“I sure hope it’s not a hung jury,” Campbell said with a sigh. “That would be terrible for my endorsements. And we would have to go through the whole thing again.”
“A hung jury would be a hell of a lot better than a conviction,” Justin replied.
“There won’t be a conviction,” Campbell added quickly. “I’m not worried about that. Ms. Scuba Diver would never allow that.”
“How can you be so sure?” Abe asked.
“Don’t worry, Abe. I’m not a Mafia defendant. I didn’t bribe any jurors. I just know women. That’s my expertise, like yours is knowing judges.”
“I don’t try to seduce judges.”
“We each have our way.”
“There’s no legitimate way you can be as certain as you sound,” Justin insisted.
Abe interjected: “Let’s not open up any cans of worms, Justin. Your curiosity will just have to remain unabated.”
“Hey, c’mon, guys,” Campbell interrupted. “I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of corrupter of jurors or some kind of nut psychic. So I’ll tell you my deep, dark secret. It’s very simple. When I play basketball, especially on the road, I often pick out an attractive, unaccompanied woman in the stands and make eye contact with her—while I’m on the court and when I’m on the bench. I’ve developed this ability to make love with my eyes. And I know when it’s working. If it’s working, I arrange to have one of the ball boys deliver a note to her in the stands, inviting her for a drink. It almost always works. I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s a drink. This is a verdict. Could be different,” Rendi said.
“We’ll see who is right,” Campbell said. “When this case is over, I’ll meet Ms. Scuba Diver for a drink and ask her. That’s how confident I am.”
A stunned silence greeted Campbell’s display of bravado.
Five o’clock arrived with no verdict. The jury was sent to the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge for dinner and a good night’s sleep. Deliberations would resume at nine A.M. the next morning.
There was no more frustrating time for a lawyer than when the jury was deliberating. There was absolutely nothing Abe could do to affect the outcome of the Campbell case. Yet he was so focused on the case that he couldn’t possibly turn his attention to other matters.
Like most lawyers, Abe hated not to be in control—not even to know what was going on. Part of him wanted to get away from the entire case—to be with Emma, to talk about her schoolwork, her plans for Barnard, her boyfriend, her life. This was her last year at home. He would miss her, despite his periodic trips to the Big Apple. After she left home, their relationship would never be the same.
Abe had arranged a dinner with Campbell, Justin, Rendi, and Pullman. There was really nothing to talk about except speculation concerning the outcome of the case. Why not invite Emma, Abe thought. This wouldn’t be a lawyer-client confidential meeting. It was more of an obligatory social event. He could sit next to Emma and talk to her, while the others gossiped about Judge Gambi, Cheryl Puccio, the jurors, and Jennifer Dowling. He called her.
Emma was thrilled with the invitation. “Thank you for finally treating me as a grownup, Daddy, and for finally recognizing that I can be trusted with secrets.”
“Nice try, Emma. Rules are rules. You can’t be trusted with legal secrets yet. No one outside the legal team can be. This is a social dinner. No secrets tonight.”
“Okay, at least I get to talk about the case.”
“In a general way. No specifics.”
Abe told everyone that he would meet them all at the Changsho Restaurant. He had to do something first.
Haskel’s house was on the way to the restaurant, and Abe decided to drop in on his old friend.
When Jerome opened the door, Abe knew it was an off day. The Haitian aide was sensitive, his feelings tended to show easily in his eyes, and no matter how many old and sick people he might have tended to, he never seemed inured to Haskel’s bad spells. Abe knew the routine by now, so he went immediately to Haskel’s bedroom, bypassing the study. He wondered just how long it would be before they closed up the study for good.
Once upstairs, while Haskel’s mind roamed, Abe told him of the trial. “I can’t be torn like this too many more times, Haskel. How did you manage to keep your ethics together?”
