Part 24 (2/2)

Easy enough to wait outside the Omni, or in the parking garage where the car was.

But why is he watching me, not Elroy?

Because, a quiet voice whispered, someone else is with Elroy now.

I stood unmoving except for my heart jackhammering against my ribs. The gray-haired man blocked the aisle I would normally take to get to where Elroy had gone.

Other aisles also led to the betting desk and the payoff windows. I moved toward one of them. I felt as if I were underwater, breast- stroking against a stiff current.

By the time I reached the betting desk a crowd had gathered, and the police were already linking arms and holding people at bay. Jerry Lee Elroy sat upright on the carpet against one of the cas.h.i.+ers' cages. His eyes were sightless. Blood leaked from his side, staining his white golf s.h.i.+rt. A thin blade had been slid between the ribs and into the left ventricle of his heart. A thick black object choked his mouth. It took me a minute or two to figure out what it was. Someone wearing gloves had taken the time to reach around Elroy's dead body, wrench open his jaws, and thrust a sea urchin into his mouth, so that its spines bit deep into the offending tongue.

Talking about how to leave Miami un.o.bserved, Elroy had said to me, You don't want to be involved in this operation. And I had replied, I am involved. Involved but not committed. You have ham and eggs for breakfast, the chicken that supplies the eggs is involved; the pig that supplies the ham is committed. In this trip to Jacksonville, Elroy had been the pig.

Sirens screamed in the night. I had been careless, and Elroy had lost his life. And I had lost the witness who might save Darryl Morgan.

One of the JSO officers was staring at me.

”I'm that man's lawyer,” I said quietly.

The cop shrugged. ”Bad luck. What do you want to do?”

Make a miracle. Wake up and find out I'm dreaming.

I followed the patrol cars downtown to the Police Memorial Building, which housed the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Once I'd admitted my relations.h.i.+p with the deceased, the Homicide cops had no intention of letting me go. Most of the murders they dealt with were barroom shootings and Sat.u.r.day night mom-and-pop stabbings. The slaying of Jerry Lee Elroy-”a f.u.c.king sea urchin in the guy's mouth!”-was stimulating. You could see that they liked it.

One of the detectives put in a call to Robert Diaz's office in Miami. Then he turned back to me. ”You said you took the deceased out of Miami with you?”

”We left together, yes.”

”You encouraged him, Mr. Jaffe-is that what you're saying?”

”You're putting words into my mouth. I have to be in court at nine A.M. on a murder hearing. Can I go?”

They wanted me to stop first at the morgue and make a positive ID of my client's body.

Elroy lay on a metal gurney. The sea urchin had been removed from his jaws. His eyes were closed and he looked at peace. Well, why not? When you went that quickly you were literally gone before you knew it.

In the corridor leading from the courtroom to his chambers, Judge Fleming swayed a few feet to his left in order to write some notes, resting his paper on the surface of a file cabinet. The gang of lawyers, the court clerk, and the court reporter s.h.i.+fted with him, like tick parasites following a water buffalo. A few feet away, Darryl Morgan's bulk took up most of the s.p.a.ce on a heavy wooden bench; and he was manacled to the armrest. Superman might have picked up the bench and made his escape, but if Darryl had such visions, two gray- uniformed deputy sheriffs with holstered .45s sat on metal folding chairs by the water cooler at the end of the corridor. Outside the court's holding cell stood three other defense attorneys, all jostling for position to talk through the bars to their clients, who were awaiting the eventual attention of the judge.

Judge Fleming surveyed this scene. ”Dance floor's getting crowded,” he said to me and the representatives of the state. ”Care to join me in chambers?”

Once in there, I slumped in a chair. I had managed about two hours of restless sleep.

The clock on the wall in chambers said 9:20. The other lawyers found chairs, and the young a.s.sistant attorney general from Tallaha.s.see hoisted himself up on one of the file cabinets. The slender, bespectacled a.s.sistant state attorney from Beldon's staff was named John Whatley, and next to him sat Muriel Suarez.

She smiled cordially at me. I went straight over to her and asked what she was doing there.

Whatley had just come out of FSU law school, she explained, so she was there to make sure he didn't make any mistakes.

”But you and I have discussed this case,” I said. ”I can't remember offhand what I've told you, but whatever it was, it was in confidence.”

”Beldon seems to think that's irrelevant.”

”He a.s.signed you?”

”What do you think, I volunteered?”

I understood. t.i.t for tat. I had been privy to the state's thinking twelve years ago. Muriel Suarez had been privy to my thinking just days ago. How could I complain? Beldon, you sly dog.

Judge Fleming unknotted his tie, turned to me, and said, ”I think we can save a bunch of time by discussing this informally right here in chambers. Mr. Elroy, your witness, former cellmate of the condemned, is not present in this court. From what I gather, he doesn't have the pulse of a pitchfork. He's a lightning bug in the lemonade bowl. That's what you were trying to tell me outside?”

”Yes, he's shaken hands with eternity,” I said. I heard my voice as from a distance, enunciating carefully.

”When exactly did this happen?” the judge asked.

”Last night, at about ten o'clock. Stabbed to death at the Jacksonville Kennel Club.”

”As ye sow.” The judge turned to Whatley and Muriel Suarez. ”What sayeth the State of Florida besides 'amen'?”

Whatley said, ”Your Honor, the entire thrust of the pet.i.tioner's position is the proposed testimony of Mr. Elroy as to alleged perjury concerning Mr. Morgan's confession in Duval County Jail in 1979. Nothing else in the appellant's pet.i.tion is new: this court and other courts have heard all the other arguments before. Much as the state regrets Mr. Elroy's pa.s.sing, our contention is that the deceased witness's affidavit is not sufficient to establish perjury. The state has no way of cross-examining an affidavit in order to test veracity and credibility.”

”I understood him,” Judge Fleming said, looking at me. ”How about you?”

”There are precedents for accepting the sworn affidavit of a dead man,” I said. ”Considering when this thing happened, I haven't got case law ready yet. But if you give me time, Your Honor, I'll produce it.”

That was pure bluff. I had no idea if any existed, although it seemed likely.

”There is far more precedent for rejecting an affidavit without a live and responsive body attached to it,” Whatley said.

Judge Fleming nodded. ”You're right, Mr. a.s.sistant State Attorney. And you're right too, Mr. Defense Counsel. But you”-he pointed a gnarled and trembling finger at Whatley-”are righter than you are, sir.” And he pointed the same frail digit at me.

”Your Honor-” I began.

”No, no, no,” the judge said. ”I don't want to hear argument. I know the issues. There's a man on death row. Man wants to live, state wants to kill him. Man's lawyer wants to string things out just as long as he can and keep his client sucking air. Judge wants to get on with the business of his court. Can't make everybody happy. You got any other live witnesses, Mr. Jaffe?”

”Not today, Judge. But I hope to find some.”

”You pulling my leg?”

”No, sir.”

The judge thought for a while.

”I'm going to allow this affidavit, but I'm going to find that this recantation would not have affected the outcome of the trial. What I'm saying is, Mr. Jaffe, you lose. I'm going to deny your pet.i.tion for relief. I'm not going to hear argument over a witness who can't do more than pa.s.s gas and talk to us from the great beyond. Bad luck is what it is. But that's what a lot of things are.”

”Judge-”

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