Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

  There was a wave of laughter from the jury pool and, in particular, the press. Even Judge Lerner smiled a bit. ‘Don’t worry Mr Rhee,’ he said. ‘In this courtroom, Republicans are cherished, and preserved. Rather like the spotted owl.’

  More laughter, this time with an undertone of warmth; that people seemed so eager for relief reminded Paget that the jury selection had become a grim contest. Belatedly, he reminded himself to smile for the panel’s sake.

  But Caroline’s smile at Rhee seemed genuine. ‘Despite being an endangered species,’ she said, ‘do you feel you can judge this case fairly?’

  A brisk nod. ‘Sure. That’s my job here.’

  Caroline appraised him for a moment then nodded. ‘Every jury can use an owl,’ she said. ‘Spotted or no. Thank you, Mr Rhee.’

  Paget felt a hand on his shoulder. Moore was leaning forward; as Paget turned he whispered, ‘Don’t let her take this guy.’

  But Caroline was walking toward the defense table with a satisfied expression. ‘Mr Salinas?’ Lerner was asking.

  Salinas stood. ‘The people pass Mr Rhee.’

  As Caroline sat down, Johnny Moore scooted his chair forward. ‘Ding him,’ he whispered. ‘He’s bad news.’

  Caroline turned to him, eyes narrowing. ‘The man has a sense of humor, and the jury likes him. I’m damned near out of peremptories, and I think I can work with him.’

  ‘Ms Masters?’ Lerner was asking.

  Caroline looked at Paget. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.

  Quickly, she turned toward Judge Lerner. ‘Might we have a moment to confer?’

  ‘Of course. As long as that’s what it is – a moment.’

  Caroline leaned forward, looking at Paget. Their faces were inches apart, Moore’s to the side. Ignoring Moore, Caroline asked, ‘What is it?’

  Tense, Paget felt the courtroom watching. ‘Too risky,’ he answered. ‘I agree with Johnny – he’s not a natural for us. And if he goes on, he’s the foreman. Count on it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Caroline said tersely. ‘But Rhee won’t like the Richie we’re going to give them. He’s much more likely to admire you.’

  ‘Not Chris,’ Moore interjected. ‘The one he’ll admire is Victor Salinas. The hardworking representative of law and order.’

  Caroline’s eyes remained on Paget. ‘I want him, Chris. What’ll it be?’

  Paget took a deep breath. ‘Strike him.’

  Caroline watched him for a moment; rising, she gave Moore a look of something close to anger. But when she turned to Lerner, her face was calm. ‘With deep regret,’ she said. ‘we’ve decided to excuse Mr Rhee.’

  During the mornng recess, Caroline was quiet, studying jury quesionnaires at the defense table. Paget was still troubled by the decision he had made; in the hallway, he could not resist seeking reassurance from Johnny Moore.

  Moore looked around them for reporters. ‘I think we were right, of course. But if you were trying the case, and Caroline was the client, you’d have taken him,’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because like Caroline, you bet your instincts, And because she may think that I’ve found enough to give Salinas a rude surprise, assuming he’s fool enough to try marketing little Richie Pondscum as the poster boy for the American Dream.’

  It was, Paget thought, exactly what they had asked Moore to do, the day they first met at Caroline’s office.

  There had been just the three of them in an oversize conference room lined with Oriental murals. The oakpaneled table was large enough for a directors meeting and so shiny that Paget could make out his reflection. ‘Ample quarters,’ Moore observed to Caroline. ‘I can almost hear the meter running. How many lawyers have to work to keep this up?’

  ‘Nearly five hundred.’

  Moore shook his head. ‘And to think,’ he said in his soft Irish lilt, ‘that this country can’t even make a decent refrigerator.’

  The comment was very like the Johnny that Paget had always known, a curious combination of cynic and sentimentalist who for years had lived the risky and duplicitous life of an undercover agent for the FBI and yet still believed – or so Paget suspected – that he wanted the family and children he had never stopped to have. Moore had a particular fondness for Terri, Paget knew, but seemed to have a certain aversion to Caroline Masters – perhaps because Caroline, so steely in her desire for privacy, betrayed no flaws with which Johnny could sympathize. Sitting across from him, Caroline gave Moore an enigmatic smile, somewhere between courtesy and amusement.

