“Weren’t you surprised? I mean, for one of the world’s most famous dancers? Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
“No. She’s a loner. She doesn’t have anything to do with the people she works with. That’s not so odd,” I said.
“You sure are good at arguing either side, aren’t you, Michael,” Swid said.
I smiled, realizing that it was preposterous for me to appear to be defending the victim. “That’s what makes me a professional,” I said.
“I guess you’re not going to give me any pearls today, huh, Michael?” Swid said.
“Like pearls before Swid?” Norman asked.
“I got to pick up some galleys of my story on your case,” Swid said, ignoring Norman. “I’m curious if this new editor has left anything that resembles my piece. It’s called ‘Anatomy of a Celebrity on Trial.’”
“Very catchy,” I said.
Allen Swid moved on.
I looked over to Norman. “The penetrating light of the Fourth Estate,” I said.
“I wonder if he has any idea how many people think he’s an ass,” Norman said.
“Oh, to see ourselves as others see us,” I said.
“Right,” Norman said.
“That’s what we lawyers are supposed to be good at so that we can convince jurors of the rightness of our cause,” I said.
“Right,” Norman said, and began telling me about a trial he had had a few years ago. I’d heard the story several times before.
Eventually Norman finished his story, apologized for having to go, and finally left me in peace.
A few minutes later, Cheryl Hazelton approached me with a cup of coffee. “Mind if I interrupt you?” she asked. Cheryl was a tall black woman, an assistant prosecutor. The prosecutor’s office had no more beautiful woman working for it.
“Please join me,” I said, although I would have preferred to be alone and quiet for a little while longer.
Cheryl and I had known each other for years. We had tried several cases against each other. A criminal trial could resemble a war experience, and although a defense lawyer did battle against a prosecutor, such shared experiences sometimes created special bonds like the bonds between “war buddies”… and that was the relationship between Cheryl and me. I knew Cheryl liked me for not being smug about a drug case I had won against her when she was just starting out in the prosecutor’s office.
“You look tired,” she said as she took the seat across from me where Norman had been sitting a few moments ago.
“I’m getting too old for this,” I said.
“Are you ready to start another case?” she asked.
“What other case?”
“The Larsen case,” she said.
I had not quite forgotten about a client of mine who had been waiting in jail for six months at this point, but I certainly hadn’t thought of him since the start of my trial with Betz two weeks ago. Larsen was accused of attempting to murder his gay lover.
“We should get going with it soon or else I’m going to get trapped into starting something else,” I said. “Taylor probably wants to move it off his calendar, don’t you think?”
“Taylor? Taylor’s a nutcase, I mean a real hypochondriac,” Cheryl said. “In the last case I tried with Taylor, I wanted an adjournment, so I went to speak to him at sidebar. He was sitting there with his pills next to his water pitcher. I asked for an adjournment. Taylor said no. So I coughed. He said two weeks.”
“Eccentric, perhaps, but something less than insane,” I said. Most people who worked at the courthouse knew that Taylor was a hypochondriac.
“A nutcase,” Cheryl said.
“I’d rather deal with him than with Fazio.” Cheryl had been the prosecutor in the case I had just finished with Fazio.
Cheryl and I looked over to a nearby table where Judge Fazio was sitting with several other judges. Fazio was smiling, giving no indication that he understood a word anyone was saying. In his midfifties with gray hair, a prominent forehead, deep-set eyes, a rather generous nose, and a jutting, Jeffersonian chin, Anthony Fazio looked like a judge. A year earlier he had been chastised by the chief justice of the state supreme court for having allowed a photograph of himself in judicial robes to be used in promotional materials of a garment company that sold judicial robes. The chief justice had felt it unseemly that the image of one of “his” judges be used for commercial purposes. Judge Fazio probably would have gotten into more trouble if he had been paid for the use of his picture. Apparently Fazio had posed only for the attention he would receive.
“I never realized he was so hard-of-hearing till this last case,” Cheryl said, turning back to face me. She was referring to the trial she and I had finished before Fazio about a month ago. I would have wanted to work out a plea bargain with Cheryl in that case because of all the witnesses against my client. In a plea bargain, a defendant agrees to give up his right to a trial and to plead guilty to a less serious offense than the one he is charged with. Prosecutors agree to a plea bargain because the state saves the expense of a trial and avoids the risk of losing the trial; defendants agree to it because they avoid being found guilty of more serious offenses and doing longer time in prison. In the case Cheryl was referring to, she had offered me no real “bargain” of a plea. So we went to trial, and, not surprisingly, I lost.
“You got to admit he looks like a judge,” I said.
“I always thought he just wasn’t interested in what I was saying.”
“Maybe nowadays justice is supposed to be deaf as well as blind,” I said.
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Cheryl said. “What’s the chances of a plea with Larsen?”
“Can you let him out for the time he’s served waiting for this trial?” I asked.
“Come on, Michael, you know I can’t. Christ, it’s attempted murder. Your guy puts a twelve-inch knife into the guy’s stomach. How can I give him a walk?” A “walk” is a plea bargain by which the defendant winds up with a non-prison sentence that allows him to walk out of the courtroom with his lawyer at the end of the case.
