The Law Partners (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 3) (21 page)

I
t is
six-forty-five on Saturday morning and we've just marched into Pod 3 eating hall. I was brought here to the Cook County Jail last night by the Arlington PD, and I've had the hell scared out of me all night. Imagine me with thirty-six men, each having committed a really evil deed, spending the night together on concrete slabs, the great majority drunk or stoned, and waking up feeling refreshed. Honestly, I have never felt worse. Marcel has disappeared out of my life. I have no idea where he's been taken. He would handle this much better. I'm a nervous, twitchy, train wreck who stayed awake all night in enormous fear for his life.

A jailer guides us into the tables and I find myself sitting between two gigantic black men with the shaved heads and the black panthers whose legs curl around the upper arms. They both only stare straight ahead when I twist my legs and body into the small space separating them. Each tightens the body side that touches me so that I don't feel flesh touching my shoulders but instead feel case-hardened steel. Nothing is said as we eat, of course, and after five minutes the guards have us on our feet and filing out the other end of the place so our replacements can get to the tables and cheese slice with apple.

They march us directly back down the hall to an area new to me: the dayroom. It is octagonal, as wide as a normal pool, with back-facing TV's in the center, each tuned to a different channel and adding a different soundtrack to our day. I make my way around the exterior walls until I am met by a wood chair. Making myself as small as possible, I let myself down on it. No one pays any attention to me and for that I'm hugely relieved. These are not the kind of people I'm around even as an extremely experienced criminal lawyer because in here no one is putting on his court manners in an attempt to endear. What you see is what it is, I would tell one of them if asked how I see the place. What you see is what it is.

I do not relax.

Nearly two hours later, I hear my name being called. I find that I have fallen asleep upright on the wood chair because it's daylight and there are lots of eyes about, making it safe to snooze off. My head jerks up from my chest and I wipe a thread of drool off my chain and look around. It is a blue-uniformed jailer and he's calling me over. So, I go.

"You're Michael Gresham?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"It's a Caucasian name and not a Washington or Jefferson."

"Oh." Racist, but I think no one gives a damn in here.

"Your lawyer wants to see you. She has a right to come in twenty-four-seven. And you also have the right to refuse to see her. Do you want to accept her visit or reject it?”

“Accept.”

“Come through the two doors and I’ll be waiting to take you to her."

"I'm coming."

The doors buzz sequentially, fifteen seconds apart, and we meet. He tells me to walk ahead of him down the hall and through two doors to where the attorney conference room is located and where my lawyer is waiting. So I lead the way and am buzzed through two more doors.

He steps up behind me and says, "Turn left, second door."

I obey. At a small table someone is waiting for me.

Then here she is. Danny Gresham, the most beautiful wife in the world.

The jailer leaves the small room, closing the door behind him.

Danny and I run at each other and collapse in a bear hug. I am kissing her hair, the top of her head, her face, snuggling against her shoulders with my own, and we are just crying how glad we are to see each other. Tears roll down her face but mine remain in my eyes, making the scene a blurry one for me.

"Thank God," I say.

We sit down beside each other, hands clutched and squeezing.

"What am I charged with?"

"So far? Illegal concealed carry. Who knows what's close behind, but you can bet something is. I'm thinking felony-murder from what I'm seeing in the papers and hearing on TV. Seriously, Michael? You? In a shootout? With a
gun
? What in God's name were you thinking!"

"You're not sounding like my lawyer. You're sounding like my wife. Maybe even my mother; forgive me, but it's true. Let's try talking about how the hell we're going to get me out of this before all the rest of the stuff that's going to make some counselor a million bucks. I did everything you mentioned and no one regrets it more than me. But I could regret it even more if I weren't locked up in here."

"Bail hasn't been set. You can't get out."

"Oh, my God!" I moan. This can't really be happening. It's Saturday morning and I won't see a judge until Monday. "Can't you call a judge this morning? How about Judge Itaglia. She's going to want me in her court Monday morning. Not in some criminal court down the hall."

