A Good Marriage(20)
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
Exactly that much was true. I didn’t think so. I knew absolutely nothing.
“But even if he’s guilty, he’d be entitled to a defense, right?” Paul looked me in the eye. “You’ve got to believe that. It’s the only way this works.”
“I know.”
And I did. But in that moment, I regretted leaving the US attorney’s office more than I ever had. Everyone was entitled to a defense, yes. That didn’t mean I needed to be the one to supply it. I’d made my peace with that fact a long time ago.
Paul studied my face a moment longer. “Well then, what are you waiting for?” he asked, seeming pleased. “Get to work on that writ.”
I nodded and stood, feeling unsteady as I made my way to the door.
“Oh, and let me know if you have trouble tracking down the ADA that’s caught this one,” Paul called after me. “I have people I can reach out to at the Brooklyn DA’s office.”
When I arrived at Brooklyn Criminal Court in search of Zach’s public defender, arraignments were in full swing. I’d called the defender’s office and left a message but hadn’t heard back. I sat in the back for a while, still shell-shocked from the direction my conversation with Paul had taken.
Unlike the stately federal court in Manhattan with its dark mahogany and gold-trimmed ceiling, everything about this court was decidedly practical. The building was tall and modern, the wood inside a honey-colored pine. There were no heavy oil paintings, no weight of history. There were, however, lots and lots of unhappy people.
The arraignment courtroom was packed—nonincarcerated defendants, lawyers, family, and friends filled the gallery, waiting and waiting and waiting. They looked nothing like the smug, affluent defendants in my federal fraud cases, who would always breeze in at the very last minute, too busy to wait for anything. Most everyone in that courtroom looked exhausted and sad and afraid. On the far side of the bar, at a table to the left, sat the arraignments prosecutor. She had short curly blond hair and a sour expression that may have been caused by her unflatteringly snug wrap dress, or maybe just arraignment duty. If the DA’s office was anything like the US attorney’s office, the junior assistants cycled through arraignments for a short stint before moving on to more prestigious assignments—sex crimes, felonies, homicides.
For an hour I watched the grim, rapid-fire arraignments drone on, hoping an Adam Roth something would announce himself by making an appearance before the court. Instead my eyes glazed over as pleas were offered, charges were reduced. Files were shuffled. I was beginning to think about abandoning the cause when the next case was called.
“Docket number 20-21345, Raime, Harold, murder in the second degree!” the clerk called out.
From the revolving door on the right for incarcerated defendants came an absolutely enormous man with a shiny bald head and thick pink arms covered in vibrant tattoos. He didn’t walk. He lumbered. A guy like that could easily take Zach out with the swipe of a hand. The lawyer next to him—young and gangly, with glasses and a thick head of long, curly hair—looked more like a literature professor than a criminal defense attorney. He leaned over toward his intimidating client and smiled gently, then said something that only made the man scowl.
“Adam Rothstein from the Brooklyn defender office, Your Honor.”
Of course he was.
A new prosecutor had appeared, taking over on this matter from the arraignment prosecutor, probably because it was a murder case. These days, there were barely three hundred murders a year across all of New York City. A murder indictment was a special thing. The new prosecutor was much shorter than Adam Rothstein, but his suit was sharply pressed and he looked far better rested. Fresh legs: the benefit of having just swooped in to handle this one very serious matter, instead of the sea of petty-crime humanity—many of whom would nonetheless find themselves locked away in Rikers alongside Zach, and scary Mr. Clean.
“How does the defendant plead?” the judge asked in the same bored nasal voice he had used each time before.
“Not guilty,” the defendant said.
The judge continued to look down at his pad. “On the issue of bail?”
“My client has three children and a job that expects him back,” Adam said, his voice fiery, overemotional. Tone it down, I wanted to say. “All his family is local. He has no prior arrests apart from minor property crimes, and he doesn’t have a car or a passport. He’s not going anywhere, Your Honor.”
“Your Honor, this is a murder charge,” the prosecutor replied, all cool, calm moral superiority. I remembered what it felt like to be him—in charge of a lowly room. It was a heady sensation. God, what an asshole I’d been, confusing the power my position had gifted me with what I had earned.
“The evidence will show that this is a clear case of self-defense,” Adam pressed on. “The deceased came to my client’s house armed with a hunting knife.”
“And he was shot by the defendant coming up the front walk at a distance of more than thirty feet,” the prosecutor drawled. He looked the huge defendant up and down. “Are you claiming your client lacked the fortitude to close his front door?”
The judge didn’t seem to be listening to either one of them. “Bail is set at two hundred thousand,” he said.