The Brass Verdict

are talking about.”
    “You are too confident, Walter. It’s like you know you are going to walk.”
    “I
am
going to walk. I’m innocent.”
    “Being innocent is not enough. Innocent men sometimes get convicted and deep down everybody knows it. That’s why I’ve never met a truly innocent man who wasn’t scared. Scared that the system won’t work right, that it’s built to find guilty people guilty and not innocent people innocent. That’s what you’re missing, Walter. You’re not scared.”
    “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