Marcus began his conclusion. “Through using a pea-in-the-shell game, the defendants have sought to hide their connection to this factory. But the evidence has clearly demonstrated that, in fact, the New Horizons company does not only purchase tens of millions of dollars worth of products from Factory 101, they actually own a significant interest in the factory. One they have sought to hide both from you the jury and from the federal authorities. And we have shown you why.
“Through documentary evidence and the testimony of witnesses, we have revealed that New Horizons Incorporated and Factory 101 were in a conspiracy to profit from the systematic abuse of prisoners of conscience.”
“Objection!” Logan bolted from his chair. “Your Honor, the Chinese prison system is not on trial here.”
“Overruled. Continue, Mr. Glenwood.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Marcus turned back to the jury and went on, “We have shown how our client was abused because she threatened this profit. She was treated in the same callous manner as their workers. This upstanding American student was made to disappear because she got in the way.”
Logan rose another time. “Your Honor, I must protest.”
“Overruled.”
Marcus fought back the desire to beg the jury to share with him the conviction that Gloria had been right all along. “Gloria Hall was kidnapped and abused by the defendants because she threatened a commercial relationship that was mired in pain and fear and blood. A relationship that cared for nothing save money and power. A relationship that existed purely to exploit those who had no voice to complain. She sought to bring light into the darkness that was endured by many, and for no other reason than because it benefited the company’s bottom line. These partners must be punished, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. They must be brought to justice.”
SILENCE FOLLOWED Marcus back to his seat. He endured the congratulatory pats from Charlie and Alma, though their hands burned like branding irons. He could not face the jury, not until Logan had approached the podium and demanded their attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am sorry we are here. Sorry we have taken your time and the court’s time. Sorry we have dragged us all through this charade for the sake of a lost and forlorn cause. The plaintiff’s lawyer has constructed the worst possible kind of case. He has played upon the emotions of two distraught parents and tied us all up with cords of convoluted lies, creating knots of empty half-truths.
“A good case is like a jigsaw puzzle. When things go right, the plaintiff’s lawyer should stand up in the beginning and tell us how the puzzle will look at the end. Then we should watch the pieces being set in place, one by one, as the witnesses are presented. Afterward, in what’s called the summation or closing argument, the plaintiff should be able to describe the finished scene.
“Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this has not happened in our case. The puzzle is not complete. The picture is blurred, distorted. The pieces of evidence are mismatched. In fact, I would go so far as to say that we have not arrived at what could be called a real picture at all.
“Let’s begin here by listing some of the words we’ve heard the plaintiff’s attorney bandy about.” He lifted a printed board and set it on the easel by the lectern. “All right. There was the word document. You remember how the lawyer sitting over there used it? He said he would present documentary evidence. That’s our second word printed right here, see it? Evidence. Then the third word, an accusation of collusion. It gets worse, because then comes the word abuse, and after that prisoners of conscience. And finally there was the word he used to describe the missing woman. Remember that one? Upstanding. That’s what he said.”
Logan left the board and turned his full attention to the jury box. “Now let’s take a moment and remember what the experts said about all this so-called evidence. If you’re going to look anywhere to decide whether or not there really is any culpability, wouldn’t you look to the experts? Of course you would. And what did the experts tell you? That there was no substantive evidence that pointed to New Horizons’ being directly involved. None.”
He used his silver pen like a wand, punching the air, prodding the jury to pay attention and believe him. Above all, believe him. “Most importantly, we have the woman herself. Someone who has gone out of her way to look for trouble. She has made a profession of standing in harm’s way. She protested continuously. She disliked the Chinese government. Why? Who knows? Whatever the reason, we know for certain that Gloria Hall went looking for trouble. Sadly, she probably found it. Is that my clients’ fault? No!
“What the plaintiff’s lawyer has failed to prove is how New Horizons’ business relationship with a Chinese factory could be tied in any way to such nasty words as collusion and prisoners of conscience. Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that New Horizons Incorporated runs ninety different operations, more than two dozen of them overseas, employing over thirty-seven thousand employees in nineteen different countries.” Instantly he held up his hand. “Not that this issue is minor. Not at all. The possibility that Gloria Hall might be missing is terrible. We all hurt for her and for her parents. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the opposing counsel has not offered a shred of concrete evidence to tie New Horizons to Gloria’s Hall disappearance. Can anyone tell me why these companies would endanger such a lucrative operation by kidnapping a visiting student? Where is the motive?” He paused a moment, then jerked his shoulders in a humorless laugh. “Does this entire supposition seem as ludicrous to you as it does to me?”
Logan left the podium and began a tight little victory parade before the jury box. “Up to this point, our trial has not been about seeking truth at all. Instead, we have watched as the plaintiff has taken an upstanding North Carolina firm, one that employs four thousand people right here in this great state. A company that is in the process of expanding their operations and adding another two thousand employees. A company that supplies more eastern North Carolina families with incomes than almost any other firm. And how do we thank them? By sitting here and watching the plaintiff’s lawyer smear their name in the dirt. By tarring and feathering the senior executives. Is this the way we treat our corporate citizens? Threatening them with baseless slurs on their reputation?
