The Laws of Our Fathers Page 7

'What if we continue the case?' I finally ask. This is what I have been waiting for Molto to suggest. 'In a couple of weeks this story will be forgotten and whatever benefit the state has gotten by virtue of the leak will be dissipated.'

  'Your Honor,' says Turtle, 'leaving aside the personal inconvenience - I've come from DC, gotten myself settled here - but leaving that aside, Judge, my client has a right to a speedy trial. He wants that speedy trial, and it shouldn't be delayed because of the prosecutors' misconduct.'

  Smooth, clever, Hobie knows he has the advantage and presses it. Molto, true to courthouse legend, seems determined not to give me - or himself - any help. He again urges questioning the jury pool right now. Singh, with his sleek black hair, stands behind Tommy, with one hand on Molto's jacket sleeve, not completely certain about whether he wants to stand ground with Molto or retreat.

  'Gentlemen,' I say eventually, 'something's got to give. I'm not going to continue the case over the objections of both parties. I'm not going to dismiss the indictment. And I'm not going to allow the prosecution to make an uncombated opening statement in the newspapers and force the defendant to pick a jury out of a pool exposed to that.' I stare them down, all three men - Tommy, Hobie, Singh with his large doe eyes - all looking up to me with evident bemusement. Silence, the spectacular silence of two hundred persons rendered mute, veils the courtroom.

  Finally, Hobie asks for a moment and strolls off with his client. As Nile listens, the dark dot left by the earring he has removed for the sake of a good impression appears distinctly when he nervously sweeps back his hair. Returning to the podium, Hobie uses his bulk to move Tommy aside.

  'There is one alternative which we can offer that would let us get started,' Hobie announces. 'My client and I are willing to proceed with trial to the court alone.'

  A current of something - shock, dismay - lights me up. This time, finally, I catch myself and maintain a collected expression.

  'Mr Molto?' I manage. 'What's your position on a bench trial?'

  'Your Honor,' Hobie interjects, 'they don't have a right to a position. If you won't do it, the defendant can't make you, we realize that, but this is none of the state's affair.'

  'You're certainly correct, Mr Turtle. But given the disclosures the court has made, I really would not exercise my discretion to accept a bench trial if the state for any reason felt that was not a wise course. Mr Molto?'

  'Judge, all I know is I got up this morning ready to try this case. I agree with Mr Tuttle. We don't have the right to a position. And if I had a position, and if Your Honor was willing to get on with openings and the witnesses, I'd be very happy.' Listening to Tommy insist again on moving ahead, I finally catch the drift. The prosecutors have a problem with their case. They've gummed things back together for right now, but it's going to go from bad to worse with time. Probably one of their witnesses has had a change of heart. Hardcore, perhaps? Someone important.

  But does that mean I have to say yes to a bench trial? The older judges always tell you not to rush. They have a dozen sayings:

  'There's no stopwatch on the court reporter's transcript.' 'The court of appeals won't reverse for delay of game.' I find myself staring down into the open pages of my bench book. It's an oversized volume, with a red clothbound spine, heavy stock pages lined in green, feathered edges, and a cover clad in rough black Moroccan leather. On the spine, my name has been impressed in gold. In the quaintest of courthouse customs, the book was presented to me when I took the bench, a judge's diary, the place for private notes about each trial. The pages before me are blank, as undetermined as I am.

  Decide, I tell myself, as I so often do. In this job, deliberation is respected. Indecision is not. My work, in the end, is simply that, deciding, saying yes or no. But it's hard labor for the natively ambivalent. There's no other job I know of that more reliably reveals the shortcomings of a personality than being a judge. The pettish grow even more short-tempered; the silently injured can become power-mad or abusive. For someone who can spend a tortured moment before the closet, picking a dress, this work can be maddening. I'm supposed to let the conclusions roll forth as if they were natural and predetermined, as if it were as easy as naming my favorite color (blue). But I wait now, as I often do, silently hoping that some alternative, some forceful thought or feeling, will expose itself. The years roll on and life seems like this more and more, that choices don't really exist in the way I thought they would when I was a child and expected the regal power of adulthood to provide clarity and insight. Instead, choice and need seem indistinguishable. In the end, I find myself clutched by the resentment, which I still think of as peculiarly female, of being so often the victim of circumstance and time.

