Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause (7 page)

He knows he is vulnerable. There are too many stories the media has suppressed in the past.

“That’s ridiculous-motion denied!” he spits.

I clear my throat, waiting for inspiration to strike, when I am saved by an unlikely source. Fingering red suspenders that make him look about eight years old instead of like a young sophisticated professional on the make, Bobba Stewart pipes up, “Judge, we don’t have any objection to a bond of say, five thousand dollars. We don’t think this defendant is a major threat to attempt to flee the court’s jurisdiction.”

I look gratefully at Bobba, who nervously adjusts his turquoise bow tie. If he had disclosed this when I first asked him this morning what he thought would be reasonable (I had suggested that Andy be released on his own recognizance), I wouldn’t have sweat pouring down my sides now;

but beggars can’t be choosers.

Bruton is on the spot. If the prosecutor isn’t worried, why should he be? It’s not as if Chapman has been charged with an intentional act or is likely to get drunk and run out and shock another child. Shaking his bald head in disbelief, Bruton folds quietly.

“If you’re willing to live with that recommendation, it’s fine with me. Let’s set this for a hearing so we can move on.”

I nod at Bobba, who is surely following direct orders from Jill Marymount. Is this a sop to the black community or what? I suppose this is Jill’s way of saying to blacks that this charge is nothing personal. Obviously, she hasn’t done her self any favors politically by charging a black male with a Ph.D. Blacks constitute about twenty percent of the population in Blackwell County, and it’s not as if there is an assembly line somewhere in Arkansas turning out minority doctoral candidates.

“Your Honor, “Bobba says, how about Monday morning?”

Bruton goes through the pretense of consulting his docket.

He can bump traffic cases any time. He looks at me but does not condescend to speak after our most recent exchange. He won’t permit me to believe, nor should I, that I have had anything to do with the outcome of this hearing. He has acquiesced in a low bond in spite of, not because of, my representation.

“What time?” I ask, more to force him to speak to me than needing to know the time. Bruton will make it the first order of business so Bobba can get back to misdemeanor court.

“Nine o’clock Monday. Court’s in recess for ten minutes,” he rasps indistinctly. We are like children who have to have the last word. He rises, and still without looking at me, departs for his chambers.

As soon as Bruton shuts the door behind him, Andy shakes his head at me and says quietly, “Gideon, don’t ever raise the issue of race again while you’re defending me.”

This instruction seems a little dramatic. I assume he is pissed because of my motion that Bruton recuse himself. I do not want to admit that it was done on the spur of the moment and out of spite. I sit down next to him so I can whisper.

“You have to keep a bastard like Bruton honest or he’ll run over you the entire time.”

Andy picks a piece of dirt from his jumpsuit. He is not fooled.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he says calmly.

“The prosecutor saved me some money.”

Instead of having to use a bail bondsman, my client saves himself five hundred dollars by putting up a cash bond. Where is he getting his money? If Bruton had jailed me for contempt, I’d be there until Labor Day; in contrast, Andy has forked over more money than I’ve made all summer. While we were waiting for his hearing to begin, he agreed to pay me a $5,000 retainer and $100 an hour. With any other client charged with causing someone’s death, I’d be suspicious as hell. The criminal defendants I’ve represented don’t seem the type to join the Christmas savings club at their place of employment. As I wait down in the jail for Andy to change, I wonder about his instructions not to raise the racial issue in his case. Where does this guy think he is? Throughout the proceeding, he sat as erect and proud as a king, even a bit detached from it all. Arrogance won’t do at all in front of a mostly white jury in this case. The girl was white. I don’t want him to beg for forgiveness; but he will have to warm up, or they won’t give a damn.

Andy’s clothes, now that he is out of his jumpsuit, should be badly wrinkled, but he manages to look as if he has stepped out of an ad for L. L. Bean, as fresh as a sprig of mint. He is wearing a tailored olive-green suit over a Hathaway canary-yellow shirt and a gold-and-green tie. As we walk upstairs from the jail, I notice for the first time an attractive white woman waiting for us by the door that leads back into the courtroom. I need no introduction. Olivia Le Master, as poised as a high-fashion model, looks just like her real estate ads. She is a tall, lithe woman with permed black hair that reaches the collar of a white blouse. A green peasant skirt comes to her ankles. On her feet arc a pair of white Birkenstocks. Though she is too flat-chested for my taste, I think I could make an exception.

