by Sydney Bauer
‘All rise,’ said the court clerk, causing an immediate cessation of the coughs and whispers in the courtroom. Judge Reginald Jones was a tall, broad-shouldered African-American with grey-streaked hair and large brown eyes. He strode into the room, his black robe hugging his substantial frame.
‘Good morning,’ he said as he took his seat, front and centre, promptly bending to his right to release the lever on his ergonomic chair. David guessed the chair’s previous occupant had been somewhat smaller than the hulking Judge Jones, whose knees finally found their way under the honey-coloured bench, as his elbows rounded their way onto its surface.
The clerk handed the judge some court documents. ‘You represent the people in this matter, Mr Marshall,’ said Jones addressing the FAP.
‘I do, Your Honour,’ said Marshall, springing to his feet.
‘And I welcome you to my courtroom, Mr Cavanaugh,’ said Jones. ‘I hope Mr Marshall here has extended his hospitality by providing your client with a copy of the complaint?’
‘Yes, Your Honour,’ said David, a little unnerved by the slight echo caused by the low-lying microphone on the desk in front of him.
‘And Senator Kincaid,’ said Judge Jones. ‘I gather you have been informed of your rights in this matter and that the charge of murder is an indictable offence under—’
‘Your Honour,’ interrupted Marshall, who backed up a little so that he might manoeuvre himself around his desk. ‘I have here an indictment in the matter of the People versus Senator Christopher Kincaid in relation to the charge of murder one.’
Bang – just like that, Marshall pulled his first surprise.
David was instantly on his feet. ‘Your Honour, the defence was not advised of any scheduled hearing before the grand jury. We . . .’
‘With all due respect, Judge,’ said Marshall, handing the document to the court clerk who immediately high-tailed it up to the now confused-looking judge, ‘the people do not have a legal responsibility to inform defence counsel of a scheduling of a grand jury hearing. As you are aware, it is the duty of the Prosecutor’s Office to determine whether or not it is in the court’s best interest to pursue a criminal complaint and, in this matter, both myself and my superior, Essex County Prosecutor Wade, decided the case had both merit and sufficient evidence to seek a conviction.’
An ashen-faced Chris turned to his family behind him as David moved out from behind his desk. David could feel the air being sucked from the room about him, as the gallery held their breath. ‘Your Honour,’ he began. ‘I appreciate the First Assistant Prosecutor’s penchant for speedy justice, but that is not the way it works. My client is not a story on a deadline,’ he added, wanting to make the point that just because Chris was who he was, it did not mean his case should be pushed through the system as swiftly as possible. ‘He is a citizen in a state where due process is both respected and adhered to and—’
‘I understand what you are saying, Counsellor,’ said Jones. ‘And I also see how you might be perturbed by what you describe as your opponent’s lack of courtesy, but this isn’t a garden party, Mr Cavanaugh, and from what Mr Marshall has described here, and from the document I have in hand,’ Jones held up the indictment, ‘I would surmise that the prosecution has ticked all the boxes, albeit at lightning speed.’
‘Your Honour,’ said David. ‘I may be the new kid on the block here, but I am more than aware of the prosecution’s obligation to involve defence counsel in pre-indictment events, such as—’
‘Such as what?’ interrupted Marshall, ‘CJP, PIP?’ Marshall was trying to confuse him with acronyms, but luckily David had done his homework and knew the FAP was referring to the procedures of Central Judicial Processing and Pre-Indictment Programs. But unfortunately the mention of these two initiatives simply proved Marshall’s point – given David was certain the thorough prosecutor would have run this case through every valid process – realising that any ‘pass’ on a crime as serious as murder was an impossibility in any case.
‘If it gives defence counsel some comfort, Your Honour,’ Marshall went on, ‘the officers in our Case Screening Unit reviewed the police and the ME’s primary evaluations and determined the charge is indeed valid. And given the seriousness of the charge, and the heinous way in which it was carried out—’
‘But, Your Honour,’ David interrupted, determined not to miss a beat, ‘the very nature of the charge goes to prove the prosecution’s failure to brief defence counsel on its particulars. The charge of murder is outrageous, given my client is innocent, but the prosecution has obviously made no efforts to consider the lesser charge of manslaughter.’
