The Great Divide (44 page)

Jim Bell was there to usher him inside. The questions were a torrent of verbal rain, striking him from every side. He allowed the retired patrolman to burrow forward, saying nothing, astonished by it all.

Charlie Hayes awaited him just inside the doors. “You hear the news this morning?”

Marcus shook his head, stared out at the mayhem, struggled to accept what he had caused.

“The Chinese government issued a formal statement condemning the United States government for what they call a petty attempt at trade terrorism.” When Marcus did not respond, the older man led him toward the elevator. Jim Bell continued to dog their footsteps. Charlie said, “Looks like you won yourself some publicity, son.”

He waited until the doors shut to reply, “Let’s just hope it works.”

“If this don’t, well … ”

Marcus did not allow the unspoken to hang for long. “We need to talk strategy. I want you to handle this first witness.”

Charlie turned away from the tumult. “Trouble?”

“Probably.”

“A
LL RISE
.”

Judge Nicols swept in with the majesty of one born to wear royal robes. She seated herself and made a noble pretense of ignoring the packed hall by issuing her customary greeting to the jury. “Good morning. How is everyone?”

The foreman, a retired machinist with the reddened neck and face and arms of a dedicated outdoorsman said, “Good, Your Honor.”

“Any particular reason I should know about?” She let the smile slip away as she turned to where Logan stood by the defense table. “Yes?”

“Your Honor, I have the pleasure of presenting General Zhao Ren-Fan.”

Marcus turned with the rest of the packed hall. The man was stocky and not aging well. His face was pocked, his body chunky and sagging. Not even the finely cut dark suit could hide the general’s hard battle against approaching winter. Zhao turned to meet Marcus’ stare, and his face clenched up slightly around eyes black as Arctic night. No light was emitted from those eyes. No light, no hope, no message at all.

Even so, the dark eyes flickered once, then turned away. When
Marcus swiveled back in his seat, he caught sight of the look shared by Alma and Austin Hall as together they glared at their daughter’s nemesis.

The judge did not need to speak to silence the crowd. One sweeping glare sufficed. Nicols turned her attention back to Logan. The defense attorney continued, “The Chinese government wishes to state formally that they have nothing whatsoever to do with either this trial or this gentleman’s presence. He is here of his own volition, at the behest of the China Trade Council. The council vehemently objects to this entire trial, Your Honor, and wishes to go on record that this is an extremely volatile matter, one that should be left to the federal government. We so move on their behalf.”

“Your motion is noted and denied.”

“Very well. In that case, Your Honor, the defense wishes to open its case with my postponed opening statement.”

“Very well.” Judge Nicols turned to the jury and explained, “As you may recall, the defense chose not to give an opening statement. I told you at the time that they might do this later, probably before calling their first witness.” She turned back to Logan. “You may proceed.”

Logan walked to the corner by the judge’s entrance and picked up the portable podium. He carried it to the center point between the plaintiff’s table and the witness stand, about twelve feet from the jury box. He leaned against it, and launched straight in. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what we have here is a case within a case. Things have become infinitely more complicated, and your job is now much more difficult. But what you mustn’t do, under any circumstances, is lose sight of where the burden of proof lies.”

Logan Kendall was a consummate actor. The courtroom was the only stage he would ever see, the only one he desired. Nothing could be done about his boxer’s face or his inborn aggressiveness. But he used them to his advantage, and had polished all to a hard shine. His hair was as perfect as his tan and his suit and his manicure. His tie was a two-hundred-dollar Brioni, his shoes hand-tailored calfskin. In an instant he could switch from hard and feisty to warm and welcoming. When he turned on his considerable Irish charm, a mere few moments in front of the jury was enough for them to want to believe him. They knew it was an act, but as with all fine performances, they really didn’t care.

“This case is now vastly different from what it was in the beginning. And what we said earlier does not apply so clearly anymore. We have new defendants that the court in its wisdom has ordered us to include. But we are in this together, ladies and gentlemen. And together we are going to find out the truth. My job is to lead you through this process. You are judges of the facts. And though this has become far more global an issue, and far more complex, still I am certain that we are all up to the task of finding out just what these facts are. We are on a truth-seeking mission here. And when we are done, we are going to talk again. At that time, I hope we will have some hard facts upon which to base a valid judgment.

