Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

'And by "a seam" you mean a little foil packet of narcotics?' 'Uh-huh,' she says. 'Blow.' Cocaine.

'And did Hardcore tell you that the idea was to make it look like this white man had been killed in a drive-by while he was buying blow?'

'Objection. Leading.'

Caught, Tommy slumps a bit. Lovinia continues on her own.

'Hardcore, he like, "Gone be like GOs come bustin up while this dude was coppin." '

'Were you supposed to tell the police that? That this was done by the Gangster Outlaws?'

'Uh-huh.'

Pleased with himself, Tommy struts back to Rudy, who reminds him of one further question.

'And by "busting up" and "riding by" and "capping," did you understand that Hardcore was telling you this white dude was going to be murdered by gunfire?'

'Uh-huh.'

'All right now, Ms Campbell, now after Hardcore had explained all of this to you, did you have any further conversation with him, there in the crib on 17?'

'No, sir. Not so I 'member.'

Tommy breathes once, sharply, through his nose. 'Did you ask him why it was necessary to kill this relation of Nile's?'

She shakes her head, with far more vigor that she has mustered until now.

'Didn't he tell you he was doing this killing for Nile?'

'Objection!'Hobie lumbers to his feet. 'Objection, Your Honor! There is no good-faith basis even to ask that question.' He raised the same point – at similar volume – during Molto's opening. Tommy is looking back at Hobie with awful hatred. His view is obvious: Hobie suborned her. At a point so critical, I decide to take over. I lean down toward Bug.

'Did you hear Mr Molto, Ms Campbell? He says Hardcore told you he was doing this for Nile. Did he say that?'

'Nn-uh,' says Lovinia. 'I ain never be sayin nothin gainst Nile.'

The courtroom is at a standstill. Tommy's witness has gone over the border. Prepared for this, Molto is resolute.

'Did you not state on September 14 to Officer Lubitsch, and here I quote, "I asked Hardcore why we had to be doing like this with Nile's father and he answered, quote, 'We-all are doin it on account of Nile.' " Did you say that?'

'Nn-uh,' says Lovinia.

'Do you recognize this statement?' Tommy approaches her, flourishing the papers like a flag.

'I didn't write that. That ain my writing.'

'That's Officer Lubitsch's writing, isn't it? And didn't he write down your words exactly as you spoke? And didn't you then sign this statement? Isn't that your signature right here?'

'That be what I wrote, just here, my name. I din't write none the rest.'

'Isn't this your signature under all these words?' 'That just be my name.'

'And right before your name, it says, "I sign this statement freely and voluntarily, under no coercion of any kind, and swear that the foregoing is true and correct." '

'I don't hardly understand that,' says Lovinia, her beautiful dark eyes quite wide. Buckwheat could hardly improve on her performance.

'And, Ms Campbell, wasn't it only after your meeting with Mr Turtle that you suddenly disavowed this portion of your statement, where you said that Hardcore told you this was being done for Nile?'

'I don't understand what you saying now neither.' 'I'm saying you're lying.'

'Nn-uh,' says Lovinia. 'This here, what I be sayin now, this the swore truth. And I ain never been sayin nothin gainst Nile.'

'Didn't you say again yesterday, Ms Campbell, in the presence of Mr Singh and Detective Montague and myself, when I met with you at the Juvenile Hall, didn't you in fact say again that you now recalled Hardcore saying this was being done on account of Nile?'

'Is that when you-all was trippin on me, how I tricked on you and I was gone away for M-1?' Murder one.

Tommy stands still in the middle of the courtroom with his eyes closed. The trial lawyer's bad dream: major witness giddyap and gone. At the defense table, Hobie is making notes madly. Behind him, his goofy client remains fixed on the girl with the same erratic grin. Bug, in this idle moment, becomes aware of Nile's attention and again looks toward her shoes.

'Lunch?' I ask Molto.

With evident gratitude, he nods.

Annie knocks her gavel once to announce the recess and the spectators rise, voices racing with the trial's first taste of excitement. I stay on the bench to write a few more notes in the bench book about Bug, not certain yet what I think of her or the way the attorneys have dueled over her testimony. Marietta appears with the files on two new custodies, both State Defender cases. They are scheduled for bond hearings at 2 p.m., but Gina Devore has grabbed Rudy Singh in the hopes of doing them now. She has a suppression hearing before Judge Noland this afternoon. I oblige Gina, and the keys rattle and doors clank as the transport deputies head back to retrieve the prisoners.

We immediately reach the Crime of the Day. Rogita Robbins slouches out of the lockup, small and overweight, with orangish hair and many black marks on her face. I am almost sick listening to a description of this case. Rogita and her man, Fedell, are Gangster Outlaws from Fielder's Green. They had a date with their homegirl, Tawnya, who was safekeeping the night's entertainment, multiple doses of dust. When they arrived at Tawnya's apartment, Fedell found both Tawnya and their PCP gone, and in reprisal exorcised his fury by sodomizing Tawnya's children, a boy eight and a girl nine. Fedell was apprehended months ago. Nailed on DNA and fingerprints, he pled out for sixty years before Judge Simone, whose call I inherited when he transferred to Chancery. Rogita has been at large, and was taken into custody on a shoplift. She will probably not deal, Gina and Rudy explain, since the state is light on her. The PAs have only the boy and girl to testify against Rogita. A mother of two, Rogita aided Fedell by holding both children down.

'A million full cash,' I say.

Gina looks at me. $100,000 would keep Rogita behind bars. 'Full,' I repeat.

She gives her wavy high-school hairdo a churlish toss, but I doubt if we changed places the ruling would be different. I like Gina. She's a tiny, athletic woman, a gymnast at one point, if memory serves. It's always impressive to see her, barely five feet, even in her big high heels, standing in the lockup, reading out her clients, who hulk over her. Yet last month she cried in my chambers. She'd spent hours she didn't have cobbling together bail for Timfony Washington, a decent young man being held for setting fire to the back porch of his girl's apartment. Gina talked the contractor who employed Tim as a laborer into making a $1,500 cash advance on some overdue workmen's compensation benefits and, late Friday, handed the money to Timfony's mother and sisters with instructions to post bond at the jail at 8 a.m. Monday morning. Instead, it was gone after the weekend – spent, stolen, disappeared, you could guess whatever you liked based on the four or five different stories the family told. In the jailhouse, Timfony accused Gina of ripping him off, and became so abusive he had to be restrained.

By the time we are done, the courtroom is largely empty. A few stragglers, elderly buffs with no place to rush to, are gossiping behind the glass, while Seth has remained at the near end of the jury box. He's preoccupied, looking toward his lap, his hands moving furtively. Idling on the question that finally came home to me after overhearing Dubinsky and him yesterday, I drift his way.

'What in the world?' I ask, when I first see the needle in his left hand. Then I realize he's sewing a button back on his sport coat. He's made a terrible hash of it. Thread is going everywhere. It looks less like a button than a leak. 'You can see why I gave up a career in surgery.' He bites off the thread between his teeth. ‘I thought we weren't talking,' he says.