The Laws of our Fathers (67 page)

    'Mr Turtle?'

    'Your Honor, I have to move for a further continuance.' 'You haven't found him?'

    'Not yet, Your Honor.' He turns his large head to the corners of the courtroom, as if he might find Nile here. He'd rather not look at me.

    'And, Mr Molto, you still desire to proceed?'

    Tommy comes to the podium. 'The People move to reopen their case,' he says. ‘I want to offer Mr Eddgar's non-appearance as evidence of flight, of consciousness of guilt.' He and Rudy have cooked this one up in the interval and it's clever. The law has always reasoned that an innocent person would stay to defend himself. Only the guilty run away. Privately, the logic of this rule has eluded me. Who, having been falsely accused, would have enough faith in the system to stick around for trial? It's an assumption from a more formal era, when people lived by concepts like Honor and Obedience. But rule it is, age-old. Hobie explodes.

    'Consciousness of guilt! Any person with eyes in his head could see what went on in this courtroom yesterday. That's ridiculous, Your Honor.'

    'Mr Tuttle, you know the law as well as I do. Tell me why the state is not entitled to urge the traditional inference from the defendant's absence?'

    'Because it makes no sense. Judge Klonsky, this case is going well from the defendant's perspective. Your Honor knows that. He has no reason to flee. None.'

    'Then why's he gone, Mr Turtle?'

    Hobie gasps and blusters; he might as well be a landed fish. For the first time in the trial, Tommy appears to have outflanked him. After all of Hobie's tricks, it's hard not to relish his comeuppance. He tries again.

    'Your Honor, with all respect, you have to think about the emotional aspects of this case. This is pretty hard on the defendant. His mother's gone. And then he had to confront yesterday. That had to be a terrible moment. He had an emotional reaction. But that's not a guilty reaction. His reaction, I guess, it would appear, was "I can't stand this, I can't handle this." Your Honor, how hard is it for you, for any of us, to understand his feeling that way?' Very eloquent - and very much what my reflections in chambers led me to suspect. Hobie wouldn't have sent Nile away without cooking up a compelling explanation, one that would make me willing to recall the bond forfeiture warrant when Nile appears an hour or so after the case has come to a close. I tell Hobie he can argue that at the end of the case.

    'Judge,' says Tommy, 'let me suggest that the defendant didn't like watching his father take the blame for a crime he knew he committed himself. I think that makes a lot more sense than what Turtle's saying.'

    'Mr Tuttle, why isn't the prosecution entitled to make that

    point? Tell me why not.' I motion toward Tommy. Hobie again looks around the courtroom for help.

    'Your Honor, you can't,' he finally says. 'You just can't do this.'

    'Mr Turtle, in my first years out of law school, I was law clerk to Justice Ringler, and one of the things he taught me, which I have never forgotten, is that the three most dangerous words in the English language are "Judge, you can't." I can and I will.'

    'Judge Klonsky. Please!'

    'Mr Turtle, I'll give you until tomorrow morning to find your client. If he doesn't appear, we're going to proceed. And at that point, I'm going to allow the People to reopen. I will take notice that the defendant is absent, and I will allow the parties to argue the inferences that flow from that non-appearance, including availing the state of the traditional presumption that flight implies a consciousness of guilt. That's my ruling.' I drop my head decisively. No more bullshit. No more playing chicken.

    Furious with me, Hobie stands before the bench, rowdily tossing his head. 'Your Honor, if you allow them to reopen -'

    'Mr Turtle, there is no "if." I've ruled.'

    'Judge, I'm going to have no choice but to move for a mistrial.'

    It's as if the world has divided, right in front of me. What did Seth say about Hobie? He can't get over himself? Intent on having his way, he seems not to have noticed how angry I am. And of course he'd never sense how welcome the opportunity is which he's presented. Without a mistrial motion by the defendant, double jeopardy requires the trial to proceed to conclusion. But Hobie is claiming that by allowing the state to make hay from Nile's absence, I've so prejudiced the defense that he'd rather call the trial a washout and start over from scratch whenever Nile turns up. I can feel the courtroom trained on me, aware I've grown unusually still.

    'Your motion is allowed, Mr Turtle.'

