doc hiding a little factoid about his book-writing career, which confirmed my theory that he was a celebrity wannabe. The jurors wouldn’t like that. They want experts to be objective and up front.
103
RADAVICH WANTED SOME questions on re-direct.
“Did you find any fingerprints on the gun, People’s Exhibit Six?”
“We did find the victim’s prints on the butt and barrel of the gun, yes.”
“Was there anything strange about that?”
“Not really. But there was something strange about the print on the trigger.”
“Explain that, please.”
“Well, it was smudged, but we did manage to indentify it as a partial. It matched the victim’s right index finger, between the first and second joints.”
“In other words, you’re not talking about the pad of the finger, what we normally associate with fingerprinting.”
“That’s right. This was the area between the first and second joints, where one would come in contact with the trigger when firing a gun.”
“And what did you find strange about that?”
“It’s simple. If someone places the barrel of a gun in the mouth, the trigger would be pushed with the thumb, not pulled with the finger.”
“No more questions.”
“Re-cross?” Judge Hughes said.
This was not good for me, and there was nothing I could say to make it good, so I said, “No further questions,” and tried to look like Phil Ivey holding aces. No expression one way or the other.
Radavich put on a couple of witnesses—guys who testified about overhearing Eric and Carl having a heated argument in a bar the night before the killing. They did not testify about the content of the argument, so my cross was only one question to each: “You do not know what this alleged argument was about, do you?”
No and no.
104
ALL IN ALL, it hadn’t been a bad day in court, and I was feeling guilty about Subway.
So I insisted on taking Sister Mary to dinner at Little Luigi’s, an Italian place the legal community frequents, a short drive from the courthouse. When I was with Gunther, McDonough I used to go there whenever I had a matter downtown.
So it wasn’t a surprise to be greeted at the front by Luigi himself, a well-girthed, old-school Sicilian.
“Mr. Buchanan!” He pumped my hand. “Been too long.”
“Hello, Luigi. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, actually my investigator, Sister Mary Veritas.”
Luigi smiled broadly. “Sister, I am so glad to have you. We need a little class around this place. All I get is the lawyers and the riffraff, and sometimes—what’s the difference, eh?”
“Glad to meet you,” Sister Mary said.
To me, Luigi said, “Where you been? Can’t remember the last time you was here. You still with that big fancy place on the west side?”
“No, going solo.”
Luigi whispered, “That because of the little trouble you were in?”
“If you call being accused of murder a little trouble, then yeah. I just thought it was time to take a look at what I was doing, and that reminds me. There’s one thing I haven’t done in a long time.”
“And what is that, my friend?”
“Eat your veal Parmesan.”
“Good to have you both. I got a booth just for you.”
He took us to a booth of the color of red wine, near the back, semiprivate. It was a little before five o’clock, and the place was just starting to get the after-work crowd. The bar was stuffed with coatless professionals with loosened ties and elevated voices. I recognized a couple of lawyers from Sheppard, Mullin, one of the city’s powerhouse firms, sitting at the bar. They were hoisting and laughing about something.
Next to them was a bottom-feeding criminal defense lawyer named Stambler who was about seventy-five and never met a deal he didn’t like. He was a grinder, doing volume pleas and never fighting it out in court. But it kept him in fine suits and single-malt Scotch. He was drinking alone.
It was like bookends of the legal profession. And somewhere in the middle was Tyler Buchanan, attorney-at-law.
“I feel like I’ve come to some sort of forbidden land,” Sister Mary said.
“You have. This is the realm of the overinflated ego. There are no egos larger than those of lawyers and none larger among lawyers than those of trial lawyers.”
“Is this a confession?”
“An admission, let’s say.”
“I haven’t seen that in you.”
“But you’ve only known me since I’ve been severely humbled by circumstances beyond my control. Slowly, I’m coming back to full-fledged self-centeredness.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think you’re going to be the same. You like to help people. I can see that at the Ultimate