‘You want to plea, Counsellor?’ asked Marshall, breaking protocol to address David directly.
‘Of course not,’ said an increasingly furious David. ‘All I am saying is—’
‘Enough!’ bellowed Jones, the deep timbre of his voice sending a tremble throughout the room. ‘Mr Marshall, did you give the grand jury the option of manslaughter?’
‘Yes, Your Honour,’ said Marshall.
David forced himself to swallow.
‘But they rejected it in favour of the more serious charge of murder,’ a vindicated Marshall went on.
‘And this was based on the testimony provided by your witnesses?’
‘Yes, Your Honour. Witness testimony, a subpoena of the defendant’s phone records that showed he had contact with the victim on the day of her death, and further information provided by the Prosecutor’s Office.’
‘There’s more?’ asked Jones, now obviously intrigued.
‘Yes, Your Honour.’
‘In the form of?’ asked Jones, raising his hand to block David’s objections.
‘The defendant’s priors, Your Honour.’
David flashed a look at his client, wondering where the hell this was going.
‘The senator has a record?’ asked Jones, his eyebrows raised so high they almost met his hairline.
‘Yes, Your Honour – one that was discovered in the course of our investigations. The record was previously expunged but has been re-opened at our request.’
David felt physically sick.
‘And this prior charge, Mr Marshall, what does it refer to?’
‘A homicide, Your Honour,’ said Marshall, all of five foot five and now twenty feet tall.
The gallery gasped.
‘Did you say a homicide, Mr Marshall?’ asked Jones, his eyes now saucers of disbelief.
‘Yes, Your Honour. I did, Your Honour. The defendant has killed before.’
37
Newark, New Jersey; 1985
Mike had a new girlfriend. Her name was Lorraine. At nineteen, she was almost two years older than the rest of them, and she used this seniority as an excuse to speak her mind.
Lorraine was a hairdresser at a downtown salon called Kutz Unlimited. She wore her own hair like Demi Moore in St Elmo’s Fire – sort of long around the shoulders and short and teased on top. She lived in a housing project in Springfield with her drunken widowed mom, and she worked days as a colourist at Kutz – where she’d met a lust-driven Mike when he’d dropped his own mom off for a permanent.
‘This place sucks,’ said Lorraine to the others – Chris and Marilyn, Rebecca and David. David was by no means ‘with’ Rebecca but the fact that Mike had now got himself a girlfriend kind of made them a twosome by default.
‘Seriously, you guys are such geeks. This place is for children,’ Lorraine went on, referring to the suburban bar Chris had chosen for their underage Friday night out. ‘We need to head down toward Rutgers so we can hang with the college crowd, not prepubescent babies who’re still suck’n’ on their momma’s tits.’
She had a mouth on her, that Lorraine.
‘I like it here,’ said Marilyn, and David could tell she was trying to restrain herself.
‘Me too,’ said Chris, now looping his long arms around Marilyn’s waist to pull her in and make out – which of course triggered Mike to do the same with a mor
e than willing Lorraine.
‘Lorraine’s right,’ said Mike, taking in the crowd of underage drunks around them. ‘This place does suck.’ And this was when things got sticky given Lorraine had taken an instant dislike to Marilyn and Marilyn was determined to stay.
The thing was, everyone called Lorraine Mike’s ‘new’ girlfriend but, truth be told, the guy had never actually had a proper girlfriend before. So Lorraine was in kind of safe territory as far as their usual barbs were concerned, given they didn’t want to bust Mike’s chances of maintaining a regular relationship or, more to the point, securing a regular lay. Which was why Marilyn had paid Mike the courtesy of holding back when it came to her opinion of the girl she’d described to Chris, David and Rebecca in privacy as an ‘up-herself whore’. And why David was trying to think of a way to ease everybody’s tensions before Marilyn’s self-discipline exploded.