    Utter stillness. Across the entire floor, in all eight courtrooms, it seems to be one of those breathless moments in which no one even moves. Hobie stares up at me, searching for a clue as to what he must do now.

    'Judge, I'll withdraw my motion.'

    ‘I just granted it.'

    'Your Honor, I said - I said I was going to make the motion. It was what I was contemplating for tomorrow morning. I didn't make the motion.'

    'Your motion is deemed made and granted.'

    'Then I move you to reconsider. I move you reconsider and take a day to think about it. I offended Your Honor. I can see that. I apologize. Humbly. Humbly, Judge Klonsky. But please reconsider.'

    And so I reconsider - but only momentarily. In some part of me, I will always be sitting up here in judgment of myself, speaking out for my beliefs, fearing my own weaknesses, struggling with my past. Objectivity is, at best, a matter of degree. But after all the strange outside forces that have buffeted me - after Brendan Tuohey and Seth, after Hobie himself and his antics with Dubinsky - I'm no longer in the comfort zone that passes for impartiality. Probably, I should have known to start I'd end up here. I would go on if I had to. But I won't -1 can't - let this opportunity pass. It's the saddest thing in life to make the same mistake twice.

    'Mr Turtle, this case is over. And because I have presided as the finder of fact, it would be inappropriate for me to hear the case again. I'm going to send it back to Chief Judge Tuohey for reassignment. That will be the order of the court.'

    'Your Honor,' says Hobie, in final desperation, 'please, don't be like this.'

    I don't bother with a response. Molto looks dazed. As I stand, he finally wakes and comes to the podium to make a motion. 'People move to forfeit bond.'

    Sallow little man, always lit by the eternal candle of one unending hatred or another. He is asking for Loyell Eddgar's house.

    

    

    I retreat to chambers. For an hour the phone rings constantly, distracting me from the silence of my two court officers, who both clearly believe I lost my temper or my mind. Marietta handles each of the calls the same way. 'Judge don't give interviews.' She bangs the phone down. Any moment now Brendan Tuohey will be on the line. But as I busy myself I am jubilant. Free! Not of responsibility, but what greater gratitude can there be than to have been accidentally saved from our errors?

    Near 4:00, I decide to call it a day. In the spirit of the season, the court deputies have hung a wreath over each of the metal detectors. As I am passing on the outer side, I catch sight of the haggard figure of Tommy Molto, also heading out. We arrive at the single exit at virtually the same moment.

    He apologizes for the bond motion. I did not even rule, only glowered before stalking off the bench.

    ‘I didn't mean to put you on the spot,' he says.

    'We were all in quite a state.'

    'So what do you figure, Judge? Think Turtle sent him to the woods so he'd have a reason not to put him on? That's one of the guesses downstairs.'

    Proprieties, judiciousness survive the case. I reply with an inscrutable fanning of my fingers, as if such a thought had never crossed my mind.

    'Rudy thinks he did himself.'

    'Really?' This alarms me. 'Any reason?'

    'He's a screwy kid. Hell, "kid," ' Tommy snorts. 'Past thirty. He'll turn up. That's my bet.'

    'We'll see, Tommy. It's a strange development.'

    'I'll say.'

    'You did a good job with what you had.' I tell him his direct of Eddgar was classic. With the compliment, he lights up like a little boy. Poor Molto. So seldom praised. 'The case was well tried on both sides. I'd tell Hobie that, too, but I don't expect he'll ever speak to me again.'

    Tommy looks off, rather than show much.

    'He got under my skin,' he says and shakes his tight, tired face about. When he looks back, he's gripped by a different thought. 'Why'd you do it, Judge?'

    'The mistrial? It was the right thing,' I say. 'Given all the circumstances.'

    'Sort of made my day.' He laughs at his willingness to settle for a tie. ‘I thought I was going to win this case when we started.' 'Maybe next time.'

    He laughs at that thought, too, the same self-deprecating little huffing sound.

    'It won't be me. They can play monkey in the middle with somebody else,' he says and again considers the distance. After a second, he says, 'Probably not anybody. Can't put Hardcore on again. Or the father. Not that I believe all of Turtle's stuff. I don't. I think the kid is wrong, Judge.'

