The Laws of Our Fathers Page 29

  Tommy is waving at his colleague. Rudy bends so Molto can whisper his suggestion.

  'Yes,' says Rudy out loud. 'And in asking you to take on this assignment, sir, did Montague give any indication at that time that Nile Eddgar was a suspect?'

  Hobie objects, but he pursued the issue of when and why Montague began to regard Nile as a suspect. I overrule.

  'We're service, you know?' says Kratzus. 'In CR, we're not on the case. Our job is the public. If somebody's a suspect, Montague would assign one of his people.'

  'Did you in fact see Nile Eddgar?'

  'We did. Addison and I went to his apartment.' Kratzus sighs, minorly disgusted with the state of his memory later in life, and checks his pocket for the report, then fishes a stout finger there again to locate his readers. '2343 Duhaney.' 'And what time was it?'

  'It was after 8 a.m., closer to 8:30. I was afraid at that hour we mighta missed him, but he was there. We had to pound awhile, but he come to the door. I identified my office. Somewhere in there we had to ask him to turn down the music actually, then I asked was he a relation to June Eddgar, he says he's the son, and I told him I was very sad -' Kratzus's hand does two forward flips. Etcetera, he means. 'And I give him the news. All what Montague told me. Just that one-liner, you know, that she'd been shot dead down at Grace Street.'

  'And did he have any reaction that you were able to observe?'

  'Pretty doggone strange,' says Kratzus.

  'Oh, object!' Hobie loudly declares and shimmies his entire upper body in disapproval.

  I strike the answer and direct Kratzus to tell the court precisely what the defendant said and did. He takes in my instruction slowly. There are plenty of police officers, bureaucrats, departmental politicos who get through thirty years on the Force with barely half a dozen court appearances. Kratzus seems like one of them.

  'He give us a look. First off, it's a look. Kind of, you know, "Wait a minute." Not so much he doesn't believe it as it doesn't make sense.'

  'Your Honor,' says Hobie.

  'Mr Turtle, I'm going to accord the testimony the weight I feel it deserves.'

  Kratzus has turned himself around in the witness chair to face me, too stiff and bulky to do so with ease, but eager to address me almost conversationally. His powder-blue coat bunches up thickly and the unbarbered fuzz of hairs on the back of his neck shows up, the filaments refracting the courtroom lights. He goes on explaining to me, notwithstanding the objection.

  'I do this a lot, Judge. All kind of circumstances. Little old ladies dyin in bed. Suicides. Car wrecks. And people respond different. I'm the first to tell you that. But this was strange.'

  'Sergeant,' I say, 'just stick with the outward behavior. What he said, what he did. How did he appear?'

  'You know, Judge, it's the glazed look, his mouth is hangin open. Then he's gonna talk, then he doesn't. Finally, he takes himself and sits down on his sofa and says, "My father was supposed to be goin over there." Like he's explaining something. And that's it. For maybe ten seconds. Then suddenly, he starts in to cry.'

  Rudy takes over again. 'Did you have further conversation, Sergeant, after he declared, "My father was supposed to go over there"?' Good prosecutorial question, driving home the critical line of testimony.

  'We did. We told him where the remains would be and how they could be claimed. We give him a card with the P P' s number.' The Police Pathologist's. 'He was pretty shook up by then, so we left.'

  'And following the interview, what did you do?'

  'Back to the Hall. I left a message in voice mail for Montague, I needed to speak with him a.s.a.p.'

  'And in your ordinary practice, would you be wanting to speak to the investigating detective?'

  'Object,' says Hobie again tiredly. He doesn't bother to rise. The body language suggests another silly excess by the PAs. Hobie's objections have been well timed and usually on point, so that by now I've developed a reflex that he's correct. But I recognize this time he's trying to gull me.

  'No, I'll hear this.'

  'Generally, we have no need. You know, maybe I'll leave a message, "We done like you asked," I'll send up a 5-sheet' - a police report, named long ago in the days when there were five layers, with carbons - 'but you know, most times they got no need to hear from us.'

  'So what if anything motivated your call to the lieutenant?'

  'Judge,' implores Hobie.

