When he emerged he had an unexpected ally in the trial. Judge Pershing Roberts. Who knew why? Edward certainly didn’t. Edward had laid out an extremely unorthodox defense to the least unorthodox judge in the building. To defend against a case by essentially prosecuting a different one. Neither of them had ever heard of it being done.
Maybe the African-American judge didn’t like the scenario Edward had laid out. Or maybe he just wanted to see it as theater. Trials were generally pretty boring affairs, and Judge Roberts had been watching them for a long time from behind a bench that acted as a screen, blocking him from the fun parts.
At any rate, he’d said yes.
They took a lunch break. Edward sought out Linda, saw her taking down a hearing, and just gave her a thumbs up. Her smile made everyone in her own trial pause and look at him. Edward shrugged and hurried out.
He called as his next witness Anali Haverty, the gallery owner who didn’t get involved in her clients’ personal lives, but who’d let Tony Alberico use her backyard studio. She wasn’t rocking Paris today. Ms Haverty wore a straight green skirt and a white blouse with only a bit of scalloping at the collar in the way of style. She had her hair pulled back and when she sat in the witness chair she leaned slightly forward with a very straight back, first acknowledging the judge then looking straight at Edward, all business.
Edward had her describe her gallery, which she did as a mini-commercial, using the phrase ‘high-end’ as well as ‘other more casual pieces.’
‘What is your relationship with the art world in Houston, ma’am?’
‘I am the facilitator, one might say, between artists and patrons. And other appreciators of art.’
Veronica Salazar stood and said harshly, ‘Your Honor?’
The judge looked at her blandly. ‘You have a question, Ms Salazar?’
‘Yes. The question would be what the hell?’ As Judge Roberts opened his mouth she said, ‘That is, what is the relevance of this testimony? Objection.’
‘The relevance has been explained to the court in camera. Overruled.’ As Veronica continued to stand the judge’s stare became heavy enough to force her down into her seat, where she folded her arms and glared.
Edward resumed. ‘Are there good local artists here?’
‘Oh my, yes.’ She leaned back a little. ‘Of course there are in any major city, and some of my artists live in New York, even Europe. But the local art scene has been very vibrant for some time.’
‘You said “my artists.” What is your relationship with the artists you display?’
‘I consider them clients. I buy some works to re-sell, but the majority on consignment. It’s my profession to find good homes for works of art.’
She was coming off a little highfalutin and Edward thought he’d need to take her down a peg soon if she was going to connect with the jury, but then Anali apparently realized that herself. She leaned back in the chair and said, ‘The painters bring me their stuff and if I like it I sell it.’ Someone chuckled appreciatively. It may have come from the jury box.
Edward smiled. ‘Tell me how you knew a local artist named Anthony Alberico.’
‘Slowly, I’d say is the answer. I’ve been in this business for quite a while. I first knew Tony as an art student who brought me some of his early works. I turned down the first few but encouraged him. His gift was obvious from the beginning. But I didn’t want him to trickle out with half good pieces. He needed to burst on the scene.’
‘So you took him under your wing?’
She smiled. ‘I don’t have wings, Mr Hall. But in my calling one looks for exactly such an artist as Tony Alberico. One who isn’t ready yet but with great potential. I did help him along, and he was certainly worth the nurturing. He grew into – in my opinion – the finest local artist we had. One of the best in the country, in fact.’
‘We keep speaking of Mr Alberico in the past tense, Ms Haverty. What happened to him?’
She put a hand to her mouth, then removed it to say, ‘He was murdered. Shot to death.’
‘Have police solved that crime?’
‘No one’s been arrested. I follow the case closely.’
‘What was the date of his murder, ma’am?’
‘Months ago. April sixteenth.’
The day of the alleged kidnapping on trial here. Some jurors sat up. So did Veronica.
‘Why do you remember the date so clearly, Ms Haverty?’
‘I found his body,’ she said, head lifted. ‘Probably two days after he was killed. Police aren’t sure of the time of death because no one found him for a couple of days. But at the time I had an uneasy feeling about Tony so I went to check on him and found him on the floor of his bedroom.’ She sniffed.
‘Where was he killed?’
‘His home. A house in the Heights.’
The Heights.
Veronica shot up. ‘Your Honor, this is ridiculous! Just because another offense happened in the general vicinity—’
Judge Roberts held out a hand, his broad face radiating a heat that silenced the prosecutor. ‘Bailiff, take the jury out for a moment.’
