Tommy, June 23, 2009
Another day in the courtroom. The defense was clearly mobilized. Despite the pasting Rusty took yesterday, he arrived looking well composed, even wearing a new tie, a sporty violet number that seemed to boast that his spirit was undimmed. Sandy was issuing instructions from his chair, as if it were a throne, and Marta and the rest of the Sterns' staff were hustling about.
Marta stopped over at the defense table. Age favored some people, and it had clearly done well by her. When Marta Stern started practicing with Sandy, she was like a teapot on the boil, shrill and constantly stirred up. But something about becoming a wife and mom had calmed her. She could still get in your face, but usually with a reason. After the last baby, she dropped about thirty pounds, which she had managed to keep off. Despite being a dead ringer for a not-so-good-looking father, she was actually kind of attractive. And a hell of a lawyer. She was not the same showman as her old man, but she was smart and steady, with a lot of Sandy's instinctive judgment.
"We're going to want to use Rusty's computer," she told Tommy. "Probably this afternoon."
Tommy waved his hand nobly, like it was nothing to him, as if the defense and their shenanigans were annoying, but only in the trivial way of gnats. When she turned away, though, he made a note on his pad, "Computer???" and underscored it several times. Given how devastating the evidence of the deleted messages and the Web searches was, the prosecutors made a point of bringing Rusty's PC to court every day in the pink shrink-wrap in which it had been encased since being recaptured from Judge Mason last December. It sat on the prosecution table all day, right in front of the jury.
Jangling like a passing train, Brand arrived with the trial cart, Rory and Ruta, the paralegal, behind him.
"Who the fuck is she?" Brand whispered when he got to the defense table.
Tommy had no clue what Jim meant.
"There's some dumpy Latina out in the hall. I thought maybe you'd seen her." Brand motioned Rory over and asked her to find out what she could. As Gissling departed, Tommy mentioned the computer.
"They want to turn it on?" Brand asked.
"She said 'use it.'"
"We need to talk to Gorvetich. My impression is turning it on messes everything up."
Tommy shook his head in disagreement, but Brand wasn't happy.
"Boss, it's not supposed to be done that way. Even pushing the on switch makes changes on the hard drive."
"Jimmy, that doesn't matter. It's his computer. And we put it in issue. Yee would never listen if we told him they should have to do a simulation. If they want to show the jury something on the machine, we can't stop them from making a demonstration with the actual evidence."
"To demonstrate what?"
"I didn't get that memo," said Tommy.
Gissling was back with a card, and the four of them huddled over it. Rosa Belanquez was the customer service manager at the First Kindle branch in Nearing.
"What's she gonna say?" asked Brand.
"She claims she's only here to testify about records," answered Rory. That made no sense to any of them. Almost all of the records from the bank, which Rory dug up last fall, had been excluded from evidence because they related to Rusty's affair. The one exception was the cashier's checks Rusty sent to Prima Dana. Brand looked at Tommy. It was just like Tommy said last night. Stern was up to something.
"How about we try to scare her off?" Brand asked. "Tell her that testifying violates the ninety-day letter."
"Jimmy!" Tommy couldn't dial down the volume quite enough, and across the courtroom, Stern and Marta and Rusty's son all stared. But Brand's idea was dangerous and stupid. The first thing Rosa would do would come ask Stern, who would then go to the judge and accuse the prosecutors of obstruction. With some point. Testifying had nothing to do with the ninety-day letter.
As the trial wore on, Brand had gotten more intense. Victory was in sight, and the fact that they might win a case that seemed like a bad bet to start had revved Jimmy up in an unhealthy way. It was Tommy's future, Tommy's legacy, that was at stake. But Jimmy was a samurai who regarded Tommy's interests as more important than his own. That part was touching. Yet Brand's greatest weakness as a lawyer was his temper, and it always had been. Tommy waited until Brand, as ever, came back to himself.
"Sorry," he said now, and repeated the word a couple of times. "I just don't know what Stern is up to."
The bailiff yelled out, "All rise," and Yee came charging out the door behind the bench.
Tommy patted Brand's hand. "You're about to find out," he said.