  'I'll sustain now.' But the point is made: Old plowhorse or not, Kratzus thought the kid was wrong. He was taking something off him and knew Montague ought to get a detective out to see Nile, find out what the hell he meant that his father was supposed to have been there.

  Rudy sits. I nod to Hobie for his cross.

  'Just a few questions,' he begins. It's more than that, but he accomplishes little. Kratzus admits he's seen lots of strange reactions when he's imparted news of a loved one's death. And Hobie combats the implication of Rudy's question about the time of the visit, which suggested that Nile was late for work and might have been waiting at home for a call, by pointing out that loud music was on, which would have made it hard to hear the phone.

  'And you say that you're not sent out to speak with suspects, right?'

  'Not generally.'

  'And who was it Montague was going to talk to?'

  'The father,' says Kratzus. Catching the drift, he adds, "Cause it was his car. You figure he'd know what she was doin down there.'

  'Okay,' says Hobie, unwilling to press the point. A few questions later he terminates the cross. Significantly, he does not dispute the accuracy of Kratzus's memory. That means Kratzus wrote a report that day, and that his partner, Addison, will back him up. Kratzus, with his bulk, heads out the doors of the courtroom, but stops at the prosecution table to shake hands. He did a good job.

  Aside from the fingerprints on the money, this is the best piece of evidence the state has offered yet. One statement. One line. Yet it has a clear impact: Nile expected Eddgar to be there; Nile expressed surprise not that there had been a shooting but only who its victim was. The first questions anyone, no matter how shocked, normally would ask are, Who shot her? Why? How could this have happened? I have my eyes closed, letting the proof work its way down through the emotional latticework. My reaction creates a lingering moment of gravity that grips the entire courtroom. When I look up, both prosecutors are watching me tensely.

  I call the lunch recess then, but don't get out the door. By the time I've conferred briefly with Marietta about the 2:00 call, Molto is in front of the bench. Hobie, typically, has found a way to disrupt Molto's calm. Tommy is livid, red up to his hairline. Hobie has presented Tommy with defense exhibits: Nile's 1994 tax return, his 1995 wage records, his bankbooks, his checking account statements. Molto waves all these documents about and finally lays them before me.

  'Judge, we should have received these documents before trial.'

  'What's the point of them?' I ask.

  'I don't care what the point is, really. He's not supposed to be producing exhibits now. And he won't say what the point is. We've asked him six times.'

  'Mr Turtle?'

  'Really, Your Honor,' he says, with a sweet little smile. 'Are you declining to say?'

  'No, I'll say. I'll say. I'd have thought it would be obvious to these prosecutors. But I guess not. The point, Your Honor, is that there is not a cash withdrawal exceeding $300 in all of 1995, which is not surprising, since my client's savings never were greater than $3,200.' Nile didn't have the money to pay Hardcore, not $10,000 cash, that's the point.

  Tommy explodes again. Sandbagging, he calls it. Which is exactly what it is. Tommy goes on at high volume, ignoring Singh's efforts to soothe him.

  'Mr Turtle,' I say, ‘I can't see how you could have failed to think about these records before.'

  'Your Honor, what about them?’ He points. 'Really, Judge Klonsky. Here they are, planning to put a witness on the stand to claim my client paid him $10,000 in cash, and they haven't bothered asking themselv
es where the money came from? It's not a secret my client files tax returns or has a bank account. They should have thought of this, too. And the defense discovery response notified them we might put in these records.'

  Hobie hands up a boilerplate filing the State Defenders use in every case, but he's got a point. 'Bank records' and 'tax records' are mentioned as possible defense exhibits, along with forty or fifty other categories of documentary evidence, everything from pathologists' studies to ballistics reports. Molto, scattershot, never pressed for details and Hobie waited in the weeds. The lawyering life, I think.

  'All right. Mr Turtle, I want you to do a better job getting things to the state. Go through this discovery response and before the weekend produce any exhibits you might use. This is the last surprise, do you hear me? Given the state's lack of diligence in demanding production, I'm not going to exclude. But I won't be so generous next time.'

