I handed the phone to the judge.
“I had a feeling Mr. Forsythe would object, so I took this quick shot. Something I learned from my process server. There was also a deputy on the room named Evanston. If necessary, we can wake him up and bring him to court to attest to the signature.”
The judge pointedly handed the phone back to me instead of letting Forsythe look.
“The photo isn’t necessary, Mr. Haller. You’re an officer of the court and I take you at your word.”
“Your Honor?” Forsythe said.
“Yes, Mr. Forsythe?”
“I would like to request a brief delay to allow time for the state to consider and formulate a response to the defense.”
“Mr. Forsythe, this is your motion, and on top of that, you were the one just moments ago reminding the court that there was a jury waiting to proceed.”
“Then, Your Honor, the state requests that the court conduct a thorough examination of the defendant and assure that the waiver Mr. Haller purportedly has was indeed voluntarily and knowingly signed by the defendant.”
I had to head this off before one of Forsythe’s desperate attempts to stop the trial took hold.
“Your Honor, Mr. Forsythe is a desperate man. He obviously will say anything to stop this trial. You have to ask yourself why and I think the answer is that he knows he is going down. We are proving that Mr. La Cosse is innocent in there, and the jury, the gallery, everyone, knows it, including Mr. Forsythe. And so he wants to stop it. He wants a court-sanctioned do-over. Judge, are you really going to allow this? My client is an innocent man and he has been jailed and abused and deprived of everything, including possibly his very life. The administration of justice demands that this trial continue. Right now. Today.”
Forsythe was about to bark back, but the judge held up her hand to stop him. She was set to make the call but was interrupted by a buzzing from the phone on her desk.
“That’s my clerk.”
Meaning that she had to take the call. I winced. I felt that I had her and that she was about to deny the motion for mistrial.
She picked up the phone and listened to something briefly, then hung up.
“James Marco is in the courtroom with an attorney from the DEA,” she said. “He’s ready to testify.”
She let that sink in for a few moments and then continued.
“The motion for a mistrial is denied. Mr. Haller, you will call your next witness in ten minutes.”
“Your Honor, I must strenuously object to this,” Forsythe said.
“Strenuously noted,” Leggoe responded, a harshness in her voice.
“I request that these proceedings be stayed while the state takes the matter up on appeal.”
“Mr. Forsythe, you can file your notice to appeal anytime you want, but there is no stay. We’re back in session in ten minutes.”
She gave Forsythe a moment to come back at her. When he didn’t, she ended the session.
“I think we’re finished here.”
On the way back to the courtroom, the defense team kept a steady separation of fifteen feet behind the state team. I bent over to whisper to Jennifer.
“You hit it out of the park,” I said. “We’re going to win this thing.”
She smiled proudly.
“Legal helped me with the talking points when I was driving him back last night. He’s still sharp as a razor.”
“You’re telling me. He’s still better than ninety percent of the lawyers in this courthouse.”
Up ahead in the hallway I saw Lankford holding the door to the courtroom open and waiting for us after Forsythe had gone through. We held each other’s eyes as I approached, and I took the door gesture as a signal. As an invitation. I touched Jennifer on the elbow and nodded for her to go ahead into the courtroom. I stopped when I got to Lankford. He was a smart guy. He knew the effort to stop the trial and stop me had failed. I gave him an opening because I still needed one side of the conspiracy to cave. And as often as I had crossed swords with Lankford, I wanted Marco to go down even more.
“I’ve got something you should take a look at,” I said.
“Not interested,” he said. “Keep moving, asshole.”
But there was no conviction in it. It was just his starting point in a negotiation.
“I think this is something you’ll be very interested in.”
He shrugged. He needed more in order to make the decision.
“And if you’re not interested, your pal Marco will be.”
Lankford nodded.
I went through the door and entered the courtroom. I saw Forsythe at the prosecution table. He had pulled out his phone and was making a call. I assumed it was to a supervisor or to somebody in the appellate unit. I didn’t much care which.
Lankford passed me and went to his seat at the rail. I went to the defense table and picked up the iPad I had borrowed from Lorna. I engaged the screen and cued up the video from the Sterghos house, then stepped over to the railing and put the device down on the empty seat next to Lankford as I brought my right foot up to tie my shoe. I whispered without looking at Lankford.
“Watch it to the end.”
As I stood up, I scanned the crowded courtroom. Word that Department 120 was where the action was had already spread through the courthouse. In addition to Moya’s men, who were in their usual spot, there were at least six members of the media in the first two rows, a variety of suited men I identified as fellow lawyers, and the highest concentration I’d seen in a long time of professional trial watchers—the retired, unemployed, and lonely who wander courthouses every day in search of human drama, pathos, and anguish. I wasn’t sure whether the draw was Marco’s appearance or the fact that the defendant had been nearly stabbed to death the evening before in the CCB’s basement, but the message had been transmitted and the people had come.
I spotted Marco four rows back. He sat next to a man in a suit who I assumed was his lawyer. Marco hadn’t bothered to dress for the occasion. He was wearing a black golf shirt and jeans again, the shirt tucked in so the gun holstered on his right hip was fully on display. The gunslinger look.
I decided that I needed to try to do something about that.
I looked down and saw that Lankford had already viewed the silent video and returned it to the empty seat. He sat there in what appeared to be a daze, perhaps understanding that his life was unalterably going to change before the end of this day. I brought my other shoe up onto the chair to tie. I bent down again, my eyes on Marco in the gallery as I whispered to Lankford.
“I want Marco, not you.”