The Great Divide (49 page)

“I don’t understand,” Alma said, more concerned over Marcus’ tone than over his words. “We’ve won, haven’t we? You beat them.”

Marcus replied softly, “Alma, their defense is very strong.” Punctuating each word with a slight pause.

She turned her plea toward Charlie. “It can’t be over. We’ve got to do more. There must be something—”

“Alma.” The one word was enough to turn them all around. Austin Hall sat on the edge of his seat, a hard tight knob of a man. “That’s enough.”

“But he just said—”

“I heard the man same as you. I’ve been sitting and listening and thinking for days. If you try you’ll hear the only answer that matters, same as me.”

The chamber was silent save for the dull sigh of the courtroom’s
ventilation system. Then, rising in the distance, they heard the faintest clamor. A tide of voices and shouts and loudspeakers and sirens. The courtroom had no windows. Which meant the noise was strong enough to penetrate solid concrete walls.

“Marcus has done all he said he’d do.” Austin set up each word as he would the precise formula of a proven theorem. “He gave us more publicity than we ever imagined. The whole world knows our daughter’s name. All because of this man.”

Austin leaned in close, his voice gentle, but the words rocking his wife nonetheless. “He has done more than we could ask of our closest kin. He’s been beaten, burned, battered. He’s sat up there and let himself be flayed alive. All for us. And now he’s trying to tell us to look and see what we’ve known all along.”

Alma’s head began slowly tracking back and forth. Austin took a deep breath, willed himself to hold to his flat, precise control. “Alma, our Gloria is dead.”

She gasped in the way of one whose final breath has been torn from her body. Marcus rested a hand on her shoulder, but had no strength for anything else. Nor any comfort to add. Not even for himself.

“If they had her, she’d be free.” Austin turned toward Marcus, revealing the struggle to hold himself together. “You do the best you can, Marcus.”

“I will.”

A single sob escaped from Alma’s throat, one wrenching sound cut off as sharp as a broken crystal heart. Austin continued, “You do the best you can. Not for me. Not for Alma. We can’t ask a thing more of you. Do it for my Gloria.”

He searched about him, as though wanting to be certain his legs were still there and ready to carry him. “Come, Alma. We must go show the world our woes.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Hold my hand here. Be strong.” He lifted his wife with his will. “Gloria is watching.”

M
ARCUS WATCHED the news as he breakfasted, taking vague consolation on that wet, gray day from how well Kirsten handled the press. She had been filmed on the courthouse steps the day before, with the modern faceless building and lowering clouds for a backdrop. Her hair blew like scattered winter wheat as she fielded question after question, only once losing her calm, when a reporter asked her if Marcus Glenwood was using her as a shield to hide his drinking problem. Her response was quiet, but only because emotion had choked her throat tight. “Marcus Glenwood is the finest man I have ever met,” she fired back. “A man who cares so deeply he will sacrifice all he has left to help the Hall family. I wonder who would say the same about you.” When the picture switched to the next story, Marcus turned the television off and stood staring out at the dripping rain, reflecting that such moments as this should be savored in silence.

The SBI car was there and ready when he and Darren emerged. Marcus waved, but any response was lost to the rain. The drive into town was as silent as ever, a time for watching the highway unfold, slick as a gray-black river. Marcus entered the courthouse at a run, keeping silent as dozens of questions were shouted from beneath a forest of umbrellas. He entered the foyer, brushed rain off his jacket, returned the guards’ greetings, then stepped into the elevator alone. Only when the doors closed did he gape like a landed fish, gasping hard and long, releasing his fear.

Within the windowless courtroom, wind and rain and normal light vanished, to be replaced by whatever the judge dictated. Even time was held within her sway.

As expected, after Judge Nicols had given her greeting to the jury, Logan Kendall rose and announced, “Your Honor, the defense rests.”

Marcus rose in tandem and said, “The plaintiff waives their right to rebuttal, Your Honor.”

Logan’s voice betrayed his triumph. “Then we declare our readiness to proceed immediately into closing arguments.”

Judge Nicols frowned, a swift notice of concern, there and gone as fast as scuttling clouds. “Counsel may approach the bench.”