“This has been a wet-spaghetti kind of lawsuit, the crudest kind of case. A wet-spaghetti suit is one where you take whatever you can get your hands on and toss it at the ceiling. Whatever sticks makes up the plaintiff’s case. What doesn’t, well, who loses? Who pays? The answer, I am sorry to say, is a lot of people. In this case, those who are injured are my clients. A fine North Carolina company that has never had any dealings with this Chinese group—”
Marcus was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. This is in direct opposition to the defense’s prior judicial admission.”
“Sustained.”
But the silver pen was already out and weaving its spell before the judge had spoken. “Yes. All right. Let me rephrase that. The judicial admission has shown that there was some commercial relationship. But what we have also shown is that these relations were nothing like what the plaintiff has claimed. You see how a wet-spaghetti lawsuit works? They claim this. We show that it is something else entirely. They say, But wait, if the one is true, then the other is as well. Do you see? Of course you do. Yes, the judicial admission was that New Horizons had some relation to Factory 101. Yes. But we have not seen any evidence whatsoever that ties the North Carolina firm to responsibility for the acts that have brought us all together. Let us be perfectly clear about that, ladies and gentlemen: New Horizons is on trial here for the disappearance of Gloria Hall in China. And for that there is no evidence. None.”
He used both arms to fight the air, since Marcus was too far away to be grappled with personally. “Wrap this up in the personal tragedy of the plaintiff’s lawyer, who is desperately trying to jump-start his own life, and what do you have? A mess that should never have entered this courtroom. You remember what I sa
id before introducing my own witnesses, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? I said we would go after the truth. And the truth is that the plaintiff’s lawyer has failed on all counts. There are neither credible witnesses nor physical evidence tying New Horizons to any wrongdoing. This is a political matter that belongs in the diplomatic realm. And we have an opportunistic lawyer at the helm of a ship headed toward destruction.”
Logan dropped his arms, patted the sides of the podium, gathered himself for the final blow. “The last point I want to leave you with are the words from our very own United States Attorney General. This incredibly powerful and busy woman came here of her own volition to speak with us, simply because she found this trial so vital to our country’s interests. She said something very important, and I want to draw your attention to this. She said this trial was a mistake from the beginning.” He leaned across the podium, his entire body clenched with the purpose of driving home the point. “I commend this expert intelligence to you. I ask that you consider this very seriously. The Attorney General could not have been any more definite or direct when she told us that this case should never have come to trial.” He nodded his conclusion. “Let’s wrap this up, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Let’s shut this circus down and allow all of us to return to the real world. Thank you for your time and for your patience with this miserable excuse of a trial.”
FORTY-FOUR
WHEN DARREN STOPPED for gas on the way home, Marcus walked across the street to the liquor store. He walked straight over to the inexpensive blends and pulled down a bourbon with a name so cheap it mocked the buyer. He ignored the pricier malts that glittered behind the cashier. He had no interest in anything that spoke of celebration or good times ahead. He wanted something foul and burning and acrid. Something that would smite him hard and hurt him the next day. It was the fate he deserved.
Darren and the man pumping gas both watched his return in silence. He said nothing to either of them, just climbed back into the Jeep and sat there waiting. He did not want any argument. He wanted oblivion.
Darren took his time driving home, meandering through the streets as though seeing them for the first time. Eventually they arrived, however, and pulled in past the SBI car and halted in the drive. Only then did Marcus wish for something to say, some words of thanks for all Darren had done, even an acknowledgment of the comfort Marcus had found in the young man’s hulking presence. But there were no words worthy of the man.
Marcus left the brown paper bag on the front hall table as he climbed the stairs and changed his clothes. But when he came back down, it was to the sound of another car pulling into his driveway. He walked out onto the veranda, not feeling much one way or the other, even when he recognized the blond head behind the wheel.
Kirsten climbed the steps in the breathless manner of one pretending not to hurry. She stopped on the third step when his face was clear in the veranda’s weak light. Whatever it was she saw there on his features, it stilled her smile of greeting before it had formed.
Marcus said, “I can’t even begin to guess how you’ve come to be here.”
“Darren called Deacon.”
“Let’s see. That must have been on my mobile while I was still in the liquor store.”
“Deacon called Alma. Alma started to come herself, but Austin said I should go.” She moved one step closer. “Austin said to tell you that sometimes solitude is just another name for death.”
Marcus was still trying to frame a reply, one that would keep his way open to temporary amnesia, when the phone rang. He walked back inside, picked up the receiver, and felt as much as heard Kirsten’s presence there with him.
Deacon Wilbur’s deep, honeyed voice asked, “You all right over there?”
“No.” He could almost smell the contents of that unopened bottle. “Not yet.”
“The good Lord above tells us He’s gonna look after His own.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“Now you just hold up there. Don’t you go looking for fair. Don’t you expect a painless life. Don’t go hunting for an easy road. Just you settle for wisdom.”
The vision of the bag and the first scarring swallow wavered slightly, though Marcus tried hard to hold on. “I’ve failed. Gloria is lost, the case is lost, it’s all over.”
