A Fool for a Client (36 page)

Perhaps that was why Justine had to tell them.
Perhaps therefore she was right all along to conduct her own defence and he had been wrong.
As she alone had known the truth, it followed that only she could have revealed it to others.
Just as she had revealed to others the deficiencies in the legal system and the erosion of the integrity of judges, by her brazen act of taking the law into her own hands.

“You look glum,” she said, picking up a
French
fry from his plate.
There were plenty of
French
fries left with Parker.
He always left them until last, telling himself that he wasn
’
t going to eat all of them.
It was all part of his diet, which was always due to start tomorrow.

“You could at least have let me make a fight of it.”

She spoke softly.

“You know, I
’
ve been thinking a lot about you Rick.
From some of the things you whispered to me in court about objections and points of law and all that I get the impression that you
’
re a good lawyer.”

He said nothing, not knowing if this was going to be a put down or a pep talk.

“And you graduated first from your class at Harvard?”

He nodded, forced to give some sign of confirmation by Justine
’
s silence and inquisitive look.

“So why are you working as an underpaid lackey at the Legal Aid office?”

He was jarred by this question.
It was something he had often been asked by other lawyers.
But never by a client.
Most of his clients assumed that he was just a not-too-
skilful
, young lawyer at the beginning of his career, taking whatever jobs he could get.
And most his client
’
s were pathetic low-lifes who were grateful to have a lawyer at all.

“Why should you ask me that?” he replied defensively, knowing by now that with Justine no question was ever just casual small talk.
She was economical with her words and every statement or question had a purpose.

“Just answer,” she said with quiet firmness.

He hesitated, searching the back of his mind not so much for the answer as for the best way to express it.
He knew the answer by instinct, by feeling.
But he had never really put it into words, and he suspected that the reason for this was that it wouldn
’
t stand up to scrutiny, especially his own.

“Would you believe, because of dedication?” he asked tentatively.

“Then why should you want to stop me offering the only defence I
’
ve wanted to offer, that is, the truth?”

Now he found himself searching his soul for the
real
answer, the one he had buried behind at the back of his consciousness.
When it came to him, he realized how much of his professional life had been a lie.
He knew now how Abrams must have felt when he had watched one of his client
’
s walk only to see him commit a violent crime again.
The
ADA
had been right when he had suggested that they were kindred spirits despite their different backgrounds.
They were both ambitious men who had hidden behind a wall of bogus ideals.
And now it was time for Rick Parker to bear his soul to a passer-by who had thrown a spotlight on it.

“Do you really want to know?
I
’
m not as dedicated as I liked to kid myself.
Dedication was just my excuse.
I really wanted to be a big-time, hot-shot defence lawyer.
When I was growing up in
Harlem
I used to dream about being another Clarence Darrow.
I used to imagine myself carrying on in the footsteps of Earl Rogers and Sam Liebowitz.
But it wasn
’
t the rights of the defendant I was after, it was the glory, and the money.”

“I thought there wasn
’
t so much money in criminal law.”

“Not in the practice of criminal itself.
But if you get a high-profile case that hijacks the media and you win it, or even if you lose it, you can write a book about it afterwards, or have a ghost writer do it.
Then you can write a fiction book with a legal background.
Then you can sell the movie rights.
Then before you know it your churning out a whole string of books and selling the movie rights and doing the lecture circuit and appearing on the talk shows and living in a fifty room mansion or duplex penthouse and maybe even going into politics.”

“But with your qualifications you could have landed a job with a top law firm and made the same progress that way.
You could have had the pick of the law firms from coast to coast.”

“And done what?
Sat at the back of a team of lawyers three tables deep, looking up precedents while some big-shot wearing the old school tie stood out at the front taking the credit?
Worked my way up through a long apprenticeship while being put on show as silent proof of ethnic equality?

“This was supposed to have been my short-cut: take a low-paying job with the Legal Aid office, plea-bargain for the muggers and rapists while waiting for a case like this to come along
–
a high publicity case with at least
some
chance of winning.
The idea was that I
’
d milk the case for all it was worth, then cash in on the publicity to open my own office and watch the clients come pouring in, along with their money.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You asked me.”

“You didn
’
t have to admit it.
You could have just brushed me off, the way I
’
ve been brushing you off since you came on board.”

She had said it without a trace of guilt, but without malice either.

“Because I
’
ve discovered that I
’
ve been lying to myself about other things too.”

“Like what?” asked Justine, gently.

