Double Tap (19 page)

It is in these moments that the pain for me is real. Looking back, I cannot be sure when it happened, but at some point in the months that have intervened since we met, the trial of Emiliano Ruiz has taken on a frightening dimension that even I do not fully comprehend.

Lately this has been accompanied by dark visitations. They seem always to come at night when I am alone, after my daughter Sarah is asleep in her room. I am left to huddle with the documents that would condemn Emiliano—police reports and the state’s forensic details of the crime—and one set of items in particular: a few photos of Ruiz in uniform, battle fatigues, his face haggard and dirty. He is with a small group, other men similarly worn and tired, all huddled in a semicircle, giving it their all to smile.

The reason is no doubt lost in the dark recesses of my childhood, but looking at these pictures in the solitary hours of the night there is a palpable sense of fear. It emanates from somewhere deep in my core, ominous and cold, as if I am being paralyzed. There is a feeling that I am locked in battle with dark forces, held in a death embrace by the demon, scrapping, tearing, pulling hair at the edge of the pit for the damned who are about to be lost. Somehow this ordeal has become the battle I could never wage as a child. I cannot explain it, but Emiliano has become the proxy, the surrogate, that somehow has me struggling for the redemption of Evo’s soul.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
his morning Harry and I dodge a projectile the size of a cannonball. Judge Samuel Gilcrest is up on the bench, peering down at the five lawyers assembled at the other counsel table. In flowing black robes, his narrow, crooked nose and hairless dome shining under the beams from the courtroom’s overhead canister lights, Gilcrest resembles a wingless bald eagle about to hop down from its perch to eat its prey.

Gilcrest has decided that there will be no cameras in the courtroom for Ruiz’s trial.

Harry is leaning back in the chair next to me at the defense table, taking a deep breath, psychically hyperventilating.

Templeton has given up the prosecution table temporarily to the legal brain trust for the media, lawyers representing three of the national television cable franchises. They may be arguing lofty First Amendment issues, but the bottom line is dollars. The trial of Emiliano Ruiz—the man accused of killing Madelyn Chapman in what is now being called the “Double Tap” Murder—is worth tens of millions in ad revenue if they can get it on live TV. What is driving the story in terms of news value is not only the lurid details that have slipped out—the fact that Chapman was part of the international superwealthy and is believed to have been having an affair with the defendant—but the fact that her company was up to its eyebrows in IFS and the seething controversy in Congress over government intrusion and individual privacy.

They try to haggle with the judge.

“You’ve heard my ruling. The answer is no.” Gilcrest’s tone climbs a couple of decibels in volume, not quite angry but getting there.

The only thing that didn’t come up during more than an hour of pitched argument is the eight-ton elephant, the psychic presence of Larry Templeton. The cute little man has his feet propped up on top of his briefcase, which he has set on the floor in front of his chair to use like a footstool. Templeton has the fingers of both hands laced together and braced behind his head, his elbows spread as he leans back, enjoying the argument. His head is a full four inches below the top of the chair’s backrest. It is just this kind of lovable, take-me-home-and-squeeze-me image in front of the jury that has Harry and me worried.

Gilcrest is in his mid-sixties. With narrow, slumping shoulders, his slender six-foot-four-inch frame drips folds of black polyester as his robe fans out from his skinny neck and disappears behind the top of the bench. Everything about the man is sharp, from the angle of his nose to the high, prominent cheekbones set like boulders under eyes that are sunk so deep in the man’s skull that any color from the pupils is lost in shadow.

“Mr. Templeton, if you could join us, take your seat so we can move on to the other items.” The judge motions with a hand and a nod toward his bailiff, sign language to clear the courtroom now that the issue of cameras is behind us. Next up are motions on pretrial evidentiary items. These are closed to the public, though ultimate rulings and their significance are sure to seep onto the front pages of the newspapers and the minute-by-minute cable TV accounts of the trial.

Noise and commotion as foot traffic heads for the exit. The mob is out of their seats, milling toward the double doors at the back of the courtroom.

At the other counsel table the lawyers juggle loose papers and grab their briefcases, one of them holding a pen in his teeth, his half-open briefcase in one hand and papers in the other. Templeton lifts his feet off his briefcase and up onto the seat to avoid getting trampled. He arches his eyebrows and smiles at me, a portrait in miniature:
Escaping the Exiting Horde
. Harry is right. Templeton is going to kill us in front of the jury.

“Next item is the videotape?” says Gilcrest.

“I believe so, Your Honor.” Harry fingers through the folder to find our notes.

