by Robert Daley
At the entrance to the market the limousine was tied up in traffic as trucks of all sizes came and went. Finally Karen and Coombs got out and walked forward.
It was almost 7 AM and getting light fast. They moved through the market, dodging hand trucks and roughly dressed men, until they came to a flower stall. Karen handed money across and came away with a mixed bunch of cut flowers: gladiolas, carnations, roses. The two prosecutors came to another stall selling coffee and donuts. They could smell the coffee brewing. They could smell the donuts too.
"Do we have time?" asked Coombs.
"An easy day like this one?" said Karen. "Sure."
They stood sipping coffee. Karen held her flowers. The life of the market went on all around them.
Thirty minutes later she entered her new office. Betty was already at her desk. She looked prim, uptight, as if still in mourning for her late boss.
"Morning, Betty.” Karen held out the flowers. "I brought you these."
A smile came onto the woman's face, but she quickly erased it, and she laid the flowers down on her desk.
"Thank you Mrs. Henning."
"Yesterday you would have called me Karen."
"Yesterday you were not the district attorney."
"I'm still not," said Karen with a smile. "Only interim. I'm not the man who was here before."
Betty sighed. "He was a great man."
"It would take me eight terms to fill his shoes and somehow I don't think I'll last that long."
There was a pause. Neither woman seemed to know what to say next.
"I never asked you," said Karen. "Do you have children?"
"I have a son. He's a teacher."
"My husband is a teacher.” And then after a pause: "Betty, I don't know what your plans are, but I need your help. This is the biggest job any woman ever had in this city. I need your help so badly. If you retire or resign--if you leave me--I hope you'll stay. Please stay."
There was a long hesitation. Just then the budget man came into the office. His name was Werner, Karen remembered.
"Good morning, good morning," he said. "Carl Werner from budget and management, Mrs. Henning.” His hand was out. "And congratulations on your appointment."
She shook his hand. "Thank you," she said.
Werner said: "And now I have some papers for you to sign."
Karen led the way into her new office. "Will you come in too, please, Betty."
Betty followed them in. Werner put a sheaf of papers down on Karen's desk and held out a pen. "You sign right here," he said, pointing.
Karen took the pen but protested immediately. "It's going to take me a while to read all this, Mr. Werner."
"If these papers are not signed, nobody gets paid this week.”
She was not going to be pressured into signing she knew not what. "You can't expect me to sign without reading them," she said. When this sounded harsher than she intended, she added in a mild voice: "What would my lawyer say?"
"It's urgent, Mrs. Henning. It really has to be signed right now."
Betty had been studying the papers over Karen's shoulder. Karen, who didn't know what to do, looked at her, and she gave a nod. Karen signed and handed the papers back.
"Next time," she told Werner, "I'd like to have them well in advance."
"And so you shall," said the budget man. "Take a look at these now.” He pushed other papers in front of her.
"I don't have much time."
"As a matter of fact, I need to sit down with you for a couple of hours."
Karen was looking over the second batch of papers. "Are these urgent too?"
"Well, not as urgent as the first ones."
"I really can't get to them immediately."
Werner frowned. "How soon can we arrange to meet?"
"Can it wait a week or two?"
"I'm sorry, it can't."
"Alright. Work it out with Betty. Early morning or late at night. In between I'm in court, I'm afraid."
Werner gathered up all his papers. "Have a nice day, Mrs. Henning," he said, and went out.
Karen gazed down on copies of the papers she had signed and was uncomfortable. She had been a lawyer fifteen years. To sign something without reading it was unthinkable.
Betty appeared to understand what she felt. "The chief signed them once a month for all eight terms," she said encouragingly. "You don't have to worry."
Karen turned to her. "You see how much I need you, Betty. Please tell me you'll stay."
The two women gazed at each other. Then Betty gave a barely perceptible nod. Karen smiled gratefully, and they shook hands.
As Betty started back to her desk, Karen called after her: "When Mr. Harbison comes, please send him in."
Waiting, she stood over her desk still studying the papers she had signed.
Behind her back, Harbison entered. To attract her attention, he coughed.
"Oh, Norm. You startled me. Good morning."
Harbison only looked at her.
Through the open doorway she could see Betty watching them.
"Would you close the door please, Norm."
Harbison did so.
This was followed by a pause in which they eyed each other somewhat warily.
Karen needed to get a sense of the mood he was in. Why was he staying? What sort of understanding, if any, did he have with the governor? She wasn't sure what to say to him to elicit all this--how to phrase it. "You've been chief assistant since before I came to work here," she began.
Harbison, watching her, nodded slightly.
"The governor says you're willing to stay on," she said, and stopped, hoping he would volunteer something, but when he remained silent she was obliged to add: "If so, that's fine with me."
Again Harbison nodded slightly.
"Nothing would change," Karen continued.
"Nothing?" said Harbison. "Nothing, the lady says."