  At my ruling, Tommy groans out loud. Singh attempts to drag off Molto, who, in spite of his soft, unathletic shape, has struck a bantam pose in the well of the courtroom, facing Hobie like he's spoiling for a fight. Tommy is still too furious to see that he's been outflanked again by Hobie. The good trial lawyer always wants the state's best evidence quickly forgotten. Instead of mulling over Kratzus's direct, I'm now heading off to lunch asking myself where Nile could have gotten the money he supposedly gave Hardcore. Did he borrow it? Steal it? Hobie's right. Molto should have thought of this. Then again, Nile's fingerprints are on the money. That will be Tommy's answer in the end: it happened. The devil finds a way. It happened.

  As the courtroom comes back to life, I remain a minute on the bench, assessing all of this, then find, as I gather my things, I'm facing the jury box again. Seth, once more, is waiting for me to take note of him there. By now, there is a rhythm to this, as if he knows I'll only have time to acknowledge him at the end of the session. Yesterday afternoon, I was somewhat alarmed to find him gone. I didn't know if it was the sweaty mess he'd made of his sport coat or, as I suspected, the heavy load of what we'd been discussing which kept him from returning. I was unsettled myself. To lose a child! The thought came hurtling at me all night. We never remember that even a century ago, this shroud, this burden, was commonplace. Talk about improving our quality of life!

  But Seth looks all right now. He greets me with a chipper little smile and then a wink. Like all his gestures this week, it's slightly forward but too well-meant to do any real harm. Hello, he's saying. I'm here now, I'm okay. We're friends. And to my mild amazement, I find, before I've had time to think better of it, I've winked back.

  'Ordell Trent!' Small, sallow, mussed as the weekend approaches, Tommy Molto bleats the name when I tell the prosecution to call its next witness, as we settle in after lunch.

  'Ordell Trent!' Annie repeats. The name rolls on twice more, the transport deputy at the door shouting to a colleague in the rear, the second one yelling into the cage for Ordell to bring himself to the door. The keys jangle. Through the wall we hear the solid rumble of the lockup door sliding back, and the second deputy loudly warning one of the leftovers from the just-concluded bond call to stand away. Then, after a lingering moment, Hardcore steps into the courtroom. He has been here before, when he entered a guilty plea in late September. But I knew less about him then. Now, like a lion emerging from a cave, Ordell briefly blinks away the harsh fluorescence and serenely takes in a room full of persons somewhat terrified by what they've heard about him. Behold: the killer.

  'Mr Trent.' I point him to the witness stand. His hands are cuffed, and one of the deputies approaches to release him. Then Hardcore, somewhat stout, hugely muscled across the chest, slopes toward me, with sufficient assurance to make it a mildly uncomfortable moment.

  'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?'

  'Sure do.' He drops his hand and settles in the witness chair.

  Tommy is at the podium. His brief preparatory cough resounds through the courtroom, over which a deliberative stillness has fallen. Even Nile, in a blue blazer today, appears sufficiently focused to be taken as tense.

  Hardcore states his name and present residence in the KCJ, Kindle County Jail.

  'Are you known by any other name?'

  'Gangster tag.' He rolls out the word: 'Hardcore.'

  'Why don't you spell it for the reporter?' Tommy suggests.

  'Oh, now,' says Hardcore. 'Get spelled any number of ways. H, a, r, d, k, o, r, p, s. Thass one I seen.' On the walls. He probably never has cause to write it himself. An odd thought: this name, this word, does not have a parallel existence in the world of letters - it's like some subatomic particle that exists only in physicists' calculations. Gang life is out there somewhere, an intense physical reality with no tie to a more refined realm of symbols.

  On the stand, Hardcore looks determinedly relaxed, slumping a bit. In the gallery, amid the faces, I'm sure there are many T-4 Rollers, come to see Core. As a result, he will not allow himself to appear awed. The truth of gang life is that many are primarily hangers-on, gawkers, lookouts, the adoring masses through whom the true thugs promote their name. In other words, as it often is with kids: one bad actor and ten who think he's cool.

