I guess that the counsel for the defense is supposed to wear a suit and tie into the courtroom. However, I’d had to lay under a couple of cars that morning preparing my case, and Mom would have killed me if I’d wrecked my new Clipper Craft blue serge, good cause or not. They would just have to take me as I came, in Levi’s and a beat-up leather jacket.
They were all there, the center aisle of the hearing room dividing the accused from the accusers. Steve and his parents were on the left as I came in. His dad, haggard under his outdoors-work tan. His little plump mom, despairing yet proud. And Steve, defiant but kind of resigned, like a gladiator who knows he’s going to get the thumbs-down no matter how hard he fights. I hadn’t been able to talk with him yet, so he didn’t know that just maybe, we had a chance.
On the other side sat Mr. Harmon Kennedy of Kennedy’s Quality Watch and Jewelry, pink, bald, and generating sweat and self-righteousness in equal amounts. A comfortable morning breeze flowed through the open hearing-room windows, but still, every few seconds a white handkerchief would flash across his set features.
Officer Dooley was there, a redheaded mountain, and Mr. Schyler, too, wearing his watchman’s uniform and with his bummed-up leg stretched out ahead of him. There was another legal-looking character present as well. I recognized him from his campaign posters, Mr. Jason Archer, the county district attorney.
Fairmont, Indiana, had its first genuine juvenile delinquent, just like they wrote up in the big-town newspapers, and it looked like everyone was lining up to take a swing at him.
And straight at the head of the aisle was the lean and vultury figure of Judge Carl Johannson, a man I’d worked very hard not to come to the attention of. That was going to change here in a few minutes, though.
I kept my mouth shut during the first part of the hearing, keeping it cool in the back of the room while the county D.A. laid out his case. The break-in at the Kennedy store. The hot rod pulling away into the night. Steve’s fingerprints at the scene of the crime. The evidence recovered from the store and from Steve’s car. Steve’s lack of an alibi. He dolled it all up with insinuations about Steve’s lousy relationship with Mr. Kennedy as well as broad hints about Steve’s wild and antisocial ways. Oh, Mr. Archer did a honey of a job painting the accused as a budding Pretty Boy Floyd.
There wasn’t any kind of defense beyond Steve’s own defiant statement about his actions and his innocence, and his father’s proud, desperate assurance that his son wasn’t a thief. The only positive glimmer had been that the bulk of the stolen jewelry hadn’t been found at the Roccardi home or anywhere else. Steve angrily denied knowing anything about where the loot might be hidden. Mr. Archer twisted this around to show Steve’s “unrepentant attitude.”
And then the D.A. was finished and Judge Johannson was set to make the call and, man, it was time to choose off and go to the line. I stood up.
“Your Honor... (Damn it! What was that phrase they used in the movies? Oh yeah.)... may I approach the bench?”
Judge Johannson gave me the cold, cold eye, but after a second he nodded. “You may approach the bench, son. What can we do for you?”
I approached the bench, that being the five-dollar word for the desk Judge Johannson was sitting behind. “My name is Kevin Pulaski, Your Honor, and with the court’s permission, I’m here to offer evidence in the case against Steven Roccardi.”
Johannson frowned. “I see. And what kind of evidence, young man?”
“It’s like this, Your Honor. I think I can show the court that Steve is innocent, that he was nowhere near Mr. Kennedy’s store last night. If you’ll give me the chance, I think I can prove that somebody else committed the burglary.”
“What the hell is going on here?” I heard the stage whisper behind me and I glanced back over my shoulder. Mr. Kennedy was leaning over and angrily tugging at the D.A.’s sleeve. Mr. Archer didn’t look too happy, either, as he stood to address the judge. “Your Honor, the county has already presented its case in this matter. There is more than ample evidence to find Steven Roccardi guilty on the charges of burglary. I fail to see how this disruption could further the cause of justice.”
Judge Johannson didn’t reserve that cold stare of his just for teenagers. “I’m certain that the district attorney’s office feels that this is the case. However, this court intends to review all of the pertinent evidence before passing judgment on this youth. All of it, Mr. Archer. If there is more to be heard in this matter, then it will be heard.”
The judge looked back at me and somehow he didn’t seem quite as spooky as he had a second ago. “Proceed, Mr. Pulaski. You seem to indicate that you can refute some of the county’s evidence against Mr. Roccardi. How so?”
I swallowed hard and started speaking the words I’d carefully laid out in my mind. “This is how it goes, Your Honor. There are three pieces of evidence against Steve. One is that his fingerprints were found in the store. There’s no big deal about that. Anyone can tell you that Steve hangs around there a lot because of Julie, Mr. Kennedy’s daughter. He was even in the store on the day of the robbery.
“Next is the fact that a screwdriver and a flashlight belonging to Steve were found in the store after the robbery and that afterwards some of the stolen jewelry was found in Steve’s car. Heck, Judge, you know how it is around here. Who ever locks their car? Besides, Steve drives a roadster, usually with the top down. It would have only taken a second for someone to swipe those tools and plant that jewelry, tying Steve to that crime.”
The judge cocked an eyebrow. “And you have proof that this was done, young man?”
“No, Your Honor, I don’t. But you have to admit the possibility that it could have happened.”
“And what of Mr. Roccardi’s own statement that he was in or around his vehicle continuously from the time of the burglary to the time of his arrest? Is it your assertion that the arresting officers planted false evidence on Mr. Roccardi?”
“No, sir! No way! The Dewl... Marshal Dooley is an on-the-square guy for a co-policeman. He wouldn’t do that to anybody.”
I heard Dooley grunt behind me. I hesitated. I had to get this next phrase out in just the way my legal advisor (Mom) had told me to do. “Leaving the exact time when the jewelry might have been planted in the car aside, I am only asking the court to concede that there is no physical impediment to the act being done.”
After another deliberate pause, Judge Johannson nodded again. “The court so concedes. Continue.”
“What I would like to do now, Your Honor, is work on the third piece of evidence, the one that’s supposed to put Steve at the scene of the crime. If it’s okay with the court, I’d like to ask Mr. Schyler a couple of questions.”
“Proceed.”
Ben Schyler is sort of Fairmont’s personal war hero. He went to New Guinea during the Pacific campaign and came back packing a Silver Star and a load of shrapnel. He’s too banged up for regular work but he’s also too proud to take charity, so the night watchman’s job is sort of a town make-do for a brave guy. He looked up at me with a scar-twisted smile as I went over to where he was sitting.
“What do you want to know, son?”
“I know that you’ve already told your story here once, Mr. Schyler,” I replied, “but I want to make sure about a couple of things. For one, you never actually saw the car that drove away from behind Mr. Kennedy’s jewelry store. Right?”
“No. I couldn’t get around to the alley fast enough, but I sure heard it haul out of there.”
“But even though you never saw it, you’re sure that it was a hot rod?”