David Kessler - No Way Out

“But you haven’t told Alex your theory that the software’s been deliberately tampered with?”

“It’s not a theory. Just a hypothesis.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Not really.”

“Still… I think you should tell him.”

“I’d rather not.”

“You mean you’re afraid he’ll laugh at you.”

Andi didn’t reply. It occurred to her that Alex would confide in Juanita. And Alex was one of the few people who knew that they had put pressure on her to take second seat in the Claymore defense.

Alex had been surprised to get back to the office from a deli downstairs to find it empty and a note on his desk saying: “taken a long lunch break to have a chat with Andi.” But he knew better than to make a big deal of it. Juanita was too useful an asset to reprimand. And if she thought it was more important to have a heart-to-heart with Andi than to answer the switchboard then he wasn’t one to argue.

He realized that Juanita was better attuned to women’s issues than he, and he assumed it was something important. He was well aware that Andi still felt uncomfortable about working for the defense in this case. She was in a relationship with a rape counselor and she herself practiced law in the area of victim compensation. She had done defense work in the past, but it obviously wasn’t something that gave her any sense of satisfaction or fulfillment.

And today’s events had been particularly traumatic. It was obvious why Andi might have felt the need to take her to lunch and encourage her to get it off her chest. The important thing was that the case was going surprisingly well, and that was due — in no small measure — to Andi. She had seriously undermined Bethel Newton’s testimony without seeming like a bully. Yes, she had reduced the girl to tears. But the tears came only when it was revealed that Bethel had made a rape accusation in the past and then withdrawn it. That was not something that would sit well with the jury. And they would have serious doubts about Bethel’s claims now.

The office seemed strangely quiet with Juanita not around. The business was in fact growing and he knew that unless Juanita finished her degree pretty soon he’d have to take on an intern, like he had two years ago, or even an associate or partner.

He realized that Juanita would have set the switchboard to record incoming messages. Now that he was back, he ought to set it back to receive calls. But before that, he noticed that the message light was flashing and it said on the LCD display that there was one message waiting. He pressed the button to retrieve it.

“Hallo this is a message for Alex Sedaka. My name is Jerry Cole. I’m calling from Ventura County. I worked in the lab where the samples from the Claymore case were processed. I have some very interesting information about the lab and how those guys operate. Please call me at…”

Alex scrambled to grab a pen and write down the number.

“Andi? Earth to Andi.”

“Oh I’m sorry.”

The embarrassment was palpable.

“Where were you?”

“I’m sorry.” Even now, back in the real world, Andi seemed confused, reluctant to talk. “Sometimes when I’m thinking about a problem I immerse myself in it so completely, the world could end and I wouldn’t notice.”

Juanita brushed it off.

“The thing that puzzles me is how could anyone fiddle the jury software in such a way as to exclude blacks? I mean the data on the voting register and drivers license records wouldn’t include any reference to race — at least not the data that’s fed to the court administration for jury selection purposes.”

“I don’t understand either. But if I’m right then they must have found some way. Maybe they rigged it to screen out certain selected names?”

“Like what?” asked Juanita, almost laughing. “Jackson? Washington?”

“Or maybe first names.”

Juanita’s smile widened.

“LaToyah? Denzel?”

“Okay! Okay! I get the point.”

“Look I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make fun of you. But that’s one explanation that’s not going to fly.”

“Well maybe they rigged the software to screen out names from street addresses with large numbers of people with the same surname. In other words big families.”

“That would screen out a lot of Hispanics, and a lot of Irish and Polish Catholics. Oh yes, and a lot of Mormons!”

They both burst out into girlish giggles at the absurdity of it. As they fell about laughing, Juanita put a gentle hand on the back of Andi’s — a brief moment of intimacy, camouflaged as friendship.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you Andi. Are you still uncomfortable working on this case?”

Juanita realized that she had allowed a note of seriousness to intrude into her tone. But unlike her half-hearted attempts at probing Andi’s strange reaction a moment ago, she sensed that Andi would be grateful for the chance to get if off her chest. She knew about Andi’s dilemma over Gene and the rape crisis center. But she wanted to know how Andi felt about it now. Was she comfortable about what she was doing herself — regardless of what her lover thought about it?

But Andi hesitated for a few seconds before answering.

“I don’t know why defending a person has to be based on attacking the victim. I mean, sometimes you’ve got no alternative, but why can’t it be done gently?”

“How do you assassinate a witness’s character gently?”

Andi thought about this, realizing that she was thinking with her heart and not her head.

“Well I tried to with Bethel Newton. I tried to focus on the possibility that she made a mistake. But I was also obliged to use the dirt we dug about her previous rape accusation. If I hadn’t, Claymore might have been convicted, but then he’d’ve got it overturned on the grounds of inadequate legal representation. That would have hurt Alex too — and Levine and Webster.”

“That’s the way it works Andi. That’s the adversarial system. They put up their strongest case and we put up ours .”

“And for that we have to put the victim on trial?”

“That’s the way of the world Andi — the legal world at any rate. Alex calls it the ‘desanctification of the victim’.”

“That sounds like a nice way of describing an ugly process.”

“That’s exactly what it is Andi.”

“And what if you don’t find any dirt.”

“Well some lawyers use the hundred to ten approach.”

“Hundred to ten?” Andi echoed.

“It’s based on the theory that even a living saint has some enemies. And enemies means people who are ready to speak ill of that person. The idea is that if you talk to enough people who knew the victim, sooner or later you’ll find some one who’s ready to give you some dirt to throw at them. In fact you can usually find several people. Then you call as many of them to the witness stand as you can and turn the jury against the victim.”

“But why is it called the hundred to ten approach?”

“It’s based on the theory that for every hundred people who knew the victim, about ten are ready to say something mildly negative about the victim, four or five are ready to say something very negative and two or three are ready to say something extremely negative. Then you use as many of these as the judge lets you get away with.”

Andi thought about this.

“I suspect that if the victim was Alex you’d probably only have to speak to a handful of people to get the dirt you needed.”

They both fell about in hysterical laughter.