When they had gathered there before her, she went on, “Does the plaintiff wish further time to prepare?”

“No thank you, Your Honor.”

“Very well. I am limiting each side to two hours of closing.”

Marcus wished there were some way to thank her for the anxious cast to those stern features. “We would like to take an initial thirty minutes, then hold the right to speak again after the defense.”

Logan countered, “Then we request an additional half hour to rebut the plaintiff. It is our right to go last, Your Honor.”

“All right. Mr. Glenwood, you may begin.”

Marcus rose and walked directly to the podium. He had given scores of closing arguments before all kinds of juries. The words came easily and well. As he spoke, a portion of his mind weighed the jury’s reaction. He walked them through the evidence, gave them a careful summary of the early witnesses whom they might otherwise have forgotten. And he studied them. On a majority of faces, he saw concern. This was bad. Even worse was how some now held expressions of pity. Pity was murderous. Charlie Hayes had once said the only time a jury showed pity for a lawyer was when they agreed with him in their guts but had decided to follow their minds. And their minds had chosen for the other side. Marcus had never known Charlie to be wrong on this count.

Marcus began his conclusion. “Through using a pea-in-the-shell game, the defendants have sought to hide their connection to this factory. But the evidence has clearly demonstrated that, in fact, the New Horizons company does not only purchase tens of millions of dollars worth of products from Factory 101, they actually own a significant interest in the factory. One they have sought to hide both from you the jury and from the federal authorities. And we have shown you why.

“Through documentary evidence and the testimony of witnesses,
we have revealed that New Horizons Incorporated and Factory 101 were in a conspiracy to profit from the systematic abuse of prisoners of conscience.”

“Objection!” Logan bolted from his chair. “Your Honor, the Chinese prison system is not on trial here.”

“Overruled. Continue, Mr. Glenwood.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Marcus turned back to the jury and went on, “We have shown how our client was abused because she threatened this profit. She was treated in the same callous manner as their workers. This upstanding American student was made to disappear because she got in the way.”

Logan rose another time. “Your Honor, I must protest.”

“Overruled.”

Marcus fought back the desire to beg the jury to share with him the conviction that Gloria had been right all along. “Gloria Hall was kidnapped and abused by the defendants because she threatened a commercial relationship that was mired in pain and fear and blood. A relationship that cared for nothing save money and power. A relationship that existed purely to exploit those who had no voice to complain. She sought to bring light into the darkness that was endured by many, and for no other reason than because it benefited the company’s bottom line. These partners must be punished, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. They must be brought to justice.”

S
ILENCE FOLLOWED
Marcus back to his seat. He endured the congratulatory pats from Charlie and Alma, though their hands burned like branding irons. He could not face the jury, not until Logan had approached the podium and demanded their attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am sorry we are here. Sorry we have taken your time and the court’s time. Sorry we have dragged us all through this charade for the sake of a lost and forlorn cause. The plaintiff’s lawyer has constructed the worst possible kind of case. He has played upon the emotions of two distraught parents and tied us all up with cords of convoluted lies, creating knots of empty half-truths.

“A good case is like a jigsaw puzzle. When things go right, the plaintiff’s lawyer should stand up in the beginning and tell us how the puzzle will look at the end. Then we should watch the pieces being set in place, one by one, as the witnesses are presented. Afterward, in
what’s called the summation or closing argument, the plaintiff should be able to describe the finished scene.

“Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this has not happened in our case. The puzzle is not complete. The picture is blurred, distorted. The pieces of evidence are mismatched. In fact, I would go so far as to say that we have not arrived at what could be called a real picture at all.

“Let’s begin here by listing some of the words we’ve heard the plaintiff’s attorney bandy about.” He lifted a printed board and set it on the easel by the lectern. “All right. There was the word
document
. You remember how the lawyer sitting over there used it? He said he would present documentary evidence. That’s our second word printed right here, see it?
Evidence
. Then the third word, an accusation of
collusion
. It gets worse, because then comes the word
abuse
, and after that
prisoners of conscience
. And finally there was the word he used to describe the missing woman. Remember that one?
Upstanding
. That’s what he said.”

