“Who tried to trick you? How did they do that?”
“Two of them. They told me their names, but I don’t remember them. They tried to play nice with me. Ask me how I was feeling. Did I want any coffee? Talked about the Phillies. What am I, some idiot who’s going to fall for that?”
I let David vent some more, then ask him a third time, “Before you signed the nonwaiver of rights, did you say anything else to the police?”
“Nothing. I was at work all afternoon—that’s what I told them. Then I told them I wanted to call you.”
“That’s not nothing.” I give David a hard look. “Were you at work all afternoon? All afternoon?”
David stares at me for a moment, then closes his eyes, lowers his head.
“Great,” I say. “Now you’re on record as having lied to the police.”
His eyes still closed, David says, “Please, just get me out of here.”
I spend an hour with David and then drive to my office, getting in by about seven o’clock. I’m the only one there, and I will be until Susan arrives in an hour or so. My mind is spinning, my heart pounding like a hammer. My thoughts drift back to the times I spent with my law-school classmate and partner in crime, David Hanson. Long hours studying late into the night for finals. Good hours spent at Phillies and Eagles games. Wild hours spent at parties and bars. Mild but happy hours spent in restaurants after graduation. Outings with our wives. I jump forward and think about David now, the David I haven’t seen in a while. David the cheater. The cliché husband who can’t keep his dick in his pants. Finally, I think ahead, to David the accused. I know what’s ahead for my old friend. And I know that I will be the one holding his hand through all of it. It’ll have to be me if this is going to turn out well—for everyone.
David’s preliminary arraignment is scheduled to be held at 11:00 a.m., which is pretty prompt for Philadelphia, where the arrest-to-arraignment time can be as long as twenty-four hours. The arraignment procedure is a two-headed hydra. David would remain at the station house while the assistant district attorney and I appear before the arraignment court magistrate about a mile away in the preliminary arraignment room in the basement of the Criminal Justice Center. We would see David, and he would see us, only via closed-circuit television.
The hearing room is actually a suite of two rooms. The first, a gray waiting room, has the feel of a bunker. Its front is a glass wall through which you can see the goings-on in the courtroom proper. The courtroom rules, posted on a piece of white paper taped to the window, announce that there will be no talking, no children, no eating or drinking, no chewing gum, and no reading of newspapers or books. Cell phones, of course, must be off.
The courtroom itself has just enough room for the judge’s bench and two counsel tables. Each of the counsel tables is crowded with a phone, a flat-screen monitor, and a keyboard. Boxes are junk-stacked in front of the right side of the judge’s bench, which is topped with its own computer screen and vertical file folders jammed with manila envelopes. The courtroom is better lit than the waiting room, which serves only to highlight the clutter.
The assistant district attorney sitting in the waiting area looks young enough to be carded at bars. He stands when I walk in. We introduce ourselves, and I ask him for a copy of the complaint. He shifts on his feet and tells me he’s going to have to delay the arraignment for a couple of hours while the complaint is tinkered with.
“Tinkered with?” The DA’s charging unit, which works all night, should have finalized the complaint long before the arraignment. “What are the charges going to be?”
“Third-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and tampering with evidence, the last I saw.”
I expected the low-level homicide charge. It would be too early in the investigation to charge anything higher. The obstruction and tampering charges pique my interest, but I don’t press the ADA for details, knowing it’s better to wait for the complaint. I tell the young prosecutor I’ll see him shortly and walk back to the office.
I told our staff about David’s arrest before heading to court, saying I didn’t know much, only that the police had caught David Hanson running from Jennifer Yamura’s house late the night before. And that Yamura herself was found dead inside the house, apparently from wounds to the back of her head caused by a fall down the basement steps.
“This’ll be an important case for our firm,” I told them. “A headline grabber, and I want everyone steeled for battle from the get-go.”
When I enter our lobby, my secretary, Angie, looks up at me. “No news,” I tell her. “The DA is massaging the charges, so I’ll have to go back.”
I head for my office, where Susan joins me a few minutes later. “You okay?” she asks. “You don’t seem yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah. This one’s close to home, that’s all.”
Susan considers this. “Given your friendship with David, maybe I should handle the case. Or maybe we should steer him to another firm.”
I tell Susan I’ll consider it.
But there is no way I’m letting this case out of my hands.
I call Tommy as I walk back to the courthouse. My call goes to voice mail, so I leave him a message to call me right away. On the bench this morning is Delia Smick, who was a bail commissioner until her title was changed to arraignment court magistrate. A tough cookie in her midforties, Delia has graying black hair and the raspy cigarette voice of a Melrose Diner waitress. She’s wearing a black shirt with white polka dots that goes well with her hair and the black-framed glasses perched at the end of her nose.
The magistrate recognizes me and sighs when I walk into the courtroom. That’s because my presence means the perp in her next case will be represented by private counsel rather than a public defender. Private attorneys, especially those hired by wealthy clients, can be pesky. The judge lowers her gaze to the computer and begins to read the complaint. Her eyes widen when she sees who the defendant is. Once or twice while reading she looks up at me, then back down at her screen.
A couple of minutes pass. The young ADA who was there that morning is nowhere to be seen. Her Honor asks me if I know where he is, but before I answer, I see her eyes grow wide again, and she says to someone behind me, “To what do we owe the honor?”