Mistake on Veronica’s part, Edward thought. This would only intensify the jurors’ curiosity and make them pay closer attention to Edward’s evidence when they returned. Theoretically.
He turned and looked into the audience. The Greenes were there, sitting next to each other again, but their body language building a wall between them. Sterling had his arms folded and Diana leaned away from him. She looked back at Edward with wide eyes. Then they narrowed.
The courtroom door had barely closed behind the last juror when Veronica resumed. ‘This is ridiculous, Judge. I’ve heard of Mr Hall’s courtroom theatrics, but this is beyond theater, it’s a carnival. We’re nowhere in the vicinity of relevant evidence. He’s trying to distract the jury from his client’s obvious guilt. Why don’t we just …?’
The judge slammed down his gavel, a gunshot sound that not only silenced the prosecutor but made her step back.
‘Ms Prosecutor, let me explain once and then we will not have this scene again. Defense counsel has explained the defense strategy to the court in chambers and I am satisfied as to the relevance. This is coming in. Do you understand?’
Edward hadn’t even bothered to stand up. Donald was staring a question at him. Edward patted his arm. He’d never had this experience, of a judge being on his side against the State. On the other hand, from the judge’s perspective, no judge had ever been reversed for screwing over the prosecution.
Veronica said, ‘I presume it’s still all right to make objections when I feel they’re appropriate?’
She and the judge were backing down from their confrontation. ‘Of course,’ he said.
She sat slowly and turned to Edward with a curious expression. No longer angry. She looked hurt at being excluded from the very small club he had formed with the judge.
The jurors were returning. Once they were seated Edward said to his witness, ‘Where did Tony do his work, Ms Haverty?’
‘He started the way everyone does, in his home. But he needed more room and frankly better light. I started letting him use my studio.’
‘Your studio. Where is that?’
‘I have a large room in a building behind my house.’
‘Where is that, ma’am?’
‘West University Place.’
He thought he saw the jurors picturing that distance. We’d just moved uptown from the picturesque quaintness of the Heights to the brick estates of West U.
‘May I approach, Your Honor?’
At his nod, Edward went to his witness with a small stack of photographs. ‘Can you identify Defense Exhibits one through eight, ma’am?’
‘Yes. That’s my studio.’
‘Outside and inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is where Tony worked sometimes?’
‘Yes.’
Edward had the photos admitted and passed them to the jurors. From his seat he asked, ‘What were Tony’s subjects, Ms Haverty? What did he paint?’
Her eyes turned faraway. ‘He had a wider range than most artists. He did landscapes, still lifes. But he was known for his portraits.’
‘Tell me about his work in those.’
‘Yes. His portraits hung in homes and public spaces around town. The mayor—’
He cut her off before Veronica could object. ‘So he painted living people?’
‘Oh yes. Prominent Houstonians commissioned him.’
He got her to explain how that worked financially, then asked, ‘Did he sometimes display those works in your gallery before they went to private collections?’
‘Yes. It was a sort of advertising for him.’ She shrugged at the jurors. Always commercial aspects even to the highest art.
‘Do you know if he did a portrait of a woman named Diana Greene?’
‘Yes. I’m sure it’s hanging in their home now.’
Some jurors glanced up into the audience. ‘What did that portrait look like, ma’am?’
‘Typical society portrait. Very large, almost life-size. Mrs Greene was beautifully dressed, as if for a party, standing by a Greek-style column.’
‘What was Tony’s gift, Ms Haverty? Why did he get these large commissions?’
She gazed off into the distance. ‘His gift was to capture a subject’s best quality – humor, magnanimity, beauty – and both highlight that and amp up the volume just a bit. Not to be too obviously flattering, but capturing a person just as he or she would want to picture herself on her best day.’
Edward paused to let that good answer sink in, then said, ‘Do you see Mrs Diana Greene in the courtroom today?’
‘Yes. Up there on the fourth row of the spectator seats with her husband.’
Edward turned and looked, as he was sure everyone else did. The Greenes presented a portrait themselves. Captured by surprise momentarily in their icy poses, they quickly regrouped, Diana leaning on her husband’s shoulder, Sterling taking her hand rather woodenly.
Edward turned back to his witness. ‘Were you familiar with Tony Alberico’s working methods?’
‘Oh yes. Tony wasn’t shy about his work. Some artists demand isolation, but Tony didn’t mind a small audience. His concentration was excellent.’
‘Did he have the subjects of these portraits pose for him?’