  'Mr Eddgar,' I say and call him forward. I explain to Nile what it means to have a bench trial, that I alone will decide whether or not he is guilty, and ask if he's willing to give up his right to a jury-

  'That's what we want,' he replies. Perhaps because it's the first sound of Nile's voice since the start of these proceedings, the remark takes me aback. What does that mean? 'What we want'? He's going to get it, notwithstanding.

  'Trial shall be to the court. What are your thoughts on scheduling, gentlemen?' After discussion, Hobie and Molto decide they're better off spending the balance of the morning on stipulations, hoping to agree about certain facts now that there's no need to educate - or fool - a jury. 'If you care to make opening statements, I will hear them immediately after my bond call at 2 p.m.' I point to Marietta, seated below me on the first tier of the bench, and tell her to call a recess.

  The courtroom springs to life with an urgent buzz. A bench trial! The court buffs and cops and reporters mingle, exchanging speculations as they head into the corridor. I converse with Marietta about discharging the seventy-five citizens who've been summoned as prospective jurors. Then I gather the bench book and the court file. A day at a time, I tell myself. Weary already, I sink down the stairs.

  'Judge? Can I talk to you?'

  When I look back it's Seth Weissman, hunched somewhat timorously beside the front corner of the bench. A little squeeze of something tightens my heart, but I'm struck principally by the way he's addressed me. It must have been less peculiar to be a judge back in the Age of Manners, or even thirty years ago, when the lines of authority were more absolute. These days the attendant reverence can seem downright inane. People who were grown-ups when I was a child stand a few feet below me and, at their most casual, address me as 'Judge.' To hear it from the first man outside my family who ever said 'I love you' raises the implausibility of these customs to dizzying heights.

  'Seth,' I say. 'How are you?'

  Something - a sense of the momentousness of time - swims through his expression.

  'Bald,' he answers, summoning in one word the boy I knew: funny, vulnerable, always willing to accept a helping hand.

  I try a straight face that doesn't last. 'Is my line "I hadn't noticed"?'

  'I'd settle for "It's nice to see you." ' 'It is, Seth.'

  'Good,' he says, then hangs midair. ‘I just wanted to apologize,' he says. 'You know, the acoustics were kind of startling.'

  I dispense a forgiving backhand wave. He asks how I am.

  'Busy. Crazy with my life like everybody else. But okay. And you, Seth? I can only imagine how proud you are of your success.'

  He worms around, an aw-shucks routine meant to suggest it's all beyond him. More than ten years ago I first saw a column by Michael Frain. I was sure the name was a coincidence. The Michael I knew could never have become a master of the quick shot or the snappy bon mot. Then a year later I saw a picture, which was unmistakably Seth's. What in the world? I thought. How did this happen? Questions whose answers I still want to know.

  At times since, I've looked at the somewhat whimsical photo (conveniently cropped just above the brow) and the accompanying columns, wondering about this man with whom I parted company with the usual tangled feelings, but no deepening regrets. I liked Seth. I lost him. There w
ere half a dozen others about whom the same might be said, even, if I'm feeling mellow, Charlie. Sometimes - especially when something he writes has struck me funny - I have recalled distinctly the droll delivery of Seth's somewhat monotonous Midwestern voice, in which the glottal Fs rasp in a minor speech impediment. At other moments, he can disappoint me. Always the sucker for easy laughs, he is sometimes too quick to flay targets already tattered by public scorn, and he occasionally displays certain ungenerous retrograde political opinions, a former leftist too eager to show he's wised up. At his best, though, he can be quick and penetrating, putting down a line or two that seems to sum up all the world's sadness. Even so, these commonplaces often perplex me. What could have brought that on? I'll wonder. Or even worse, I'll imagine all of it was there in the sweet, funny boy who whirled through my life, and that I overlooked it because I was so busy seeking within myself. Was it? How did I miss it? Where was it hidden? Those questions also linger.

  'You were always funny,' I tell him. 'I didn't realize you were wise.'

  'You can create a lot of illusions in eight hundred words.' 'Oh, you're very good, Seth. Everybody likes what you write. My minute clerk acts as if I used to hang out with Mick Jagger.' 'Wait till she hears me sing.'

  I actually laugh. 'Still a smart guy,' I say and he seems pleased to find his character so well remembered.

