And then Dillon Randolph stood up behind the Prosecution table and announced what all the fuss was about. “Your Honor,” he said, “the State urges the Court to sanction and/or severely punish the Defense counsel for what she has done.”
Gemma couldn’t believe it. Sanction? Punish? What on earth for? But she maintained her cool. She didn’t even look at the prosecution. She sat stoically, her legs crossed, her eyes on the judge and the judge alone, as she listened intensely.
Sal, on the other hand, was frowning and turning around in his seat already. Never known as an even-tempered man to begin with, he even murmured motherfucker beneath his breath as he stared unblinkingly at the Prosecution. It had already been a hectic day. Now this crap too?
The judge wasn’t angry, but he was almost as baffled as Sal. “Sanctions and punishment for what offense, Mr. Randolph?” the judge asked the Prosecution.
“We have reason to believe that the Defense has been intimidating our witnesses, Your Honor,” Dillon said.
Although an enormously serious allegation, Gemma still remained calm.
Sal stopped moving around, too, when he heard the accusation. He understood the seriousness too.
The judge stared skeptically at the prosecution, as if he knew what the man was up to as well. “Witness intimidation in what form, Mr. Randolph?” the judge asked.
“As I’m sure you know, Your Honor, Mrs. Gabrini’s husband, Salvatore Luciano Gabrini, also known as Sal Luca, has been reputed to have very serious mob connections, if not be an outright mob boss himself.”
Gemma closed her eyes when Dillon made that statement. Her calm was cracking. Every time, in the end, it was all about Sal, when Sal had nothing to do with it. And she was getting tired of participating in their old playbook.
Sal exhaled. Bullshit, just as he thought.
“We believe,” Dillon continued, “that Mr. Gabrini’s flunkies, if not Mr. Gabrini himself, have been showing up at our witnesses homes and places of employment to harass and scare them into changing their testimonies. Gabrini wants them to claim they never saw the defendant with the alleged hit man, as they’ve already testified.”
“And why would he want them to change their testimonies, Mr. Randolph?” the judge asked.
“He wants to help his wife win this very high-profile case,” Dillon responded.
The judge looked at Gemma. “Mrs. Gabrini,” he said. “Would you care to respond?”
Gemma slowly stood up. She didn’t want to give such a frivolous allegation any more of her energy than it required. “Frankly, Your Honor,” she said, “it’s really not worth a response. I can’t believe how low Mr. Randolph and his team has decided to go. They have no evidence of any witness tampering or intimidation and they know it. Nobody asked any witness to change anything. Nobody coerced them to do anything. They cannot produce a shred of evidence to show that there were conversations of any kind to get any witness to change anything. They don’t even have proof, I guarantee you, of my husband or anybody associated with my husband going anywhere near any of the State’s witnesses. My husband is a respected businessman here in Vegas, not some mob boss as Mr. Randolph would have you believe, and he is too busy to be chasing witnesses.”
Gemma hated lying. But she’d go to her grave before she admitted her husband’s involvement with any Mafia organization, especially since his involvement was usually to clean up messes that were not of his making. Besides, it was the prosecution that started it with their pack of lies about witness intimidation. Sal’s background was just their way to muddy the waters. She wasn’t admitting to anything. She wasn’t getting in that mud with them.
But what Sal loved most, as he watched Gemma, was how full-throated she stood up for him. He was proud of her.
“Your Honor,” said Dillon, “the witnesses themselves have called and reported this to us. We aren’t making this stuff up. The witnesses told us. Why would they lie?”
“Why didn’t you have the police check it out if it’s so serious?” Gemma asked Dillon. “Why did you wait until after my powerful closing, when you saw what a good attorney could do to your flimsy case, to suddenly come up with these pack of lies?”
“The only pack of lies in this courtroom is your belief that you’re a good attorney,” Dillon shot back.
Sal angrily jumped out of his seat. “Why that motherfucker!” he said out loud. But the bailiffs on the door hurried over to him even as the judge was banging the gavel. That’s enough!” the judge yelled. “Watch yourself, Mr. Randolph,” he warned the prosecutor. “And Mr. Gabrini, sit down!”
Gemma looked back at Sal when the judge said his name. She didn’t realize he had stood up and said anything. And she angrily gave him that look of disapproval that made Sal wrestle with the bailiffs a moment longer, but then he snatched away from them and sat back down.
The judge then looked at the prosecutor. “Mr. Randolph,” he said, “you have two days to present evidence. And I mean substantial evidence of your claim. Court is adjourned.”
Then the gavel banged again.
By the time Gemma reassured her client before he was led away to the jailhouse, and had gathered up her papers into her briefcase and made her way out into the corridor, Sal was already leaned against the wall. When Gemma saw him she walked over to him. And she was not pleased.
“I’m sorry, alright?” he said as soon as she made her way up to him. He took her briefcase from her. “I wasn’t going to let that asshole call my wife a liar.”
“But you know better than that, Sal,” Gemma said. “That’s what they want. They want you to give them a show.”
“I said I was sorry, alright?” Then his temper flared. “Don’t push it.”
Gemma gave her husband a hard look. Sal could be brash like that. Sometimes he had perfect manners, sometimes none at all. She was used to it.
“You okay?” he asked her.
He also was a loveable rogue. She could never stay mad at Sal for too long. She smiled, and then placed her arm in his arm. “Witness intimidation,” she said dismissively as they began walking away. “Bunch of bullshit.”
“They always try something like that when you kick their asses,” Sal said.
Gemma laughed. “It’s predictable, isn’t it? They always want to make it seem like my great white husband has to come to my rescue and that’s the only reason my black ass is able to win any case whatsoever. Although,” Gemma was quick to point out, “I haven’t won this one yet.”
“With that Closing? Oh, you bagged that shit,” Sal said, and Gemma laughed. “That jury will be insane to convict.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s innocent though,” said Gemma.
Sal looked at her. “You don’t think he is?”
Gemma hunched her shoulder. “Don’t know. My job is to defend him, and that’s what I’m doing. If the prosecution evidence isn’t strong enough, then he has to walk free. That’s our judicial system.”
Sal was smiling.
Gemma looked at him. “What’s so funny?”
“You looked real sexy when you defended me,” Sal said.