“If you were having trouble getting your witness, maybe you could justify it.”
“No problem,” Cheryl said, but we both knew there was a problem. The corroborating witness had “gone south” on her. But neither of us would acknowledge that we knew it at this stage in the plea negotiations.
I nodded and took a sip of coffee. “It was just a lovers’ quarrel,” I said.
“Except your guy wasn’t scratched, and he weighs about a hundred pounds more than the victim.”
I hated the prospect of having Taylor watch me try this case and see me humiliate a man who had already been through hell. “I’m going to have to crucify the victim. It’s demeaning,” I said. The way I was feeling at the moment, “demeaning” was probably an understatement.
“Right. So why don’t we work out a plea?”
“I can’t. My guy won’t go for anything.”
“Right,” Cheryl said.
“Taylor should be just as embarrassed as I am. He’s going to have to just sit there and watch me cut that poor bastard up worse than what my client did to him.”
“Right.”
“Some business,” I said.
“Right. Some business,” Cheryl said.
Cheryl and I walked out of the cafeteria together. We assured each other that we would get back in touch shortly about the Larson case. I had no idea then that it would take more than three months and that my client would be waiting in jail all that time.
I headed back to wait for the verdict, opened the door of the courtroom, and saw Betz still sitting at his place at counsel table. I decided to wait alone on a bench in the corridor outside.
I would have been very surprised if the jury had not returned an acquittal. If I won, I would have proof that I, and I alone, as defense counsel, had destroyed Lisa in a way that no one else could have. At least, I believed that, and certainly no one could prove otherwise. After all, I had
gotten her to admit that she had been aroused by my client. No one else could have gotten her to say that. Probably.
I felt a growing guilt about what I had done to Lisa. Not that I’d had any choice: for me to win, she had to be destroyed. But I was having an odd reaction that reminded me of the only time I’d gone hunting, more than twenty years ago. I’d shot a deer, a lovely, defenseless deer that had frozen in his tracks. When the deer went down, I was overwhelmed with guilt. I had wished immediately, even before the sound of the gunshot had left the forest, that I could have taken back the shot, unpulled the trigger. I had soothed my conscience by telling myself that I hadn’t known what I was doing. I hadn’t experienced that kind of guilt before or since then—not until this trial. My attack on Lisa had generated the same feelings I’d had as when I’d shot the deer. But this time I’d known exactly what I was doing, and I hadn’t yet figured out how I’d soothe my conscience. But I was sure I’d find a way.
A court officer came out of the courtroom to tell me that I was needed inside. The jury had reached a verdict.
Chapter 4
TEN CHILDREN, ALL AROUND the age of four, were playing in the large living room of my house. I owned a substantial family house surrounded by a well-groomed lawn in a lovely suburb of New York. Children’s music and snippets of their laughter filled the room and fresh, scented air came from the garden through the large French doors.
Twelve parents were watching. The verdict was only a few hours old, but I was able to be totally involved in a new setting. I was observing the scene through the lens of a video camera balanced on my shoulder. I was focused exclusively on my lovely daughter, Molly, who was lying facedown on the rug.
Jenny, my ex-wife, was standing next to me. We had lived in this house for eleven years, until we separated and she got an apartment in the center of town. Jenny and several of the other mothers were singing “The Bunnies Are Sleeping”:
See the little bunnies sleeping till it’s
nearly noon. Come and let us gently
wake them with a merry tune. Oh how
still. Are they ill? Hop little bunnies!
Hop! Hop! Hop!
All the children jumped up from the rug and began hopping. I finally aimed the video camera at some of the other children. I then quickly panned the adults in the room before returning my attention to Molly.
Everyone clapped and laughed at the happy, hopping children.
“Charming,” Charles Donner said. Charles had been a friend of mine since we’d begun law school together twenty-five years ago.
“Aren’t they darling!” Charles’s wife, Eleanor, said.
Molly ran over to me. I put down the camera and she gave me a big hug. I kissed her.
“Are you having a good time, sweetheart?” I asked.
“Yes, Daddy. I’m really, really glad you could come,” Molly said.
“So am I,” I said.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Daddy, did you bring home the bacon?”
I laughed. Molly and I had a little ritual. When I went off to trial, Molly would ask me where I was going, and I would say I was going to bring home the bacon. “Yes, sweetheart. I brought home the bacon,” I said.
“Good. Daddy, can I come with you next time you go to court and watch you win your case?”
“Isn’t it a fact, young lady,” I said in a stentorian, self-mocking voice, “that I’ve told you on numerous occasions that I don’t always win my cases?”
Molly smiled, enjoying the exchange. “Yes. But you usually win, don’t you, Daddy?”
“But I put it to you, Ms. Witness,” I continued in the same self-mocking voice for the benefit of Molly rather than the adults standing by, “isn’t it a tissue of lies to imply an ‘always’ when the undeniable truth is merely ‘usually’?”
Molly giggled. “Tissues aren’t for lies. They’re for sneezing, Daddy. Bye-bye,” she said, and ran off to join her friends.
“You still have the bacon ritual, I see,” Jenny said.
