The Last Innocent Man

“What do I want…? Goddammit, you’re lucky I talked to you at all. I should have dragged your wife in front of Judge Rosenthal and made her recant on the stand. But I’m still your lawyer and I want it from you. Did you kill Darlene Hersch?”

Stafford wagged his still-bowed head from side to side but did not look David in the eye.

“I don’t care anymore,” he said. “And once the jury hears what we did…”

“If,” David said.

Stafford looked up at him, like a dog begging for food.

“You’re not going to-?”

“You aren’t the only one involved in this. I don’t know if you killed that woman or not, but I’m not going to let you drag your wife down with you, by making her admit that she perjured herself.

“And if you are innocent, there isn’t a chance that a jury would find you innocent if it learned about what you two did.”

Stafford started to cry, but David did nothing to comfort him.

“Just one more thing, Stafford. Are there any other little goodies that I should know about? And I mean anything.”

“No, no. I swear.”

David stood and walked to the door. Stafford seemed to lack the energy to move. He sat hunched over, staring at the floor.

“Pull yourself together,” David ordered in a cold, flat monotone. “We have to go to court.”

DAVID TOOK HISplace at counsel table and watched the events of the day unfold like a dream. The jury was seated in slow motion and Monica appeared, her arms loaded with law books. If he had been concentrating, this would have struck him as odd on a day set aside for closing argument, but nothing was registering for David. He just wanted the case to end, so he could decide what to do with his life without the pressure of having to care about the lives of other people.

Stafford had been brought in by the guard before the jury appeared, but he exchanged no words with his attorney. The judge came in last, and the final day of the trial commenced.

“Are you prepared to argue, Ms. Powers?” Judge Rosenthal asked.

“No, Your Honor,” Monica replied. “The State has one rebuttal witness it would like to call.”

“Very well.”

Monica signaled toward the back of the room, and Cyrus Johnson swaggered in, dressed in a white shirt, crewneck sweater, and brown slacks. David watched Johnson walk to the witness stand, trying to place the face. It was only when the witness stated his name that David began to feel uneasy.

“Do you know that man?” David demanded. Stafford paled and said nothing, unable to take his eyes off the witness.

“Are you also known as T.V., Mr. Johnson?” Monica asked.

“You’d better tell me what this is all about,” David said, his voice low and threatening. Stafford did not reply, but his face had the look of a person who knows that his death is imminent.

“And would you tell the jury what your occupation was on June sixteenth of this year?” Monica asked, swiveling her chair to watch David and Stafford react.

“Uh, well, uh,” Johnson started uneasily, “I guess you could say I managed some women.”

“You mean you were a pimp?” Monica asked.

There was a commotion in the courtroom and the judge pounded his gavel for quiet.

“Ms. Powers, you are asking this man to admit to criminal activity. Has he been warned of his rights?”

“Mr. Johnson is testifying under a grant of full immunity, Your Honor,” Monica replied, handing a notarized document to the Court and a copy to David. The judge studied it.

“Very well,” he said when he was finished. “You may proceed.”

“Mr. Johnson, have you ever seen Larry Stafford, the defendant in this case, before?”

Johnson stared at Stafford for a moment, then turned back to Monica.

“Yes, I have.”

“Would you tell the jury the circumstances of that meeting?” Monica asked.

Johnson shifted in the witness box and Monica tensed, waiting for David’s objection. When it did not come, she glanced tentatively at her former husband. She was startled by what she saw. David, who was usually so intense, was slumped down in his chair. He looked sad and uncaring. Monica had sprung surprises on David before and had seen him handle other lawyers’ challenges. Thinking on his feet was where David excelled. The David she saw now looked defeated.

“It was a couple of years ago. I would say in September. This dude, uh, the defendant, come up to one of my women in the Regency Bar, and they split a few minutes later. Now, I don’t make it a practice to bother my girls when they’re workin’, but somethin’ about this dude bothered me, so I followed them.”

Judge Rosenthal looked over at David. He, too, was waiting for an objection. When David said nothing, the judge toyed with the idea of calling the lawyers to the bench to discuss the direction the testimony was taking, but Nash was an experienced attorney, and he had conducted an excellent trial so far. The judge decided to let David try his case his way.

“We was usin’ a motel on the strip then, so I knew right where they was goin’. I parked in the lot near the room and waited. About ten minutes later I heard a scream, so I went up to the room.