Silence, of course, greeted him. This time Abe joined the long silence, which was finally broken by the ringing of the old rotary phone next to the bed. Abe was deciding whether or not to answer it when Jerome called on the intercom next to Haskel’s bed. “It’s for you, Mr. Ringel, it’s your lady friend.”
“Abe?” Rendi asked.
“Am I that predictable?”
“Yes. How is he today?”
“Not so good,” Abe whispered into the phone. “Out of it. But not cantankerous. He’s getting past that point, unfortunately.”
“I thought you’d want to know. You just got a call from New Jersey. They’ve got Owens in custody. I don’t know whether he turned himself in or they caught him. But he’s in jail.”
“So, there is a God, after all.”
“What does this mean for Nancy?”
“It’s too early to tell. It can’t hurt.”
“I’ll see you at dinner?”
“Do me a favor. Make sure Campbell has a lot of beer and talks to everyone else. I want to spend some time with my daughter.”
“Later, then.”
“I need you in my corner. Have I told you that?”
“Rarely, but it shows anyway.”
After they hung up, Abe got ready to leave. As he bent down to bid Haskel good-bye, the old man grabbed his wrist. “The verdict of a court is not the verdict of history.”
Was this Haskel’s usual delphic pronouncement? What was he trying to say?
“I love you, my friend,” Abe told him.
Haskel smiled. Maybe he wasn’t that far gone after all.
All the way back to the restaurant, Abe thought about Haskel’s message.
* * *
By the time Abe arrived at Changsho, everyone else was already seated at a large round table. “I tried to order a bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of the trial,” Emma said in her most grown-up voice. “They said I had to wait for you, since I’m underage.”
“No champagne yet,” Abe said. “There’s nothing to celebrate.”
“Sure there is.” Campbell smiled. “I can stop wearing these gray suits. Armani, here I come. Champagne for the table, even for Emma, if her father will permit.”
“All right, one glass for Emma. Don’t invest heavily in your new wardrobe yet, Joe. You may still end up wearing government issue.”
Abe sat on one side of Emma, Rendi on the other. He tried to talk to Emma. However, she was more interested in talking basketball with Joe, who was seated across the large table. After a few minutes of banter about the Knicks, Justin redirected the conversation to the trial.
“What did you folks think of Judge Gambi?”
“Great judge, that Gambi,” Rendi said. “Really fair to everyone.”
“And smart,” Abe added.
“Of course you think she’s smart,” Justin said, “because she ruled in your favor on the reasonable doubt instruction. I remember how you carried on for weeks about Judge Schneider after she ruled in your favor in that sewer case.”
“It was a brilliant decision,” Abe said with a broad smile, as Rendi laughed out loud.
“What could possibly be so funny about a sewer case?” Campbell asked.
Abe explained. “I was representing a law school classmate in the leather tanning business who was being charged exorbitant rates for using water that eventually found its way into the sewers. I had cited a case involving a beer brewery that used even more water but was charged less. The judge asked me whether there isn’t a big difference between a leather tanner and a brewery: ‘The leather tanner’s water ends up in the sewers, Counselor, whereas the brewery’s water ends up in the drinker’s bod
y.’”
“So how did you respond?” Campbell inquired.
“I told the judge that if she waited about half an hour, the brewery’s water would also end up in the sewers. She laughed and ruled in my favor. A great judge. She brought justice to the sewers.”
“We need more women judges,” Rendi chimed in.
“Oh, yeah,” Justin said cynically. “Have you ever been before Judge Mary Mahony? That kind of a woman we don’t need more of. She hates men.”
“Well, what about Judge Bailey? He hates women.”
“So what are you saying, Rendi? We need more men-hating women judges to balance the women-hating men judges? Maybe we should just get good judges without regard to sex.”
Emma joined in: “I read somewhere that women judges are generally fairer than men judges because they’ve experienced more discrimination.” God, was Abe proud of her. She knew just what to say and when to say it.
“Do you think Puccio will be made a judge?” Rendi asked.
“If she wins this one,” Pullman said.
