66

I set my alarm for 6 a.m. on Sunday, and Justice forced me out of bed. He wagged his tail and jumped around while I fixed him breakfast, as if to celebrate the fact that his master was coming back to life. I worked all day on a memo arguing that we should proceed with the Tate trial, now scheduled to start in just eight days. I knew we could get a brief continuance and push the case into September if we needed to. But we had subpoenaed the witnesses more than a month earlier, and I had developed outlines for each person’s testimony. I wanted to start on schedule.

Sunday evening, LA came to the house and fixed dinner while we discussed everything we needed to get done in the next few days if Masterson allowed the case to go forward. We avoided talking about the alternative—what would happen if Masterson called my bluff and I had to resign.

I got to work at eight o’clock Monday morning and left a copy of my memo on Bill Masterson’s desk in an envelope marked Personal and Confidential. At nine, I checked with his assistant to make sure Masterson would see the memo that morning. He had gone straight to court, she said, but she would make sure he got it.

I checked back with Masterson’s assistant twice and would have checked a third time, but she was clearly getting perturbed. At four thirty, just before I picked up the phone to call his cell, Bill Masterson walked into my office, shut the door behind him, and sat down across from my desk.

“I got your memo,” he said. “You put a lot of work into it.”

“We’ve got to take a shot at this guy. It’s the right thing to do. As you can tell, I feel pretty strongly about it.”

There was no need to say anything else; I’d put it all in the memo. I believed Caleb Tate was the man who had initiated the no-plea-bargaining chaos. I was sure he had killed his wife. I was willing to risk the reputations of my father and Judge Snowden just to get a chance to argue Tate’s case to the jury. My last paragraph contained my ultimatum. I would resign rather than drop the case.

Masterson and I talked for a while about how we might handle Rivera’s testimony. Masterson confirmed that he had provided the information about Snowden to the AG’s office. They had decided last Monday not to pass it along to Mace James.

“You’re willing to put your dad’s reputation on the line?”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

He rubbed his face and thought, staring at the floor. Then his eyes lit up as if he’d had an epiphany.

“Rivera’s going to deny saying anything about bribing Snowden, right?” Masterson asked.

His excitement got my heart pumping faster. “Yeah. He denies that conversation ever took place.”

“Right. So Tate will ask Rivera about it on cross-examination. Rivera will deny the conversation ever occurred. Your dad’s record in front of Snowden isn’t direct evidence—at best it’s corroborating evidence. But before corroborating evidence like that can be considered, somebody’s got to testify about the underlying threat by Rivera. And who’s the only person who can do that?”

“Tate,” I said. It suddenly seemed so obvious. How could I have missed it? “You’re right,” I continued, thinking out loud. “Even if we believe Tate’s version of events, Rafael Rivera never mentioned my father. He only mentioned Judge Snowden. The only witness who can drag my father into it is Tate. And if Tate waives the Fifth Amendment and takes the stand, we’ll nail him.”

Masterson was standing now, watching it all play out in his mind. “So Tate can still gut Rafael Rivera’s testimony, but the price he pays is that he’s got to take the stand himself.”

“I think that’s right,” I said. I was disappointed I hadn’t realized this earlier. But at the same time, Masterson’s excitement was contagious.

“And if he does that, this whole case will come down to our cross-examination of Tate,” Masterson said. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he relished the thought.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We go to trial next week. You take the opening and every witness except Rivera and Tate. I’ll take those two and the closing.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

We discussed the details of the case for another hour. Masterson wasn’t worried that he hadn’t fully prepared for the case; he’d get up to speed watching the first part of the trial. I wished that I had half the man’s confidence.

After he left my office, I called LA.

“We’re in,” I said.