Logan kept his distance from the witness stand. He did not approach, did not threaten. He moved cautiously, lightly. His tone was mild, almost a singsong. “But you didn’t have any money, did you?”
“No.”
“So if you couldn’t pay anything, you would do anything to get away from China.”
“Yes. Anything.”
She was so diminutive, so frail and weary and tragic, that Logan did not dare turn the jury against him by striking hard. He paced, but far away. He asked his questions in a voice almost as soft as her own. “You got into this country by not telling the truth, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You had to lie to get in.”
“I came without papers.”
“But the ends justified the means, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“So you feel there are times when lying is justified, is that not true, Miss Hao?”
“Yes.”
“You took an oath at the beginning of your testimony. Do you know what an oath is?”
“A promise.”
“Exactly. A promise to tell the truth. But you have just said that you would do anything, say anything, to stay out of China. Even perjure yourself.”
“I have told the truth.”
“All right. Tell us a little more about your life back there. Are your parents still alive?”
“My mother only. She is a village doctor.”
“What did you do before you were arrested, Miss Hao?”
“I was studying at Guangzhou University.”
“What was your major, your field of study?”
She cast a bitter look over to where Logan stood on the courtroom’s far side, the only real sign of life she had given since he had risen to his feet. “I studied law.”
He hid his wince well. “How long were you at university?”
“Three and one-half years.”
“Over three years at university,” Logan said, moving gently back in her direction. “And yet you never studied English?” He caught her momentary hesitation, and moved in closer still. “Wasn’t English a required part of the university curriculum, Miss Hao?”
She spoke for herself then, the accent very strong. “Understand little. No speak.”
“So you do speak English. Did you not say you understood the oath to tell the truth?”
Hao Lin resumed speaking through the interpreter. “I never said I did not speak any English.”
“Of course not.” His smirk was for the jury. “You merely insisted upon the court’s paying the expense of flying down an interpreter for you, when in truth what you really wanted was to give yourself a bit more time to think over the questions and frame your answers more carefully. Is that not correct?”
Marcus rose. “Objection. Belaboring the witness.”
Judge Nicols hesitated, then shook her head. “Overruled. Witness is required to answer.”
“No. I needed help understanding and speaking.”
“One of the many great things about this country, Miss Hao, is how you are required to tell the truth up on the witness stand.” Logan moved to where he could lean upon the railing of the jury box. “Tell us the truth, Ms. Hao. Did you not always want to come live in this country?”
“Yes. Some. Not like now.”
“Isn’t it also true that the Great Wall of China may have been built to keep foreigners out, but now it serves to keep its own citizens in?”
“I don’t understand.”
Logan asked his softest question yet. “What would happen if you were sent back to China, Miss Hao?”
She showed electric terror. “I must not go back. I can’t.”
“So you would do anything to stay.”
“Yes. I said that.”
“Sell your brother?”
“Yes. But I have none.”
Soft as a velvet lash, he asked, “Sell your body?”
For the first time, she bowed her head. And did not respond.
Marcus readied for an objection if Logan pressed further, but he divorced himself from the question and her silent answer by crossing back to the courtroom’s other side. From that distance Logan continued, “No matter how genuine your motives are, Miss Hao, no matter how badly you want to stay in this country, nothing justifies lying under oath in a court of law. American law. It is a serious matter.” He turned back toward the stand. “So I ask you once again, Miss Hao, under oath: Would you not do or say anything to stay in this country?”
A voice like wind through broken reeds sighed, which the translator rendered as, “Yes. But I am telling the truth here.”
Logan took a single step toward the witness. “Is it not true that this video is essential to your own case?”
“I don’t understand.”
Another step. “In order to remain in this country, you must show the INS that you face severe persecution in your home country. You claim to have been held for years in this so-called factory prison. Isn’t this video the only evidence to uphold your claim?”
A tighter note entered her voice. “I have told the truth.”
Logan took a third step. His prey was in sight. He moved in for the kill. “Isn’t it true, Miss Hao, that you know how the game is played? Are you not aware that if you tell the jury everything the plaintiff’s lawyer wants them to hear, he will then help you stay in this country?” He walked over and rested one hand upon the witness stand. “Hasn’t he already offered to represent your own petition for asylum?”
The interpreter did not have time to catch up before Hao Lin begged in English of her own, “I tell truth.”
Logan turned away. “No further questions.”
THIRTY-FOUR
THE MORNING was formed by all the treasures of autumn, yet Marcus took no comfort in the viewing. He stared out the Jeep’s side window as Darren drove him into town, seeing the magnificent fall cloak unfolding beneath a sky as deep as heaven’s well. But his heart still ached from the night tremors, and his mind was busy with what lay ahead. It was a bilious mixture, and ridiculed the day’s bequest. The air was so cold as to lift a silver-white veil from the fields and the forests, one that clung close and low to the earth. Trees rose from the mist as they would from a lowland of dragons and myths, some still green, others flaming beacons to the season’s wonder. Marcus felt an overpowering urge to shut his eyes, either that or tell Darren to drive faster. His inability to drink nature’s elixir shamed his grandmother’s memory.
