The One-Eyed Judge

by Ponsor, Michael;

  Lindsay looked up and then quickly turned and stared over her shoulder into the far corner of the room. She said something he didn’t catch.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I just need a minute.” Then she spoke a little louder, still facing the corner. “I have nowhere.”

  “You have nowhere?”

  “My dad doesn’t like me. You don’t want me. And Mom’s …”

  To David’s astonishment, Lindsay raised both her hands in the air, then pulled them into her sides, and bent over with a rending groan so loud it brought Marlene bustling into the room and jamming her nose into Lindsay’s stomach, wagging her tail for all she was worth.

  Lindsay just sat there crying and making these horrible noises while Norcross stood paralyzed in the doorway. Fifteen minutes ago, Lindsay was coming across as a tower of arrogant strength, a frightening adversary. Now he had no idea what to do, no idea anything like this had been lurking inside the girl. Marlene was baffled, too, and she looked over her shoulder for guidance. At first, David suspected it might be an act, and he put his hands in his pockets to wait it out.

  But Lindsay just kept crying, hands over her face, tears leaking through, as though she didn’t care that he was there. It was impossible to cry that hard and be putting it on.

  Finally, in a gap while she breathed, Norcross said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” She gave a shudder as she exhaled. “I’m sorry, too. Shit.”

  Norcross took his hands out of his pockets and flapped them at her uselessly. “Can we talk?”

  Lindsay shook her head and sniffed. “Do you really want to?”

  42

  Later that morning, Judge Norcross was tearing down the interstate, doing 70 in a 65 mph zone. As a rule, he never broke the speed limit, but he hated to make jurors wait. They were his flock, and even from behind the wheel, he felt their confusion and restlessness. It helped that he no longer had to ferry Lindsay to the airport. After a long talk, more tears, and their inaugural hug, he’d phoned Ray back and told him she wouldn’t be coming down after all. Ray, still peeved about the earlier call, hadn’t bothered to thank him.

  When Norcross finally made it to the courthouse and hurried through the glass doors into his chambers, Chitra was waiting in the reception area, with an ominous “thank-heaven-you’re-here” expression on her face. She pursued Norcross toward his inner office and started in, talking fast, before he even had time to pull his parka off.

  “Attorney Ames filed a motion to dismiss an hour ago, Judge, under seal. She’s accusing …” Chitra stopped, catching the look in Norcross’s eye.

  “Whoops!” She stuck out her tongue and bit the end of it to stanch her words. “Okay, I’ll pack it in.” She pointed through his door. “A copy of the motion is on your desk. I checked some First Circuit cases. Buzz if you need me.”

  “Thanks.”

  Chitra had broken a cardinal chambers rule: no bugging Judge Norcross until he had his coat hung up and his coffee poured. He disliked having a law clerk pounce on him the second he arrived almost as much as he hated making jurors wait. The motion Chitra was so worked up about didn’t particularly worry him. It was bound to be only some trumped-up act of desperation thrown in by Linda Ames to try to save a doomed client.

  Judge Norcross watched with concern as Chitra retreated to her office, worried that he’d hurt her feelings. Her hair, piled on top of her head in a bun, was slumped to one side and her shoulders looked tired. Erik was taking sick time to help out with his new baby, and Chitra had probably been in chambers since who knew when, dealing with incoming artillery and trying to keep everything on track all by herself. He’d need to say something nice to her later on.

  The judge and his two law clerks were putting in long hours. Jury selection in United States v. Cranmer had eaten up two weeks and a pool of almost a hundred and fifty candidates before they culled out the twelve impartial jurors and two alternates they needed. New England’s sugaring season was almost upon them, and Erik pointed out that their pool-to-juror ratio was about the same as the proportion of sap needed to produce a gallon of maple syrup.