    'You didn't prove it, Tommy.' We've arrived at the moment of candor we both wanted. He hitches a shoulder.

    ‘I got out with my boots on. I appreciate that.'

    I've been so focused on my own fortunes, I haven't considered anybody else's. They're all winners: the PA's Office, even Nile, who apparently will not be retried. Maybe Hobie, too. A fear strikes me: Brendan Tuohey may like this, may compliment my diplomatic style. Then, of course, there's Eddgar. He's still as ruined as he was at the start of the day.

    'I'm glad for your sake, Tommy. It's nice somebody's a hero.'

    Tommy in an ironical, reflective mood just shakes his head. It's a bitter thing for him, I guess, this system. I understand. Practicing, I had days when it did not seem there were rules at all, just random results and rationales composed after the fact.

    'Hero,' he says. 'You know what I am? I'm the chump. I'm the poor so-and-so who just does his job, who goes down to the factory every day and busts his butt and then comes home and gets sassed by the kids and nagged by the wife. I'm just doing my job. That's all I've ever done. "Try this case, Tommy." Okay, I'll try it. I read the reports, I talk to the witnesses. I come up to court. What they're doing or thinking downstairs, I don't begin to fathom. I never was a politician. That's my problem. I don't think their way. These guys have got wheels inside of wheels. You know, they're sitting in the back room with the PA, having skull sessions, drinking single-malt Scotch after hours and getting excited trying to figure what everybody else is really up to, and how much of what people say they ought to believe. I don't know. I don't know about that stuff. I'm just up there trying the case. They think I don't know I'm the burnt offering. They sent me up there to lose that case. I know that. I've known it all along. But I was up there anyway. Trying to win.' He gives me one further penetrating look - someone who knows he'll never be rescued from himself - and moves ahead of me, into the air growing brittle with the touch of winter.

    Then I go on with my life. I bring Nikki home. Near 6:00, the phone rings. Seth. He sounds as if he's in an airport or a train station. There is clatter thrown down from some huge space, drowning his voice.

    ‘I'm not going to make it.'

    'Oh?' Don't think it, I tell myself. I want to reach inside my chest and grab my heart.

    'I'm at the hospital.' He takes a breath. Nile? That's my next thought. 'My father had a stroke,' he says.

    'Oh God.'

    'Sarah was with him. They'd finished their stuff. She went to make him some soup for lunch and when she came in, he was on the floor. He was actually grey when we got him here.'

    'How is he?'

    'Not good. He's not quite dead. The word I keep hearing is "linger." '

    'Seth, I'm sorry.'

    Nikki, at the mention of his name, runs in from the den. ‘I want to talk.' I spend a second shushing her, but Seth tells me to put her on and a minute passes with them gabbing about the teeth he sent her.

    'The trial's over,' I say, when she hands back the phone. 'I saw it on a TV in the ER.'

    The prerecorded, robotic voice of commerce interrupts, demanding more change. A coin rings through. Afterwards, there is no more about the trial from either of us. I realize there never will be. There's only one real question.

    'Are we okay?' he asks.

    'I think so.'

    'Cause, look, I'm a straight guy. It's a pretty short list, you know, what I can say for myself. But that's on there.'

    'I'm sorry, Seth. You caught me by surprise, but I know you didn't deserve that.'

    'I want you to trust me.'

    'I'm going to try, Seth.'

    'All right. Well. I have to get back to Sarah.'

    We both wait, trying to figure out if there is any more to say. But there isn't, not right now. We have time.

    

    

    THE SIXTIES ARE OFTEN REGARDED AS A STORM THAT CAME
and passed, a cyclone that blew through, its damage long repaired. But among the era's more enduring legacies was establishing a style of youth, of being young, that's been passed on for thirty years now by example in an endless chain of kids. Whether it's matters of speech - using the word 'like' as an article, or the omnipresent 'man' - or the torn jeans, the shoulder-length hair like Spanish moss, or the hazards of sex, drugs, and rock 'n 'roll, we developed rites of passage of a surprisingly enduring nature. Listening to my daughter, I often feel a little like the American natives who puzzled as Columbus told them he'd discovered a New World.