The Wrong Man Read Online Free PDF

“Dial it down a notch or we’ll put you in cuffs.”
    We got into the elevator.
    “So?” Chilly asked me as we rode down. “Why’d you take the case?”
    I shrugged. “Aunt Deidre got to me.”
    “Yeah, but you wanted this case, didn’t you?” He wagged a finger at me. “And I’ll bet everything you learned up there made you want it even more. I mean, it looks like a dog, no?”
    I shrugged. “You said yourself. With you leaving, there’s nobody available on your staff who could do it without wanting another continuance. And I’m not that busy.”
    We reached the ground floor and the doors parted. “Okay, well, this is great, Jason. Thanks. Tom’s a good guy and he deserves the best.”
    He’d have to settle for me. I had fifty days to be all that I could be for First Lieutenant Thomas David Stoller.

5.
    Judge Bertrand Nash is one of these larger-than-life legal figures in this city who seems like he’s been on the bench since the dawn of mankind. Word is that he once served as the county attorney—the top local prosecutor—but I’m not sure anybody is alive today to actually attest to that fact. If you looked up the definition of “judge” in the dictionary, you’d expect to see his picture: the broad, weathered face; the thick mane of silver hair; he even has a baritone voice belying his age.
    He is imperialistic and stubborn and gregarious. He spares absolutely no one his wrath, which may come in the form of a stinging rebuke or withering sarcasm, always to the acclaim of the spectators in the courtroom, most of them lawyers well trained in the art of laughing uproariously at every tidbit of humor offered by the man in the robe.
    He treats his courtroom like a treasured jewel. He tolerates no informality, no breach of etiquette circa 1890 or whenever he cut his teeth as a practitioner in the courts. You don’t approach the witness without permission. You don’t dare utter a sound after an objection is made until he’s addressed it. You don’t address the court unless you’re on your feet, and only then if he invites you. You don’t ask for an extension of time on a response to a motion unless your reason for doing so involves death or serious bodily harm. And you are never, ever late to court.
    Cancer took a bite out of him two years back, but he’s slowly rebounding, growing that wide face back into the loose-fitting skin around hiseyes and jowls. The guy is probably going to live to a hundred, if he isn’t already there.
    This morning, Judge Nash looked over his glasses and down at me. “You’re a bit late to the game, Mr. Kolarich,” he said.
    “Yes, Your Honor. As Mr. Childress indicated—”
    “I can read, Mr. Kolarich. Mr. Childress is moving on to greener pastures, I see?”
    “I’ll be joining Gerry Salters’s firm, yes, Judge,” said Bryan, standing next to me.
    “Mr. Salters is a fine attorney. A lousy golfer, but a fine attorney.”
    Like a laugh track in an old sitcom, the courtroom burst out in amusement.
    Judge Nash looked over at the prosecution team, led by a woman named Wendy Kotowski. “Do the People have any objection?” he asked.
    I moved to the side so that Wendy could approach the microphone. Judge Nash handled his courtroom more like the federal courts, where the lawyers spoke from a lectern into a microphone.
    Wendy said, “We would only object to a continuance at this stage, Your Honor.”
    The judge looked alternatingly at me and Childress, then back to Wendy.
    “I didn’t ask you if you objected to a continuance, Ms. Kotowksi. I asked you if you objected to substitution of counsel.”
    Wendy should have known better. This wasn’t her first time in front of this guy.
    “We do not object, provided that it will not delay this proceeding,” she clarified.
    “What about that, Mr. Kolarich? Will you be seeking to move this trial date?”
    “Your Honor—”
    “It’s a one-word answer, Mr. Kolarich. Do you want to move this trial date? We’re