“As you know, I’m very big on rituals,” I said.
“Only too well, sweetheart,” Jenny said.
“Give me the camera, Michael,” Eleanor said, “so I can take a picture of our conquering hero.”
“Sorry, Eleanor, I’m the director, not the talent.”
“Well, you’re certainly the talent in the courtroom,” Eleanor said.
“Yes, I’m certain we’re all impressed with your skill,” Jenny said with less than total conviction.
“Michael, do we all get copies of your video masterpiece?” Pebble asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I can also give you a deal on forty hours of ‘Molly: The Early Years.’”
“Just the parts that include our son would be fine, thank you,” Pebble said.
“You think Michael is joking,” Jenny said. “The first tape begins with him holding Molly in his arms when she was six days old.”
“I set the camera up on a tripod,” I said. “And I said, ‘This is my daughter, and this is the start of a primary document that she can take to her shrink when she gets old enough, so that, unlike me, she doesn’t have to rely on dreams or chase distorted memories.’”
Everyone laughed.
Jenny shook her head. “He also wanted to present his version of what really happened,” she said.
Everyone laughed again.
“You wanted to give yourself the best defense, no doubt,” Charles said.
“Exactly,” I said.
Everyone laughed.
“I don’t know why you haven’t shown it to your shrink yet,” Jenny said.
“I should. Maybe he’ll think I’m not such a monster after all,” I said.
“I guess we should gather up the heirs and get going. It’s getting dark,” Pebble said.
“Thank you all for coming,” I said.
I assumed no one wanted to leave, because no one made a move to get their coats.
“Well, thank you. And congratulations again. It was a sensational win, Killer,” Eleanor said.
“God knows, on some level I must still love winning,” I said. “Or why else would I keep trying so hard?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Stan said. “Do you feel any responsibility for what your clients do after you get them back out on the street?” Stan was a surgeon; he and his wife, Pebble, were my next-door neighbors. I never liked him much, but he had a sweet daughter who was Molly’s best friend.
“As a doctor, would you feel responsible for what a murderer does after you repaired his trigger finger?” I said.
“The system can’t function without advocates, adversaries fighting it out,” Charles said.
“Charles, that’s what you and I learned in law school. But the system can function with other advocates. It doesn’t need me,” I said.
“The problem is that you’re too good at it. You’re not just an equal adversary—you’re a killer, Killer,” Eleanor said.
“That’s kind of you to say, Eleanor,” I said.
“My wife means ‘killer,’ of course, in the best sense, Michael,” Charles said with a smile.
“Well, that’s what I’m trained for. Who knows—I might have been defending an innocent man,” I said.
“This is the only kind of case that really upsets me,” Jenny said.
“That beheading case—that didn’t bother you?” Eleanor asked.
“That was awful, but somehow, rape…” Jenny’s voice trailed off.
“Every time you win an exciting case, Eleanor asks me if I set up any thrilling trusts lately,” Charles said. “By the way, how’s Bear doing?” Charles was referring to Judge Singer, the judge I had clerked for.
“Not well, I’m afraid,” I said. “I’m going to miss him.” The judge had retired three years ago, after twenty-five years on the bench. For the last two weeks he had been a few blocks from the courthouse, at St. John’s Hospital, dying. He was dying because his liver had sentenced him
to death.
“He’s a tough old bastard. Maybe he’ll pull through,” Charles said.
“He’s been very good to me, Charles, over the years, whenever I needed advice,” I said. Bear could be a mean son of a bitch who would scream at lawyers in his court if they were unprepared. He had a temper, but his anger came out because he really cared. And he certainly never acted in anger toward me.
“I always envied your relationship with him,” Charles said.
“Stick around for a little while. I just want to get one of those,” I said, pointing to Charles’s drink.
I walked over to the maid and picked up a drink from her tray.
“Thank you for inviting us,” a woman I had never met before said. “I hope that our daughters can become good friends.”
“I’m glad you could come,” I said politely.
“We saw that Altman woman in Giselle,” the man next to the woman said.
“Oh, really?” I said.
“She was very attractive and very convincing in that,” the woman said.
“I must say, she got better reviews in Giselle than at her trial,” the man said.
“You must say?” I said, and tried to smile. “You people have no idea what it’s like being beaten up in a cross-examination,” I said.
“The newspapers this time were brutal,” the man said, and laughed.
“Critics are so fucking fickle, I must say. Excuse me,” I said, smiling, but with anger in my voice.
I walked away from the couple, leaving them taken aback by my language. I was probably as surprised as they were by my anger. I couldn’t remember the last time I had talked like that to strangers, particularly strangers who were just trying to be flattering.
I knew that I had told Charles I was going to come back to him once I had gotten a drink, but I really didn’t want to talk anymore to anyone about anything.
I went over to the terrace doors, opened them, and stepped out onto the brick terrace. Alone in the gathering night, I walked to the edge of the terrace. A dozen cars were parked in the circular driveway leading up to the front door.
I looked back into the house and watched the animated party for a moment. The music, talk, and children’s laughter continued. Jenny could be seen through the window, engaged in intense conversation.
Question of Consent: A Novel Page 4