Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving Page B
Authors: Clifford Irving
Tags: Fiction, General, LEGAL, Thrillers, Crime, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Murder, Thrillers & Suspense
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about Francisca and his children. He was from El Palmito, a village near the city of San Luis Potosi in north-central Mexico. He had married at the age of twenty. He was given a scrawny milk cow as a gift from his in-laws, a sway-backed burro from his father, and a patch of bare land on the bank of a stream where warm mineral water flowed. Still, in the end, with the rising prices, it was not enough to live on.
"And in those hours before you found the gun in the Dumpster, did you talk to anyone? Did you meet anyone you knew?"
He had knocked on a few doors, Quintana recalled, to ask if anyone wanted their car washed. No one had wanted.
Warren thought diligently for a minute. "Let's focus on
la pistola,
Hector. It's the same one that was used to murder a Vietnamese man earlier that evening, and the fact that you had it in your possession is very bad. You understand that, don't you?"
"There were no bullets in it," Quintana said. "I tole you."
"Did you ever show that pistol to anyone? To any of your friends at the stables?"
"How could that be?" Quintana asked, puzzled.
"It would be foolish of you to lie to me about the pistol. If you do that, I can't help you. I'll get my ass caught in a wringer and so will you. And it'll hurt you a lot more than me."
Quintana looked him in the eye. It was a look he had not shown before: it was slightly menacing.
"If you think," he said in Spanish, "that you can make me say I killed a man, or ever fired that pistol, you are betting on a lame cock. Perhaps, as you say, I must ask the judge for another lawyer."
"Don't get your feathers ruffled," Warren said sternly, gathering up his papers. "I'll be back."
Maximum Gene had told Warren a story of an old mountaineer who said of his pancakes, "No matter how thin I mix 'em, there's always two sides."
Warren would have to find out the other side of Hector Quintana's pancakes. Unfortunately, the best person to ask under these circumstances was the prosecutor. That was Assistant District Attorney Nancy Goodpaster, to whom Warren had lied four years ago about Virgil Freer's prior convictions.
When he reached the seventh floor and entered the windowless 299th District Court, Judge Lou Parker was calling the roll of defendants and attorneys. "No talking in court," the judge said in her spikiest tone to some women on the rear bench.
Warren caught Nancy Goodpaster's eye and walked back with her to her cool little office next to Parker's chambers. It was crowded with case files and a computer terminal. The desk was neat, and he noticed a photograph of a gray-haired black couple that he assumed were Goodpaster's parents. Their smiles shone proudly in the direction of a four-volume set of the
Texas Prosecutor's Trial Manual.
"The judge is not in a good mood today," Warren said.
Settling herself behind the desk in a steel-backed swivel chair, Goodpaster looked at him calmly. "The judge is in the mood she's always in. We all live with it."
There was an unspoken coda: and unless you're a fool, you'll live with it too.
"She gets things done," Goodpaster added, with what Warren took as a grudging note of apology. "In the 299th we move right along." But again she was also saying: and you'd better move right along with us.
When Goodpaster had been fresh out of law school and had missed Virgil Freer's priors in the case file, she had been soft-faced and fluttery. She had picked the skin off her thumb whenever he talked to her, and the grave air she had projected Warren had taken as a cover-up for her gratitude that she was suddenly being taken seriously as an attorney. Now she was a veteran at the age of thirty, the ranking prosecutor in the 299th. A slim and delicate young woman, she wore her short black hair in a pageboy. She no longer affected the severely tailored suits and oversized bow ties that young female lawyers wear in order to look more like young male lawyers. Today she was dressed in a loose skirt and black blouse and casual
"And in those hours before you found the gun in the Dumpster, did you talk to anyone? Did you meet anyone you knew?"
He had knocked on a few doors, Quintana recalled, to ask if anyone wanted their car washed. No one had wanted.
Warren thought diligently for a minute. "Let's focus on
la pistola,
Hector. It's the same one that was used to murder a Vietnamese man earlier that evening, and the fact that you had it in your possession is very bad. You understand that, don't you?"
"There were no bullets in it," Quintana said. "I tole you."
"Did you ever show that pistol to anyone? To any of your friends at the stables?"
"How could that be?" Quintana asked, puzzled.
"It would be foolish of you to lie to me about the pistol. If you do that, I can't help you. I'll get my ass caught in a wringer and so will you. And it'll hurt you a lot more than me."
Quintana looked him in the eye. It was a look he had not shown before: it was slightly menacing.
"If you think," he said in Spanish, "that you can make me say I killed a man, or ever fired that pistol, you are betting on a lame cock. Perhaps, as you say, I must ask the judge for another lawyer."
"Don't get your feathers ruffled," Warren said sternly, gathering up his papers. "I'll be back."
Maximum Gene had told Warren a story of an old mountaineer who said of his pancakes, "No matter how thin I mix 'em, there's always two sides."
Warren would have to find out the other side of Hector Quintana's pancakes. Unfortunately, the best person to ask under these circumstances was the prosecutor. That was Assistant District Attorney Nancy Goodpaster, to whom Warren had lied four years ago about Virgil Freer's prior convictions.
When he reached the seventh floor and entered the windowless 299th District Court, Judge Lou Parker was calling the roll of defendants and attorneys. "No talking in court," the judge said in her spikiest tone to some women on the rear bench.
Warren caught Nancy Goodpaster's eye and walked back with her to her cool little office next to Parker's chambers. It was crowded with case files and a computer terminal. The desk was neat, and he noticed a photograph of a gray-haired black couple that he assumed were Goodpaster's parents. Their smiles shone proudly in the direction of a four-volume set of the
Texas Prosecutor's Trial Manual.
"The judge is not in a good mood today," Warren said.
Settling herself behind the desk in a steel-backed swivel chair, Goodpaster looked at him calmly. "The judge is in the mood she's always in. We all live with it."
There was an unspoken coda: and unless you're a fool, you'll live with it too.
"She gets things done," Goodpaster added, with what Warren took as a grudging note of apology. "In the 299th we move right along." But again she was also saying: and you'd better move right along with us.
When Goodpaster had been fresh out of law school and had missed Virgil Freer's priors in the case file, she had been soft-faced and fluttery. She had picked the skin off her thumb whenever he talked to her, and the grave air she had projected Warren had taken as a cover-up for her gratitude that she was suddenly being taken seriously as an attorney. Now she was a veteran at the age of thirty, the ranking prosecutor in the 299th. A slim and delicate young woman, she wore her short black hair in a pageboy. She no longer affected the severely tailored suits and oversized bow ties that young female lawyers wear in order to look more like young male lawyers. Today she was dressed in a loose skirt and black blouse and casual
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