‘I’m not sure I would use the word pose. He would have them come to the studio – my studio in the last couple of years – dressed as they wished to appear in the portrait, but then he’d just let them walk around, chatting, looking over his other works as he observed them from various angles. He might start the outlines of the portrait on the first day, but there was none of this business of a subject sitting or standing rigidly for hours. Tony would simply look at them, memorizing them, or at least the aspects he wished to remember.’
Edward imagined being the focus of that attention, a woman seeing a handsome young man staring at her every time she got a glimpse of him. There must have been blushes and stammering. And the occasional returned stare. The beginning of a romance right there with no one talking about anything other than light and color.
‘You’re saying he remembered all these people well enough to paint them from memory?’
‘Oh no. He’d take pictures. It was his way of being considerate of a busy person’s time. He’d take multiple pictures of the subject from a variety of angles. Then he could begin the work without them there. Of course there’d be at least a couple of other live sessions to get the final details right, but mostly he worked from the photos.’
Stop being coy, Edward thought to himself. He pulled out the other envelope and opened it. ‘You and I searched your studio sometime after Tony’s death, didn’t we, Ms Haverty?’
‘Yes.’ Anali swallowed. Her memories of the young artist seemed to sneak up on her every few minutes.
‘You’ve described his portrait of Diana Greene. Did he do another portrait of her?’
‘Not that I know of. Not that I’ve seen.’
‘But he could have painted another one of her, couldn’t he? Even in your studio?’
‘Of course. I didn’t monitor his use of the studio. And sometimes I’m out of town for fairly extended periods on buying tours.’ She shrugged again. ‘She could have commissioned another portrait, for all I know.’
‘Did we find in your studio certain … indications … he might have been doing that? Painting another portrait of Diana?’
‘Yes.’
Edward approached her with his envelope, opening it along the way. He could feel a heat ray on his back, someone’s stare. More than one person’s, probably. At the witness stand he handed Anali another short stack of photographs.
‘Can you identify these?’
‘These are photos we found at the back of a drawer in the studio, as if they’d been hastily—’
‘Object to speculation,’ Veronica said quickly, sounding relieved she finally had a legal objection.
The judge turned to the witness with a kindly expression. ‘Just describe how you found them, ma’am, please don’t speculate about what anyone else might have done.’
‘Of course. These were in the very back of a drawer behind some other things.’
‘Do these photos all depict the same person?’
‘Yes. They’re Diana Greene.’
Edward returned slowly to his seat. ‘You described how Mr Alberico would take a lot of pictures of a subject before painting her. Do these photos look like the ones he used to paint Mrs Greene’s official portrait?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘These are nudes.’
The quality of attention in the courtroom focused abruptly, like a cloud uncovering the sun on a gloomy day. Curiosity attached to the photos and to the live woman in the audience. Edward was dying to turn and look at her but needed to stay focused on his witness. Donald, though, was twisted around to stare upward.
Edward didn’t offer the photos into evidence. Anali put them back in their envelope and set it on the railing in front of her. ‘And you know of no painting made from those photos?’
‘I don’t, no.’
Edward sat musing. ‘Pass the witness.’
‘Are there any similar photos of you taken by Mr Alberico?’ Veronica asked quickly.
‘Objection,’ Edward said. ‘Irrelevant and an unwarranted attack on the witness’s reputation.’
‘I’ll sustain the first objection,’ said Judge Roberts. ‘The second I don’t recognize as a legal objection.’
‘You know what I’m asking,’ Veronica said to the witness. ‘Were you having sex with this artist?’
Edward had wondered that himself, but he still objected that the question was irrelevant and the judge sustained him again, this time with a stern look at the prosecutor. Veronica ignored it.
Edward thought, But thank you, Veronica, for nailing down that logic for the jury, that if Tony took nude pictures of a woman he must be screwing her too.
‘You said you went to Mr Alberico’s house and found his body because you had an uneasy feeling. Was it an uneasy feeling he was having an affair with another woman?’
‘No,’ Anali said flatly.
‘You found him. Did you have a key to his house?’
‘The door was unlocked. But yes, I did have a key to Tony’s house. And he had one to my studio.’
Such a pregnant answer, clearly for a moment Veronica didn’t know what to do with it. Edward was putting a hand to his mouth when his client nudged his shoulder with his own. Donald leaned in and said, ‘What’s going on here, man?’
Edward raised a hand with all the fingers spread. ‘Just spreading the guilt around at this point,’ he whispered. ‘Man.’