Her gray eyes, framed by dark eyebrows, seem puzzled.

She asks Andy, “I missed it, didn’t I?”

His eyes are on the reporters who are waiting at the other end of the hall for him to come out the front door. I have already advised him to make no comment. He says softly, not looking at her, “Just barely. Why don’t we talk later?”

Following his gaze down the hall she nods and steps inside the courtroom before the media sees her. I find it extraordinary she is anywhere within ten miles of this courthouse.

The nightmare it must bring back to her! Yet why shouldn’t she be supportive? Andy was willing to try to help her child-perhaps the only professional willing to try something out of the ordinary. If I can persuade her to testify for him, she can be his ticket to an acquittal.

“That was the child’s mother,” Andy says coolly, adjusting his tie as we begin to walk toward the front door.

“I’ll introduce you later.”

Almost immediately, we are engulfed by the media. My favorite. Channel 11’s Kim Keogh, is here this morning. I have never seen her in person before, but she is even more gorgeous than on camera. All the other women reporters on television look as if they can barely hold up their heads because of all their makeup, but this woman looks as natural and friendly as a three-month-old cocker spaniel. Rainey, who watches the news more than I do, insists that Kim Keogh wears plenty of makeup but that it is so skillfully applied you can’t tell. I hope she is the last one to interview me. I’d like to get to know her. As I expected, I get questions about my motion that Judge Bruton disqualify himself; but I refuse to be baited into divulging anything that will get me into further trouble, saying only that it is the appearance of bias that I alleged. If I had any guts, I’d tell them that Judge Bruton has been swapping racist jokes back in his chambers for years.

Instead, I defuse the issue as best I can. With one client to my name, I don’t need to have the reputation among the judges that I’ve become a troublemaker, even though it is common knowledge in the bar that Bruton is an ignorant fool who has no business on the bench.

I get my wish. Kim Keogh is the last television reporter to approach and asks if she can have a brief interview with me. The others, women and men alike, have come on in their questions as though Sam Donaldson had just dropped by their studios for a pep talk, but Kim is almost laid back despite being dressed to the teeth. She is wearing a hunter-green suede jacket over a fall-length burgundy skirt. Her white blouse is one of those rayon jobs with the buttons at the back of the neck. Her dry-cleaning bill alone for this outfit probably cost more than my J. C. Penney suit. While her camera man is fiddling with her equipment, she asks me if I am the attorney who defended the man who shot Senator Anderson. Flattered beyond all reason to be remembered by her, I tell her that was my fifteen minutes of fame. Even her questions while the camera is on are more about me than the case, and I manage to get in that I have just gone into solo practice. I notice she is wearing no rings on the fingers that are holding the microphone in front of my face and wonder if I have the nerve to call her. It probably will depend on what she says about me.

After the interview, breathing her perfume (she smells faintly of magnolia blossoms), I ask, “How’d I do?”

She gives me a dazzling smile and says under her breath, “If this gets on the air and brings you any business, you ought to buy me lunch.”

I need no farther encouragement.

“It’s a deal,” I say, wondering if she has noticed my bald spot yet. If she was in the courtroom, she couldn’t miss it. The back of my head is beginning to look like a giant sand trap. She can’t be more than thirty, but maybe she likes the mature type. After Rosa died, I decided that I wouldn’t embarrass myself by asking out a woman more than a decade my junior. Like most of my good intentions, that didn’t last long.

As Andy and I watch her walk out the door with her cameraman he observes, “I wish all interviews were that friendly.”

Andy, I’ve noticed, doesn’t miss much. I force myself to look at him and pretend it was all business.

“You’re going to need all the friends like that we can get.”

He nods soberly.

“Would you like to go somewhere and talk to Olivia now? I know she wants to talk to you.”

