I was ready to say “not guilty,” but my half-pint client was too quick for me.
“ Hey, Judge,” he called out, “when you go through the metal detector downstairs, what goes off first, the lead in your ass or the shit in your brains?”
The judge turned red.
I was speechless.
Kip smiled a sinister grin I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t even look like him. Which made me think it wasn’t him at all. I was tossing around that idea, but the judge’s booming voice interrupted my train of thought.
“ Young man, you’re in direct contempt of court! Ah’m looking at your face, and it’s got Youth Hall written all over it. Jake, you got yourself a real in-cor-rigible here.”
“ Your Honor,” I responded, “that wasn’t him talking.”
“ What are you saying, that Ah cain’t believe my ears?”
“ No, just that he didn’t have control over what he said.”
“ Why not? Is he on ecstasy or crack? Is he one of those dopeheads who puke on my Dodge in the parking lot?”
“ Your Honor, I believe what the boy said was from a movie.” I turned to Kip, my eyes pleading. “Isn’t that it, Sylvester?”
“ Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2,” Kip declared, proudly. “It just sort of popped into my head.”
“ That’s part of our defense, Your Honor,” I volunteered, making it up as I went along.
“ Jake, that dog won’t hunt. You know me, Ah’m just a simple country lawyer who’s now a simple country judge…”
Four million people from Miami to Palm Beach, and we still have judges chewing straw and handing out that aw-shucks routine.
“…and while I may not read everything in the law books,” he continued, gesturing to a shelf of pristine copies of the Southern Reporter, “Ah believe there are only three possible pleas-guilty, not guilty, and nolo con-ten-dere…”
He made the last plea sound like the title of a Tony Bennett song.
“…unless you’re claiming the boy’s incompetent. You’all looking for a competency hearing, Jake?”
“ Respectfully, Your Honor,” I said, employing a term lawyers use to mean just the opposite, “we plead not guilty and seek an immediate adjudicatory hearing, and while the facts of the incident may not be in dispute, there are certain mitigating factors, including the defendant’s age, lack of prior record, and psychological considerations we’ll be asking the court to consider.”
Judge T. Bone Coleridge exhaled a guttural snort. “Ten-minute recess. Then strap on your helmets ‘cause we’re gonna try this case.”
I adhered to the first rule of courtroom recesses: I took a pee, because you don’t know when you’ll have a chance for the next one. Then I used a pay phone to call Doc Riggs and find out if the autopsy report on Kyle Hornback was finished.
“ Obviously, this was neither a natural death nor an accident,” he lectured. “I believe we can rule out suicide, though that’s often an issue in hangings. So, we’re dealing with homicide.”
“ No kidding, Charlie. C’mon, I’m in court. Cut to the chase.” I am not usually testy with Charlie or Granny, but my nerves were on edge. I was worried about Sylvester aka Kip; I was worried about Blinky; and I was worried about me.
Charlie harrumphed and continued: “Well then, you might be interested to know what the toxicology report showed. I happened to be there when the chemist-”
“ Charlie, please!”
“ All right, all right. Vincit qui patitur. He who is patient prevails. Hornback’s blood was loaded with barbiturates. Probably pentobarbital, pretty fast-acting, and he was unconscious when throttled by person or persons unknown. If he’d been conscious, there would have been a struggle, and pressure on the neck would have been intermittent. There’d probably be some petechial hemorrhaging, burst blood vessels and the like. With slow, steady pressure, there’s less evidence of trauma, and that’s the case here. Just a trace of blood in the larynx, some engorged blood vessels in the brain, that’s about it. Cause of death was asphyxia. Your tie, and quite a handsome one at that, was the ligature, used much like a garrote. There was a contusion in the middle of his chest. Hornback was probably face-up on the floor when the tie was slipped around his neck. The assailant likely placed a knee on his chest for leverage, then tightened the tie, squeezing off the air supply, and finally tying the knot.”
“ That it?”
“ Just about. Before the M.E. sliced him open, they tried to pull latents off the body. As usual, they couldn’t do it. But one of the technicians wanted me to help with a methyl methacrylate test.”
“ Did you?”
“ Of course. We used Super Glue, which converts to fumes quite easily, tented the body, and came up with some nice latents on the neck and chin. Checking them out now.”
“ Great. I hope there are some besides mine.”
“ Yes, well next time, don’t fool around with murder scenes.”
Next time? “Okay, Charlie, thanks.”
“ Thank you, Jake. You know, I’m never as alive as when I’m poking around in a dead body. Strangulation is quite tricky. Not like the old days of execution by hanging when they’d just tie the knot under the left side of the jaw to throw the head back and snap the odontoid process of the second cervical vertebra. No, that was too easy. As Pierrepoint, the former hangman of London once testified-”
“ Charlie, hold that thought. I’ve got a case to try.”
An earnest young woman wearing a blue suit and white silk blouse introduced herself as the assistant state attorney. Her mouth was fixed in a grim expression, and the notes on her yellow pad were printed in precise block lettering. I don’t know why, but prosecutors tend to be more organized and less humorous than defense lawyers. And the women prosecutors tend to be very good. Just look at Marcia Clark or Josefina Baroso.
The state began with the theater manager, whose testimony was matter-of-fact. There was a disturbance outside the theater. A lanky blond-haired boy was cursing at the ticket seller. The boy left and came back half an hour later, at which time he began spray-painting the outside of the theater, first with a drawing of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the phrase, “ Hasta la vista, baby.” When the manager dashed out of the theater, the boy threw the spray can through a coming attractions display window, breaking the glass. Yes, that boy is present in the courtroom. That’s him over there in the Pittsburgh Pirates T-shirt.
That made Kip snicker. “Dork doesn’t even know a baseball team from a movie.”
I barely cross-examined, except to emphasize that no one was injured.
Next came a policeman who said he found Kip at the scene with blue paint on his hands and an explanation for what he had done. The boy was angry at the cancellation of the film he wanted to see. Again, my cross was concise. I had the officer admit that Kip offered no resistance and told the truth about the incident. That’s called putting the best face on a confession. The state rested, and the judge looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“ The defense calls Doctor Harvey Kornblum,” I announced with a gravity far in excess of my witness’s credentials. The bailiff hustled out of the courtroom and into the waiting area. While he was gone, I sneaked a peek at Kip. He was studying a poster on the wall that showed two youngsters, one in a cap and gown, the other behind bars. “School and Job or Jail and Death” read the caption. Subtlety was in short supply in the juvenile justice system.
The bailiff returned with my witness in tow. Dr. Harvey Kornblum might not be the best psychiatrist in town, but he was the cheapest. I choose my expert witnesses based on two qualifications, low fees and a healthy crop of gray hair. The reasons are obvious. Most of my clients can’t afford to pay their lawyer and expensive experts, too, so it’s easy to see where I’ll cut corners. Both judges and jurors like gray-haired doctors, even if they’re pompous windbags. Besides meeting my criteria, Harvey Kornblum was also the only shrink who would see Kip on half-an-hour notice this morning and be ready to testify right after lunch.