“The lawyers for the plaintiff have filled the air with some pretty outlandish contentions, suggesting that somehow my clients are at fault. Mind you, their accusations against my clients are preposterous. Their lawyers, ladies and gentlemen, are claiming that my clients have formed some amorphous ties to a mystery factory sitting on the other side of the world. And somehow this factory has secreted away a woman named Gloria Hall. It is vital that you remember this one fact, ladies and gentlemen, because there has been a lot of smoke blown in this trial. The one issue we are here to determine is: What, if any, responsibility do my clients have in the disappearance of this woman.

“One thing is certain. Up to now we have been watching a trial by ambush. The plaintiff’s lawyers have repeatedly bent the rules of procedure by introducing new witnesses, new evidence, even new defendants. We have been so caught up in this widening series of attacks that we may have lost sight of what we are here for. But all that is over and done with. The plaintiff has rested—it’s no surprise he’s tired after all the stunts he’s pulled. Now it’s our turn.

“You hold me to my promise now,” Logan said, winding down. “We are going to uphold the American system of justice. We’re going to roll up our sleeves and look hard for the facts. And when you go home at night—and remember the judge’s injunction not to discuss this case with anyone—as you sit there and you relax, you can rest assured that my team and I are going to continue our hunt for the truth.”

Logan turned and walked back to the table, inspected his notes for a long moment of punctuation, then said, “The defense calls Ms. Stella Gladding.”

The woman’s skin was close to the same shade as the Chinese
general’s. But in her case the sallowness came from a very rough life. The suggestion of hard living was heightened by the voice that gave her name and took the oath. Stella Gladding sounded as though she had gargled that morning with bourbon and ashes.

“Ms. Gladding, you knew Gloria Hall well, is that not so?”

“Very. We roomed together our first two years at Georgetown.”

“Would you please tell the court what she was like?”

“Wild.”

“Gloria Hall was wild.” Logan maintained his position at the podium, swiveling it so that it angled halfway between the witness stand and the jury, slid over just slightly enough that Marcus could not object that Logan was intentionally blocking his view of the witness. “Just how wild, Ms. Gladding?”

“Not only would she try anything,” she replied, “she would do it twice.”

“Objection,” Charlie said, his voice bored, his slouched appearance suggesting that this woman was not worth getting riled over.

“Sustained.” If anything, Judge Nicols responded in a tone flatter than Charlie’s.

Alma shifted in her seat next to Marcus. He glanced over, knowing no warning was possible, no words sufficient. Even so, she nodded without looking his way. She would hold on. To her other side, Austin Hall might as well have been carved from some dark and sorrowful stone.

“Ms. Gladding, did Gloria Hall have any boyfriends?”

“A lot.” She had been prepped well and dressed more carefully still. But no amount of professional makeup or dark-suited grooming could disguise that this was a woman who had seen much and done even more. “They changed from week to week.” A quick little smirk. “Sometimes from hour to hour. Gloria was a real friendly girl.”

Logan asked quietly, “Did Gloria use any drugs?”

“Absolutely.”

“Alcohol?”

“All the time.”

The questioning continued until Gloria Hall had been painted as a full-on party animal, studying little, hanging on to her place at Georgetown through luck and a strong memory. Charlie Hayes seemed to be asleep; Marcus watched because he felt at least one of them should show they cared. Logan’s problem was that the longer
the witness remained on the stand, the stronger grew the woman’s bored carelessness. Her voice grew harsher, the answers tighter, as though she needed a drink or a smoke or something stronger. Badly.

Logan realized this, and as he walked back to his table he said, “Defense requests a brief recess.”

Judge Nicols was having none of it. She shook her head, her eyes glued to the witness. “We’ll finish with this witness first.”

Logan had no choice but to say, “Your witness.”