“Sure,” I say, wishing I had known she was coming. If this case is going to be pre tried in the media by the prosecutor the mother of the victim, could, if she is willing, be of enormous help. Yet, it is difficult for me to grasp the possibility that she might be willing to get involved. After all, her child hasn’t been dead two weeks. But if she talks to the media about this case, I want to have an opportunity to tell her what I think she ought to say. Doubtless twelve jurors can be found who will swear under oath they haven’t heard of the case, but the presiding circuit-court judge will have an opinion, and my best hope in this case may be to keep the decision out of the hands of the jury. Unless I’m missing something, Jill Marymount will have expert witnesses falling all over each other to testify that shock shouldn’t be used on helpless, retarded children. The trial judge has control over which experts are qualified to testify and whether their testimony is relevant. Before the trial judge makes this decision, I want him or her to have read or heard the mother of the victim say that her child was in such pain she welcomed someone who was willing to try to help her. Is this unethical?

Surely no more so than Jill Marymount running around all over Blackwell County screaming about helpless children.

I decide to take Andy and Olivia Le Master to the conference room two doors down from my office in the Layman Building. It is an awkward walk for all of us. After I say I’m sorry about her child and she nods politely, my mind goes blank. I’m not ready to begin our interview in public, and yet small talk seems somehow out of place in the face of death. As we cross the street at the corner of Lewis and Russell, Olivia, whose stride matches my own, pauses for Andy, who has been lagging behind, to catch up with us.

“I need a shower,” he says somewhat sheepishly.

Olivia nods and says, her face full of sympathy, “It must have been horrible for you.”

He nods noncommittally, and I wonder about their relationship.

Could it be sexual? I try to read their expressions, but if there is a special chemistry between them, I can’t tell. Andy, who seems to have the grooming instincts of a cat, appears embarrassed, and Olivia, sensitive to his feelings, walks the rest of the way to the Layman Building alongside me. Yet, for all I understand at this point, they could easily be hiding their feelings. As we enter the elevator to take us to the sixteenth floor, I reflect upon the fact that sex is routinely my first explanation of human behavior. When Rainey is in her social-worker mode, she tells me that I constantly project my feelings onto everybody else.

At the receptionist’s desk I have, not surprisingly, no messages in my box. The temporary, whose name I have learned is Julia, eyes me suspiciously. Great, her expression says, the first clients you drag up here are an interracial couple. “Hold my calls,” I say to her as if I’m expecting to be deluged.

“Is the conference room available?”

She points sullenly to a key hanging on a hook on the gray metal message box.

“What does that key tell you?”

Do I remind this woman of her worst nightmare, or what?

I snatch the key from its hook, resisting the temptation to gouge her eyes out with it.

“Thanks,” I say, giving her a fake smile. If this is not her last day here, it will be mine. I find that I do not have the courage to ask if there is any coffee in the conference room.

We make a lonely-looking trio in the conference room, but it may be helpful in stimulating conversation if we don’t feel we are on top of each other. I sit at the head of the table facing the door. Andy and Olivia Le Master take chairs on opposite sides of the table. I realize I should have told Andy that I needed to visit with him alone that there will be plenty of time to talk to Olivia. Since she is already down here and seemingly willing to talk, I am afraid to pass up the opportunity, since she may be the key to saving his rear. Now that I have them seated, I would like to be able to watch both of their expressions simultaneously, but I can’t very well ask them to move together. I begin by telling Olivia that I have a daughter and can imagine how I would feel if I lost her.

“Every time she’s ten minutes late I start to worry about her,” I say tentatively, hoping I’m not being presumptuous.

I know firsthand how meaningless words of sympathy are from most people. The pain from the death of someone you love can hardly be imagined by someone else. In an effort to establish my sincerity, I add, “My wife died of cancer, so I Spock pretty easily.”

I have pushed the right button. Olivia’s small bust rises and falls as she sighs, “How old is your daughter?” “Seventeen,” I say and, unable to stop myself, add, ‘she’s at the Governor’s School at Hendrix College for the Gifted and Talented this summer.”

Her smile is genuine.

“You must be very proud.”