  'I've always told Lucy, that's what I want on my gravestone: "Now what, smartass?"'

  With that, the rear door bangs open and Marietta bulls a few steps into the courtroom. She's headed for the bench with a sheaf of draft orders when she catches sight of us and goes completely still. She turns heel abruptly, leaving the courtroom as it was, empty and hushed.

  'So I take it I can look forward to a column about all of this?' I ask. My index finger circles toward the courtroom.

  '' 'The Big Chill Meets Perry Mason"?' He laughs at the notion. 'Maybe. It's an amazing curiosity, isn't it? Coincidence. Whatever you'd call it. Everybody together? I had to see it.'

  ‘I take it from the way you were giving Hobie the business, you're still close with him?'

  He laughs about that, too. That's how Seth heard about the case, I suspect, from Hobie, but now that I'm asking questions about the defense lawyer I realize I've probably already let this conversation go further than I should. I offer my hand and tell Seth I'm on my way.

  'Is it crazy for me to say let's have a cup of coffee?' he asks.

  'Not crazy. But probably inappropriate.'

  'We don't have to talk about the case.'

  'We can't talk about the case. That's why I'm going to bid you farewell. The case will end. We'll talk then.'

  'Is there a rule here or something? I'm just asking.'

  'You could call it a rule. My practice is to make sure that nobody has anything to worry about. I have lawyers in front of me all the time who I know well, but generally, while a trial's ongoing, I don't pass the time with them - or their close friends.'

  'Sonny, really, I don't have a clue about this case. Honestly. Hobie's got me in an isolation booth.'

  We both turn abruptly again. Marietta has walked into the empty courtroom once more, using the front entrance this time and arriving purposefully on the other side of the bench. She's a caution: a lot of busy officiousness, shuffling files and humming to herself. Nonetheless, her full, dark eyes slide over this way with foxy calculation and I meet them with a look that sends her back out like mercury.

  'Really, Seth, it's wonderful to see you. You seem well. And I look forward to sitting down with you as soon as this case is over, to hear about everything you've been up to.'

  'How about you?'

  I thought we covered this ground already, but I answer that I'm fine.

  'Married?'

  I hum a bit, not sure when I should simply quit. ‘I seem to have passed through that phase.' 'Kids? Do you have kids?' 'A daughter who just turned six.' 'Six!' He's impressed.

  'Late start,' I answer. 'What about you, Seth? From the column, I think I've counted what, two children?'

  A knotted expression tightens his long face as I continue slipping farther away. He tells me that his older child, his daughter, is a college senior. At Easton, he says, his alma mater, an admission that brings forth the same wondering, self-conscious grin.

  'Great school,' he adds. 'Astonishing tuition, but a great education. That's another reason I'm here. I get to see a little more of her.'

  I nod again and say something polite. How wonderful. I pull open the door.

  'It's just,' he says and stops. He's stepped nearer. 'What?'

  'How many people do you get close to in a life?' he asks. ‘I feel really badly I lost track of you.'

  'We'll make amends, Seth. Just not now.' 'Sure.'

  I offer my hand again. He takes it, with a bewildered, defeated look, and holds on just a bit longer than he should before letting go-

  A bench trial is still a trial. When it's over the defendant is just as guilty - or not guilty - his prison sentence can be as long. When I was practicing I always felt the same high anxiety at the moment of decision which I did confronting a jury's verdict. But a bench trial is usually conducted without the same atmosphere of flamboyance or chicanery. Frequently, the bench trial is the refuge of the lawyer with a technical defense, an argument too intricate, or offensive, for lay people to freely accept. With a judge as the decision-maker, instead of rubes off the street, the proceedings are usually more understated, sometimes even more legalistic.

  Nonetheless, there's an alert air in the courtroom this afternoon. The spectators' section remains cheek to jowl, but there's more room in the well of the court, since the journalists have repositioned themselves in the jury box. All sixteen seats are occupied by reporters and sketch artists, while a number of latecomers have helped themselves to chairs from the counsel tables, which Annie has discreetly positioned in the corners of the courtroom, against the glass partition to the spectators' gallery. In the front row, Stew Dubinsky is getting it from two colleagues, who are clearly ribbing him. I can imagine what that's about: Stewie gets more leaks than a plumber. Beside Stew, Seth Weissman sits in his rumpled blazer. The man with a national byline, Seth is clearly a center of attention. In spite of the call to order, one of the TV guys has slunk along the jury rail to shake his hand and pass a word which entertains them both.