  Following jury selection, as the government’s case took off, Norcross found himself impressed with Campanella’s trial skill. During his opening to the jury, Campanella used no podium and no notes. This was the preferred technique and the one that Norcross had used when he tried his own cases way back when. Forgoing notes enhanced a lawyer’s engagement with the jury panel, but it was a practice that only the most confident, experienced lawyers had the nerve to employ. For most attorneys, the risk of forgetting something important was too great.

  Campanella’s entire opening, spooned out in easily absorbed morsels, detailing each item of evidence against Cranmer, took only twenty minutes. When he finished, it was obvious from the jurors’ faces that Professor Cranmer was already three-quarters of the way down the tube.

  After Campanella sat down, Norcross nodded to Linda Ames, expecting her to take her turn. Instead, to Norcross’s surprise, she had informed the court that she would postpone her opening until the government had rested at the close of all its evidence. This was a permissible but rare tactic. Defense attorneys almost always opened right away, to raise immediate doubts about the strength of the evidence. Ames had to be assuming, or hoping, that she could bring out something during the government’s case that would give her postponed remarks enough extra force to compensate for the delay.

  With no opening from the defense, the trial had moved straight into the government’s witnesses. Campanella had stage-managed the presentation persuasively, day by day, along the lines promised in his opening. This morning, after almost two weeks, and the two-hour delay, the government would be calling its last, longest, and most crucial witness, Special Agent Michael Patterson, to deliver the coup de grâce.

  When Norcross approached his desk after hanging up his parka, he remembered the memo Chitra had mentioned, sitting in the center of his blotter. Its title, in bolded sixteen-point font, was “Motion to Dismiss Based on Prosecutorial Misconduct.” The caption jumped out so dramatically that Norcross had to smile. He picked up the memo and began skimming it without bothering to sit down. As he read, all the distractions of the morning winked out.

  One floor down, Patterson was in Paul Campanella’s office, leaning over his desk, trying to pound some sense into the AUSA’s head.

  “We never would have brought this case, Paul, except for the DVD. That was the whole deal.”

  Paul had been reviewing the final draft of his opposition to Ames’s motion to dismiss, and Patterson’s interruption was coming at a bad time. He spoke a little impatiently.

  “So you’re saying I should just bail, dismiss everything?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “When the case has gone this far? Forget it. Would you sit down, please?” Campanella didn’t like Patterson looming over him. After Patterson sat, Campanella continued, trying to sound reasonable. “First, with all due respect, Mike, this is not your decision.” Campanella paused to let this sink in, eyeballing Patterson. “It’s not even my decision. I’d have to get permission to dismiss from the big guy in Boston, Buddy Hogan, and there’s no way in a million years he’ll give it.”

  Patterson eyeballed Campanella right back. “Really. And how many hours have our Boston friends invested in this case?”

  Campanella flapped a hand at Patterson, brushing him away. “Not going to happen, Mike, not after all the press. Besides, the material you guys found on Cranmer’s computer is plenty to hang him. If we have to, we can go forward just with that.”

  Patterson looked to the side and sniffed, speaking mostly to himself. “My God.” He reached his hands halfway across Campanella’s desk. It was his turn to try to sound reasonable. “Come on, Paul. You know it’s a chickenshit case now. Without the DVD, we never would have bothered
with it.”

  “I don’t know about that. Cranmer’s a juicy plum, and if we drop the charges, it looks as though we’re running from Ames’s motion. It might even seem like I’m admitting some kind of misconduct, on my very first solo trial.” Campanella waved his papers. “I need to finish my memo here, okay? We’ve got good arguments that—”

  “You didn’t engage in misconduct. We both got smoked by this Jaworski kid.”

  “We don’t even know for sure that this video is legit.” Campa­nella sighed and shook his head. “Dammit. The evidence has been going in like hot fudge. And now, out of the blue, this pain in the—”

  Patterson was shaking his head, refusing to give it up. “The confession is the real deal, Paul. It tracks just what we thought. Jaworski filled out the form with block capitals using his left hand, and he wore plastic gloves. Everyone’s seen too much CSI. But the fold did him in.” Patterson leaned back and crossed his arms, dropping his voice. “This Spencer girl reminds me of Margaret. Scary smart. I can’t decide whether to arrest her or hire her.”

