Free Prosecution: A Legal Thriller by D.W. Buffa Page B

changing
expression of the anchorwoman as she introduced each segmented
story, all of them no doubt matters of great urgency and none of
them lasting for more than twenty seconds.
     
    "Would you mind turning on the volume?" I asked the
bartender suddenly. The district attorney was making a
statement.
     
    "Sure," he replied, wiping a glass with a bar towel.
Reaching up, he turned the set loud enough for me to hear what she
was saying. Gwendolyn Gilliland-O'Rourke was getting older. The
flame-red hair was turning to a brownish rust, and her green eyes
no longer seemed quite so bright. But if she looked a little
different, she still sounded the same. Standing just outside her
office, the words OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY plainly visible,
she read from a prepared text the announcement of an arrest.
     
    "After a lengthy investigation, conducted in the
utmost secrecy by the state police, Marshall Goodwin, chief deputy
district attorney of Multnomah County, has been arrested for the
murder of his wife, Nancy Goodwin, a murder that took place two
years ago.
     
    "At my direction," she went on, staring straight into
the camera, "Mr. Goodwin was taken into custody this afternoon.
Because Mr. Goodwin, who was first appointed by my predecessor,
Judge Horace Woolner, has served as chief deputy district attorney,
it has been decided that to avoid any suggestion of either
favoritism on the one hand or undue severity on the other, a
special prosecutor should be appointed to bring the State's case
against the defendant. I am pleased to announce that the state will
be represented by one of the preeminent defense lawyers in Oregon,
Joseph Antonelli."
     
    The camera left her answering the questions of
reporters and returned to the newsroom anchorwoman. "Marshall
Goodwin, chief deputy district attorney, considered the logical
choice to become district attorney next year when
Gilliland-O'Rourke makes her expected bid to become the State's
governor, has been arrested on a charge of murder. In a surprising
twist, criminal defense attorney Joseph Antonelli will serve as the
prosecutor in the case. We tried to contact Mr. Antonelli, but so
far we have been unable to reach him."
     
    I got up from the bar and paid the bill. Outside, I
turned my collar up and hunched my shoulders, trying to keep dry in
the endless drizzle. Across the street, a few people were lining up
at the box office of the theater. For a while, I walked aimlessly,
marveling at my own stupidity. I could almost see Goodwin marching
into Gilliland-O'Rourke's office to tell her he had just learned he
was about to be charged with the murder of his wife. And I could
see her, one of the most ruthless people I had ever known, giving
him all the assurances of a friend and then, as soon as he was
gone, making arrangements to have him arrested.
     
    I had wanted to see Marshall Goodwin's face when he
first heard what Travis Quentin had said because I wanted to be
sure that he was guilty. Instead, all I knew now was that I was
about to prosecute a case against a man who might very well be
innocent.
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
    Like time itself, the law stops for no one. Whether
it is a drunken vagrant charged with the theft of a cheap bottle of
wine or a pillar of the legal community accused of murder, anyone
who is arrested and taken into custody has to be brought into court
within forty-eight hours. When a deputy sheriff escorted the
prisoner to the counsel table to hear for the first time a formal
statement of the charges that were being brought against him,
Marshall Goodwin seemed more embarrassed by the way he was dressed.
The expensive suits and understated ties, tapered shirts, and
tasseled black shoes had been replaced with the shapeless V-neck
blue denim top and baggy drawstring pants that made every inmate
look the same.
     
    Goodwin did not want to look at anyone, and no one
wanted to look at him. Only the monotonous uniformity of the law
saved us from a painful