“Sometimes the hardest thing a man can do is accept his own humanness,” Deacon’s tone rumbled soft enough to make the words almost palatable. “Sometimes there ain’t no harder road to walk than the one that turns away from the past. Yes, cutting the cords that tie us to what was and never will be again, then turning toward what is yet to come.”
Marcus found the pastor’s voice rubbing out both the bottle’s image and his own desperate hunger. He wanted to hang up, to turn away from this kind man and his painful words, but he merely sighed his defeat and settled into the chair behind his desk.
Deacon waited a moment, and when Marcus remained quiet, he concluded, “Don’t know what’s harder, saying farewell to the dead-and-gones or hello to what’s coming. Sometimes hope is the worst burden of all. One you’ll never be able to carry alone. You just think on that, now. Think hard. Try to find some way to take that first small step.”
As Marcus hung up the phone, Kirsten walked in and sat in the client’s chair. Marcus was angry that they would care so much as to keep him from oblivion. Bitterness over the distance between him and the bottle turned his mood foul. “Gloria knew the whole time she wasn’t coming back.”
Kirsten nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“She went to China planning to place herself in harm’s way. She went expecting to destroy her parents’ lives.” He planted his good elbow on the tabletop and aimed a shaky finger at her. “And you knew it all along.”
Another slow nod. “Yes.”
“She had it planned down to your handing me the documents. She learned that from Dee Gautam, I imagine. Feed the information to the poor dumb slob of an attorney. Do it slowly. Let him hook himself good and hard, then reel him in bit by bit.”
“That’s right.”
Bile rose in his throat. “Shame she didn’t mention to Alma and Austin that they needed to find somebody better. Somebody who wouldn’t let them crash and burn.”
“Nobody could have done a better job,” she said, her voice too soft to vanquish even a flickering flame.
Yet it was enough to ignite his fury. He smashed his fist down on the table, but she did not flinch, did not even blink. “Gloria is dead, Kirsten. She’s dead. And the case is lost.”
Kirsten’s gaze seemed made from the same fabric as the night, empty and endless. “She was dead before she left.”
He leaned back, searching for a hold on his anger, feeling it seeping away like water through a fist. “What?”
“It’s the only thing that has kept me going. Knowing how she was. She was dead inside. She told me that a hundred times. A thousand. She was just looking for a place to lay her body down.”
It came to him then, the filtering down from the realm beyond logic. “The boyfriend.”
“Gary Loh was finishing medical school when they met. He was brilliant, he loved life, he loved Gloria. They were made for each other. Seeing them together gave you hope for love in a world …” She stopped, breathed hard, looked out the window. “Before he started his internship, Gary went to Hong Kong. That was, oh, eighteen months ago now. It was his second trip. There was a missionary group working there, one partnered with our outreach program. They worked in the red-light district down by the docks, mostly with prostitutes and homeless and addicts. They were Hong Kong’s only outreach program among the heroin addicts. Gary loved the work. He talked about it all the time. That was just a part of how he was, this mercy he felt for the helpless.”
Marcus nodded, not understanding yet, but knowing it was coming. “Britain gave Hong Kong back to China.”
“Hong Kong’s takeover occurred the year before Gary arrived. The Beijing government treats all addicts as capital offenders, the same
as pushers. First they warned the clinic, then they raided it. Gary fought back. We heard about this later, from one of the survivors. He had a number of patients who were too ill to move. He tried to bar the soldiers’ entry into the clinic. They beat him with their rifle butts. His skull was crushed. He was flown home in a coma and died three days later.”
“And Gloria took it hard.”
“She just withered up inside. She was kept so sedated I doubt she even knew there was a funeral at all. For days and days she only said one thing to me that made any sense, one thing you could recognize as real words: Don’t tell my parents, I don’t want them to know. A week or so after the funeral, she called to tell them she and Gary had broken off the engagement. She had to say something. They knew the instant they heard her voice that she was torn apart.” Her gaze revealed a trace of the agony that had emptied her. “I made a terrible mistake then. I should have ignored her and told them everything. They would have stopped her. Had her committed or forced her to get help. I don’t know. Something. Then she wouldn’t have …”
Marcus waited until he was certain she could not go on. “But you didn’t.”
“She was my friend. As soon as she came off the sedatives, she grew so determined. I mean, the very same day. Over and over she said she had to find some way to make them pay. It was like some kind of chant, I heard it that often. Some way to give meaning to Gary’s death. She talked about it all the time. I didn’t mind so much, at least she was eating again and making sense and getting better. At least she was involved with life. Or so I thought.”
“Then she found out about the joint venture.”
“Gloria had been working for almost a year on her thesis about New Horizons’ labor practices when Gary died. The company was a natural target for her. She had friends from church in almost every corporate department. New Horizons is a foul breed, always had been. Just the kind of group to suck money from kids.” She stopped for a breath. “Gloria had pretty much stopped work on her thesis and was spending all her time protesting against the Chinese. Then two things happened at once. An assistant manager at the company heard from somewhere that Gloria was fighting the Chinese on human-rights issues. She handed over documents about the joint venture.” Another shaky breath. “And then came the first rumors about New Horizons’ wanting to demolish the church.”
The Great Divide Page 39