Logan left the board and turned his full attention to the jury box. “Now let’s take a moment and remember what the experts said about all this so-called evidence. If you’re going to look anywhere to decide whether or not there really is any culpability, wouldn’t you look to the experts? Of course you would. And what did the experts tell you? That there was no substantive evidence that pointed to New Horizons’ being directly involved. None.”

He used his silver pen like a wand, punching the air, prodding the jury to pay attention and believe him. Above all, believe him. “Most importantly, we have the woman herself. Someone who has gone out of her way to look for trouble. She has made a profession of standing in harm’s way. She protested continuously. She disliked the Chinese government. Why? Who knows? Whatever the reason, we know for certain that Gloria Hall went looking for trouble. Sadly, she probably found it. Is that my clients’ fault? No!

“What the plaintiff’s lawyer has failed to prove is how New Horizons’
business
relationship with a Chinese factory could be tied in any way to such nasty words as
collusion
and
prisoners of conscience
. Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that New Horizons Incorporated runs ninety different operations, more than two dozen of them overseas, employing over thirty-seven thousand employees in nineteen different countries.” Instantly he held up his hand. “Not
that this issue is minor. Not at all. The possibility that Gloria Hall might be missing is terrible. We all hurt for her and for her parents. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the opposing counsel has not offered a shred of concrete evidence to tie New Horizons to Gloria’s Hall disappearance. Can anyone tell me why these companies would endanger such a lucrative operation by kidnapping a visiting student? Where is the motive?” He paused a moment, then jerked his shoulders in a humorless laugh. “Does this entire supposition seem as ludicrous to you as it does to me?”

Logan left the podium and began a tight little victory parade before the jury box. “Up to this point, our trial has not been about seeking truth at all. Instead, we have watched as the plaintiff has taken an upstanding North Carolina firm, one that employs four thousand people right here in this great state. A company that is in the process of expanding their operations and adding another two thousand employees. A company that supplies more eastern North Carolina families with incomes than almost any other firm. And how do we thank them? By sitting here and watching the plaintiff’s lawyer smear their name in the dirt. By tarring and feathering the senior executives. Is this the way we treat our corporate citizens? Threatening them with baseless slurs on their reputation?

“This has been a wet-spaghetti kind of lawsuit, the crudest kind of case. A wet-spaghetti suit is one where you take whatever you can get your hands on and toss it at the ceiling. Whatever sticks makes up the plaintiff’s case. What doesn’t, well, who loses? Who pays? The answer, I am sorry to say, is a lot of people. In this case, those who are injured are my clients. A fine North Carolina company that has never had any dealings with this Chinese group—”

Marcus was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. This is in direct opposition to the defense’s prior judicial admission.”

“Sustained.”

But the silver pen was already out and weaving its spell before the judge had spoken. “Yes. All right. Let me rephrase that. The judicial admission has shown that there was
some
commercial relationship. But what we have also shown is that these relations were nothing like what the plaintiff has claimed. You see how a wet-spaghetti lawsuit works? They claim this. We show that it is something else entirely. They say, But wait, if the one is true, then the other is as well. Do you see? Of course you do. Yes, the judicial admission was that New Horizons
had some relation to Factory 101. Yes. But we have not seen any evidence whatsoever that ties the North Carolina firm to responsibility for the acts that have brought us all together. Let us be perfectly clear about that, ladies and gentlemen: New Horizons is on trial here for the disappearance of Gloria Hall in China. And for that there is no evidence. None.”

He used both arms to fight the air, since Marcus was too far away to be grappled with personally. “Wrap this up in the personal tragedy of the plaintiff’s lawyer, who is desperately trying to jump-start his own life, and what do you have? A mess that should never have entered this courtroom. You remember what I said before introducing my own witnesses, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? I said we would go after the truth. And the truth is that the plaintiff’s lawyer has failed on all counts. There are neither credible witnesses nor physical evidence tying New Horizons to any wrongdoing. This is a political matter that belongs in the diplomatic realm. And we have an opportunistic lawyer at the helm of a ship headed toward destruction.”