the other table. He finally looks up.

“No, Your Honor. That’s fine.”

“Very well.” Acosta was hoping for a little help. He checks the notes in front of him. Next item.

“Publicity,” he says. “It’s a problem in this case.” Acosta is looking out at the reporters in the front row. In a banana republic he would have an easy answer. Here his options are more limited.

“I’m reimposing the order that was lifted after the preliminary hearing,” he says. “The parties and their counsel are not to discuss any of the details of this trial or to comment upon it in any fashion with the press or with any parties outside of this courtroom, except for the usual preparation of witnesses and collaboration among co-counsel. Is that understood?”

A noticeable groan goes up from the front row. The age of enterprising journalism, it seems, is over.

This is fine with me. Acosta has freed us from the need to fire return salvos in a war of words designed for public consumption. Given the disparity of resources, ours against the state’s, I’m not anxious to waste my time, or Harry’s, coming up with daily sound bites.

Nelson and I acknowledge the terms of the gag order.

The door opens at the back of the courtroom. I turn a little in my chair to see Harry hustling down the aisle, breathless and sweating.

“Mr. Hinds, I’m glad you could join us.”

“Sorry, Your Honor. I was interviewing a client at the jail. Had a little trouble getting out.”

“The people who come here tell me it’s like that.” Acosta smiles, broad and paternal.

Harry dumps his briefcase on the counsel table and pulls up a chair.

“I’ve imposed a gag order in this case. We wouldn’t want you to end up back at the jail as a guest, so you might get the details from Mr. Madriani.”

Harry nods. He’s ransacking the innards of his briefcase looking for a note pad.

“Is discovery complete?”

“No, Your Honor.” I speak before Nelson can.

He looks at me a little startled.

I whisper across the breach between the tables, about his secret witness. I wink a little to avoid the details. Busy pens are working in the front row.

“Oh yes.” He remembers. His source who knows more about her marriage than Talia.

“There is one witness we discovered late,” he says. “I’ve already informed the defense as to the nature of the testimony this witness will provide. I will follow that up with a letter. There is no written statement by the witness. I’m prepared to disclose the identity of the witness, the name and address, at the close of this hearing, if that would assist the defense.”

“Is that acceptable, Mr. Madriani?”

“That’s fine, Your Honor.” I shrug my shoulders.

“You’ve delivered everything else, Mr. Nelson?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“And Mr. Madriani, have you shared your witness list with the people?”

This is not a legal requirement for the defense in this state, but a courtesy enforced by most judges. In this regard Nelson and I have each loaded our lists with the names of a dozen shills, witnesses we have no intention of calling. In this way we conceal our strategy, our respective theories of the case. We force each other to waste valuable time preparing for witnesses the jury will never see. Such are the games that lawyers play.

I tell the court that I have indeed delivered my witness list and physical evidence discovered by the defense in the preparation of its case.

This latter is wholly gratuitous. I am referring in cryptic terms to the small handgun, Talia’s twenty-five caliber. We were correct in our assumption. Ballistics has come up dry on any match with the bullet fragment found in Ben. It has proven too small for comparison. The only prints found on the gun were those of Talia and Tod Hamilton, both accounted for in our report that accompanied the gun when it was delivered to the police. Nelson will use this to show that Talia had access to a handgun, but he will have an uphill battle. There is no concrete evidence linking this weapon to the crime. I will argue that the gun as evidence lacks any real probative value, that its introduction into evidence may lead to possible erroneous conclusions on the part of a jury, assumptions prejudicial to our client. In this way, I believe, I can keep the gun out.

“Are there any other motions from the people?”

Nelson looks down the line at his brain trust, the paper pushers. If there is a paper blizzard thrown by the state during the trial, these two will be working the wind machine.

“Not at this time, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Madriani, is there anything else?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then the clerk will give us an available date.”

Acosta’s clerk is a courthouse fixture. Harriet Bloom has already survived three of the Coconut’s predecessors, who succumbed to death, retirement, and the voters’ wrath, in that order. She is seated directly below the bench at a cluttered desk turned sideways so that she can see the counsel tables and the judge. She reads from a large calendar blotter under acetate.

“The first opening is October third.”

Two weeks away.

Acosta looks at Nelson, who nods, and for the record says: “Fine with us, Your Honor.”

Then to me. Harry and I are checking our calendars. I am open. Harry makes it unanimous.

“Very well, trial is set for October third, nine A. M., this department. If there’s nothing more, this court stands adjourned.”

A few reporters bolt for the door and the pay phones outside in the hall. Others take their chances searching out the boundaries and limits of Acosta’s order. They descend on Nelson first.

“I have nothing to say.” He’s leaving the courtroom with Meeks, leaving the other assistant to gather up the books and papers from the table and return them to two large brief boxes.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.” Nelson pushes his way through the reporters and to the door.

Most begin to close their notebooks. Two of them move closer, look at me. I give them nothing that might invite a question. They stand like waifs in a bread line, hoping for some crumbs.

“Nice weather,” I say. One of them laughs, then closes his notebook.

Nelson’s deputy, the one left behind to clean up, approaches, quiet, like an Indian on a raid. He hands me a folded piece of paper and is gone, like that.

Talia and Harry are making for the door. He’s getting her out before the press can stall her in the hallway. I hear the chatter and shouting as they hit the cameras outside.

“Are you confident you can win?”

Harry is saying, “Excuse us.”

“How do you feel about all this?”

“Wonderful,” he says. “We love all the attention.” It’s Harry’s voice, moving toward the elevator. “Oh Jesus, I’m sorry.” He’s probably stepped on some woman’s toes or kneed some guy in the groin. Harry’s great in a crowd scene.

I open the note passed to me by Nelson’s man. It’s printed in large block letters, blue ballpoint pen on a single piece of yellow legal paper.

OUR WITNESS ON THE ISSUE OF THE DEFENDANT ' S DIVORCE IS ANTHONY R. SKARPELLOS. WE WILL CONFIRM THIS BY WRITTEN MEMORANDUM TO FOLLOW.

The firm’s office address and telephone number are included, as if I need them.

For some reason I am not surprised. The Greek has taken the offensive, drawn the first blood.

CHAPTER 26

“For those of us of the pessimistic persuasion,” says Harry, “it’s the prime directive-shit happens.” It’s Harry’s law of cynical gravity, his way of telling me that this latest news was beyond my control, or perhaps a premonition of worse things to come. With Harry it’s hard to tell.

On the heels of Nelson’s revelation that Skarpellos is his surprise witness, I have now learned that the DA’s office has given a grant of immunity to Susan Hawley.