Steve Martini - The Judge

“Kimberly. How many voices do you think are on the tape?”

She looks out at her grandmother, anxious for help.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” says Radovich. “If you don’t know you can just say you don’t know.”

“I don’t know.” Kimberly leaps on this like a lifeboat.

Acosta turns to Jell-O in his seat.

Radovich calls a sidebar. We all attend, leaving Acosta backed up by guards at the table. The court reporter muscles in with us.

“She’s confused,” says the judge. “I’m not inclined to let this go on.”

“Just a couple more questions?” says Hovander.

“This ain’t right,” says Harry. “Given the pressure, she’ll say whatever she thinks we want to hear. She couldn’t even tell how many voices were on the tape.”

“That’s because you guys played games,” says Hovander.

“Yeah, and your guy needed Preparation H for his adenoids,” says Harry.

“People.” Radovich in command. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“If I could ask just a couple more questions?” says Hovander.

“What do you want to ask?” he says.

“If she recognizes either of the two voices played last on the tape.”

“She already said she only heard one voice,” says Harry.

“We should be allowed to clarify the point,” says Hovander.

“Right,” says Harry. “Then, when you get her to understand that there are two voices on that tape, you can do eanie, meanie, minie, mo. This is no way to determine the truth.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” says Radovich.

Harry tells Radovich he wants to voir dire the witness on her voice-identification skills. Hovander objects, but the judge finds it a fair request. We break up and Harry is left standing in front of the witness box.

Kimberly looks at him, uncertain what to make of this new development.

“Kimberly, I’m Mr. Hinds. How do you do?”

She looks at him but does not respond.

“Do you recognize my voice, Kimberly? Do I sound like the voice you heard that night?”

A new adult now confronting her, a new threat. Kimberly nods.

“My voice sounds like the voice you heard that night?”

More nodding.

“Do you remember hearing the judge’s voice?” Harry points at Judge Radovich.

She nods.

“Does he sound like the voice you heard that night?”

This time she shakes her head.

“If I could, Your Honor, one more sample?”

Radovich motions Harry to proceed.

He looks over at me and tells me to stand up. At this moment I could kill him.

“Stand up,” he says.

I do it.

“Say something.”

I am covered with expressions of contempt for Harry at this moment.

“Say something.”

“Do you recognize my voice, Kimberly?”

Before I have completed the sentence she is nodding vigorously, shrinking into her chair.

“There you have it,” says Harry.

We’re back to the sidebar. This time Radovich has called the psychologist to join us.

“If she knows the voice and is not threatened by it, it doesn’t sound like the voice she heard that night. If she doesn’t know it, it does.” Harry’s school of psychology. “It has more to do with her comfort factor than what she heard or remembers,” he says.

“What do you think?” Radovich asks the psychologist.

“I agree. Seems to be what’s going on.”

“This is not going any further,” says Radovich. “Do you have another line of questions for the witness?” he asks Hovander.

“Nothing else,” she says.

“Do you have anything?” he asks Harry.

We confer off to the side, Harry and I.

“We’re not likely to score points beating up some little kid,” says Harry. “So far she hasn’t hurt us, but that could change anytime.”

I agree.

“Besides,” he says. “You seem to have a problem with her.” Harry gives me one of his enigmatic smiles, reading my mind.

Before I can open my mouth in protest, some bullshit that Harry can smell coming, he says, “Why tempt fate?”

“We have nothing for the witness,” he tells Radovich.

“Good,” says the judge. He climbs back on the bench.

“We’re going to take the noon break,” he announces. “The witness is excused. There’s no need for her to come back,” he tells the grandmother.

The jury seems relieved by this news. They are admonished by the judge, instructions not to talk about the case, and excused for the day. Radovich has other business this afternoon.

We wander away, Harry and I, back to the table.

“That was not too bad,” says Acosta.

“We dodged a bullet,” I tell him.

Harry is looking at him as if perhaps the child knew what she was saying, that Acosta’s voice is what she heard that night. Harry has never fully boarded this train that is the defense.

Someone, one of the clerks, has given Kimberly some jelly beans. It seems they are trying to coax Binky away, to put him back on the evidence cart. The child wants to take the animal home.

When I look over my shoulder I notice that Kline has completed his business outside of court. He is huddled near the back of the room, conferring with Hovander, a briefing on the morning’s developments, trying to determine how much damage they have done to us.

As I study them, Hovander is watching the antics at the witness stand, laughing. Two clerks and a bailiff are trying to reason with Kimberly. They are locked in a contest over the bear, which must go back on the evidence cart. More jelly beans are in the offing. The child stuffs two of these into the bear’s mouth.

The only one not laughing by this point is Kline. As they say, “perhaps you had to be there.” Like the only sober man in a party of drunks, he stands stone-faced, mesmerized, and listening to the laughter as tiny fingers and candy disappear into the furry confines of the little animal.

“We’ve got a minute. Have you given any thought to what we talked about the other day? Kline’s comment?”

Lenore and I are in my office with the door closed. Harry is outside at reception, on the telephone, about to join us for a meeting.

“I’ve racked my brain,” says Lenore. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. The man’s paranoid.”

The subject here is Kline’s private conversation at the fund-raiser, his ruminations that Lenore knows something she is not saying.

“You want my best guess?” she says.

“Shoot.”

“He’s trying to sow seeds of dissension,” she tells me.

“Why?”

She laughs. “With Kline, injecting strife into somebody else’s life is a major career goal. He’s certifiable.”

I don’t buy this. Kline’s words were not idle banter. There is something major that Kline doesn’t know about his own case. The trick is to discover it before he does.

Lenore has been studying me in silence for several seconds as I consider this.

“You think I’m holding something back?” she says.

“No. No. It’s possible that it could be something we already know, but haven’t put together.”

“Tell Kline to give you a clue,” she says. “You can play lawyer’s dozen with him.”

“Right.”

“You know everything that I know. He never gave a hint as to what it was?”

“No.” I scratch the budding beard on my chin. We are out of court today and I have given my face the day off.

“But I think it narrows to two possibilities,” I say. “Your conversation with Hall that day in the office. He seems to have deep-seated concerns that she told you something she didn’t tell him.”

“First sign of paranoia,” she says.

“Maybe. Could be why he fired you.”

This seems to spark her interest.