The staked Goat

CCOURTROOM 924, MY MIND KEPT skipping from the night of the fire to how much I was looking forward to seeing Nancy Meagher again. We had not met since the bail hearing, although she called me once a few weeks ago to review my version of what happened. Over the telephone, her voice sounded softer than I remembered, and she had advanced to the DA’s Superior Court office. She was assisting the head of the homicide division in prosecuting Joey D’Amico, who so far had refused to cop a plea.
    I had not seen Joey either, not since the night at the warehouse. I did see Marco two days after the bail hearing, through the lens of my Pentax K1000 as I sat in a rental car outside the D’Amico house on Hanover Street. I brought the photos to the Coopers with the insurance company’s final check for their help. I told Jesse and Emily over tea and cookies that they were to call me if they ever saw Marco anywhere around them or their house. They promised they would, but I called them several times in the intervening months just to be sure. No Marco.
    A long-fingered freckled hand gave my arm a squeeze as Nancy settled in beside me on the bench.
    ”What are you in for?” she asked with, I swear, a twinkle in her eye.
    ”The vice squad caught me doing funny things with turtles.”
    She laughed, a deep throaty laugh. ”Lucky turtles.”
    I shook my head and turned to business. ”How does it look?”
    She glanced around to be sure no one she knew was within earshot. ”Frankly, it couldn’t look better for us. We’ve got your contact at the insurance company to lead off with the surrounding circumstances, Weeks to describe the ‘contract,’ you to put Joey in the warehouse with his statements and Craigie alive shortly before, and a lab man who took specimens off the butt of Joey’s gun that match Craigie’s blood type and color hair.” /
    I considered her summary. ”Why no plea?”
    Her turn to shake the head. ”Makes no sense to me. Speaking professional to professional, Joey’s lawyer is a hack. Very little pre-trial stuff, at which Joey could have testified to try to suppress his statements to you under any number of theories. With his record, Joey doesn’t dare testify at trial because we’d nail him to the cross with his prior convictions.”
    ”Maybe they figure the deal from your side might be better if they push you to the verge of trial?”
    ”Maybe, but we’re not going to be very generous on this one.”
    I became aware of people shuffling their feet a little distance away from us, and I turned to look at them. The Coopers. In their Sunday best and scared.
    I whipped my head back to Nancy. ”Did you call them?”
    She turned the way I had. ”No, who are... oh, the Coopers, huh?”
    I nodded.
    ”Must have been D’Amico’s lawyer, though what help they’ll be...”
    ”I’m going to calm them down. See you inside.”
    ”You’ve got some time. You’re witness number three, right after Weeks.”
    I went up to the Coopers and took Emily’s outstretched hand. She mustered a smile.
    ”Why are you here?”
    Jesse produced a paper from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded it carefully. ”We got this. Last night. It was late, so we didn’t want to call you.”
    It was a subpoena. The signature of the issuing notary public was illegible, but it looked to be in proper form.
    ”A surly man in a porkpie hat brought it,” said Emily. ”Along with this.” She held open an envelope with some currency in it.
    ”That’s your witness fee, Emily,” I said. ”You can keep that.”
    Jesse’s hands shook as he refolded the subpoena. ”What do they want us for?”
    ”I don’t know,” I said as the court officer, uniformed and side-armed, boomed, ”Trial session, trial session, court coming in.”
    I guided the Coopers into the courtroom.
     
    We sat on the left-hand side of the middle aisle, halfway back. On our side of the courtroom was the prosecutor’s table, near the as-yet empty jury box. Nancy and a tall, fiftyish man with red-gray hair were conferring. The D’Amico family sat on the right-hand side of the aisle, several rows in front of us but still behind the defense table, at which Smolina sat scribbling on a legal pad. Friend of the Bride, Friend of the Groom.
    A clerk of court was shuffling papers in front of the bench, and a stenographer was assembling her miniature transcriber to his right. A side door opened, and two court officers brought in a cuffed Joey D’Amico. He wore a dark