Steve Martini - The Judge

Here is a straight recitation of the facts:

“We will present evidence that that arrest was engineered by the very police officers who were the subject of the grand jury probe, and that Armando Acosta’s arrest had one purpose and one purpose only: to stop the investigation, and to intimidate the honest officials who were striving to weed out corruption on this city’s police force.”

I am drawing wide eyes from the panel, several of whom are taking notes.

“We will produce evidence that the victim in this case, Brittany Hall, was closely allied with members of that force, having worked as a civilian employee with the Vice detail.

“We believe that there are reasons, reasons that will become apparent to you with the evidence of this case, why Brittany Hall was murdered, but not by Armando Acosta. The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that Brittany Hall was murdered by others, because she knew too much.”

With this I cross the Rubicon. I am committed to the theory of our case, and while we have no burden of proof, the jury is not likely to forget what I have promised to show them.

I return to the implied promise that I have extracted from each of them, to withhold judgment until our case is presented.

I move toward conclusion, where I know that the court will give me more leeway, and I edge into argument.

Kline shifts nervously in his chair, but hesitates to object, knowing that Radovich is likely to give me license here.

“These are cynical times, ladies and gentlemen. Times in which the presumption of innocence, which the law guarantees to each of us, has too often been twisted into an assumption of guilt. Such cynicism may double where the charge is brought against a public official, particularly one in a position of trust, such as a judge.” I turn this point against Kline.

“You must fight the tendency to think in those terms. You must not listen to the merchants of cynicism,” I tell them.

As I say this I am staring directly at Kline in his chair. He is halfway up, out of it.

“And instead,” I say, “look at the evidence of the case, and rely on your own sound judgment. I am confident that if you do that, you will find Armando Acosta not guilty.”

Outside on the courthouse steps I am having microphones thrust in my face. Harry and I are blocked by a phalanx of men and a few women wielding cameras on their shoulders, hot lights in our eyes. It is a movable feast for journalists.

“Mr. Madriani, can you tell us what you know about the grand jury investigation of the police association?”

“I cannot say anything more,” I tell them.

“Are indictments coming?”

“You’ll have to ask the district attorney’s office about that.”

“Sir, you made some rather serious accusations in your opening statement. We’d like to know what evidence there is to back this up.”

“Watch in court like everyone else,” I tell them.

Harry finds a seam in the cordon of cameras, lowers a shoulder, and I follow him through the hole.

Somebody asks Harry a question I cannot understand.

“No comment,” he says. Harry nudges one of the minicams and the thing nearly falls off the operator’s shoulder, saved only by a strap around the guy’s arm.

One woman with a microphone comes at me from the side.

“Have you talked with Mr. Lano or his association concerning these charges?”

I ignore her.

“Do you intend to call Mr. Lano to the stand?”

By now she is behind me and I am opening the distance between us, continuing to ignore the stream of questions.

“Mr. Madriani, are you telling us that Gus Lano or some of his supporters had something to do with the murder of Brittany Hall?” This last is shouted above the din of other reporters, so that there is no one on the street within fifty feet who can miss it.

“That seems to be the thrust of your opening statement,” says the reporter. The new journalism: If you can’t get a reply, testify. Her voice will be on the six o’clock news, with pictures of the back of my head, silence as a public admission.

“Why don’t you answer their questions?”

When I look up, I’m staring into the face of Tony Arguillo. He has come from someplace in this mob to put himself between Harry and me, and is now blocking my way to the curb.

“Well?” he says. “At a loss for words?”

“The judge has issued a gag order,” I tell him. “And if you’re smart you’ll keep your mouth closed.”

“A gag order. Oh, yes. That’s it. Upholding the requirements of the profession,” says Arguillo. He makes the word sound dirty.

“Right,” he says. “It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that what a cock-sucking lying lawyer says in a courtroom is privileged, now could it. The fact that lies made there are immune from the laws of defamation-a little slander?”

I nudge him with a shoulder and for a second Tony stiffens. I think we are going to get into it, right here in front of the cameras. His two little beady eyes are locked on me like the homing beam on a missile. Then he breaks this and turns to a couple of the reporters.

“I’ll tell you that everything he said in that courtroom is a crock,” he says. “A pack of lies.” It is Tony as the true believer. He seems genuinely offended by the disclosure of information about the grand jury investigation, this despite the fact that it is old news, chewed over in the press for months.

I push past him.

“Who are you?” One of the reporters is talking to Tony.

“Can we have your name?”

Arguillo’s ignoring them.

“Why don’t you talk about it out here where you can get your ass sued?” Tony continues to taunt me from behind this time. “Just like the rest of the fucking breed. Fucking lawyers all the same.” They will be using a lot of electronic bleeps on the news tonight.

My blood is boiling like hot lead to the tips of my ears. I fight the temptation to turn and get into it. I ignore him, one fist clenched and shaking at my side; I walk away.

Harry’s made it to the curb, where he’s hailed a passing cab. It pulls up and he opens the door. The throng of journalists move in around us like piranhas boiling on the surface of a lake. As I look over the top of the vehicle, I see a figure staring intently at me from across the street. It is Gus Lano, making no pretense of the fact that I am the center of his attention at this moment. I am wondering if he was in the courtroom to hear the opening, perhaps with Tony, or if he has heard the questions being propounded here on the steps.

Whatever Lano’s sense of our case had been before this moment, he is certain to have a whole new perspective now.

Saturday morning and Sarah is cleaning her room. She is the master of the stall. My daughter, at eight years of age, can take an hour to make her bed in the morning and another to brush her teeth. She can daydream about a dozen things at once, hold her own in aimless conversation with unseen beings, and recite verse with no meter or rhyme. Put her in the shower with a bar of soap and she will drain the local reservoir.

Sarah’s mother, Nikki, who died two years ago, possessed artistic skills that seem to have passed to Sarah. She can draw human forms, men and women which shame my stick figures. But numbers elude her, and she has her own system for spelling that substitutes the consonants of any word interchangeably. I have talked to the teachers at her school and they tell me to be patient. Each child, they say, progresses at his or her own speed. For Sarah, except for the tasks she enjoys, this seems to be glacial.

“What’s she doing up there?” Lenore’s laughing, amused by the stomping sounds of little feet on the floor overhead.