He saw Veronica regrouping. She’d charged in to discredit the witness by showing she’d been having sex with the young artist too, which didn’t really lead anywhere. Now she was pondering how to go. Edward watched her closely as Veronica asked to approach the witness and did. She didn’t know what she was doing here. Edward had surprised her, one of the few benefits the defense had in trial. The prosecution had to reveal its witnesses to the defense. The right was not reciprocal. Edward had used this to his advantage several times as a defense lawyer. But it was something he’d had to get used to, as a former prosecutor.
Veronica was looking through the photos of her primary witness. She picked out one and showed it to the witness. ‘Doesn’t it look to you in this photo as if Mrs Greene is asleep, Ms Haverty?’
Yes it did. Edward knew the one she meant. Diana asleep with a little contented smile on her face. Probably Veronica didn’t want to show that one to the jury.
He saw her coming to the realization she didn’t know where she was going with this cross-examination and felt a moment of sympathy for Veronica. A very short moment. She still completely had the winning hand. It was just in this moment she didn’t know where the trial was going, and that was a very weird feeling for a prosecutor.
Edward said out of the side of his mouth, ‘I feel that Cyclops stare, man. I’ll explain at the break.’ He and Donald may not have been as close as lawyer and client should be.
Veronica walked slowly back to her seat, gave Ms Haverty a long look, and said, ‘Pass the witness.’
Edward asked, ‘What was Tony’s address, ma’am?’
‘I’m not sure. You know, a familiar place, you know how to get there, but not the address. It was on 9th Street in the Heights. The 300 block, I think.’
Edward stood, asked to approach the witness, and did so with a poster-sized blow-up of a map. ‘Could you pinpoint it on here?’
‘Yes. Right there.’
‘Will you put a pin there, please?’
She did so. ‘Does this exhibit, Defendant’s Exhibit one, look like an accurate representation of that neighborhood, Ms Haverty?’
Anali, a conscientious witness, studied it briefly, picking out a couple of identified locations with her finger. ‘Yes.’
Edward had the exhibit admitted, then resumed his seat. ‘Do you know Mr and Mrs Greene, ma’am?’
‘I’ve met them, of course, since I had Mrs Greene’s portrait on exhibit for a while. There was a reception.’
‘How did they behave at that reception?’
Anali mused for a moment. ‘They came in obviously angry at each other, went to far ends of the room. Mrs Greene circulated, laughing a lot, obviously having a good time. Her husband sulked. Then they drifted together. They actually went outside for a few minutes and we could see them yelling at each other. Then something happened and they obviously made up. They came back inside practically rubbing against each other. It was all rather embarrassing. Several other guests noticed.’
‘Have you seen them any other times?’
‘Another party, I think. That time they seemed happy together. Whatever they were feeling, they always—’
‘Objection to relevance,’ Veronica finally said, and Edward had no response.
‘Thank you, ma’am. No more questions for now.’
Edward saw Veronica thinking over that questioning. She drummed her fingers briefly on the table and admitted she had no more questions either.
‘Your next witness, Mr Hall,’ the judge said. Edward turned and looked up into the spectator seats. His eyes flickered over Mr and Mrs Greene, back to their isolated from each other poses, and rose to where Linda sat next to a man in a suit. She gave him a little smile probably only Edward could see.
‘The defense calls Detective Isaiah Reynolds, Your Honor.’
The man sitting next to Linda rose and walked down the aisle. He was an athletic looking black man wearing a black suit that fit him well. His stride was confident.
After he was sworn to tell the truth, Edward, feeling Veronica’s stare, asked quickly, ‘Please identify yourself.’
‘Detective Isaiah Reynolds, Houston Police Department.’
Edward established the witness’s credentials and experience in a couple of quick questions. ‘Detective, were you called to the residence of a man named Tony Alberico when Ms Anali Haverty called police to report finding him dead?’
‘I was.’
‘Did you take anyone with you?’
The detective sat at ease in the witness stand, veteran of at least a hundred trials. ‘No, but a call went out and a couple of uniformed officers met me there.’
‘Did you find Mr Alberico’s body?’
‘Yes. On the floor of his bedroom. Shot once in the chest.’
Edward admired the witness’s way of getting quickly to the point. But of course, Edward had prepped him to do just that. ‘Did you arrest a suspect?’
‘No. It remains unsolved to this day.’
‘What did you do to investigate?’
Detective Reynolds leaned forward, putting his hands together and looking directly at the jury. ‘We searched the house, very thoroughly. We brought Ms Haverty to the station to give a detailed statement. I asked for an autopsy to establish the time of death. We ascertained that the gun beside the body, the murder weapon, was registered to the deceased. So that didn’t lead anywhere.’ The detective shrugged, obviously unhappy for a moment over a failed investigation.