  Hardcore is well rehearsed and far more co-operative than Bug. Tommy leads him along carefully. The prosecutors' strategy is apparent. As with Lovinia, they have made, quite literally, no effort to dress up Hardcore. He sits here in the sheriff’s-department' s blue coveralls, an ever-present reminder of his guilty plea and his acknowledged complicity in the crime. Like Bug, Core's clearly been told to be himself. He talks the same language he speaks outside. Tommy wants me to remember at all moments that this is the murdering hoodlum whom Nile Eddgar took up with as a friend.

  Consistent with this plan, the first thing Tommy brings out is Core's lengthy juvenile record and his two earlier felony convictions as an adult, both for distribution of narcotics. His initial penitentiary sentence, at the age of nineteen, was for three years. His second - for possession of fourteen ounces of cocaine recovered from a car he was driving - was ten years, no parole. He got out four years ago. Like Lovinia, Hardcore has made an impressive deal in exchange for his testimony: twenty years for conspiracy to murder, which will amount to ten years inside. The criminal justice system recognizes the same rule as accountants: First in, first out. The flipper has to be rewarded.

  'Now prior to your present incarceration, Mr Trent, what was your profession?'

  'Gangster,' he answers.

  'Were you a member of any criminal organization?'

  'BSD,' he says, 'be for me.' A familiar slogan. Hardcore amuses himself. The sandy scratchings of a goatee frame his mouth and his large teeth have a yellowish cast when he smiles.

  'What was your position in BSD?'

  'Top Rank.'

  'Were you one of the leaders of the gang, one of the shot-callers?' 'S'pose so.' 'Who is above you?' 'J. T-Roc. Kan-el.' Tommy identifies them by name.

  ' And how, sir, did you make a living prior to your incarceration?'

  'Slanging.'

  'Slanging?'

  'Slanging dope.' 'Hanging, banging, and slanging' is the motto of gang life. In that street doggerel, slang, which originally meant to talk the talk, now is the term for selling drugs - a telling change.

  'What kind of dope did you slang?'

  'Mostly crack. Some wire.' Wire is another name for speed.

  'Anything else?'

  'Oh yeah,' says Hardcore mildly. Core, who is yet to be sentenced and not eager to make himself look any worse, is sluggish with his responses, but Tommy persists and forces him to admit he also sold PCP, methadone, rock cocaine, heroin, and some stolen prescription drugs. He had an organization, he says, of at least ten people working for him, which included Lovinia. 'And do you know Nile Eddgar?'

  His face broadened with surly amusement, Core's thick eyes find the defendant. Hobie nudges his client and Nile, with one hand on the chair arm, as if he needs a boost, rises for
the formal courtroom identification. Core continues smiling after pointing him out. Nile takes his seat, face averted, cowed and shaken, while Hardcore continues to smile.

  'How did you come to know the defendant?'

  'He my PO.'

  'Your probation officer?'

  'He keepin his eye on me for the court.' Parole has been abolished in this state in most instances. Instead, narcotics offenses and certain other crimes carry a period of supervised release.

  'How long has he been your PO?'

  'Seem like a year nearly. Had me couple others.'

  'And how often did you see Nile?'

  'Oh, you know, up the top, once a month.'

  'And where did you see him?'

  'T-4.'

  'And what was the reason for his visit?'

  'You know, man. Kinda check me out.'

  'Eventually, did you begin to see him more often?'

  'Yeah, how it come down, man got to be PO for a whole damn bunch of T-4's.'

  'He was assigned to be PO to other members of the T-4 Roller set of the Black Saints Disciples?'

  'Right,' says Core.

  'Do you know how that came about?' 'Seem like he think he be kinda slammin, kickin it with us.' I sustain Hobie's objection to the witness testifying about the defendant's state of mind. Tommy tries it again.

  'Did he tell you he'd asked for the assignment?' Hardcore actually appears to ponder. 'Yeah, man, cause how it were, I 'member him comin out one day -' 'When?' asks Tommy.

  'Say like December, and you know, I'm like, "Dang, bo, you gettin in my shit, seein you mo than bad weather."

  'And he sayin like lot them POs don't wanna get with it at the IV Tower, get they asses shot and shit, and he like, he don't mind none. You know, so he goin, "Gimme they-all, they down by me."'