“She wouldn’t be bad,” Abe said. “She’s fair—for a prosecutor.”
Silence spread across the group like stains over the linen tablecloth.
Campbell recovered first. “We’re not going to lose this case thanks to my great team here, so everyone can stop looking so hangdog.”
“That’s nice of you to say, Joe,” Emma said.
When Abe looked at her he saw the hero worship in her eyes and wondered whether he could ever tell her what Rendi and Justin had dug up on the basketball star.
“Not so fast, Joe. There are only twelve people who can dictate how this thing will turn out, and until we hear from them, I don’t want to bait the gods.”
“You mean you don’t want a kenaynahura?” Campbell smiled.
Emma laughed. “Where the heck did you learn to speak Yiddish?”
“From your buddy Alex O’Donnell. He says he learned it in the old neighborhood. He always tells me that when I’m on a streak.”
Emma picked up the conversation where it had ended. “Daddy, you know Linda Fairstein, the rape prosecutor in New York? Well, her new book, Sexual Violence, argued just the way you did when we first talked about this case. That false complaints of rape really hurt actual rape victims. In fact, the women in my group agreed that falsely accusing someone is almost as terrible as rape itself.”
Abe knew she was playing to her audience here, so he kept silent.
“Where does your group stand on my case?” Campbell asked. “Do they think I was falsely accused?”
“Split verdict,” Emma said. “Some do, some don’t.”
“What do you think?”
He was smooth, Abe thought.
“I think my father is going to prove you’re innocent.”
“Smart kid you got, Ringel. And she dresses a lot better than her father.”
For the moment Abe appreciated Campbell’s agility at negotiating difficult conversations. “No thanks to me, I might add.”
“No, she’s clearly an original.” Campbell winked across the table at Emma.
Pullman said, “Emma’s group actually is close to the shadow. I told you it might be a hung jury.”
“There’s only one jury that counts,” said Rendi. “Not the shadows. Not Emma’s group. Not even us. Just those twelve people who are now eating hotel food at the Howard Johnson’s Lodge.”
“With the food they feed them at Ho-Jo’s, I’ll bet there’ll be a verdict first thing tomorrow. I think it will be before lunch,” Justin predicted.
“If it’s tomorrow, you’re dead,” Pullman said, shaking his head. “A long deliberation could be a hung jury. A short one in this case sounds like a conviction.”
“I think it will be tomorrow, and I think I’m going to win,” Campbell said, holding up a glass of champagne.
“To Campbell being right,” Justin toasted.
“To justice,” Emma added, clinking Abe’s glass.
Upon hearing Emma’s words, Abe was tempted to tell the old joke of the lawyer who cabled his client, “Justice has prevailed,” to which his client responded, “Appeal immediately.” Abe thought better of even joking about his cynicism, lest he tip his suspicions of Campbell to Emma and Pullman.
Abe and Emma walked home after dinner. During the fifteen-minute walk, Abe praised Emma for articulating her viewpoint so sensitively. “I really am a dinosaur when it comes to women’s issues. Seeing you, listening to you, knowing you, has been more educational than a hundred books.”
“Really, Daddy? Do you mean that?”
“Yes, I do. You know how much I rely on Haskel for his wisdom. And I rely on you for your directness, your truth, your commitment.”
“Daddy, you’re the smartest man I know.”
“Clever, Emma, clever. There’s a world of difference between the cleverness of my generation and the wisdom of Haskel’s generation.”
“What about my generation?”
“You’ve got something we lack, too. A kind of passionate honesty. It’s great to be sandwiched between two such different generations, each of which teaches me so much about myself. We were brought up on the quick fix.”
“You really do take me seriously sometimes, Daddy, even when you seem to be ignoring me.”
“I really love you, and I love what you are and what you’re in the process of becoming.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me,” Emma said softly, holding Abe’s hand. “I need a dinosaur to rebel against.”
“Let’s not grow apart when you move to New York. I’m not sure what the rules are. Can I call you every day? Or is that too clingy? You’ve got to tell me.”