‘Detective, do you see the envelope in front of you with photos in it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you look at them, please?’
Detective Reynolds fanned through them, studying the photos. Edward finally turned and looked at Diana. Was she blushing? At any rate, she was glaring. So was her husband. But then Sterling stood abruptly and walked up the aisle toward the exit.
Edward hurried the rest of his questioning. ‘Did you find in Mr Alberico’s house a portrait, a drawing, that looked anything like those photos?’
‘No. We found some paintings in various degrees of completion, but none of this woman.’
‘Pass the witness.’
Veronica stared, obviously having no thoughts about what to ask. So don’t, Edward thought. Pass the witness, pass the witness, pass the witness.
‘No questions, Your Honor,’ she said, as if Edward had willed the words into her mouth.
‘Next witness, Mr Hall?’
‘May we take a short break, Your Honor? I need to confer.’
Judge Roberts’ eyebrows rose briefly. When a lawyer asked to confer with opposing counsel in the middle of a trial it usually means the lawyer has some reason to think they could agree on a plea bargain. Edward’s first two witnesses had been interesting, but hardly that devastating to the prosecution’s case. But a judge would favor any attempt to bring a trial to an early close. Judge Roberts tapped his gavel and the jurors were ushered out. Edward turned to Veronica. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sterling Greene pause up by the courtroom doors, turning back to watch this development. Veronica gave Edward a questioning look and he leaned toward her.
Judge Roberts had just unzipped his robe in his chambers when there was a knock on his open door. He turned to find Edward standing there.
‘I thought you were going to confer.’
‘Yes, sir. I did. I made Veronica an offer so she’d need to talk it over with the so-called victim and her family. But I actually needed to confer with you, Judge.’ Edward came closer, pulling a sheaf of pages out of his suit jacket. He handed them to the judge without another word. Judge Roberts gave him a curious look, then started reading. After a few seconds his eyes rose again. ‘A search warrant?’
‘Yes, sir. Did you hear enough from the witness stand just now to sign it?’
The judge’s eyes went distant, reviewing what he’d just heard from the gallery owner and the detective. After a moment he nodded. ‘I did.’
Edward held out a pen.
Sterling Greene got to his car in a parking garage a few blocks from the courthouse and drove out as quickly as he could. The defense lawyer’s offer, to have his client plead guilty in exchange for only three years in prison, had been verging on ludicrous. As soon as he heard it, Sterling left his wife and her sister, the district attorney, to reject it. He drove through the streets of downtown Houston with his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his stare heavy-lidded and intense.
River Oaks wasn’t far from the courthouse, not by the sprawling standards of Houston. Sterling sped up after getting out of downtown, the car seeming to gain confidence as it neared home. He drove up his long driveway and didn’t bother to open the garage. Instead he jumped out and strode quickly to the back door.
Inside, he took the stairs in a few long strides. In moments he was staring around his bedroom, the unmade bed, messy dressing table, half-open closet door. He crossed quickly to the latter and went half inside. He knocked aside the empty easel leaning against the inside wall, pushed aside a half dozen of his wife’s dresses, and grabbed the painting behind them. He emerged and his eyes darted quickly around the bedroom again. He shoved the painting under his arm and hurried out.
Sterling was thinking as fast as he ever had. He had a storage unit over near his office. There was the office itself, plus half a dozen construction sites with projects he had initiated. Houston was a hive of possible hiding places. He could just set fire to the damned painting, but found himself reluctant to do that. It felt warm under his arm.
He hurried out the back door and toward his car. But now another car was blocking it in the driveway. A black sedan with ‘Texas exempt’ plates, looking vaguely official. Its driver’s door opened and a slender black man emerged.
‘Mr Greene? I’m Detective Reynolds.’
‘I know. I just saw you testifying.’ Sterling made no attempt to hide the painting, which would have been ludicrous anyway.
‘Yes, sir. But now I’m back to doing police work. I have a warrant to search your home. To find what I believe you’re holding under your arm.’
The police officer held out the warrant. Behind him the other front door of the car opened and Linda stepped out. She put her arms on the roof of the car and leaned down, watching closely with no expression. But her eyes were riveted to that canvas.
Sterling hesitated. He didn’t reach for the papers the detective offered, assuming they were authentic. He looked at the woman instead, wondering what her interest in this was. Their stares entwined for a moment.
Then Sterling held out the painting.
‘I’ll want a receipt for that,’ he said.