Steve Martini - The Judge

“Glue,” says Franks.

“Ah. What kind of glue?”

“Under intense light,” he says, “and with high magnification, I would say that it is very similar to what might be imparted by one of those yellow stick-on notes we all use.”

Under intense light and high magnification, bullshit is still bullshit and Kline smells it. He rolls his eyes and starts grousing at his table. He actually throws two pieces of paper into the air and lets them float back down onto the surface in front of him as if to make sure that the rules of physics are still functioning. He flashes Stobel a “can you believe it” look.

Harry has one of the stick-on notes, a sample, at the counsel table ready to hand to me, so I show it to the witness.

“That’s the kind I’m talking about,” he says.

Kline by now is convinced that this is an impossibility. He wants to look at this, and with Stobel at his side they stick it to a piece of paper, roll it with a thumb, and pull it off. Kline feels with his fingers for glue, and shakes his head. He holds it up to the light, looking for evidence of the glue.

Before I can object, Franks takes care of this for me.

“Oh, you need a microscope.” He says this with guileless sincerity, to Kline, so that a couple of jurors actually laugh. Kline gives the witness a look as if the word cross had suddenly taken on a whole new meaning: three nails and two boards. He starts collecting venom for his cross examination.

“Now you said that the impression from this notation was legible. What technique or process did you use to read it?”

“I did it the old-fashioned way,” he says.

He pauses to look at me. For a moment I think he’s going to say, “I made it up.”

And then he says, “Oblique light.”

“Explain to the jury, please.”

“You take a bright light and shine it across the surface of the impression. Shadows appear in the indented areas of the paper, and if they are deep enough they become legible. There are other methods, some more sophisticated,” he says.

“I’ll bet,” says Kline.

I object to this, and Radovich admonishes him. Tells him he’ll have his turn.

“I can’t wait,” he says.

I ignore him.

“This oblique-light method worked?” I ask.

“It was sufficient for our purposes.”

“How many words appeared on the indented notation?”

“Objection,” says Kline. “Hearsay.”

“I’m not asking for content, just word count,” I say.

We are treading on the edge, and Radovich considers for a moment before he rules.

“I’ll allow it,” he says, “but nothing more.”

“Let’s see.” Franks counts with his fingers and I begin to wonder if he’s going to have to feel through the hole in his shoe if he gets above ten.

“Does the man’s initial and the time count, or just the name?” he asks.

“Objection.” Kline storms to his feet. “Move to strike,” he says.

“The witness’s comment will be stricken,” says Radovich. “The jury is to disregard it.” The judge gives me a look, eyes that burn. Then he turns this on Franks in the stand.

“Just answer the question,” says Radovich. “How many words? Anything beyond that and you’ll spend the night in jail. Do we understand each other?”

“Lemme see.” Franks starts counting again.

“Do we understand each other?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

“Two or three,” he says. “Depending on how you count.”

Radovich looks as if he wants to reach out and hit him with the gavel.

“Your witness,” I say.

“Saved by the bell,” says the judge. A few jurors laugh at this.

Kline rips in like a shark with blood in the water.

“Isn’t it customary to take photographs when examining indented writing?” he says.

“Some people do,” says Franks. “I don’t.”

“Come now,” says Kline. “Isn’t it a fact that in order to read such impressions, photographs are necessary?”

“I can read them without it,” says the witness.

“And I’ll bet you speak in tongues, too,” says Kline.

“Objection.”

“Stick to questions,” says Radovich.

“So all we have is your word that these impressions existed? There’s no hard physical evidence that you can show to the jury, is there?”

“No.”

“How convenient,” says Kline.

“Is that a question?” says Radovich.

“Sure,” says Kline. He decides to get cute. “Isn’t it a fact that you found this, the absence of photographs, convenient?”

“In what way?” says Franks.

“Because if you were forced to produce photographs we could examine them. The jury could see them. Without them you can say whatever you want and there’s no way to question what you say. Isn’t that so?”

“There was a reason there were no photographs, but that’s not it,” says Franks.

In front of the jury it is like a dare, a test of his manhood. Kline has no choice but to ask why. He does.

“Photographs would have been inadmissible,” says the witness. “You said it yourself. The content of that writing in a photograph would have been hearsay.”

Kline stands in front of the jury box, hoist with his own petard.

“Well, the judge could have looked at them, behind closed doors.” Kline says this lamely, knowing that he’s just had his butt flamed. He retreats for cover, changing the topic to the glue.

“How can you be sure that what you saw on that calendar was glue from a stick-on note?”

“It’s what it looked like when I did comparisons.”

“Are you sure you didn’t sniff this glue?”

Franks actually says, “No,” before he realizes that this is a dig by Kline.

“I have no more use for this witness,” says Kline. He musters all the contempt possible in a human body and dismisses the witness with a gesture, the back of his hand.

It is the best he can do, given the anger that is welling up within him at this moment. His rage would be stratospheric if he only knew the truth. The impressions attested to by Jerry Franks are mythic. The content of the note, what we have agreed he would testify to if it came to that, would read, Tony A. 7:30.

It is short and crisp, a cryptic reconstruction by Lenore of what was on the paper that night, the best she can remember months after the fact.

“You’re out of your mind. Crazy,” says Harry. “Gonna lose your ticket. And the judge ain’t worth it.” Harry’s talking about Acosta. We square off in the corridor outside the cafeteria during a break, where I have finally told Harry the truth about Franks’s testimony. “This is not like you,” he says.

The fact that this could offend Harry’s sense of ethics for a moment has me wondering about my own moral center of gravity. Then I realize it’s not that I have done something wrong that bothers Harry, but that I might get caught.

It’s a gamble of some proportions, but not as great as Harry thinks. I have not shared some of the things I know, and others that I now suspect, with my partner.

“What are you gonna do next?” he says.

“Gall the next witness.”

“No, I mean for a living, after you get disbarred.”

I look at him and he is not laughing.

We push through the crowd in the corridor outside the courtroom, the end of our morning break. A news crew, cameraman, sound tech, and a reporter on the fringes are the first to see us. The reporter jockeys for an angle to herd us into one of the side corridors.

“Can we have just a minute for an interview?”

Harry and I are trying to pick up the pace to get away.

“No time now,” I tell him.

“The D.A. is saying that he’s going to subject the calendar to his own testing. Do you have any comment?” Lights in my eyes.