The nightmare had clenched him tight as a jealous woman’s embrace, refusing to let him go, holding him under until he was sure he would drown, or perhaps merely wishing for a swifter demise. It whispered to him even now. Worse still was how it had occurred today of all days, when the world was waiting. Today, when the trial hung upon a silver thread, ready to be sent spinning like a mirrored top.
He realized he had to do something, just as they passed a trio of lakes bordering the highway. “See that picnic area up ahead. Pull in there for a second, will you?”
Darren either thought it was natural enough a request not to require comment, or not bearing enough importance. He slowed and turned, then turned again, finally coming to a halt with the Jeep’s snout pointing back toward the highway, ready for any trouble and a quick departure. Marcus pried open his door and walked away.
The mist was heavier here, rising to his thighs and drifting in cold swaths as he moved. The graveled road was not hard to hold to, as pines and sycamores and wild fruit trees accompanied him to either side. Marcus walked out to where the loudest sound came from unseen ducks. They rested upon the mist-clad waters and chattered softly about this baffling day.
As he looked out over low-lying fog, the sun’s lip cleared the horizon. The vista was instantly transformed from one world to the next, rising to a province of glory and gold. The trees’ eastern faces shone a greeting of blondest adoration. The strengthening light must have reached to the lake’s surface, for a few dozen mallards burst from the golden froth
. The instant they cleared the fog, they metamorphosed from feathered beasts to miniature seraphim with flame-touched wings.
Marcus followed their flight eastward, wishing he felt something more than empty. He knew now why the nightmares were becoming steadily fiercer. He sought to take a turning in his battered and wounded life. But the wisdom brought no consolation, only hazards.
Marcus stared at the sky, empty now of celestial spirits and signs, and wished he knew how to pray. It would be good to have someone from whom he might either seek strength or at least beg a way forward.
THE REAR of the federal courthouse had a pillared alcove in one corner, a space set aside for the deputies standing courthouse duty. As Marcus exited the Jeep, a lone figure took the brick steps down from the alcove and started toward them. Marcus angled his approach to meet the retired patrolman.
Jim Bell said in greeting, “Feels cold enough this morning to make you think maybe summer’s been done in for good.” The bearded receptionist granted Darren a friendly nod. “How you doing, son.”
“Pretty g-good, Mr. B-Bell.”
Bell waited until Darren moved ahead a few paces, then said quietly, “A man in my position, he hears some things if he has the notion.”
“I’m listening.”
The voice dropped another notch. “The judge and Jenny both got calls yesterday. Asking no-account questions about their possible appointments.”
“Leaving no room for doubt that the calls are tied together,” Marcus filled in for him. “And tied to this trial.”
“The question is, what is so all-fired important that they’d both get this heads-up yesterday?”
“They’ll find that out this morning,” Marcus said. “The whole world will.”
“ALL RIGHT, Mr. Glenwood.” Judge Nicols had dispensed with the morning’s formalities in record time. “You may call your next witness.”
“Your Honor,” Marcus announced, “I feel it is time the jury had an opportunity to meet Miss Gloria Hall, and let her speak for herself.”
“Objection!” Logan had risen well before Marcus finished speaking. “Permission to approach the bench, Your Honor.”
“Very well.”
When they were in close, Marcus said, “I move that the video be admitted as evidence, Your Honor.”
Logan retaliated with the swiftness of hard preparation. “Objection. The witness Hao Lin clearly stated she could not hear what was being said. It might be the one time Miss Hao, or whatever her name really is, told us the full truth the entire time she was on the stand.”
“That was uncalled for.”
Logan ignored him. “By Miss Hao’s own testimony she heard nothing, Your Honor. All she could say was that she saw a video being made. And we stipulate that even this is highly questionable testimony. The witness repeatedly perjured herself.”
“That is not true.”
“She admitted under cross that she would say anything, do anything to stay in this country. This video was critical to her own case.”
“That does not in any way make the witness a liar, Your Honor.”
“No, but it certainly offers a motive.” Logan did not let up, nor release his grip on the edge of the judge’s bench. “Miss Hao has every reason to want this video to be true. It backs up her own request for political asylum. She said as much herself.”
Marcus countered, “Miss Hao showed herself to be both intelligent and reliable, Your Honor. Her testimony stands as a valid and direct tie-in between Gloria Hall, the factory, and this video.”
Logan shook his head like a bull tossing flies. “This is inherently unreliable testimony, Your Honor. The woman was obviously lying to advance her own cause. We have shown this witness, someone the plaintiff actually brought from jail to testify, to be both a liar and a fraud.”
Judge Nicols pondered a long moment. Marcus felt the air clog until he could not draw another free breath. Finally she decided, “I am going to credit the witness as having given this court a reliable testimony. You may enter the video as evidence.”
Marcus fled before she could change her mind. The trek back across the floor was lengthened by having to stare into the afflicted gazes of Alma and Austin Hall. The previous day had cut deeply. Marcus forced his lungs to unlock. Today would scarcely be better. They had been warned, and they had insisted on remaining. There was nothing else he could do. “Plaintiff calls Maureen Folley to the stand.”