  Earlier that morning, they’d watched Elizabeth’s short video, forwarded to them by Linda Ames, at least a dozen times. The crucial moment was when Jaworski—naked, handcuffed, and standing on a chair with a noose around his neck—recalled how he had folded the flyer the wrong way, lengthwise, the first time he tried to slip it into the return envelope provided in the mailing. Prodded by Elizabeth Spencer, Jaworski detailed how he had then refolded the flyer horizontally to make it fit properly.

  When Campanella and Patterson had slipped the form out of its cellophane sleeve and examined it, they could easily see the faint, vestigial crossways fold that had been Jaworski’s first attempt. This killer detail, which only the sender would know, was irrefutable evidence of the confession’s credibility.

  “We ought to talk to Jaworski, at least,” Campanella said.

  “Like I told you, I tried to call him first thing, with no luck. I figured he’d flown the coop and, yep, the airline confirmed he was on a six thirty nonstop to Chicago.” Patterson glanced at his watch. “He’ll be landing about now, and my bet is his daddy already has him lawyered up to his eyeballs. That boy is not talking to anybody.”

  Paul Campanella rubbed his face and pulled his hand over his goatee. “What Elizabeth Spencer did was probably a crime, you know.”

  “Whatever she did is a state court matter, if it’s anything. Frankly, I can’t imagine the DA going after a smart, good-looking girl who did the right thing. There’s a state election coming up this fall, you know.”

  “Linda Ames says Spencer made a copy of the video and gave it to one of her professors, someone she doesn’t identify, who passed it on to Ames.”

  Patterson nodded. “Uh-huh. And I can guess who that professor was.”

  Campanella shook his head wearily. “Jesus, what next?”

  43

  Down in the courtroom, Ames was struggling to translate the storm of incoherent fury and guilt raging inside her into syntax recognizable under the law. It was now obvious that the government had fastened on Sid as the bad guy on day one and then simply switched off its collective brain. No further, even minimal, investigation was pursued. This was inexcusable, but what made the situation truly unbearable was that Ames herself had swallowed their line. She had not believed Sid, her own client, whom she was supposed to protect.

  Of course, her emotional state was irrelevant to the here-and-now crisis she was facing. She had to put aside her thermonuclear mood and find words that could make their way into Judge Norcross’s head and get him to dismiss these charges. Just thundering wouldn’t do it.

  Any second now, Norcross would enter the courtroom, and she’d have maybe two minutes, three at the most, to find a path into his brain. If she slipped, he’d simply pick up with the trial and move on to the testimony of Agent Patterson.

  Ames had gotten the call from Claire Lindemann at 1:30 a.m. that morning. Half asleep, she was on the verge of hanging up, sure this overagitated professor lady was just a typical academic kook. Then something in Lindemann’s voice got to her, and she agreed to meet—as Lindemann insisted—right then. Ames had barely pulled on a sweat suit and splashed some water in her face before Lindemann was at her door, looking even more tousled than she was. By 2:15 a.m., Ames was looking at the video. By 2:45 a.m., Lindemann was making coffee, and Ames was at her computer, fingers trembling, banging out the affidavit in support of her motion to dismiss.

  Ames’s motion deliberately omitted revealing that it was Norcross’s girlfriend who had brought her the video. There was no legal or practical reason to share this information with him. The Amherst coed, Elizabeth Spencer, could testify, if necessary, about the circumstances under which the video was taken. How it got to Ames didn’t matter. More important, one more mention of Professor Lindemann might just be enough to push Norcross into recusing himself, and Ames wanted him presiding. He was familiar with the case, and she had her best shot at getting a dismissal from him. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  Besides, screw it, she’d been so jerked around by now that anything was fair.

