Free The Defense: A Novel by Steve Cavanagh Page A

university and the more money those nerds take home. During those years, everyone writes articles like crazy, and perfectly reasonable academics write crap that they wouldn’t dream of writing ordinarily. Writing for volume does not promote good theories, and pretty soon they’re writing papers on fairies and UFOs. Back then articles meant cash. So if there’s anything out there that will give us something on Goldstein, that’s where we’ll find it.”
    I’d cross-examined a few academics and I’d learned all about the ARAE some years ago. It never failed to give me ammunition. It’s just like everything else in life—you follow the money and it always takes you to where you need to go.
    While Arturas looked online, I read through Goldstein’s expert report. I’d once represented Archie Mailor on a check fraud indictment, so I had read reports like this before. Archie had been my counterfeit guy when I was running my insurance scams. He had talent. IDs I got from Archie were usually pretty good. During his case, I had to cross-examine a forensic document examiner who testified about Archie’s handwriting and the fraudulent checks. I had a little knowledge of what these guys looked for, but I hadn’t thought about it for a long time. What I remembered was that they tended to look at the capital letters at the beginning of words. From scanning Goldstein’s report, I saw that he had indeed focused on the capital “G” at the start of “Geraldo,” which Volchek had written on the bill in marker pen. Behind Goldstein’s report, I found a statement from a CSI. He had analyzed the one-ruble bill for fingerprints. Apparently, Little Benny’s fingerprints and those of the custody officer at the precinct who handled Benny’s property had either obscured or wiped out all other identifiable prints.
    Arturas took seven minutes to find the right page on the university’s website— List of Publications 2008 —nothing. We checked 2004 and nothing leaped off the page.
    We hit 2000 and there it was, staring at me like gold in a panhandle. Goldstein, like most academics, wanted the greenbacks while they were hot. He’d written half a dozen stupid articles to boost his volume, standing, and pay.
    And he’d written one particularly bad one. That gave me a great idea.
    “I need this article printed out. I need a photocopier, paper, hot coffee, and to be left the hell alone,” I said. With Arturas listening in, I called the judge’s clerk, Jean, on Arturas’s iPhone, and I sweet-talked her into printing the article for me. I told her I owed her a box of doughnuts and told her where to find the article online. I thought that Miriam probably didn’t even know Jean’s name. Most hotshot lawyers ignore court staff that they would call the “little people.” They did so at their peril and at their cost. Most of the time, the little people were, in fact, the best people.
    I had peace in the chambers at last. Victor was in the outer reception, trying to turn on the photocopier. Once he got it working, I would just need to photocopy a couple of pages and blow them up so the jury could take a better look. I spread out some papers on the desk and stared into space, letting the plan come to me. My head still hurt from the punch I’d taken to the back of the head in the limo. If I was to even attempt to double-cross the Russians, I had to put them at their ease, get them to trust me—so they would stop looking over my shoulder. My dad told me you can’t con an honest man, but the hard part was getting the dishonest mark to trust you. Good fraud was all about trust.
    “Volchek,” I said. He gestured for me to sit next to him on one of the couches. “Your former lawyers were all excellent, talented professionals. You don’t need me to tell you that, right? You know these guys are at the top of their game. They told you the handwriting expert would kill your defense.”
    Volchek’s every action seemed halting, considered,