  ‘The reason,’ she said, ‘that there are so many of us is that Americans hate every lawyer but their own, and every lawsuit except the one they want to break. When a people’s social conscience dies, the law thrives; all these lawyer jokes are simply cover for their own complicity.’

  Johnny gave a soft chuckle; the comment, offhand yet telling, seemed to remind him that Caroline was very smart. ‘If my refrigerator dies,’ he said, ‘I’ll come to you.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said dryly, ‘we’ll be representing the manufacturer, of course. But let’s move on.’

  Johnny nodded briskly. ‘Ricardo Arias. An inferior product if there ever was one.’ He glanced at Paget. ‘Chris says you’d like my thoughts on where to start.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘With Charles Monk.’ Johnny stretched back in his swivel chair. ‘Specifically, with the crime scene report. Monk is a good detective. But people – including jurors – have a total misconception of what homicide cops do. They think someone like Monk shows up with an empty mind and then, like a vacuum cleaner, gathers the facts in a thorough and objective inquiry to come up with the perpetrator. It’s a lovely notion. And of course, it’s absolutely preposterous.’

  Paget found himself smiling; it was good to remember why he had such faith in Johnny. ‘Police are human beings,’ Moore went on. ‘They arrive at a crime scene, like Richie’s apartment, take it all in, and then start to come up with a “hypothesis” – which simply means a guess too lacking in support to be dignified as a theory.

  ‘It’s no different than trying one of these damned jigsaw puzzles they make too difficult for children. You have to start with an idea of how the puzzle will look when all the pieces fit, and then work toward that. There really is no other way to attack a puzzle – whether it’s a kid’s game or a homicide.’ Pausing for a moment Moore smiled. ‘Monk’s problem – every cop’s problem – is when you start trying to make the pieces fit. Sooner or later, Monk tried to do that. It’s human nature.’

  Caroline folded her hands. ‘We need everything Monk missed, Johnny, and every lead he didn’t follow. One point I’d like to sell to the jury is that this is a political vendetta, whether because Brooks lost the Carelli case or because Chris had the nerve to enter politics without being anointed by James Colt, Junior.’

  Moore shrugged. ‘You can probably make it look like that, whether it’s true or not. There’ll be something Monk didn’t do – there always is. Fortunately for Chris, jurors become disenchanted when they discover the cops aren’t perfect.’

  Listening, Paget realized how much more cynical defense strategies sounded now that he was a client. ‘I’m sure there was politics,’ he put in. ‘All the while, I got the opposite of preferential treatment, right down to breaking the crockery. I could feel Colt’s hands on the levers, whether I could see him or not.’

  Moore turned to Caroline. ‘This may be off the subject, Counselor, but don’t you worry a wee bit about offending Mr Colt. He’ll likely be our next govenor, after all.’

  Caroline gave him a look that was less serene than simply without expression. ‘Why would I worry?’ she asked.

  Moore let it go; Caroline, Paget saw, meant to leave him with no choice. Paget wondered if she understood Moore’s intentions: Paget was his friend, and Moore wanted to ensure that Caroline would not place ambition above her client. ‘Next,’ Moore said without skipping a beat, ‘we have this eyewitness. You’ll want eyesight,
drug or alcohol use, any prescriptions, whether she’s reported crimes before, what the neighbors say. And, for that matter, whether she has visions of Warren G. Harding on odd Wednesdays.’

  Caroline nodded. ‘Everything,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘I also want you to go over each of her dealings with the police. We can’t let this woman survive.’

  Over his smile, Moore appraised Caroline Masters with cool gray-blue eyes. ‘Good citizenship surely has its price, doesn’t it? Which gets us back to Richie. I assume you mean to sully the poor man’s posthumous reputation.’

  Caroline met his gaze, answering sardonically, ‘However did you guess?’

  ‘There seems to be a pattern here. Frankly, if you didn’t try to make Richie’s death seem like a public service, I’d suggest a saliva test for both of you.’ He turned to Paget. ‘Didn’t Monk say something that made you wonder if Richie was seeing a psychiatrist?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘If that’s true, and if the shrink is prepared to say Richie wasn’t suicidal, Salinas might want to call him. Either way, I’ll find out.’ He faced Caroline again. ‘I’ll run Ricardo’s life through the grinder – neighbors, schools, family, girlfriends, finances, jobs, business associates, doctor visits, traffic tickets, legal problems. I assume you’d like him to look dirty and, better yet, to have a deepseated desire to simplify his life through suicide.’

