The Reversal

She said she wanted to move on to other matters germane to the trial and her first stop was the trial date. She wanted to know if both sides would be ready to proceed to trial as scheduled, less than six weeks away. Royce said once again that his client would not waive the speedy trial statute.

“The defense will be ready to go on April fifth, provided that the prosecution doesn’t continue to play games with discovery.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t win with this guy. I had gone out of my way to get the discovery pipeline going, but he had decided to take a shot at making me look like a cheater in front of the judge.

“Games?” I said. “Judge, I’ve already turned over to Mr. Royce an initial discovery file. But as you know, it’s a two-way street and the prosecution has received nothing in return from him.”

“He turned over the discovery file from the first trial, Judge Breitman, complete with a nineteen eighty-six witness list. It completely subverts the spirit and the rules of discovery.”

Breitman looked at me and I could see that Royce had successfully scored a hit.

“Is this true, Mr. Haller?” she asked.

“Hardly, Your Honor, the witness list was both subtracted from and added to. Additionally, I turned over-”

“One name,” Royce interjected. “He added one name and it was his own investigator. Big deal, like I didn’t know his investigator might be a witness.”

“Well, that’s the only new name I have at the moment.”

Maggie jumped into the fray with both feet.

“Your Honor, the prosecution is duty-bound to turn over all discovery materials thirty days prior to trial. By my count we are still forty days out. Mr. Royce is complaining about a good-faith effort on the part of the prosecution to provide him with discovery material before it even has to. It seems that no good deed goes unpunished with Mr. Royce.”

The judge held up her hand to stop commentary while she looked at the calendar hanging on the wall to the left of her desk.

“I think Ms. McPherson makes a good point,” she said. “Your complaint is premature, Mr. Royce. All discovery materials are due to both sides by this Friday, March fifth. If you have a problem then, we will take this up again.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Royce said meekly.

I wanted to reach over, raise Maggie’s hand in the air and shake it in victory but I didn’t think that would be appropriate. Still, it felt good to win at least one point against Royce.

After discussion of a few more routine pretrial issues, the meeting ended and we walked out through the judge’s courtroom. I stopped there to talk small talk with the judge’s clerk. I didn’t really know her that well but I didn’t want to walk out of the courtroom with Royce. I was afraid I might lose my temper, which would be exactly what he’d want.

After he went through the double doors at the back of the courtroom I cut off the conversation and headed out with Maggie at my side.

“You kicked his ass, Maggie McFierce,” I said to her. “Verbally.”

“Doesn’t matter unless we kick it at trial.”

“Don’t worry, we will. I want you to take over discovery fulfillment. Go ahead and do what you prosecutors do. Haystack everything. Give him so much material he’ll never see what and who’s important.”

She smiled as she turned and used her back to push through the door.

“Now you’re getting it.”

“I hope so.”

“What about Sarah? He’s got to figure we found her and if he’s smart he won’t wait for discovery. He probably has his own guy looking. She can be found. Harry proved that.”

“There’s not a whole lot we can do about it. Speaking of Harry, where is he this morning?”

“He called me and said he had some things to check out. He’ll be around later. You didn’t really answer my question about Sarah. What should-?”

“Tell her that she might have another visitor, somebody working for the defense, but that she doesn’t have to talk to anybody unless she wants to.”

We headed out into the hallway and then went left toward the elevator bank.

“If she doesn’t talk to them, Royce will complain to the judge. She’s the key witness, Mickey.”

“So? The judge won’t be able to make her talk if she doesn’t want to talk. Meantime, Royce loses prep time. He wants to play games like he did with the judge in there, then we’ll play games, too. In fact, how about this? We put every convict Jessup ever shared a prison cell with on the witness list. That should keep his investigators out of the way for a while.”

A broad smile broke across Maggie’s face.

“You really are getting it, aren’t you?”

We squeezed onto the crowded elevator. Maggie and I were close enough to kiss. I looked down into her eyes as I spoke.

“That’s because I don’t want to lose.”

Sixteen

Wednesday, February 24, 8:45 A.M.