  Marietta cries out the case name and the three lawyers step forward. Nile lingers closer to the defense table, where two square leather document cases and a banker's box are piled.

  'All set?' I ask.

  Everyone answers ready for trial. Joint motions to exclude witnesses from the courtroom are granted. I take a breath. 'Opening statements?'

  'Your Honor,' Hobie says, 'I'd like to reserve my opening until after the prosecution has put on their evidence.' His motion, a matter of right, is allowed. In one of those untutored gestures of power which I was astounded to find came so naturally to me, I lift my hand to Molto.

  'May it please the court,' says Tommy, and waits for the courtroom to settle. The other participants now are seated and Tommy has the floor to himself. In the intense light over the podium, his scalp shines amid his sparse hair, held fast by spray.

  'Judge, since Mr Tuttle is going to pass up opening for the moment, I can make this brief. I know you'll want to hear the evidence yourself. So let me just outline what the People will be proving.

  'The state will show that the defendant, Nile Eddgar' - Nile has looked up at his name and now uncomfortably meets the prosecutor's glance, as Molto turns. It strikes me that Nile's eyes are the same penetrating marine shade as his father's, but his are fear-beset and seldom still - 'we will show that Nile Eddgar was not only a participant in a conspiracy to murder but, in fact, the prime mover. It is a conspiracy that went tragically awry, but a conspiracy to murder nonetheless. What the evidence will show is that Nile Eddgar asked his co-indictee, his co-defendant, Ordell Trent, to murder Nile's father, Dr Loyell Eddgar. Mr Trent is a member of
the Black Saints Disciples, Judge. He is a gang member. He is a drug dealer. He is a repeat felon. And he was Nile Eddgar's friend.'

  'Objection,' says Hobie. I am pleased to see him take the trouble to rise, a gesture of respect the PAs often overlook when there is no jury present. His yellow pad is open before him on the light oval of the counsel table. Behind him, Nile, making his own notes, has looked up, startled. 'Guilt by association?' Hobie asks.

  'Sustained,' I say mildly. A small point. Hobie is merely trying to break Tommy's rhythm. Even Molto recognizes this and accepts the ruling indifferently.

  'Nile Eddgar and Mr Trent, whose gang name is Hardcore, first became acquainted,' Molto says, 'because Mr Eddgar - Nile, as I'll call the defendant to distinguish him from his father - Nile was Mr Trent's probation officer. He was - and I'm sure it's not disputed - Nile Eddgar was a probation officer in this very courthouse. And somehow, and you will hear this from Mr Trent, he, Hardcore, and Nile developed a personal relationship, a friendship of kinds. And as a result of this close acquaintance, it eventually came to pass that Hardcore also came to know Nile's father, the state senator from the 39th District, Dr Loyell Eddgar. Dr Eddgar, who is an ordained minister and a college professor, as well as an elected representative, will testify for the state.'

  Perhaps he's a Scout leader, too, and also helps old ladies cross the street? I grin privately at Tommy's paean to his witness.

  'Dr Eddgar's acquaintance, Senator Eddgar's acquaintance with Hardcore is complicated and it will be described in the testimony. But suffice it to say, Judge, there were political aspects to it. Senator Eddgar will tell you frankly that politics were involved. At any rate, because Mr Trent had also met Senator Eddgar, the senator was a frequent subject of discussion between Nile and Mr Trent, and it came out over time that Nile Eddgar, the defendant, resented his father. He hated his father, Judge.

  'Now, the evidence will show, Judge, that one day in September, the week of Labor Day, Nile Eddgar urged Senator Eddgar to meet with Hardcore. Nile told his father Hardcore had something important to discuss with him. And Senator Eddgar agreed to meet. What he did not know was that his son, Nile Eddgar, had promised to pay Hardcore $25,000 if Hardcore would arrange to murder his father. He did not know that Nile Eddgar had made a $10,000 down payment.' Tommy with his notes on yellow sheets looks up at me for the first time. 'The People, Judge, will offer in evidence cash, currency that Ordell Trent received from Nile Eddgar on which Nile Eddgar's fingerprints have been identified.'