“There are no rules, Daddy. Just call whenever you feel like. I’ll call you whenever I need money. That’s the main rule.”
“Good. Then I’ll give you a dollar at a time. Seriously, though, I want you to have your own money, so you don’t have to call me just for money. I want you to call me when you feel like it.”
“I will. I just may have to do it from a pay phone. It isn’t cool for a college freshman to call her daddy all the time.”
“We’ll be fine, Emma. I know it. Now let’s enjoy our last few months together as housemates. How about a Red Sox game this weekend—if the verdict is in and it’s good?”
“Sorry, Dad, I’m all booked for this weekend. Jon has tickets for a concert.”
“Next weekend, then. The Vineyard. Charlotte Inn. The Black Dog.”
“Sorry, Dad. Next Saturday night is my feminist group dinner. Even Jon doesn’t get to go to that one. So I have to go out with him on Friday.”
“All right. We’ll just play it by ear. You’ll fit me in sometime.”
“I’ll try my best, Daddy,” Emma said with the Hannah smile that brought back so many memories.
Chapter Thirty
“We have a verdict,” the clerk shouted to the lawyers and spectators milling around the hallway outside the courtroom. “It will be announced in ten minutes.”
Abe looked at his watch. It was 11:15 A.M., just a little more than two hours since the jury had resumed its deliberations. “Now I guess we’ll see who’s right,” he said to Pullman as they walked toward the front of the courtroom.
A few minutes after everyone was seated, the jurors were brought in. Abe quickly looked at Ms. Scuba Diver. Her head was down. She was not looking in the direction of the defense table. She was not smiling. Campbell looked in her direction. There was no response. Abe put his arm around Campbell’s large shoulder, as if to comfort him. Campbell shrugged it away, as if to say “I don’t need your pity. I can take it, whatever the verdict may be.”
Henry Pullman made his way to the lawyer’s table and whispered two words in Abe’s ear: “Expect trouble.” Abe expected trouble even without Henry’s warning. He knew from experience that when a jury had acquitted, it generally smiled and looked at the defendant when it entered the courtroom to deliver its good news. When it was about to deli
ver bad news, it looked as though it were on the way to a funeral.
Only Campbell was still optimistic. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry. Of course they’re not looking up. They’re embarrassed about concluding that Jennifer is a liar. Some of them may even feel a bit guilty for doubting her, but they have a reasonable doubt. Believe me.”
Abe shook his head in bewilderment. Was this man a crystal ball reader? Or was he always so self-deceptive?
“Be seated, please. We have a verdict,” Judge Gambi announced.
“Ms. Foreperson,” she said, “please rise.” Ms. Scuba Diver stood up. “Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?”
“We have.”
“Please give the verdict sheet to the clerk, who will hand it up to me.”
Judge Gambi received the one-page verdict sheet, looked at it, and showed no expression.
“Please announce your verdict.”
At this point Ms. Scuba Diver glanced past the defense table and looked directly at Jennifer Dowling. Then she looked down at the verdict sheet and read: “We, the jury, find the defendant, Joseph Campbell”—she paused and looked directly at the defendant as she finished reading the verdict—“not guilty of rape.”
The spectators reacted with a mixture of cheers and boos and loud buzzing. This time Judge Gambi did not try to quiet them down. The case was over, and those who had come to see justice done were entitled, Judge Gambi believed, to express their feelings—briefly. After about a minute, she rapped her gavel once.
“Mr. Campbell, you are free to go. Ms. Puccio and Mr. Ringel, I want to thank you both, and your staffs, for excellent presentations. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I never comment on a verdict except to say that you have performed an important function of citizenship. You should be proud of your willingness to take time out of your busy lives to do justice. Thank you. Court is adjourned.”
Abe had spent enough time with Campbell to know not to expect the customary hug from a grateful client. He was right, and relieved. Instead he got a cool handshake from Campbell.
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