Prime Witness by Steve Martini Read Free Book Online Page A

the state for a large share of my salary, a condition that will end when they appoint a permanent DA. Local funding being what it is, the county grandees intend to nuzzle up and suckle at the tit of the state as long as possible.
    “It couldn’t have anything to do with the Putah Creek things?” he says.
    “I won’t deny that I’ve considered those cases.” I make a face, the obvious.
    “A prosecution would involve protracted criminal litigation,” I tell him. “It could go on for a year. Longer. The county would be smart to get a permanent prosecutor on board before anything is too far along.”
    “Maybe you don’t think you’re up to the task?” A little simper on his lips, imperious. Maybe he is wondering if I have the sand for the job. Or more likely he is questioning my commitment, a switch-hitting lawyer who has been prosecutor and defense attorney and now is back on the side of the angels. For a judge, he packs a lot of prosecutorial baggage to the bench. I think Ingel is one of those judges who believes in putting a beveled edge on justice for the criminally accused.
    “No. That’s not it. I’m up to the task,” I say. “But I have other commitments.” I wonder if this sounds as bad as I think, a lawyer on the dodge.
    “Sure,” he says. Then a look that is a naked attempt to work over my pride, little jabs around the belt in the clinch.
    I swallow hard. A piece of my dignity goes down with the saliva. But I think maybe he’s about to let me go.
    “I have a private practice,” I say. “My arrangement was intended to be short-term. A few months. I would not have taken the position otherwise.”
    He doesn’t say anything. He knows as well as I that, once started, the Putah Creek cases will be like an Asian land war, much easier to get in than to get out.
    “Some people have told me you’re a good lawyer,” he says.
    I make a face, like compliments are nice.
    “In coming here your reputation precedes you,” he says.
    Now he’s sugarcoating it. From Hyde to Jekyll in a heartbeat. The man is mercurial, more faces to his character than Lon Chaney.
    “But I for one don’t think much of lawyers who bed their clients,” he says.
    Like the wind’s been knocked out of me, a sucker punch. My face goes cold. He talks about dirt in my past, allusions to my earlier affair with Talia Potter, before her case, when Nikki and I were separated, ancient history. This is not news, I think. It was in all the local papers, my cross to bear during the Potter trial. And I’d thought it was over, killed by the heat and bright lights of public exposure. Now Ingel is dredging it all up.
    I say nothing, but sit there and take his shellacking.
    “As a courtesy, Judge Acosta called from Capital City,” he says, “when he read that you’d been appointed as special prosecutor here. You will learn,” he says, “that judges talk.”
    Apparently like fishmongers. Ingel’s been holding forth with the Coconut, Armando Acosta, Mexico’s answer to the Lord of the Flies. I should have seen it coming.
    Acosta presided over the trial of Talia Potter, whom I defended in Capital City on charges of murdering her husband. This was seven months ago. Before that, during a period that I was separated from my wife, Nikki, and long before the Potter trial, Talia and I had had an affair. This was to my eternal discredit, because Talia’s husband, Ben Potter, had been a friend and benefactor. I had not disclosed my earlier relationship with the defendant to the court when I took the case. By that time the affair was long over. It was ancient history. But to my chagrin, the papers and the Coconut found out, during the trial. Acosta had threatened to draw and quarter me during the case. And to this day he has not forgiven me for this deception.
    “He was not pleased that we took you on,” says Ingel. “He has particular reasons for this.” He’s talking about Acosta.
    “I can imagine.”
    Right now the Coconut’s pleasure