‘Why don’t we try Lorraine’s place for an hour or two?’ he suggested. ‘We can always come back here before closing.’
And so it was agreed, a smug-faced Lorraine leading the way outside so they could take two taxis down to University Heights.
‘This is a waste of fucking money,’ said Marilyn as she and Chris pushed into the taxi next to Rebecca, David now sitting up front.
‘Well, you agreed to go,’ said Chris.
‘No, Dillon – your friend Rob here agreed to go.’ After almost three years, Marilyn still referred to Chris as Matt Dillon and David as Rob Lowe.
‘No balls,’ said Marilyn, just as David gestured for the cabbie to follow the taxi in front, the one carrying Lorraine and Mike, who could be seen sucking face in the back seat. ‘Seriously, the three of you have no balls allowing that bitch to boss you around. I should’ve dated your brother from the get-go, Rob,’ Marilyn added, knowing this would annoy Chris. ‘Sean Cavanaugh – now, he’s got some balls.’
This was a regular taunt from Marilyn – one that she knew would push Chris’s buttons given it was Sean that Marilyn had described as a ‘stud’ on the night she and Chris had first met.
‘For crap’s sake, Marilyn,’ said Chris. ‘We were just trying to be sensitive to Mike’s feelings.’
‘What about my feelings, Dillon?’ she asked. ‘We could have used this cab fare for drinks.’
‘Jesus,’ said David, finally having had enough. ‘Chris is right, Marilyn. You need to cut Mike some slack.’ And he meant it, given David had always figured the only reason Mike had never hooked up with anyone else was because he had always held a candle for . . .
‘Lorraine’s a slut,’ said Marilyn.
‘Yeah, well, she’s Mike’s slut, okay?’ countered David.
Marilyn finally decided to give in, perhaps realising the two boys’ minds were set, and there was no way Rebecca would dare to take a side.
Moments later they were standing in an overcrowded pub filled with inebriated twenty-somethings – college jocks and sweater-wearing babes drinking shots from a sticky walnut bar.
‘We’re gonna get carded,’ yelled Chris above the din. They all carried fake IDs – David’s being a copy of his brother’s driver’s licence. ‘I get picked up by the cops for being underage,’ Chris continued, ‘. . . my mom is gonna kill me.’
David ignored him, finding a booth in the corner where they’d be inconspicuous. But Lorraine wasn’t interested in lying low – she jumped onto a nearby low-lying table and began gyrating in front of a group of testosterone-charged jocks.
‘Jesus, Mike,’ said Chris then, forcing them all into a huddle. ‘She’s your chick, dude.’
‘So what?’ yelled Mike in return. ‘They can look, Kincaid, but they cannot touch.’
Which was when one particularly large college asshole proceeded to wrap his hand around Lorraine’s toned calf, and run it slowly up the inner part of her thigh.
‘Babe,’ yelled Mike then. He was on his feet, which was not necessarily an advantage given Mike was short and the college jock looked like a Hummer sitting next to Mike’s Mini Cooper. ‘Cool it, okay? Come over here, babe. I bought you a shot of sambuca.’
But Lorraine chose to ignore him, and the jock laughed and started with the other hand – this time somewhere in the vicinity of Lorraine’s substantial chest.
‘Jesus, Mike,’ said Marilyn. ‘You gonna let him bang her before you put a stop to this?’
But Mike – Mike – the man of a thousand solutions who was never lost for words said nothing. ‘Jesus,’ he managed as Lorraine raised her hand to her mouth and licked her pointer finger in one long, slow gesture of unmistakable seduction.
‘That’s it,’ said Marilyn, jumping to her feet in Mike’s defence. ‘Get the fuck down, you slut,’ she said, pulling at Lorraine’s skirt. ‘Mike’s your date. Show some fucking respect.’
And then the college jock responded. ‘What’s up, blondie?’ he asked. ‘You jealous? You want a piece of this too?’ He cupped the mound in his stone-washed jeans.
Chris was on him in seconds, David hesitating but a fraction before leaping into the fray. The music blared and the patrons jostled and the beer spilt and the girls shrieked and the jocks appeared to multiply as they laid into the three seventeen year olds with pure alcohol-fuelled adrenalin.
