21
DUNCAN WAS back at the DA’s office on Hogan Place, this time waiting for a meeting with the ADAs handling Rafael Nazario’s case. He was no stranger to negotiating with opposing lawyers, but this felt different: Duncan was used to fighting about money, not over a person’s freedom. These ADAs, Danielle Castelluccio and Andrew Bream, pled out criminal cases as their bread and butter; they would be fully aware that this was their world and not his.
Duncan’s only previous encounter with the prosecutors had been with ADA Bream at the arraignment. He’d never met the lead prosecutor, but he’d done his due diligence on her. A couple of years older than Duncan, Castelluccio, a Columbia Law grad, had gone straight to the DA after graduation, and had been prosecuting homicides for a few years, already having handled a couple of the office’s highest-profile cases.
Bream came and got Duncan from the front waiting area, leading him to a conference room where Castelluccio was already at the head of the table. She rose to shake Duncan’s hand. Castelluccio was tall, with a rangy, athletic look. She had long dark hair, matched by a black suit with the jacket buttoned over a white shirt. She didn’t smile as they said hello.
“How’s life at Blake and Wolcott?” she asked.
“Can’t complain,” Duncan said, sitting down on one side of the table as Bream sat on the other.
“A couple of people I know from law school went there,” Castelluccio said. “Including a good friend. Karen Cleary. Did you know her?”
Duncan hoped his face hadn’t betrayed his response. “Yeah, I knew Karen. How’s she doing?”
Castelluccio shrugged. “The corporate law thing was never for me, but Karen was one of those people, that’s really what she wanted. What happened with the firm wasn’t easy for her. Though I think she feels good about standing up for herself with the lawsuit.”
“I probably shouldn’t really talk about it,” Duncan said, pretty much positive that Castelluccio had brought up Cleary just to f*ck with him. “The case is still pending and all.”
“I guess you want to talk about Rafael Nazario, then,” Castelluccio said.
Her tactic had worked; Duncan felt off balance. She was going to be a worthy opponent. “Indeed. I’m going to challenge the gunshot residue.”
“Based on what?”
Duncan wasn’t about to give Castelluccio a full preview of what he had to attack the GSR, but he’d come to the meeting expecting to give her a thumbnail. “The police stuck Rafael in the back of a cop car without bagging his hands, then checked for gunshot residue a couple of hours later, found just a handful of particles,” he said. “He could’ve picked it up from the backseat just as easily as he could’ve from firing a gun.”
Castelluccio frowned, glancing quickly over at Bream. “We get this sort of GSR evidence admitted all the time,” she said. “This doesn’t sound like an issue to me.”
“My expert feels differently. I’m going to need to get the lab notes underlying the GSR report,” Duncan said, taking a letter out of his Kenneth Cole attaché case. “I’ve put it in writing, just to, you know, put it in writing.”
“I don’t think we have the notes,” Castelluccio said, looking a question at Bream, who nodded. “We just get the report, same as you.”
Duncan was in the habit of getting as much of the other side’s experts’ underlying material as he could; it was always a mistake to take an expert report at face value. “My guy wants the notes,” Duncan said. “They’re Brady material. I’m happy to take this to the Court if it’s going to be a problem getting them turned over.”
“We don’t need to fight about the lab notes,” Castelluccio said irritably. “We’ll collect them and turn them over.”
“Great,” Duncan said. “So listen, you don’t know me personally, and I’m sure you deal with some defense lawyers who’ll file frivolous motions they know they’re not going to win. But I’m not filing this just to file it. Before I do, maybe get a different kind of light shining on this case, I thought I’d see what you were inclined to put on the table.”
“Your client wasn’t arrested because of the GSR. We have motive, an eyewitness. Far as I’m concerned, though, even if your motion was a winner, all it does is knock your guy’s conviction chances down to ninety-seven percent from ninety-nine.”
“Which is why I’m not asking you to drop the charges,” Duncan said with a smile. “I’m asking what your offer is.”
Castelluccio made a show of thinking, though Duncan suspected that it was only a show, and that whatever she was about to say was what she’d planned on before he’d walked into the room. “I’ll take life without parole off the table, give him twenty-five years.”
While Duncan knew little about the practice of criminal law, he knew a thing or two about negotiating with opposing counsel. “This was always really murder two—that’s what you were going to offer if I’d just said Rafael was a nice kid.”
“No,” Castelluccio said. “Good kid doesn’t take life without off the table. Your client killed Fowler because of his role in the previous case, which makes this textbook murder one. I’m a straight shooter too—ask around, if you haven’t. Way I figure it, Blake and Wolcott can make my life miserable with two years of pretrial motions if you want to. You won’t win them but you’ll keep me away from all my other cases, so I’m willing to go twenty-five as a reward for your coming to me early. You make me go through a hearing, the deal is off the table.”
“I think we understand each other,” Duncan said. “Sounds like we both have a little work to do; then we can see where we are.”
Castelluccio leaned back in her chair. “So,” she said, something between a smile and a sneer on her face, “how are you enjoying slumming so far?”
“Excuse me?” Duncan said, a verbal placeholder as he adjusted to what she’d said.
“Isn’t this what this is for you?”
“Rafael’s my client,” Duncan finally said. He was angrier than he could ever remember being with an opposing lawyer, because as far as he was concerned Castelluccio was challenging his fundamental professional legitimacy. He spoke slowly, his voice low, but was unable to keep the tremor out of it. “It was supposed to be an eviction case; now it’s something else. But he’s still my client. This isn’t what I do, as such, but I’m a lawyer and he’s my client and this is the job. You can think of me as a dilettante as much as you like, but I know how to do my job.”
“I’m sure you do know how to do your job, Mr. Riley. I’m just not sure that what you’re doing here now is your job.”
“The law’s the law,” Duncan said, glaring at the ADA.
Castelluccio offered a thin smile. “Is that what they teach at Harvard?” she said.