She's way ahead of me. "Listen to me. I've got an idea. We go to Judge Itaglia and notify her you're being held in jail because Tory Stormont shot one of Mira's defense team. We tell her that Stormont is your witness and we make the case to her that you have been arrested in order to deprive Mira Morales of due process in not getting to call Stormont to testify and in arresting you and depriving her of her counsel of choice. What do you think?"

"I think it's pure genius. Let's make it in the form of a petition for habeas corpus where I'm delivered into her court today and where she issues an order releasing me on my own recognizance. If you can get that order, I'm out of here today."

"I'm on my way, Michael."

"I love you just for trying. Thank you. Oh, and one other thing."

"Yes?"

"Do this for Marcel too."

"Done."

* * *

B
ack in the dayroom
, I go so far as to sit down with a dozen other inmates and watch cartoons featuring the talking crows. I try to remember whether I ever watched these things; I do this to make myself recall my reality as I feel it slipping away in Pod 3.

Five hours later, the same jailer as before comes for me. I'm starting to recognize a jailer face or two. This one has the job of moving solo inmates around the halls. Which explains why he's enormous and heavily muscled. No one's trying to get the jump on this guy. He guides me back toward the attorney conference room except this time we pass it by, turn right, and buzz through a final door. Now I'm in the front office of the jail and Danny is waiting there, the bail order spread before the assignments officer.

"Welcome out," Danny says, and I am handed a bag containing my clothes and told to step into a side room and shed the jail garb. I comply and five minutes later I emerge ready to walk outside, get in a car, and get the hell away.

Then we are under the overcast skies of November Fifth.

The election is three days away.

W
hen I walk
into Judge Itaglia's chambers at eight o'clock Monday morning, as I've been told to do, I am immediately greeted with the news, from the judge's secretary, that officer Tory Stormont has been subpoenaed by Judge Itaglia to appear in her court at eight o'clock. The clerk then looks up from his screen and tells me he's been told the officer is in the building, that he's waiting in the courtroom. Evidently he was picked up at his house by CPD and brought straight to court up here on California Avenue.

Judge Itaglia gathers us around her desk in chambers--Shaughnessy, Danny, Mira, and me--and she calls court to order.

She begins. "We're going to take a look at what facts the court was asked to rely on in releasing Mr. Gresham from Cook County Jail. There were many verbal representations made to me by Danny Gresham and the court needs to determine if those are confirmed or misstated. If confirmed, the release on recognizance will continue. If misstated, Mr. Gresham goes straight back to jail and, I kid you not, Danny Gresham with him for misrepresenting facts to me. That said, let's move out into the courtroom. Officer Stormont awaits us there. And just so you know, Marcel Rainford, Mr. Gresham's investigator, is still in jail while we make our inquiry. All else being equal, he will be released OR too if Michael Gresham prevails out there."

So that answers my question about Marcel's whereabouts.

We all step into the greater room as directed and take our seats. Once again I have Mira beside me at counsel table, but we're unbalanced at the other end. Harley is missing and this no longer feels right. DA Shaughnessy is set to go at his table, with Detective Weldon beside him. Just in front of the bar sit two huge deputy sheriffs and between them sits Officer Stormont. He looks calm and unruffled and I hate him for it. I know who he is and what is he, but what I don't know is whether I can prove it.

"Mr. Gresham," the judge says to me, "please proceed with the presentation of your motion to release OR."

I lean forward and nod at the bench. "Thank you, Judge Itaglia, and thank you for your help in this case thus far. Your Honor, I am prepared to prove to the court that Officer Tory Stormont removed Mira Morales' gun from her home the night of the Harrow shooting; that Officer Stormont had the opportunity and reason to shoot Darrell Harrow; and that Officer Stormont and our very own Detective Jamison Weldon are acting together to prevent a defense verdict in this case for political and criminal reasons."

"Very well; please proceed, counsel."

"The movant calls District Attorney Ronald Shaughnessy to the witness stand."

There are complaints and emotional pleas to the court, but in the end the judge orders Shaughnessy to the stand. An Assistant DA steps up and takes his place at the State's table.

Shaughnessy pauses before he sits down in the witness chair and the clerk swears him in. Then he stands alone, looking around, blinking hard, perhaps deciding whether he will even sit. The judge clears her throat and Shaughnessy takes a seat.