Templeton lugs his briefcase forward. Lifting it shoulder high, he pushes it up onto the table. He is joined by Mike Argust, one of the lead detectives in Homicide and the man who headed up the investigation of Chapman’s murder. He will be state’s representative for “the People,” entitled to sit in the courtroom and listen to all the testimony even though he is a witness and will be called to the stand. Argust’s name had been conspicuous in the papers before the court issued its gag order silencing both sides on the case. The detective’s face and image are still highly visible in file footage whenever Chapman’s murder pops up on the televised news.

“Your Honor, if we could have some help with the seat assist.”

Gilcrest is reading, trying to get a head start on the next motion. He looks up abstractedly from the file, as if encountering a man from Mars. “What? Oh, yeah, of course. Jerry!”

He calls to his bailiff, who is just locking up the back doors. Jerry turns toward the bench.

“Chair,” says Gilcrest. The judge, who has resumed reading the file, gestures absently with his hand toward Templeton. More sign language. This is understood in all the criminal courts where Templeton does business.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” The bailiff hooks his keys onto his belt and hustles back toward the judge’s chambers. A couple of seconds later he emerges carrying a dark square object like a box with rounded corners.

The county has designed a special fixture for the cushioned tilting armchairs used by the lawyers at counsel table. This device, made of wood, padded, and covered with dark fabric, fits inside the arms of the chair and lifts Templeton to a height so that he is seated on a level playing field with everyone else. The bailiff installs the thing and Templeton scrambles up into the chair like a truck driver climbing into the cab of an eighteen-wheeler.

“On this issue I don’t know that I’m gonna take a lot of time,” says Gilcrest. “I have looked at the tape and, except for a case I once heard involving prurient interest and socially redeeming values in the realm of porn, I have to admit it is pretty graphic.” The judge is talking about the videotape from the camera in Chapman’s office that caught her and Ruiz in half dress, going at it on the couch. “Of course, I can’t verify that they consummated the act,” says Gilcrest, “but a jury can come to its own conclusion, I suppose.”

“That’s the point, Your Honor.” I’m on my feet, the only advantage I have over Templeton, at least in front of the judge. “The tape proves only that they engaged in a single indiscreet act,” I say.

“I’m inclined to lean toward Mr. Madriani’s argument,” says the judge.

“Surprise me, Your Honor.” Templeton is smiling up at him from the other table, still pulling papers from his briefcase, not missing a beat. “The video speaks for itself. It is the best evidence of the relationship between the defendant and the victim. The state believes that that relationship was at the heart of this crime: that it is the reason the defendant killed the victim. The tape is vital. And it is corroborative of other evidence pointing to this relationship.”

I turn it around on him: “If they have other evidence, why do they need the tape, Your Honor? The contents of that tape are highly prejudicial.”

“I agree,” says Templeton. “It shows that he had a reason to kill her. He was in love and she’d cut him off.”

“It shows nothing of the kind, Your Honor.”

“One at a time,” says Gilcrest. “Mr. Madriani, since it’s your motion to suppress, you first.”

I cite provisions of the state’s evidence code that give the court discretion, allowing the judge to keep items in evidence out of the hands of the jury in situations where they could poison their view of the defendant to such an extent that he could not get a fair trial. “Prejudicial effect versus probative value,” I say. “What is the state trying to prove? That two people had an affair that lasted over a period of time, and that it became so intense that the defendant became infatuated with the victim to the degree that when she told him to go away he killed her. That’s their case.”

“That and the murder weapon and some awfully good shooting,” says Templeton.

The judge swats him down. “Enough, Mr. Templeton. You’ll get your chance.” Templeton bows his head toward the bench in acquiescence and straightens his bow tie.

“But does the content of that videotape prove the existence of such a long-term and torrid relationship? No. It establishes one incident of what can only be called a moment of lust. Not a motive for murder. And the images on the screen are so likely to offend a jury as to make it impossible for the defendant to redeem himself or have any chance of a fair trial. Your Honor, to show that tape to the jury is to poison their minds so irreversibly against the defendant that the contents of the videotape must be excluded.”

Gilcrest absorbs this without any hint as to whether it sways him. “Mr. Templeton. Now.”

Templeton somehow gets the heels of his shoes on the front part of the seat of the chair so that an instant later he is standing on the seat, the wrinkled knees of his suit pants an inch or so above the level of the table. The image is a gripper.

It is a first for me, never having tried a case against him. My jaw drops. When I turn back toward the bench, it’s apparent from the judge’s expression that he has caught the astonished look on my face.

“My learned opponent says that the tape fails to establish a long-term and torrid relationship,” says Templeton. “What does he expect, a four-night miniseries? That tape proves that they had an affair. It is one piece in a sequence of evidence that establishes the duration and the intensity of a relationship between the defendant and the victim that is at the heart of the victim’s death. Without that tape, the state’s case would be immeasurably weakened,” says Templeton. “And that relationship is central to our theory of the crime. Take it away and you may as well”—he pauses for effect—“cut off my legs.”