Charlie rose from his slouched position, his voice emerging before his legs were fully under him. “Ms. Gladding, you say you knew Gloria through your first two years at Georgetown, is that right?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And just how long ago was that?”

“Four years.”

He smiled, as though the answer amused him. “You’re sure it was four, now?”

“I just said …” The eyes searched. “No. Five.”

“If my math is correct, Ms. Gladding, it was more like six. Isn’t that right.”

“Five, six, fifteen, it doesn’t matter. I remember Gloria. Real well.”

“Fine. That’s just fine. It’s just that, well, a lot can change in five or six years, wouldn’t you say?”

“Maybe. But not Gloria.”

“No?” Charlie limped his way over to lean upon the corner of the jury box. “Ms. Gladding, could you enlighten me as to why you and Gloria Hall stopped rooming together?”

“I moved out.”

“Is that a fact. My understanding was that Miss Hall was the one who did the moving.”

The hand that rose to flick at her hair shook slightly. “Gloria started getting seriously weird. I couldn’t take it.”

“Weird.” Charlie cast a glance at the jury, then limped over to the plaintiff’s table and accepted the sheet of paper Marcus held. It contained a photocopied statement of court proceedings. But the witness did not know this. “Ms. Gladding, a careful inspection of Gloria Hall’s university transcript shows that she underwent a marked transformation at the start of her junior year.”

“I’ll say.”

“In fact, from that semester on, Gloria Hall’s record shows that she earned almost straight A’s for the remainder of her undergraduate career.”

“She got into this crazy religious phase. It was worse than the guys. Always talking about God and stuff. Wanting me to come with her to church, treating it like an AA meeting. Had to go every night, like she was afraid of falling off the wagon otherwise.”

Charlie kept up his slow nod long after Stella Gladding had stopped talking. “Are you aware that Gloria Hall went on to graduate from Georgetown with honors, and earned herself a full scholarship for her graduate studies?”

“At that price,” the woman sneered. “Who cares?”

“And what, may I ask, was your standing at graduation?”

“Objection,” Logan declared. “Irrelevant.”

“Overruled. The witness is instructed to answer the question.”

Stella Gladding flicked her head in careless irritation. “I flunked out my senior year.”

Charlie made his way back to the table. “No further questions.”

M
OST OF THE DAY
was made up of such small combats. The defense attacked with one foray after another. Charlie countered with a few quick questions, gentle in tone, decisive in result. Yet Marcus watched as his case gradually unraveled before his eyes, knowing there was nothing he could do about it, knowing the worst was still to come. He did not need to look at the defense table to know Suzie Rikkers’ eyes were upon him.

Logan’s parade continued with a Washington, D.C. street cop who handled the beat around the Chinese embassy. He was followed by a security guard from the embassy’s permanent detail, then a court-appointed D.C. lawyer, and finally a prison guard for the city’s female lockup. All attested to the trouble they had experienced with Gloria Hall. In a space of fourteen months she had been arrested nine different times, on charges ranging from obstructing traffic to unlawful assembly to rioting to resisting arrest to causing mayhem while incarcerated. Charlie’s cross-examination was focused solely upon showing that all charges had related to activities taking place around the Chinese embassy, or in conjunction with visiting Chinese dignitaries. The defense countered by showing that the charges had arisen from a variety of Chinese-related issues, everything from imprisoned
dissidents and freeing Tibet to missing missionaries and trade. A picture slowly developed of an angry young woman determined to make as much trouble for China as possible. Any pretext would do, so long as China was the target.

The clock showed a few minutes past four when Logan stood and announced, “Your Honor, the defense requests that the jury be dismissed for the day, and that we be granted a moment to lodge a private motion.”

Charlie leaned over and muttered, “Here it comes.”

I
N CHAMBERS
, Logan could scarcely bring himself to wait until Judge Nicols had settled behind her desk. “Your Honor, we wish to invoke the Best-Evidence Rule, and call Marcus Glenwood to the stand.”

In a truly bleak moment, Marcus found the judge’s shock mildly gratifying. “Come again?”

“Best evidence, Your Honor. It requires the plaintiff to present the original sources of all critical evidence.”