  Caroline nodded. ‘If possible. I’d also like the names of anyone but Chris with a reason to dislike him.’

  Something in Moore’s face changed, as if Caroline had reminded him that his friend Christopher Paget had enough reason to kill Ricardo Arias so that even Moore could not be sure. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Other suspects would be nice.’

  There was silence. When Moore turned to Paget, his eyes were wary but nonjudgmental. ‘Doyou have any ideas, Chris? Other than Terri that is.’

  His voice, as Caroline’s once had, held a buried plea for help. Not just with this case, Paget knew, but with his doubts.

  Paget was quiet for a time. ‘If it were me, Johnny, I’d work very hard on suicide.’

  Luisa Marin was a slender young Hispanic woman with redbrown hair, pale skin, and a fragile, almost haunted look. Caroline had noticed her among the jury panel about an hour before; there was something about her expression, inward and yet tense, that set her apart. Caroline had guessed at emotional problems, some deepseated fear that disassociated her from the world at large. But when Caroline had begun to question her, Luisa seemed focused if wary; in the same way that had seemed to satisfy Salinas, she answered Caroline in a few brief words. She was troubled, Caroline sensed, but not one of these deracinated shells Caroline saw talking to themselves on the streets: Caroline guessed that there was something beneath the sparse facts – jobless, Catholic, lightly educated – that had placed her near the bottom of Chris’s list.

  ‘I see that you’re at home,’ Caroline said. ‘Have you been looking for work?’

  Luisa did not really answer. ‘I was an inventory clerk,’ she said quietly. ‘Before.’

  Her eyes moved from Caroline’s face; the effect was of someone looking at another part of her life. ‘Before what?’ Caroline asked.

  Luisa looked back at Caroline with a directness that was somehow disconcerting; it reminded Caroline of the ‘thousand-yard stare’ she had sometimes seen on veterans of Vietnam. ‘After my father died,’ she said simply, ‘my mother had a stroke. I take care of her now.’

  Somewhere within that answer, Caroline knew, hid a problem she could feel on the back of her neck. Her next question was instinctive. ‘How did your father die?’

  Luisa folded her hands, drawing her shoulders in. The impression was of a woman being violated. ‘He was a policeman,’ Luisa answered.

  For an instant, Caroline imagined some urban tragedy. It was only as she repeated her last question that, with something like horror, she sensed the answer.

  ‘How did he die, Ms Marin?’

  Luisa’s face became immobile, almost waxen. In a soft, firm voice, she answered, ‘He was cleaning his gun.’

  Caroline realized that she was standing very still. ‘Was there,’ she asked gently, ‘a question of suicide?’

  Focused on Marin, Caroline felt the silence as a vacuum. With sudden vehemence, Luisa shook her head. ‘He would never kill himself,’ she said fiercely. ‘He was a good Catholic and a good man.’

  ‘But people do,’ Caroline answered softly, ‘all the time. Even Catholics, and especially policemen.’

  There was a sheen of tears on Luisa’s face now. Caroline half expected Lerner to break in. But he did not; surely he must understand that suicide was critical to Chris’s defense, and that Caroline had too few peremptories not to push every juror to the limit. ‘Is there a question?’ Salinas broke in. ‘Or are you done, Counselor?’

  Caroline ignored him. Marin’s lifeless expression had become the stricken look of a woman recoiling from her own doubts. ‘Do you believe,’ Caroline asked, ‘that suicide is a sin?’

  A moment’s silence. In a parched voice, Marin answered, ‘That is what the Church teaches.’

  ‘It also teaches, does it not, that sins are forgiven.’

  Marin sat straighter. ‘He would not do that to my mother. It nearly killed her.’

  Caroline nodded. ‘But you’re not sure,’ she said finally. ‘Are you?’

  Marin only stared at her. ‘Ms Masters,’ she heard Jared Lerner say, ‘how far do you intend to pursue this?’

