“Oh, I can believe that,” I say. “I just can’t believe that he would take someone like you into his confidence.”

This spawns two lashing arms. The Greek drags Nelson and Harry toward the other side of my desk. Delia’s guarding her stenograph machine, blocking Skarpellos with her body. She’s earning her per diem.

“Sonofabitch,” he says. “Open the record. I’ll give you an earload, you prick.”

“Shut up, the two of you.” Nelson’s got his hands full trying to keep him off of me.

I have no intention of going back on the record. Despite the common perception, a deposition is no exercise in truth finding. It’s an effort to redraw the facts in terms most favorable to your side. And for the moment I have what I want, a concession that the Greek can’t put Talia and Ben in the same room talking about divorce. Skarpellos has gone ballistic, perhaps more truth than I want on paper. I take little mental notes of what he says, and gauge the temperature of his combustion for future reference.

“You always put him on a fuckin’ pedestal.” Tony’s screaming about Ben. A lifetime of envy spilling all over my desk. “Well, he wasn’t perfect. He had a fucked-up marriage. He was porkin’ one of the girls in the office. Didn’t know that, did ya, asshole.”

They’re making headway toward the door. Nelson and Harry have him leaning backward. Harry’s got the door open, his knee wedged against it for leverage as he pushes the Greek through.

“He was fuckin’ the hired help. Put it on the record, why don’t you.” Skarpellos is ranting like some animal in heat. “Put that in your damn statement, why don’t ya?”

I can see Dee at her desk, looking at me, round-eyed, wondering what I’ve done to this witty and wonderful man.

Nelson has wrestled him toward the outer door. Skarpellos breaks free, but doesn’t come back at me. He’s regained enough composure, now looking around, coming down to earth, realizing that he’s the center of attention for four other people in this office, a little nonplussed. He’s flushed, his face red like a beet. He struggles to pump up a little dignity, straightens his coat. One panel is ripped at the seam on the back by the shoulder blade, something from the Incredible Hulk. Italian worsted and he’s wearing it sideways. He jerks on his tie. A lost cause.

Tony looks at me through the open door. “I’ll see ya in court, asshole.”

“Looking forward to it, Tony.”

He’s out the door.

Nelson looks at me. I know what’s going through his mind: a witness he can’t control, whether to put Skarpellos on the stand at all. But that ship has now sailed. If he doesn’t call the Greek, I will.

CHAPTER 27

Apprehension, about yourself, about your client, about the quality of your evidence, and about the seeming flaws of your opponent’s case-all of these are afflictions that plague the lawyer on the opening day of trial. Take each of them and double them down in spades when you are dealing in death, fending off a capital case.

For me it’s been more than six years since the stakes have been so high; longer for Harry.

There are butterflies the size of pterodactyls soaring in my stomach. I am charged by the electricity of nerves down to my knees as Harry and I assemble our files of notes and the few reference works we will need at the counsel table. We work at this in silence, each of us dealing with our own demons of doubt.

These nerves, I have concluded, are universal, perennial. They come with every trial, to every lawyer. The more poised have merely learned to cloak them with the grace that accompanies experience.

“Are you ready?” Harry asks me.

“As I will ever be,” I tell him. My mouth is dry, parched. I reach for the water glass and fill it. Take a little sip.

I’ve had to restrain Talia, to keep her from Tod, who is outside in the corridor, to hold her here at the table with Harry and me. It won’t do to have the press taking social notes of her open courtroom conversations with other men, worse if the jury sees them. An innocent scene will take on whole new meanings once the state hops upon its horse of conspiracy.

Harry’s been giving Hamilton a wide berth, eyeing him with a suspicion that is palpable, since our conversation regarding Tod’s string of indiscretions with Talia. He has me wondering if indeed there is a more calculating side to the man. If Hamilton knows more than he’s saying, anything that could exonerate Talia, and he is withholding this, then his affection for her is a carefully crafted facade. Harry has raised the issue with me-whether it is love or avarice that fuels Tod’s desire for Talia. There are gold diggers and worse who are so bold, who might wait in the wings, even at some jeopardy to themselves, for this woman and what she stands to inherit if she wins.

Tod has appeared for his lineup with the cops, to be ID’ed by their motel clerk. But the police have been amazingly quiet since. He’s not been arrested or questioned further. Maybe the clerk is blind, I think. It’s more likely that Nelson would prefer to spring this trap during the trial, when we can no longer prepare.

In the first rows, immediately behind the prosecution, are the assembled press, busy soaking up color with their pens and slender notebooks. The artists with their large drawing pads have laid claim to the end-row chairs, for a little elbow room.

The rest of the chairs in the courtroom, the largest one in the building, have been set aside for prospective jurors. The public will have to wait until after we have a jury for admission.

The court reporter is ready, poised at her little machine. Harriet Bloom, Acosta’s clerk, is busy at her desk shuffling papers.

From the back behind the bench, Acosta comes out swiftly. A rush of rustling black robes, he ascends to the bench.

“All rise.” The bailiff is at his station.

The judge settles into his high-back chair and takes quick stock of those in his courtroom.

“Department 16 of the superior court is now in session, the Honorable Armando Acosta presiding. Be seated.”

The judge adjusts his glasses, half-frame cheaters that perch toward the tip of his nose. He nods that he is ready, and the clerk calls the case.

A little silence to set the stage, and Acosta takes over.

“The jury clerk informs me that we have a larger pool than usual of prospective jurors for this case.”

It seems they’ve gone out of their way, anticipating that with the pretrial publicity and no change of venue, we will bump a good number selected from the voters’ rolls.

It’s conventional wisdom in the law that in a criminal case the defendant’s fate, like steel rebar in concrete, is fixed with the selection of the jury. This is, I think, one of those truisms that become prophecy only after the result is known, when the trial is over.

But I’m taking no chances. My early concessions in avoiding a change of venue were not, after all, motivated by civic spirit. I’ve exacted a little quid pro quo, in a motion crafted by Harry, over Nelson’s hearty objections and to his considerable chagrin. Acosta has agreed that if the defense is not satisfied with the fairness of this panel, at the proper time he will consider a few extra peremptory challenges, for us and the people. This is his effort at a little hydraulics to level the playing field, following all the adverse publicity against Talia.

To a lawyer in jury selection the peremptory challenge is like a Stinger Missile, used to blow an objectionable juror out of the box without need to show cause, bias or otherwise. It is to be guarded jealously and used with discretion. In this state each side is allowed ten peremptory challenges in most cases. But in cases where death may be the ultimate penalty that number is doubled.

“Before we call in the jury, Your Honor, the state has one matter,” says Nelson. “A motion in limine.”