The woman certainly lived up to the Charlie Hayes’ description of the night before—short and stocky and possessing all the charm of a tenpenny nail. As she gave her name to the bailiff and affirmed the oath, she also revealed the flat, toneless voice of a big-city taxi dispatcher. Marcus sorted his handwritten notes, and gave Charlie a short nod. She was perfect.
Marcus rose to his feet and began. “Mrs. Folley, you are a full professor of visual arts at North Carolina State University, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“And your specialty is digital imaging, is that not correct?”
“Yes.”
“Objection!” Logan’s alarm was clearly genuine. “Your Honor, plaintiff has been granted permission to show the video, not render it!”
Judge Nicols did not even permit Marcus to respond. “Overruled.”
“Mrs. Folley, you have testified in a number of trials regarding the authenticity of videotapes, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell us about the video we are about to see?”
“That it is all of one piece. It has not been spliced.” She turned to the jury and continued. “Amateur video recorders will scar a tape just like the grooves carved into a bullet exiting the barrel of a gun. This entire tape was shot by the same camera, and in one continuous session.”
“Objection!” Logan pressed against his table, as though needing this barrier to keep himself from racing forward and grabbing Marcus by the neck. “This is unproven, unsubstantiated, theoretical!”
“Overruled. You will have your turn on cross. Proceed.”
“Please continue, Mrs. Folley.”
“I have done a microscopic search of the tape. As I said, the camera ran continuously. What you see was done in one take.”
“Objection! It is just as possible that the tape was spliced together from a series of takes, just done on a machine that scarred it like a camera!”
Judge Nicols rounded on him. “I will not warn you again.”
“But Your Honor, really, this is—”
“Sit.” She held him fast with her gaze. “Proceed, Mr. Glenwood.”
“Before we go further with this testimony, Your Honor, I’d like to show the original tape.”
“Very well.”
Marcus helped the bailiff roll forward the metal stand bearing four televisions, angled so that at least one screen was visible to everyone—judge and defense and jury and the packed audience chamber. A tape machine rested upon a shelf beneath the screens. Marcus walked back to his desk and took the videotape from its packet, his movements slow, making good theater of the process. When the bailiff had turned on the machine, Marcus inserted the tape and pushed the play button.
Gloria Hall reached across time and distance and spoke to the jury. Marcus listened and heard something new. The change was not merely because it was a public performance. It was the first time he had studied the tape since the previous day’s testimony. He knew now that Gloria Hall’s voice held the same dull weeping quality as Hao Lin’s.
The realization added a deeper poignancy to her crude pattern of speech. Her almost invisible form remained silhouetted against the backdrop of overbright light. Marcus risked several glances at the jury, and saw many of them squinting hard, as though seeking to penetrate the light and study the woman more closely. Marcus turned back to the video and watched to its too-brief end.
He left the televisions where they were, creating a technical barrier in the middle of the floor. Alma’s quiet weeping merely punctuated the moment’s piercing quali
ty. “Mrs. Folley, could you describe for the court what it means to digitally clean up a picture?”
“Objection! Your Honor, plaintiff intends to fabricate reality from what is merely theory.”
“Overruled.” Judge Nicols did not even glance his way. “Proceed.”
“Do you require the question to be repeated, Mrs. Folley?”
“No.” She addressed her response to the jury, showing her experience at courtroom testimony. She seemed utterly unfazed by the video, which was natural, as she had probably seen it a full hundred times by now. “Essentially, it is the same as taking an analog tape of old music and remastering it. The video is first digitized, and then rerendered through computer analysis. All ambient particles and, in this instance, unnecessary light are removed. The image is redrawn into tighter focus.”
Marcus realized that the majority of the jury did not understand, and that it did not matter. “But this cleaned-up version is still the same, is it not?”
“The underlying image is identical to the original, yes. Just as it is when you remaster an old jazz recording to hear the sound better.”
“All right. Your Honor, we would now like to show the remastered version of this video.”
“Objection!” Logan started across the floor.
But Nicols was having none of it. “Stay right where you are, Mr. Kendall.”
“But Your Honor—”
“This court accepts the testimony as valid, and has decided to overrule your objection.” The dark jaw jutted forward slightly. “I would advise you to reseat yourself. Now.”
Logan expelled a vast sigh of fury as he retook his seat. Marcus used this moment, when all attention was elsewhere, to reach behind the back of his table and draw forth the blown-up photograph. He held the poster-size print backward as Charlie Hayes fumbled with the easel, so that all the jury saw was the white styrofoam backing. “Mrs. Folley, would you please set up the digital video machine?”
He stood there holding the unseen photograph as the ungainly woman with her flat face and voice retrieved her bulky briefcase from beside Marcus’ chair. Charlie and he had cooked up the plan while discussing the witness the night before. As Marcus watched her feed in the wires and hook up the machine, however, he fretted that they had made a huge blunder. A more unemotional witness he had never sought to bend.
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