“And it’s all bullshit.”

“And I’ll be able to potshot the hell out of it at trial. A lot of their positives can be turned into negatives. It will be a dance, Walter. We’ll trade punches. We’ll try to distort and destroy but ultimately they’ll land more punches than we can block and that’s why we’re the underdog and why it’s always good for the defense to float an alternate theory. We give the jury a plausible explanation for why these two people were killed. We throw suspicion away from you and at somebody else.”

“Like the one-armed man in The Fugitive?”

I shook my head.

“Not exactly.”

I remembered the movie and the television show before it. In both cases, there actually was a one-armed man. I was talking about a smoke screen, an alternate theory concocted by the defense because I wasn’t buying into Elliot’s “I-am-innocent rap” – at least not yet.

There was a buzzing sound and Elliot took a phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

“Walter, we have work here,” I said.

He didn’t take the call and reluctantly put the phone away. I continued.

“Okay, during the prosecution phase we are going to use cross-examination to make one thing crystal clear to the jury. That is, that once that GSR test came back positive on you, then-”

“False positive!”

“Whatever. The point is, once they had what they believed was a positive indication that you had very recently fired a weapon, all bets were off. A wide-open investigation became very tightly focused on one thing. You. It went from what they call a full-field investigation to a full investigation of you. So, what happened is that they left a lot of stones unturned. For example, Rilz had only been in this country four years. Not a single investigator went to Germany to check on his background and whether he had any enemies back there who wanted him dead. That’s just one thing. They didn’t thoroughly background the guy in L.A. either. This was a man who was allowed entry into the homes and lives of some of the wealthiest women in this city. Excuse my bluntness, but was he banging other married clients, or just your wife? Were there other important and powerful men he could have angered, or just you?”

Elliot didn’t respond to the crude questions. I had asked them that way on purpose, to see if it got a rise out of him or any reaction that contradicted his statements of loving his wife. But he showed no reaction either way.

“You see what I’m getting at, Walter? The focus, from almost the very start, was on you. When it’s the defense’s turn, we’re going to put it on Rilz. And from that we’ll grow doubts like stalks in a cornfield.”

Elliot nodded thoughtfully as he looked down at his reflection in the polished tabletop.

“But this can’t be the magic bullet Jerry told you about,” I said. “And there are risks in going after Rilz.”

Elliot raised his eyes to mine.

“Because the prosecutor knows this was a deficiency when the investigators brought in the case. He’s had five months to anticipate that we might go this way, and if he is good, as I am sure he is, then he’s been quietly getting ready for us to go in this direction.”

“Wouldn’t that come out in the discovery material?”

“Not always. There is an art to discovery. Most of the time it’s what is not in the discovery file that is important and that you have to watch out for. Jeffrey Golantz is a seasoned pro. He knows just what he has to put in and what he can keep for himself.”

“You know Golantz? You’ve gone to trial against him before?”

“I don’t know him and have never gone up against him. It’s his reputation I know. He’s never lost at trial. He’s something like twenty-seven and oh.”

I checked my watch. The time had passed quickly and I needed to keep things moving if I was going to pick my daughter up on time.

“Okay,” I said. “There are a couple other things we need to cover. Let’s talk about whether you testify.”

“That’s not a question. That’s a given. I want to clear my name. The jury will want me to say I did not do this.”

“I knew you were going to say that and I appreciate the fervor I see in your denials. But your testimony has to be more than that. It has to offer an explanation and that’s where we can get into trouble.”

“I don’t care.”

“Did you kill your wife and her lover?”

“No!”

“Then why did you go out there to the house?”

“I was suspicious. If she was there with somebody, I was going to confront her and throw him out on his ass.”

“You expect this jury to believe that a man who runs abillion-dollar movie studio took the afternoon off to drive out to Malibu to spy on his wife?”

“No, I’m no spy. I had suspicions and went out there to see for myself.”

“And to confront her with a gun?”

Elliot opened his mouth to speak but then hesitated and didn’t respond.

“You see, Walter?” I said. “You get up there and you open yourself up to anything – most of it not good.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t care. It’s a given. Guilty guys don’t testify. Everybody knows it. I’m testifying that I did not do this.”

He poked a finger at me with each syllable of the last sentence. I still liked his forcefulness. He was believable. Maybe he could survive on the stand.

“Well, ultimately it is your decision,” I said. “We’ll get you prepared to testify but we won’t make the decision until we get into the defense phase of the trial and we see where we stand.”

“It’s decided now. I’m testifying.”

His face began to turn a deep shade of crimson. I had to tread lightly here. I didn’t want him to testify but it was unethical for me to forbid it. It was a client decision, and if he ever claimed I took it away from him or refused to let him testify, I would have the bar swarming me like angry bees.

“Look, Walter,” I said. “You’re a powerful man. You run a studio and make movies and put millions of dollars on the line every day. I understand all of that. You are used to making decisions with nobody questioning them. But when we go into trial, I’m the boss. And while it will be you who makes this decision, I need to know that you are listening to me and considering my counsel. There’s no use going further if you don’t.”

He rubbed his hand roughly across his face. This was hard for him.

“Okay. I understand. We make a final decision on this later.”

He said it grudgingly. It was a concession he didn’t want to make. No man wants to relinquish his power to another.

“Okay, Walter,” I said. “I think that puts us on the same page.”

I checked my watch again. There were a few more things on my list and I still had some time.

“Okay, let’s move on,” I said.

“Please.”

“I want to add a couple people to the defense team. They will be ex-”

“No. I told you, the more lawyers a defendant has, the guiltier he looks. Look at Barry Bonds. Tell me people don’t think he’s guilty. He’s got more lawyers than teammates.”

“Walter, you didn’t let me finish. These are not lawyers I’m talking about, and when we go to trial, I promise it is going to be just you and me sitting at the table.”

“Then, who do you want to add?”

“A jury-selection consultant and somebody to work with you on image and testimony, all of that.”

“No jury consultant. Makes it look like you’re trying to rig things.”

“Look, the person I want to hire will be sitting out in the gallery. No one will notice her. She plays poker for a living and just reads people’s faces and looks for tells – little giveaways. That’s it.”

“No, I won’t pay for that mumbo jumbo.”

“Are you sure, Walter?”

I spent five minutes trying to convince him, telling him that picking the jury might be the most important part of the trial. I stressed that in circumstantial cases the priority had to be in picking jurors with open minds, ones who didn’t believe that just because the police or prosecution say something, it’s automatically true. I told him that I prided myself on my skills in picking a jury but that I could use the help of an expert who knew how to read faces and gestures. At the end of my plea Elliot simply shook his head.