  The dawn was breaking and the blue jays were starting to argue in her backyard before Ames hit the send button on her motion to dismiss, legal memorandum, and sworn affidavit. It was only then that Ames called Sid Cranmer, woke him up, and told him what had happened.

  Sid had been incredulous. “Jaworski? That dipshit?” Then after a pause he added, “As they say in Wonderland—curiouser and curiouser!”

  “Sid, I’m so sorry, I’ve been doubting you all this—”

  “Forget it.” He laughed ruefully. “This is what happens when when you give somebody a C-minus these days.”

  Now Sid was sitting next to her at the defense table, and neither of them knew what was about to happen. AUSA Campanella hurried into the courtroom and slid into his chair over at the government’s table. The jury box was empty. The jurors would be gathered in their deliberation room down a back hallway, out of earshot and ignorant of Ames’s motion. Campanella obviously hoped to keep it that way.

  “Morning, Linda.”

  “Fuck you, Paul.”

  Campanella handed her a memorandum. “Same back at you.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Opposition to your motion to dismiss.”

  “You’re giving it to me now?”

  He was scribbling something on his yellow pad, not looking at her. “I only printed it five minutes ago.”

  At that moment, the courtroom door swung open, Norcross entered, and Ruby Johnson called out, “All rise!”

  Ames could see that the judge was holding her motion in his hand and that he looked odd. She couldn’t say how. One of his law clerks, the South Asian woman, glanced up nervously at Norcross as he took his chair. Problems? She looked intelligent and must have been researching the authorities Ames cited in her memo. What had she been telling the judge?

  “Please be seated.”

  The gallery contained only a couple reporters, the sketch artist, and two or three spectators.

  Patterson wasn’t in the courtroom yet. He must be off somewhere trying to follow up on this new evidence, the jerk. On the other hand, his absence might mean that the government did not think he’d be going on the stand right away, which might be good. Ames was in a world where anything could happen.

  Norcross was giving her a close look. His face was serious but neutral. She still couldn’t read him.

  “Ms. Ames, I’ve read your motion, and I must say I’m amazed.” Not looking particularly amazed, the judge turned to Campanella. “Do you concede, Mr. Campanella, that the DVD you talked me into playing to the jury might, in fact, never have been ordered by this defendant?”

  Campanella lifted himself to his feet with a soft grunt.

  “Um, we agree, Judge, that significant evidence now s
uggests that the DVD was, in fact, ordered by a disgruntled undergraduate as a prank.”

  “A prank? Significant evidence?” Norcross’s face went dark, and he raised his voice. “Don’t play games. Yes or no? Are you conceding that the government cannot prove that this defendant sent in the flyer ordering the DVD?”

  “We haven’t had time yet to investigate thoroughly, so we—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The judge’s volume increased on the last two words. “The time to investigate thoroughly was six months ago!” He slapped his hands on the bench and shook his head. “Where does that leave us? More importantly, where does that leave the jury?”

  “I agree it’s a very unusual situation, Your Honor.”

  “Unusual? That’s what you’d call it?”

  Ames’s lawyerly side had to give some credit to Campanella. The fact that Norcross was normally so unflappable made his anger now even more intimidating. But Campanella was maintaining his cool—not getting rattled, keeping his voice even.

  “Unusual, Your Honor, right, but not entirely unprecedented. I have a memo I’d like to submit laying out the government’s suggestions for how to proceed.” Campanella picked up a sheaf of papers. “May I approach?” He took a step toward the courtroom deputy, holding the memorandum out.

  “You have a memo for me? Now?”

  “Well, Judge, I only got Ms. Ames’s motion when I arrived at my office this morning at seven a.m. I had no prior notice it was coming.” He hesitated. “I’m doing the best I can here, Judge.”

  “Fine. Summarize your argument for me, please. I’ll read your written version later.”

  “Well, Your Honor, the government proposes either of two courses, both well supported by First Circuit authority. First, we would not oppose a motion to strike the DVD and an instruction from you to the jury telling them to disregard it entirely.”