Steve Martini - The Judge

“Why would she lie?”

“To protect Arguillo.”

“She was your lawyer. She didn’t have to take the case.”

“Precisely,” he says.

“You’re saying that you think she had a sinister motive to take your case?”

“It is a possibility,” he says.

“No. Not in my book,” I tell him. “I think she has told us all she knows.”

“Perhaps,” he says. But I can tell by his expression that he sees my support for Lenore as my own article of faith.

“Is there anything else?” he says.

“One other item.”

“What is that?”

“A calendar found at the dead girl’s apartment. It bears an entry on the date of the murder, in her own hand. It is your name, showing an appointment for that afternoon.”

If he had even a glimmer of knowledge of this, I can find no sign of it in his expression at this moment. His look is grave as he considers this news.

“I don’t understand. I don’t know what to say,” he says. “I have no idea how it would have gotten there. Apart from that meeting in the hotel room, where they set me up,” he says, “I never spoke to the woman or met her. Never saw her before or after.”

He is genuinely perplexed by this.

“Why would I meet with her again, after she had deceived me the first time?”

“I’m sure that’s what the state would like to know,” I say.

“It would be foolish. What could I hope to accomplish?”

I don’t suggest it, but I’m sure Kline has a ready answer to the question.

“Then you have no idea how the note on her calendar came to be there? Your name and a time?”

“No.” He shakes his head. Then he looks up at me, deep furrows over dark eyes. “The problem is,” he says, “how do we explain this to the jury when we don’t have a clue ourselves?”

It is precisely the point.

Radovich has labored over the issue of the little girl, Kimberly Hall, for nearly two weeks.

At issue is the right to a public trial in a criminal case. Kline wants to put Hall’s daughter on the stand, but out of the presence of the public and the press, with only the jury, judge, and lawyers present. He argues that to do otherwise would traumatize her, that she has suffered enough.

We have resisted this motion, and have demanded the right to voir dire Kimberly out of the presence of the jury before the start of trial. This is not an unusual procedure with young children. It is important to find out if the child understands the difference between truth and fantasy and, in this case, to determine if she saw anything that night which would make her a competent witness.

All we know is that the night of the murder, the cops found Kimberly cowering in a dark closet a few feet from the living room clutching a teddy bear stained with her own mother’s blood. What Kimberly may or may not have seen that night remains a mystery.

This morning we are assembled in the courtroom-the judge, the lawyers, Acosta, and a psychologist from Child Protective Services. What is revealed here today will determine whether Kimberly testifies in the trial.

Kline has assigned one of the female deputies in his office the task of dealing with the little girl, though she is not likely to ask many questions here today, as this is our party. His theory is that a woman may be able to get more from the child than he would. No doubt our side would have had Lenore do this had she not been bounced.

Then the thought hits me like an iced dagger, something I had not considered before this moment: Kimberly was in that closet when Lenore and I entered the apartment that night.

The thought sends a cold chill, apart from the fact that she may have seen us, that without knowing we had left her there. The former I quickly dismiss. She could not have seen anything. The closet door was nearly closed, at least I think it was.

The only people beyond the railing of the bar are Brittany Hall’s mother and her stepfather, who at this moment are waving at their granddaughter, as she sits perched on two telephone books in the witness chair.

“Are you okay down there?” Radovich leans over the side of the bench and gives her a broad paternal grin.

“We’re pretty special. They let us sit way up here,” he says. “So we can see everybody out there.”

She looks at him, but says nothing. She seems neither amused nor comforted by his words.

Radovich has shed his robes and sits in shirtsleeves and an open collar, a concession to the child’s anxiety.

“Would you like me to come down there with you?” he says.

She shakes her head.

“We’re gonna do this together, aren’t we?”

She looks at him silently, conveying the thought, no doubt, that she would rather he do it alone.

“Let’s go on the record,” he tells the court reporter.

The woman starts hitting the keys on the stenograph.

“You’re not scared, are you?” says Radovich.

She shakes her head bravely.

“Let the record reflect that she has indicated ‘no.’”

She is just too terrified to speak.

Radovich gets up from the bench and comes down into the well of the courtroom, in front of the witness stand, where he is almost at eye level with the little girl.

“Kimberly. Do you know why you are here?” the judge asks.

More head shaking, the judge interpreting for the record.

“Can you tell us what your name is?”

She shakes her head.

“You don’t know your name?”

More head shaking.

“You know your name?”

She nods.

“You know your name, but you won’t tell me?”

She nods again.

“Wonderful,” says Radovich.

“Will she talk to you?” The judge is addressing the psychologist.

The woman gets up and crosses the room. She huddles with the little girl at the witness stand, talking in tones that I cannot hear. From this conversation comes a tremulous little voice.

“Kimberly,” it says.

“And your last name?” says the woman.

“Hall.”

“Good.”

Radovich signals the psychologist not to go too far.

“Kimberly. We need to have you tell us what, if anything, you saw the night your mommy was hurt. Do you think you can do that?”

She looks out at her grandparents for encouragement. Her grandmother is nodding her head feverishly, until the judge intervenes.

“Madam, the purpose of this exercise is to find out whether the little girl knows anything. Don’t coach her,” he says.

The woman folds her hands in her lap. Mum is the word.

“Do you remember that night, Kimberly? The night your mommy was hurt?” Radovich wants to do as much of this himself as he can to avoid traumatizing the child.

She nods again.

“I’ll bet you do,” Radovich whispers under his breath as he straightens up and wipes sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.

“You didn’t take down that last comment,” he says to the court reporter.

A few key strokes and it disappears.

“Kimberly, can you tell me where you were that night?” he says.

The first question for which a nod will not suffice.

She looks up at him, chews a silent word with her mouth, and then responds, “I was in the closet.”

“You were in there alone?”

She shakes her head. The court reporter by now is taking license to record the silent yeas and nays without the judge’s instruction.

“Was somebody in there with you?”

She nods.

“Who?”

“Binky,” she says.

“Who’s Bulky?”

“My bear.”

“Ah. I’ve seen Binky,” says Radovich. “A fine-looking bear.”

“Where is he?” she asks. “Why can’t I have him?”

Radovich turns around and rolls his eyes. He’s managed to step in it.