  When Caroline turned, Lerner was studying Luisa Marina with an air of unhappiness. ‘I need some latitude,’ Caroline said. ‘With your indulgence, Your Honor, this is important.’

  Lerner gave her a long contemplative look and then nodded. Once more, Caroline faced Marin. ‘There are parts of a policeman’s life,’ she said softly, ‘that even those closest to him cannot know. Do you understand that?’

  Marin’s tears had vanished. Silent, she nodded.

  Gently, Caroline asked, ‘What does your mother believe?’

  Marin seemed to flinch. ‘When she found him,’ she answered, ‘she went into shock. That night, the stroke came. The last words I ever heard her speak were the day before my father died.’

  Caroline paused a moment. In a tone of sympathy, she asked, ‘I take it there was no note.’

  ‘No.’

  Caroline paused, letting her reference to a note sink in among the jurors. ‘But still,’ she asked, ‘you can’t be sure, can you?’

  Marin’s eyes flickered. ‘Only in my heart.’

  ‘Because you knew him as your father.’ Caroline paused. ‘If not as a policeman.’

  Marin bobbed her head. It was not clear what she was answering.

  Caroline walked to the railing of the jury box, looking at Marin, in the second row. The effect was intimate, as if she were speaking to the woman alone.

  ‘Of course,’ Caroline said, ‘you didn’t know Ricardo Arias at all.’

  ‘Speak up, Counselor,’ Salinas interjected from behind her. ‘I’m having trouble hearing.’

  It was, Caroline knew, an effort to break whatever connection she might be developing with Luisa Marin. Looking straight at Marin, Caroline murmured, more softly yet, ‘Quit playing games, Victor.’

  Salinas stood. With a certain dignity, he said, ‘I’m not the one who’s playing games, Counselor.’

  Caroline turned to him. ‘Then I’ll keep speaking in a softer voice, Mr Salinas. So that you can hear me.’

  There was muffled laughter from the press, and Salinas looked stung. But when Caroline turned, Luisa Marin’s face had relaxed a little.

  ‘Do you believe,’ Caroline asked her, ‘that the police are free from predjudice?’

  Marin seemed to hesitate; it seemed as if the question was beyond her experience, and then she looked away. ‘My father didn’t,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Sometimes it bothered him.

  ‘They pass good laws,” he used to say, “and then we enforce them against peo
ple we don’t like.”’

  To a criminal lawyer, the comment had an unnerving accuracy. ‘Did your father ever worry that the innocent are punished?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marin’s voice was firmer now. ‘As I said, he was a good man.’

  Caroline nodded. ‘And are you willing to accept the possibility that, in this case, the police have been unfair to Mr Paget?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pausing, Caroline looked into Marin’s face. ‘Even if that means, Luisa, that the prosecution has overlooked the reasonable possibility that Ricardo Arias killed himself.’

  It was more a statement than question; as if, by answering, Luisa Marin would make a compact with Caroline Masters. Marin seemed to steel herself. ‘Yes,’ she said in a determined voice. ‘I can.’

  Caroline nodded. ‘Thank you, Luisa. I believe that.’ She turned to Judge Lerner. ‘I have nothing more, Your Honor. I appreciate your indulgence.’

  Lerner gave her a courtly nod and glanced at Salinas. ‘Mr Salinas?’ he asked.

  Just before Caroline turned, walking toward the defense table, she saw Salinas’s frown of uncertainty. She almost reached the table when she heard Salinas say, ‘The prosecution passes Ms Marin.’

  Chris, she saw, was regarding her with a comtemplative expression. ‘Well?’ she murmured.

  The corner of Chris’s mouth twitched. Caroline studied him for a moment; his eyes, she saw, held a warmth she had not seen for days. And then, almost imperceptibly, he shrugged.

  All at once, Caroline felt the full weight of defending him. So that it was a moment before she could turn and say, ‘The defense accepts Ms Marin.’

  But then Caroline had felt this weight since the morning, three weeks before, when Teresa Peralta appeared at her office.

  This was not like Terri, Caroline thought; ever since she had worked for Caroline, at the public defender’s office, Terri had been careful to observe the protocol of a professional. Even her suits, well tailored but cautious, had fit the role: it was as if the young Hispanic woman, without models of her own, was adhering to the script until she could find her way.