Without a Doubt - [36]

This was a really low moment. The only way I could keep my spirits up was to hold on to my fantasy that Gil would relent and let me keep David on the team. That night, Gil called us both into his office. He looked straight at me, and something in that look told me it was hopeless.

“Marcia,” he began firmly, “you’re going to have to pick a partner. I’ll try and accommodate any reasonable request, but I want you to find someone who’s as strong as you.”

What he meant was I couldn’t bring on some baby D.A. who would just carry my books. Even though I knew what the answer would be, I turned toward David and inclined my head in his direction.

“No,” Gil said flatly. “I need David on Menendez.”

I could feel hairline cracks fanning out in crazy patterns all through my confidence. With David by my side I felt strong and sure. Having him to strategize with would be a dream come true. But there was no appealing Gil’s decision. I’d have to find another partner. Someone who had real strength. Someone who could brace me against the coming storm.

Although I admitted this to no one, I was scared to death.

W ar Games

He has to say yes-there’s no one else.

That was my mantra as I walked down the hall from my office to the corner office occupied by Bill Hodgman. I was about to change his life. Right now he was in a relatively low-stress post as the director of Central Operations; if he accepted my offer, and Gil approved, he’d be subject to unprecedented heat. I think he knew I was coming. I almost expected to find a sign on his door that said “Leave me alone.” I wouldn’t have blamed him. But I also wouldn’t have known where to go next.

There were only seven deputies besides me in the Special Trials Unit, and all of them were either already trying a case or about to start one. I’d thought a bit about Brian Kelberg, a thin, intense man with a goatee and dark glasses. Brian was almost pure intellect. He had spent a little time in medical school before switching to law. It would be terrific, I thought, to have him as a sounding board for the complex evidentiary issues of the Simpson case. But I knew having him as co-counsel wouldn’t work. Though Brian was brilliant, he was a loner. He’d always felt that the team approach to prosecution wasn’t an effective way to try a case.

Then my thoughts had turned to Bill. We’d worked together in management, and we’d clicked. I was brassy and often abrasive; Bill was gentle, a conciliator. We laughed a lot together-and a sense of humor would be as essential as a law degree in a pressure cooker like this one. But most important, he was one hell of a lawyer.

Bill had started out in Long Beach, one of the branch courts. Shortly after he arrived Downtown, he prosecuted savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating. The resulting conviction (though ultimately reversed) was a thrilling triumph in an office starved for victories, and for a while Bill was the golden boy. He’d been with us only about a year when Gil appointed him director of Central Operations. He was the first real trial lawyer I can recall who ever held that job. His placement had been a boost in morale to all of us on the front lines.

All the same, Bill’s experience with Downtown juries was fairly limited. I’d done some of my juvenile work in Long Beach: the community was conservative, so the jury pool tended to be law-and-order types. The judges pretty much mirrored that point of view. As a result, criminal trials were relatively orderly affairs, seldom the grueling battles that were the daily experience of deputies Downtown.

The Simpson case was shaping up to be the ultimate Downtown case. I didn’t know if Bill was up to the rough-and-tumble. I didn’t even know if I was. Of one thing, however, I was certain: Bill Hodgman had a gift for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses in evidence. Bill and I had talked through a number of cases in the last year, and I had come to admire his instincts.

I needed him.

His door was open, and I leaned in. “Got a minute?”

“Sure, partner, come on in.”

Bill took a seat behind his huge desk, framed by a postcard-worthy panorama of downtown L.A. It was very luxurious by county standards. It was even carpeted.

“Bill,” I said, “remember how we’ve talked about wanting to try a case together?”

He nodded. I couldn’t read his expression.

“How would you like to do Simpson with me?”

He smiled.

“I have been kind of anxious to get back into court,” he said slowly. “I don’t know how my wife will take it, and I hate to miss my time with Alec.”

I knew what he meant. When Bill had been trying Keating, I’d been knee-deep in Bardo. We’d find ourselves in the office on weekends slaving away at our respective witness lists, and we’d commiserate about how our cases were cutting into family time. I remember him telling me that his son, Alec, then four years old, was taking his absences hard.

But Bill was too intrigued by this once-in-a-lifetime case to let it pass. “Let me talk to my wife, see how she feels about it,” he said finally. And we left it at that.