Karen colored, but recovered her composure quickly. "Your authority and responsibilities would remain the same. You would report directly to me. I would depend on you exactly as much as the old man did."
"More, I would think," said Harbison.
"At first, perhaps. Until this trial is over, anyway."
They gazed at each other.
"The governor thinks very highly of you," said Karen finally.
"Does he now."
"That's the impression I got.”
"That's nice."
She stood in front of her desk, arms folded across her chest, rump resting on the edge. "He was full of praise for you at the ceremony yesterday."
Harbison did not rise to this bait either. He watched her and said nothing.
"Was there perhaps something you'd care to get off your chest?" she said finally.
"No."
"I don't expect you to be happy about what's happened. I do expect the same loyalty and dedication you gave to--my predecessor."
"Anything else?"
"No. I guess not."
Harbison nodded.
As he turned toward the door Karen experienced a sudden rush of fear. No, it was stronger than fear, it was terror. Here she was district attorney and she knew nothing about the job, she would be hopeless in it, she would be found out. Without Harbison she was lost. At any cost she had to keep him.
"There's an election in November," she said to his back. "You'll have another chance then."
Harbison turned and looked at her. "As you say, November."
She watched him go.
But after a moment the terror passed. It was replaced by a kind of fierce stubbornness. I will not be defeated in this job, she told herself. I will win the Epps case, and I will win the election in November.
With that, she picked up the sheaf of telephone messages from yesterday and began to thumb through them. More than twenty of the calls were from people she hadn't seen in years, or knew barely. People who wanted to congratulate her no doubt. She was not a cynical woman--she hoped she wasn't--but she wasn't naive either.
People who thought it worth making contact now, in case they needed a favor later. This idea gave her a sense of power, which in turn gave her confidence and lifted her spirits.
However, they were calls she was supposed to return. If she didn't, these people would think her rude. She didn't like to be thought rude. And another twenty similar messages waiting for her tonight, probably. Maybe more. Each call, if she returned it, would require her to chat. How long would it take to return twenty such calls? And what about all the other calls--there were at least as many--which required action, or were from people she cared about?
She began separating the messages into two piles, even as she glanced at her watch. Some calls she could try to make now, and she carried them out to Betty and asked her to dial them.
Coombs came in. "What did Harbison have to say?"
She started to answer, then stopped. Don't make this young man your confidant, she warned herself. He is not old enough, nor experienced enough, nor of enough rank.
Then she realized no one was of enough rank. She alone was district attorney. She was on top, and she was up there by herself.
"You met with him," said Coombs, "didn't you? How did it go?"
"We'll have to wait and see," she answered vaguely. From now on there were only certain people from whom she could afford to ask advice as needed, and no one in whom she could permit herself to confide.
"Don't turn your back on him," advised Coombs.
"Well, I don't have time to worry about that now."
Her calls began to come in. After a time she took her earring off from under the receiver. She often did this, forgot to put it back when she had hung up, and spent the rest of the day with one earring on, one off. Sometimes when she went looking, she couldn't remember where she left it.
Around the phone calls she and Coombs began to go over today's list of witnesses, and the testimony they expected.
Later they hurried down the corridor toward the courtroom. Both were carrying armloads of dossiers, and they had to dodge cops, jurors, witnesses, spectators, all waiting outside other courtrooms.
When they neared their own courtroom the corridor became even more crowded: great numbers of people were waiting in line to be admitted. Certain of them pointed her out to each other, and called her name. The blinding lights came on and TV cameras filmed her as she and Coombs pushed their way forward.
"I've never seen crowds like this," said Coombs, once they were inside the courtroom.
Obviously Karen's appointment as DA had caused the TV crews to increase yesterday and today. As for the crowds, they had been big all along. Standing room only, like a Broadway play. Normally public interest fell off after the first week, and attendance with it, but that had not happened, presumably because of McCarthy's wild charges which he reiterated in interviews every afternoon on the courthouse steps. They weren't really interviews, they were more like speeches and they kept hitting the same points: corrupt cops trying to murder his client. He dominated the news broadcasts every night. Karen had been interviewed many times too. She had kept insisting that the case was being tried in court, not in the headlines, a much less sensational message to which the news media gave much less play.
"People wait for hours to get in," said Coombs.
And now that she was district attorney, the spotlight was on her and on this case even more than before. All of America was watching now, but without, probably, very much understanding of what was at stake. The split between blacks and whites already existed but there were tentative bridges across the void. If she lost, then in New York at least, and perhaps everywhere, the bridges would collapse. These were the stakes as she saw it. Hatred for the blacks whose streets they patrolled would run unchecked through the police department. Unchecked through most of the white city, too.
The Blacks would match that hate, especially toward the white-controlled police department. This had happened in the days of the Panthers and the Black Liberation Army after all.
In addition a disastrous legal precedent would have been set. Whenever a similar case occurred, lawyers would claim self defense like McCarthy, and sometimes, maybe even often, they would win acquittals, rendering the entire justice system even more ineffective than it was at present.
