Jangling like a passing train, Brand arrived with the trial cart, Rory and Ruta, the paralegal, behind him.
"Who the fuck is she?" Brand whispered when he got to the defense table.
Tommy had no clue what Jim meant.
"There's some dumpy Latina out in the hall. I thought maybe you'd seen her." Brand motioned Rory over and asked her to find out what she could. As Gissling departed, Tommy mentioned the computer.
"They want to turn it on?" Brand asked.
"She said 'use it.'"
"We need to talk to Gorvetich. My impression is turning it on messes everything up."
Tommy shook his head in disagreement, but Brand wasn't happy.
"Boss, it's not supposed to be done that way. Even pushing the on switch makes changes on the hard drive."
"Jimmy, that doesn't matter. It's his computer. And we put it in issue. Yee would never listen if we told him they should have to do a simulation. If they want to show the jury something on the machine, we can't stop them from making a demonstration with the actual evidence."
"To demonstrate what?"
"I didn't get that memo," said Tommy.
Gissling was back with a card, and the four of them huddled over it. Rosa Belanquez was the customer service manager at the First Kindle branch in Nearing.
"What's she gonna say?" asked Brand.
"She claims she's only here to testify about records," answered Rory. That made no sense to any of them. Almost all of the records from the bank, which Rory dug up last fall, had been excluded from evidence because they related to Rusty's affair. The one exception was the cashier's checks Rusty sent to Prima Dana. Brand looked at Tommy. It was just like Tommy said last night. Stern was up to something.
"How about we try to scare her off?" Brand asked. "Tell her that testifying violates the ninety-day letter."
"Jimmy!" Tommy couldn't dial down the volume quite enough, and across the courtroom, Stern and Marta and Rusty's son all stared. But Brand's idea was dangerous and stupid. The first thing Rosa would do would come ask Stern, who would then go to the judge and accuse the prosecutors of obstruction. With some point. Testifying had nothing to do with the ninety-day letter.
As the trial wore on, Brand had gotten more intense. Victory was in sight, and the fact that they might win a case that seemed like a bad bet to start had revved Jimmy up in an unhealthy way. It was Tommy's future, Tommy's legacy, that was at stake. But Jimmy was a samurai who regarded Tommy's interests as more important than his own. That part was touching. Yet Brand's greatest weakness as a lawyer was his temper, and it always had been. Tommy waited until Brand, as ever, came back to himself.
"Sorry," he said now, and repeated the word a couple of times. "I just don't know what Stern is up to."
The bailiff yelled out, "All rise," and Yee came charging out the door behind the bench.
Tommy patted Brand's hand. "You're about to find out," he said.
CHAPTER 31
Nat, June 23, 2009
My dad picks out the violet tie and knots it, looking in the men's room mirror, then faces me for approval.
"Perfect," I tell him.
"Thanks again for making the trip." For a second we stare at each other, as unspoken misery floats through his face. "What a fucking mess," he says.
"You see the Traps last night?" I ask.
He moans. "When are they going to get a closer?" That's an eternal question. He considers himself in the mirror another second. "Time to rock and roll," he says.
Ever the formalist in court, my father waits until Judge Yee has asked him to resume the stand before he takes his seat beneath the walnut canopy, so the jurors can watch him do it. Stern and Marta and Mina, the jury consultant, all thought they'd gotten a pretty good group. They wanted black guys from the city and suburban men who'd identify with my father, and nine of the first twelve seats are occupied by males of the two categories. I watch to see if any of them are willing to look at my dad after the beat-down he took yesterday. That is supposed to be an indication of their sympathies, and I'm heartened to notice that two of the African-Americans, who live within a block of each other in the North End, smile and nod at him minutely as he is settling in.
In the meantime, Sandy uses the table and a boost from Marta to get slowly to his feet. The rash today is definitely not quite as red.
"Now, Rusty, yesterday when you were answering Mr. Molto's questions, you pointed out to him a number of times that he was asking you to guess about different things, especially the cause of your wife's death. Do you recall those questions?"
"Objection," Molto says. He doesn't like the summary, but Judge Yee overrules him.
"Rusty, do you know for certain how your wife died?" Stern asks.
"I know I didn't kill her. That's all."
"You have listened to the testimony?"
"Of course."
"You know the coroner first ruled that she died of natural causes."
"I do."
"And you and Mr. Molto discussed the possibility that in her excitement about having your son and his new girlfriend to dinner, your wife accidentally took an overdose of phenelzine."
"I remember."
"And you also talked about the possibility she took a standard dose of phenelzine and died accidentally because of a fatal interaction with something she ate or drank?"
"I recall."
"And Rusty, since Mr. Molto asked, do any of these other theories about the mode of your wife's death-natural causes, or accidental overdose, or drug interaction-do any seem incompatible with the evidence?"
"Not really. They all seem plausible."
"But do you, sir, have a surmise based on the evidence about how your wife died, a theory that, given all the proof, seems most likely to you?"
"Objection," says Molto. "That calls for an opinion the witness is not qualified to offer."
The judge taps a pencil on the bench while he thinks.
"This theory of the defense?" he asks.
"As framed, Your Honor, yes," answers Stern. "Without excluding other possibilities, this is the theory of the defense about how Mrs. Sabich died."
Defendants are granted special latitude in offering hypotheses of their innocence, a way to explain the proof that leaves them blameless.
"Very well," says Yee. "Objection overruled. Proceed."
"Do you recall the question, Rusty?" Stern asks.
"Of course," says my father. He takes a second more to adjust himself in his seat and looks straight at the jury, something he has not done often before. "I believe my wife killed herself by means of a deliberate overdose of phenelzine."
In court, I've noticed, you measure shock value by sound. Sometimes a particular answer produces the swarming buzz of a hive. At other moments, like this one, the consequence of a response is reflected by the absolute silence that follows it. Everyone here must think. But in me, this answer unearths a fear long entombed in the darkest part of my heart. The effect ripples outward, chest to lung to limbs. And I know with a sense of unspeakable relief that it is the absolute truth.
"You surely did not tell the police that," Sandy says.
"I knew a fraction then, Mr. Stern, of what I know now."
"Just so," Stern answers. He is holding on to the corner of the defense table with one hand and pivots a step or two around his grip. "There was no note, Rusty."
"No," he says, "I believe Barbara's hope was to make her death appear to have been from natural causes."
"Just as the coroner first ruled," says Stern.
"Objection," says Molto. Yee sustains the objection, but he smiles in a private way at Sandy's art.