The judge then has the bailiff bring the jury in and they are seated. She simply advises the jury that we're proceeding with the trial, that the defense is calling its first witness, and that the witness just happens to be the District Attorney himself. Then she looks at me and nods to proceed.

"State your name for the record," I tell Shaughnessy.

He looks at me long and hard. Again, as if mulling.

Then he says, "Ronald Shaughnessy."

"You are the Cook County District Attorney?"

"Yes."

"And you have served in that capacity up to this point in the trial, correct?"

"Yes."

"You are a Democrat?"

"Yes."

"And you are acquainted with CPD officer Tory Stormont?"

"Vaguely. I might know him if I met him in the hall."

"Did you? Did you meet him in the hall?"

"What? No!"

"How do you know him?"

"My office investigates all police shooting cases in Cook County. We don't have jurisdiction to do that, so we do it as a public service. We investigated Officer Tory Stormont who was eventually indicted by my office for second degree murder in the shooting death of a young citizen of Chicago, a Mr. Johnny Washington."

"So you're prosecuting Officer Stormont?"

"Not me personally, no. My office is doing that."

"What's the name of the attorney in your office who got that indictment?'

"Darrell Harrow."

"Would that be the same Darrell Harrow who is the victim in our case in which you are claiming Miranda Morales was the shooter?"

"The same."

"What do you think of this proposition, Mr. District Attorney: Darrell Harrow indicts Officer Stormont. Officer Stormont shoots and kills Darrell Harrow. Does that make sense to you?"

"Not at all."

"You see no connection between a man who is charged with a crime and how he might feel about the people who are claiming he committed a crime?"

"No connection."

"Then tell me if this is more of a connection: Darrell Harrow indicts Tory Stormont. Tory Stormont was present at the scene of the crime where Darrell Harrow was murdered. Except the District Attorney, instead of suspecting Tory Stormont, picks out another prosecutor in his office, the same prosecutor who was on tap to take over the prosecution of Tory Stormont and, as if that's not enough, the same prosecutor who, if she's elected tomorrow, will bow her neck and make that case against Tory Stormont stick. Do you get the connection?"

"No."

"Well, let's try this. What if Stormont figures out how to kill the prosecutor who indicted him and make it look like it was done by the new prosecutor who, if elected, will come after him next. Does your mind grasp a connection on these facts?"

"No."

He is weakening in his resolve to keep playing the "no" card. You can sense it in the courtroom air. The jury is no longer on his side as it might have been since juries always are always siding with the witness at least up to when the first answer is given. He has lost that advantage now. Surely someone on that jury is thinking,
This guy must be absolute bonkers if he doesn't see the connections between these people!

Which is the point of this whole exercise: to alienate the jury and the judge from Shaughnessy by making them see him for the manipulator and liar he really is. If A equals B and B equals C then you just can't deny for very long that A is also equal to C. Before long you're going to find a whole roomful of people who are going to call you out for that. It is my job to make that happen. I can't get a confession out of Shaughnessy--nobody can--but I can get denials of truth out of him and expose him. That
is
my job.

"Mr. Shaughnessy, isn't it true that your office is tight with the police union?"

"Define 'tight,' please."

"You're in bed together?"

"You mean like literally in bed? Not hardly. I'm much choosier than that."

A light ripple of laughter crosses the jury but I come right back.

"I mean like conspiring to allow crimes by the police to go un-prosecuted. That's what I mean by tight and in bed together. Please answer, have you been conspiring with the police union?"

"No."

"With its police membership?"

"No. Look at my prosecution of Stormont to see this."

"Not
your
prosecution. You told us it was
Harrow's
prosecution. And that it happened without your approval, correct?"

"No. It had my approval."

"Good. Then perhaps you can bring us the email or office memo where you order Harrow to prosecute Stormont. The jury would like to see that if it's not too much trouble, sir."

"It's not too much trouble."

"Good. Then will you have it here at one o'clock when we begin the afternoon session?"

"Of course I will."

"Thank you. That is all. For now."

"Counsel," says the judge, "may the witness be excused?"

"No, Your Honor." I reply. "I will need to call him once again after another witness or two."

"Thank you. Please call your next witness."