Though I didn't know it at the time, being appointed his attorney was the first step in my rise to power, or maybe my downfall, depending on how I looked at it. Pre-Sherman me? Downfall. Post-Sherman me? Sky's the fucking limit.
The killer threatened me at every opportunity and made it clear that if I told anyone or tried to stop being his attorney, he'd make me pay. I took him at his word. I was afraid. Beyond afraid, I was living in mortal terror of the hulking beast that sat across from me in the county lockup. He could have sprung across the table and snapped my neck before the guard finished flicking the booger from his fingertip. Sherman was a straight-up killer, one with no mercy or regret.
Based on the fact that Sherman was found playing in the hooker's blood the way a kid plays with sprinkler water, the county prosecutor felt like he could try the first-degree murder case in his sleep. He offered several deals-none of them good, none of which I took. I had to take my chances with a jury. I needed Sherman free or locked up for life without parole. Anything in between and I ran the risk of my insides becoming his next finger-painting.
Thank God "beyond a reasonable doubt" is a devious bitch. She will undermine even an ironclad case. I had dealt with the beauty of reasonable doubt before I defended Sherman, but I made it my religion when I realized what would happen to me if I didn't get the job done for him. I silently worshipped at the altar of reasonable doubt for four whole days while the State put on its case.
The prosecutor gave a colorful show, mostly done in swaths of crimson. Photos on the drop-down big screen of the hooker, her eyes dead and staring. Sherman's booking photo, dried blood on his mouth. Of course, the forensics geeks were able to positively match the blood he'd drunk to the pond on the floor and what was left in her veins. He'd slit her wrists and let her bleed out. The cuts were to the bone, deep enough to get the biggest payload.
DiSalvo sat through the whole thing, one of a few people in the gallery. He was just another interested citizen, or maybe an escapee from an assisted living facility out to get some true-crime inspiration for his great American novel. I didn't pay him any real attention. He seemed harmless, like a grampa. His white hair fluffed around his head in a friendly manner. He smiled on cue, acted like a normal human being would. I bet he even tried on a horrified look as the coroner went through how the victim died, how much pain she was in, what she would have felt, how cold she would have been from blood loss. You would never guess that DiSalvo, the little old man in the back row, had blood colder than any corpse.
He was only there to ensure nothing was said about him or his many enterprises. He was there for the same reason I was. Self-preservation. But he had nothing to worry about. I wasn't going to let Sherman say a word about anything, much less his work history as a mob enforcer.
After the four days of gore and accusations and evidence, it was my turn to defend the inhuman motherfucker with the swastika tattooed on his arm and a pistol on his neck with death to bitches beneath the barrel. He should have been a goner. But I couldn't let that happen. Self-preservation is the most basic instinct of all. Not sex, not love, not jealousy, not even hate. Keeping your neck out of the noose-or, in my case, out of the hands of a murderer-is a far better motivator than anything else.
It took me one day. One full day of poking holes in the entirety of the State's case. There were no witnesses. The State couldn't produce a single person from the scene. The sex club's other "patrons" scattered the moment they heard the cops were on their way. No one heard her scream-or at least, no one could have differentiated her scream from the myriad others in the adjoining rooms. No one saw him actually take the knife to her. The knife was found next to her body. Only her prints were on it. There was no forensic evidence that he ever touched her. No semen, no skin under her nails, nothing.
I didn't call any new witnesses, just recalled several of the State's and made them look like bumbling fools who enjoyed jumping to conclusions.
"Could she have slit her own wrists?"
"Yes." Reasonable doubt.
"You don't know what happened because you weren't actually there, were you?"
"No." Reasonable doubt.
"You didn't interview anyone at the scene?"
"No." Reasonable doubt.
"You have no direct evidence to indicate that my client ever harmed that woman, do you?"
"No." Reasonable doubt.
All they had was testimony that he was in her room, sitting in a pool of her blood. That sounds like a lot. That sounds like a case that's a sure winner. It isn't. Reasonable doubt is a Harsh. Fucking. Mistress.
The five-day trial turned into twelve days of jury deliberation. Every moment the jury was out was a win for me. It wouldn't save my life, of course. Sherman's hairy knuckles would still choke the life from me if they came back with a guilty verdict. But the wait was a good sign. If there was even one stickler, one moron on the jury who'd bought my impassioned arguments about lack of evidence and shoddy police work, I was golden. A hung jury was a win.