Still standing at the table, I glance sideways down at Harry, who is seated next to me. Harry’s face is an expression of
I told you so
.

“That’s all fine and good,” says Gilcrest, “but I’m still concerned about the tape. How do we get the jury to disregard all of that huffing and puffing, to say nothing of the sweaty bodies on the screen? Especially since only one of those bodies is going to be present during the trial?”

Gilcrest is the best kind of former defense lawyer, the kind that wears black robes.

“It goes with the turf,” says Templeton. “It is what it is. What’s on the tape is what they did.”

“But what’s on the tape isn’t an act of murder,” says Gilcrest. “Not unless he humped her to death.”

“Of course not, and we’re not saying that it is, Your Honor.” Templeton laughs. “But it’s an incremental part of our case. Vital evidence,” he says.

“It’s also highly prejudicial—”

Gilcrest puts up a hand and stops me as if to say he’s heard enough from my side of the argument. “So it comes down to whether there is anything that the state might be able to substitute for the contents of that tape. Is that where we are?” asks the judge.

“Your Honor, there’s nothing that can substitute for that tape,” says Templeton.

“If my goal was to poison the jury, I’d agree with you,” says Gilcrest. “As I recall, there was a young woman who entered during part of the tape. Though my eyes were riveted—as yours were, I’m sure—on the action, I believe she was a redhead.”

I supply the name. “Karen Rogan, Your Honor.”

“Good. For the record: Ms. Rogan. She’d have to be blind not to have seen what was going on,” says the judge.

“The defense would stipulate that Ms. Rogan can testify as to what she saw,” I say.

“I’ll bet you would,” says the judge, “after seeing that tape. She can testify, can’t she?” Gilcrest puts it to Templeton like a robber pointing a gun.

“I don’t know,” says Templeton. “We haven’t planned to put her on for that purpose.”

“Well, maybe you should,” says the judge.

“Your Honor . . .” Templeton tries to stop him before he can rule.

“Put her under subpoena and find out,” says the judge. “Next item.”

“Does that mean the tape is out?” says Templeton.

“It does.”

“Your Honor, the state takes exception.”

“I’m sure it does. Let’s move on.”

What I had hoped for: Gilcrest is our leveling hand.

The rest of the morning we run through pretrial motions, mostly minor stuff. We win a few, lose a few, until just before noon, when Templeton announces that he has a witness and outside counsel with an interest in the remaining issues. They won’t be available until afternoon.

Gilcrest decides to take the noon break. Harry and I head to lunch.

Mac’s is a greasy spoon three blocks from the courthouse, a small sandwich shop, a hole-in-the-wall stuck in the crack between two larger office buildings. Harry and I have made a habit of coming here for lunch whenever we’re in trial. There are four tiny tables against one wall, a counter against the other, and a narrow corridor between the two just wide enough for one person to walk. It is one of the few places within shouting distance of the courthouse where the walls don’t have ears. While the occasional bailiff or clerk may come in for takeout, there aren’t enough tables or space for the courthouse crowd to hang. Whenever the tables are full, Harry and I take sandwiches to one of the benches outside. It’s the nice thing about San Diego: you seldom have to worry about rain, and the last time it snowed, people were still hoofing it across the landbridge from Asia.

Today we are a little early and Mac’s is empty except for one other guy in a shirt and tie under a dark trench coat who came in just behind us.

The fare here is sandwiches, but for the few regulars who eat in and who know what’s available off the menu, Mac can turn a wicked Caesar salad, though it takes a few minutes. Harry orders the barbecue beef along with a towel to keep the sauce off his suit, then heads for the john through the closed door in the back.

I shuffle through a stack of newspapers by the register, find the front section of the morning edition, and grab a table.

Madelyn Chapman and the “Double Tap Murder Trial” make it into a double column just below the fold on the front page. Speculation that Isotenics, Inc., one of the largest employers in the county, may be drawn into the trial occupies the lead and several paragraphs following it. Apparently some enterprising reporter has heard the flutter of angst from Havlitz and his cronies over the subpoenas I served on his lawyer that day at the office. The fact that Harry and I are trying to burrow our way into filing cabinets out at Software City has the local economic prophets more than a little edgy. While the nationals may love the idea of dragging IFS into the middle of the trial, the local paper is nervous as to the fallout. If the government project is canceled, a lot of county residents—newspaper subscribers who fertilize the economy and justify full-page ads for white sales—could be laid off.