“Like my
ability
,” he said weakly.
“I
’
ve had my nose rubbed in the fact that I
’
m not as good as I thought I was.
I know all the legal technicalities all right, but I lack courtroom experience.
If I
’
d been defending you I would have hurt your case.
I saw how you let the evidence build up against you unchallenged, and I thought it was suicide.
But when I think of it I realize that one way or another the evidence would have come out anyway.
By letting it come out without objection and sometimes with obvious cooperation, you took the sting out of it and debunked it.”

“That
’
s not what I was trying to do.
I just wanted the jury to know the facts... and the reasons behind them.
That was all I ever wanted out of this trial.”

“You know it
’
s not to late for an insanity defence,” he said, perking up.
“After what you said in court...”

Justine was shaking her head slowly but firmly and he saw that it was hopeless, saw also that it was wrong.

“In guess you
’
re right.
It
’
s a
good
defence, but it isn
’
t
your
defence.”

She looked at her watch.

“We
’
ve got another five minutes,” she said.

Daniel Abrams stood facing the jury, looking as implacable as ever, as he addressed them at the close of the People of the State of
New York
versus Justine Levy.

“Members of the jury, you have heard both from the evidence which I have presented, and from the defendant
’
s own lips, that the defendant
wilfully
and deliberately embarked upon a course of action which had as its consequence the death of Sean Murphy.”

He began walking towards the jury, as if closing in on them as his arguments closed in on the truth.

“That Sean Murphy was or may have been a murderer is irrelevant.
That the actions of the defendant might not have led to the death of the deceased if others had acted differently is irrelevant.
Those others, the staff at the hospital, acted reasonably, given that they genuinely thought that Sean Murphy had been poisoned with pyrethrum.
This belief was
wi
lfully and deliberately
propagated and fostered by the defendant as part of a
premeditated
plan to cause Sean Murphy
’
s death.”

*     *

In the spectator
’
s section, Declan McNutt sat forward keenly.
He realized now that there was going to be no acquittal. There couldn
’
t possibly be.
She had admitted to the crime.
Of course she could still quibble over the fact that the method she used was indirect, but the fact remained she had killed him and she had done so with premeditation and, more importantly, that she had admitted to it.
It was all over, bar the shouting, and the only thing the jury would have to decide was whether she was guilty of murder or manslaughter or one of those other
offences
that American law seemed to create to deal with all manner of fine distinctions.

But whatever the verdict,
she would not be walking out of the courtroom a free woman, that was certain.
She would be taken into immediate custody.
He knew that much about the American legal system.
So the hit would have to be made here today, or not at all.
And it had to be done when there was already confusion in the courtroom.

Declan continued to watch every move very carefully.
But he was no longer listening to Abrams
’
words.
He was looking at the jurors, studying the impact of Abrams
’
oratory upon them.

*     *

In the seat directly behind Declan, Thomas noticed the slight leaning forward by Declan, the body language that spoke of arousal of interest as the INLA assassin listened to the prosecutor
’
s words.
But unlike, Declan he heard something in those words which suggested a different interpretation of the situation.
He heard an element of uncertainty in that voice, or even a feint trace of indifference.
Was it uncertainty as to the verdict?
Or ambivalence as to how the cause of justice would be better served?
The almost perfunctory tone of the prosecutor suggested the latter, a hint of doubt as to the morality of his case.
Unless it was just a kind of professional cynicism, as if the practice of law were no different from the random role of the dice in an
Atlantic City
casino, or the planting of a bomb in a shopping
centre
in
England
.

*     *

“The defendant, Justine Levy, clearly knew that the remnants of poison in the bottle would be detected by the doctors,” Abrams continued.
“She has admitted
this herself.”

He was now standing at one end of the jury box, leaning on the rail, alternating his attention between the jury and Justine, trying to get them to look at her and see her as an embittered murderess rather than some sort of lofty idealist.

“But doctors do not just stand around
idly
and do nothing when they know or have reason to that a man has been poisoned, they render assistance and give treatment.
The defendant, as an intelligent woman, let alone a medical student, must have known this.
The antidote for pyrethrum poisoning is atropine, and the defendant as a
medical student
must have known this, and indeed she admitted as much.
But atropine is poison and when administered in sufficient quantity can kill a man.
The defendant, again, as a medical student again
must have known this
.
And in case there was any doubt on the subject, the defendant, again, has confirmed this herself in her own testimony.”

He paused to let the facts as summarized thus far sink in.
Now he drew back slightly to look at all the jurors together.
Now was the next phase in his carefully structured closing statement.
It was the phase in which, having displayed the strands of his case one by one to the jury, he quickly wove those strands together in a finished tapestry.
This was a technique he had learned from Jerry, the technique of moving from the particular to the general.
It was like the method of all good novelists: present the specific facts that add up to a particular conclusion and then add them up in to a final sum, instead of presenting a conclusion divorced from the facts on which it is based.