Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

Maggie?”
    There were at least eighty deputy DAs working out of Van Nuys.
    “In passing.”
    We left the courtroom and stood side by side in front of the assembled media to announce that we would not be commenting on the case at this early stage. As we headed to the elevators at least six reporters, most of them from out of town, shoved business cards into my hand—New York Times, CNN, Dateline, Salon, and the holy grail of them all, 60 Minutes. In less than twenty-four hours I had gone from scrounging $250-a-month foreclosure cases in South L.A. to being lead defense attorney on a case that threatened to be the signature story of this financial epoch.
    And I liked it.
    “They’re gone,” Freeman said once we were on the elevator. “You can wipe the shit-eating grin off your face.”
    I looked at her and really smiled.
    “That obvious, huh?”
    “Oh, yeah. All I can say is, enjoy it while you can.”
    That was a not-so-subtle reminder of what I was facing with this case. Freeman was an up-and-comer in the DA’s office and some said she would someday run for the top job herself. The conventional wisdom was to attribute her rise and rep in the prosecutor’s office to her skin color and to internal politics. To suggest she got the good cases because she was a minority who was the protégée of another minority. But I knew this was a deadly mistake. Andrea Freeman was damn good at what she did and I had the winless record against her to prove it. When I got the word the night before that she had been assigned the Trammel case, I had felt it like a poke in the ribs. It hurt but there was nothing I could do about it.
    In the basement cafeteria we poured cups of coffee from the urns and found a table in a quiet corner. She took the seat that allowed her to see the entrance. It was a law enforcement thing that extended from patrol officers to detectives to prosecutors. Never turn your back on a potential point of attack.
    “So…,” I said. “Here we are. You’re in the position of having to prosecute a potential American hero.”
    Freeman laughed like I was insane.
    “Yeah, right. Last I heard, we don’t make heroes out of murderers.”
    I could think of an infamous case prosecuted locally that might challenge that statement but I let it go.
    “Maybe that is overreaching a bit,” I said. “Let’s just say that I think public sympathy is going to be running high on the defendant’s side of the aisle on this one. I think fanning the media flames will only heighten it.”
    “For now, sure. But as the evidence gets out there and the details become known, I don’t think public sympathy is going to be an issue. At least not from my standpoint. But what are you saying, Haller? You want to talk about a plea before the case is even a day old?”
    I shook my head.
    “No, not at all. I don’t want to talk about anything like that. My client says she is innocent. I brought up the sympathy angle because of the attention the case is already getting. I just picked up a card from a producer at Sixty Minutes. So I’d like to set up some guidelines and agreements on how we proceed with the media. You just mentioned the evidence and how it gets out there into the public domain. I hope you are talking about evidence presented in court and not selectively fed to the L.A. Times or anybody else in the fourth estate.”
    “Hey, I’d be happy to call it a no-fly zone right now. Nobody talks to the media under any circumstances.”
    I frowned.
    “I’m not ready to go that far yet.”
    She gave me the knowing nod.
    “I didn’t think so. So all I’ll say then is be careful. Both of us. I for one won’t hesitate to go to the judge if I think you’re trying to taint the jury pool.”
    “Then same here.”
    “Good. Then that’s settled for now. What else?”
    “When am I going to start seeing some discovery?”
    She took a long draw on her coffee before answering.
    “You know from prior cases how I work. I’m not into I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. That’s always a one-way street because the defense doesn’t show dick. So I like to keep it nice and tight.”
    “I think we need to come to an accommodation, Counselor.”
    “Well, when we get a judge you can talk to the judge. But I’m not playing nice with a murderer, no matter who her lawyer is. And just so you know, I already came down hard on your buddy Kurlen for giving you that disc yesterday. That should not have happened and he’s lucky I