Chris fought back hard, his eyes blinded by the blood now running from his scalp. Marilyn did her bit to stem the flow of attackers by grabbing Lorraine by the hair and attempting to pull her off the table so that Chris could get his footing and take a better shot.
‘This is all your fault, you fucking bitch,’ said Lorraine to Marilyn, loud enough for Chris to hear. Which was when a similarly bloodied David met eyes with a white-faced Rebecca, who had taken up her usual position as shadow behind her porcelain-haired friend.
‘Rebecca,’ yelled David. ‘Get Marilyn the hell out of here.’ But Marilyn would not budge and Chris turned instinctively to defend her.
Lorraine let fly – her right arm slicing from above and ripping through the air with such determination that her flat, multi-ringed hand cut sharply across Marilyn’s left cheek in a slap so loud that it caused a momentary halt to the battle.
And that was when Chris moved swiftly in retaliation, lunging forward to pick up the legs of Lorraine’s now glass-littered table and using all his strength to lift them way up off the floor.
And that was when the table flipped.
And that was when the glass shattered.
And that was when Lorraine lost consciousness, never to wake again.
38
‘How much?’ asked Gloria Kincaid, barely giving David a moment to take it all in, accosting him the second he finally made it to the back of the courtroom, dragging him away from the now burgeoning media throng and pulling him into a nearby vacant office.
‘Jesus, Gloria,’ he said, still reeling from the events that had taken place mere moments before.
Gloria shut the door behind them. They had no business being in what looked to be the court administrator’s private enclave, but the woman was obviously beyond caring.
‘Shut up and listen to me,’ she said finally releasing his elbow. ‘I asked you, how much?’ She started rifling through her Gucci clutch for a chequebook and pen.
‘You want to pay me off?’ David could not believe it.
‘If that’s what it takes to make you go away. Your performance in court just now,’ she said, her lips clenching so tightly they completely drained of colour, ‘. . . it was beyond incompetent. You embarrassed us – you humiliated Chris by association. You are a pathetic excuse for an attorney, David, and I want you out of our lives.’
David took a step forward. He had never wanted to strike a woman before, it was not who he was – who he’d been raised to be – but it took all his strength not to physically lash out at the perfectly coiffed woman in front of him – a woman who had controlled everything and everyone she came in contact with, for her entire life.
‘This isn’t your decision, Gloria,’ he said, trying to restrain himself. ‘Chr
is is my client, not you.’
‘Chris is my son and he does what I tell him.’
‘Chris is a man who is more than capable of making his own decisions.’
‘Oh.’ She laughed through gritted teeth. ‘That’s precious, considering you and I both know that the few independent decisions my son has ever made have ended in disaster.’
She had a point, but David still shook his head in disagreement. ‘This is your fault as much as anyone else’s. You should have told me the girl had died.’
All these years Chris and his mother had covered up the fact that Lorraine Stankovic had died from the complications of the injuries she sustained on the night of that college bar brawl. All these years David had believed Chris’s story that his family had discreetly paid for the girl’s medical treatment and rehabilitation so that she might be nursed back to health.
Even after Mike had called Chris on his actions, even after the two of them had beaten each other black and blue on that horrible night that ended in the trio’s fateful truce at Quincy’s Five Corners Bar, Chris had never told them the truth. And in that moment, David hated him for it – hated Chris, and hated his mother as well.
‘What the hell happened, Gloria? How did the girl die?’
David saw the woman shudder. It would not be out of pity for the girl, David knew, but because Chris’s actions had created a burden that necessitated her pulling every legal and political string she could get her hands on.
‘There’s no point in hiding it now,’ he went on, knowing she would need some convincing to share. ‘The cat is well and truly out of the bag. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to defend your son on the serious charge of murder, and if FAP Marshall is right, if Lorraine Stankovic died because Chris—’
‘She didn’t die,’ snapped Gloria finally. ‘At least, not immediately. In fact we’d already paid tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills when she selfishly packed it in.’