“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.

“No, we talked about it and he agreed with me to move forward on schedule.”

“That was Monday?”

“Yes, Monday. The last time I talked to him.”

I nodded. That covered one of the questions I had. Vincent kept billing records in each of his files, and I had noted in the Elliot file that he had billed an hour on the day of his murder.

“Was that a conference at his office or yours?”

“It was a phone call. Monday afternoon. He’d left a message earlier and I called him back. Nina can get you the exact time if you need it.”

“He has it down here at three. He talked to you about a delay?”

“That’s right but I told him no delay.”

Vincent had billed an hour. I wondered how long he and Elliot had sparred over the delay.

“Why did he want a continuance?” I asked.

“He just wanted more time to prepare and maybe pad his bill. I told him we were ready, like I’m telling you. We are ready!”

I sort of laughed and shook my head.

“The thing is, you’re not the lawyer here, Walter. I am. And that’s what I’m trying to tell you, I’m not seeing much here in terms of a defense strategy. I think that’s why Jerry wanted to delay the trial. He didn’t have a case.”

“No, it’s the prosecution that doesn’t have the case.”

I was growing tired of Elliot and his insistence on calling the legal shots.

“Let me explain how this works,” I said wearily. “And forgive me if you know all of this, Walter. It’s going to be a two-part trial, okay? The prosecutor goes first and he lays out his case. We get a chance to attack it as he goes. Then we get our shot and that’s when we put up our evidence and alternate theories of the crime.”

“Okay.”

“And what I can tell from my study of the files is that Jerry Vincent was relying more on the prosecution’s case than on a defense case. There are-”

“How so?”

“What I’m saying is that he’s locked and loaded on the prosecution side. He has counter witnesses and cross-examination plans ready for everything the prosecution is going to put forward. But I’m missing something on the defense side of the equation. We’ve got no alibi, no alternate suspects, no alternate theories, nothing. At least nothing in the file. And that’s what I mean when I say we have no case. Did he ever discuss with you how he planned to roll out the defense?”

“No. We were going to have that conversation but then he got killed. He told me that he was working all of that out. He said he had the magic bullet and the less I knew, the better. He was going to tell me when we got closer to trial but he never did. He never got the chance.”

I knew the term. The “magic bullet” was your get-out-of-jail-and-go-home card. It was the witness or piece of evidence that you had in your back pocket that was going to either knock all the evidence down like dominoes or firmly and permanently fix reasonable doubt in the mind of every juror on the panel. If Vincent had a magic bullet, he hadn’t noted it in the case file. And if he had a magic bullet, why was he talking about a delay on Monday?

“You have no idea what this magic bullet was?” I asked Elliot.

“Just what he told me, that he found something that was going to blow the state out of the water.”

“That doesn’t make sense if on Monday he was talking about delaying the trial.”

Elliot shrugged.

“I told you, he just wanted more time to be prepared. Probably more time to charge me more money. But I told him, when we make a movie, we pick a date, and that movie comes out on that date no matter what. I told him we were going to trial without delay.”

I nodded my head at Elliot’s no-delay mantra. But my mind was on Vincent’s missing laptop. Was the magic bullet in there? Had he saved his plan on the computer and not put it into the hard file? Was the magic bullet the reason for his murder? Had his discovery been so sensitive or dangerous that someone had killed him for it?

I decided to move on with Elliot while I had him in front of me.

“Well, Walter, I don’t have the magic bullet. But if Jerry could find it, then so can I. I will.”

I checked my watch and tried to give the outward appearance that I was not troubled by not knowing what was assuredly the key element in the case.

“Okay. Let’s talk about an alternate theory.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that the state has its theory and we should have ours. The state’s theory is that you were upset over your wife’s infidelity and what it would cost you to divorce her. So you went out to Malibu and killed both your wife and her lover. You then got rid of the murder weapon in some way – either hid it or threw it into the ocean – and then called nine-one-one to report that you had discovered the murders. That theory gives them all they need. Motive and opportunity. But to back it up they have the GSR and almost nothing else.”

“GSR?”

“Gunshot residue. Their evidentiary case – what little there is – firmly rests on it.”

“That test was a false positive!” Elliot said forcefully. “I never shot any weapon. And Jerry told me he was bringing in the top expert in the country to knock it all down. A woman from John Jay in New York. She’ll testify that the sheriff’s lab procedures were sloppy and lax, prone to come up with the false positive.”

I nodded. I liked the fervor of his denial. It could be useful if he testified.

“Yes, Dr. Arslanian – we still have her coming in,” I said. “But she’s no magic bullet, Walter. The prosecution will counter with their own expert saying exactly the opposite – that the lab is well run and that all procedures were followed. At best, the GSR will be a wash. The prosecution will still be leaning heavily on motive and opportunity.”

“What motive? I loved her and I didn’t even know about Rilz. I thought he was a faggot.”

I held my hands up in a slow-it-down gesture.

“Look, do yourself a favor, Walter, and don’t call him that. In court or anywhere else. If it is appropriate to reference his sexual orientation, you say you thought he was gay. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now, the prosecution will simply say that you did know Johan Rilz was your wife’s lover, and they’ll trot out evidence and testimony that will indicate that a divorce forced by your wife’s infidelity would cost you in excess of a hundred million dollars and possibly dilute your control of the studio. They plant all of that in the jury’s minds and you start having a pretty good motivation for murder.”