If she failed, Karen told herself, the bridges would have to be rebuilt from scratch at an enormous cost in money and pain.
And on a personal level, all of America would know she had failed. She had never had any right to lose this case, but if she lost now, it seemed to her, the degree of her humiliation would be like nothing she had ever experienced before.
A police officer in uniform, Schwartz, was on the stand.
"You were on the fire escape," Karen said. "Then what happened?"
"The defendant came running toward the window and--and--"
"I know this is difficult for you, Officer."
"--And he shot me. He nearly took off my arm. My right arm is paralyzed."
McCarthy began his cross examination: "You fired first, Officer Schwartz, is that correct?"
"I have no recollection of firing at all."
"Excuse me, but according to the ballistics technician you did fire."
"His shot hit me in the arm."
"You meant to shoot first, though?"
"Before he shot me? Of course."
"You meant to kill him, but he was too quick for you? You went there with intent to murder him, to silence him once and for all, is that not correct?"
Karen's objections to questions of this kind had become so automatic and so frequent that she had had to begin to vary their tone. Sometimes she jumped up angrily. Sometimes she tried to sound bored. "Objection," she said now in a mild voice, and after Judge Birnbaun had sustained her she continued to speak, letting her anger build slowly for maximum effect. "Would your honor please remind the jury still again that these accusations by Mr. McCarthy are totally unsubstantiated, that if he made them outside of this court of law they would be libelous, that he would be sued, that he would be subject to millions of dollars in damages.” By the end she was almost shouting.
McCarthy said: "I certainly intend to substantiate them, your honor.”
"I'll bet."
"That's enough from both of you," said Judge Birnbaum.
McCarthy returned to his cross examination: "Are you on terminal leave now, Officer?"
"Yes."
"You're retiring. After how many years' service?"
"Four years."
"After four years service you're retiring on three quarters disability pay for life. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars does that add up to? Are you sure you have no feeling in your shooting arm, Officer?"
Karen jumped to her feet. As McCarthy walked away from the witness, she came forward.
"This time you've gone too far, Mr. McCarthy. Your honor, I'd like to ask the witness to approach the jury box, to remove his uniform coat, and to roll up his sleeve."
This was done. A guard held Schwartz's coat.
Karen: "Officer Schwartz, please show your right arm to the jurors."
Schwartz walked along in front of the jury box. Much of the flesh of his upper arm was missing, what was left was still raw, and the jurors grimaced and turned away when they had seen it.
"Would your honor instruct Mr. McCarthy to approach the witness?" said Karen.
The judge nodded and McCarthy approached, but not too close. Karen removed a brooch from the front of her dress and held it, open, out to McCarthy.
"Please stick this pin into the witness's arm, Mr. McCarthy. Hold out your arm please, Officer Schwartz. Go ahead, Mr. McCarthy. Stick him. What are you waiting for? He won't feel a thing."
Karen and McCarthy stared at each other across the open courtroom. Karen was so angry her mouth was trembling, the brooch that she held out to him was trembling, and the jury saw this.
"Let the record show," intoned Karen, "that Mr. McCarthy has refused the brooch and turned back to his table."
An ide
a occurred to her at that moment--probably not a very good one, she conceded to herself--and when court closed she returned to her office where she summoned Tananbaum and three other senior prosecutors. Suppose she put McCarthy on the stand as a witness for the prosecution, she told them. Suppose she swore him in, and questioned him under oath about the insinuations and allegations he had been making in front of the jury for the last month and a half.
The idea evoked absolute silence.
"I don't think it's ever been done," said Tananbaum finally. "I think it's reversible error if you try it."
"The four of you constitute a task force," said Karen. "I want you to spend tonight and tomorrow scouring law books. I want you to find a precedent if there is one. Find me a precedent, that's all I ask."
Henry Henning was playing one-on-one basketball with his twelve year old son. The basket was on a pole opposite the garage door. It was getting dark. He let the boy score one on him, then came forward in his turn dribbling. They were having fun. The kid was fast as lightning and darted in and swiped the ball from his father. Henry was giggling as he chased the boy to the basket.
When the ball came down he put it under his arm, and his other arm went around his son. "That's enough, Jackie, time for dinner now."
They started toward the house.
"Where's Mom?" Jackie asked.
"Working late. What would you like for dinner?"
"You're a good cook, Dad, but Mom is better."
Chapter 18
But Karen was not working late. In an inflated bubble on a pier off Wall Street she was playing tennis with three other women. She was swatting tennis balls as hard as she could, running as hard as she could too, all in an effort to work off tension, but it wasn't working. The trial crowded her head and would not go away, and the balls she drove toward the corners, or straight at her opponents, would not stay within the lines. The air that kept the bubble inflated made an overriding soft whooshing noise that she had got used to, but the noise made by the airlock each time someone went in or out was distracting, everything was distracting, and too often she swung early, or else late, and the shot went wild, and she started apologizing.