The other side of the street looks like Halloween, people in costume, some of them wearing hard hats and white T-shirts with the sleeves rolled to the armpits. They might pass for construction workers on break, except that their clothes look like they just came out of the washer. A small group, maybe six or eight nutcases in starched brown uniforms, all sporting swastikas on their arms, give the cops indignant looks and prance at the curb as if they’re waiting for the second coming of the Führer.
One of them ventures into the street and gives a stiff-armed Nazi salute to the cop in front of him. The deputy returns the greeting by nudging the guy with his shield, pushing him back up onto the sidewalk, where he lands on his ass. A few feet away, Oberführer Number Two tries to get a bullhorn past security. A tug-of-war ensues. The cops end up with the bullhorn, and the field marshal ends up on the ground, his hands behind his back, being prepared for nylon handcuffs.
Surrounded by the escort, I hoof it quickly to the steps at the main entrance when something flies past my head. It hits one of the cops in the back. A partially crushed and fizzing can of soda shoots bubbles and jets of tarry liquid as it spins like a bottle rocket on the sidewalk at his feet. The officer is angry. Even with the armored vest he’s wearing under his shirt, he’ll have a fair-size bruise on his back by tonight. We stop momentarily while they scan the crowd, trying to identify who threw it. A few seconds and they give up. Even if they could identify the pitcher, pulling him out of an angry mob could turn what is a budding riot into a rampage. We make it to the front door.
Inside, the decibel level drops a hundred points. My escort takes a few seconds to regroup. One of them wipes some of the Coke off of his colleague’s back with a handkerchief, and they head back out.
On the ground floor of the courthouse, security is tight. Nobody gets in without going through the metal detector. Every briefcase and purse is scanned on the conveyor belt. Today there are uniformed officers questioning people as to their business, their purpose in the courthouse. If they’re loitering to see the action, they’re sent outside. By now every chair in the courtroom upstairs will be filled.
Anything, even a loud voice inside the lobby, will draw uniforms before you can move. I’ve sent boxes with all our trial documents and other materials ahead of me. Two young staffers hired part-time were assigned by Harry to deliver them to the courtroom early in the morning, before the storm troopers and the rest of the mob outside got out of bed.
It takes a couple of minutes to get my briefcase with the notebook computer through security. Before I can retrieve everything at the other side of the scanner, two reporters, one of them with a camera crew, jump me. The camera’s lights catch me in their glow.
“Does your client know what’s going on outside?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen my client this morning.” I’m walking, a good pace to get to the elevator, dodging people milling in the lobby.
Somehow the reporter with the camera is keeping up.
“What is he feeling?”
“Is he feeling any remorse?”
“Remorse for what?”
“He is charged with murder, isn’t he?” The one reporter has his microphone in my face, camera aimed at me from over his shoulder as they sidle along, three of us like a human crab.
“Mr. Arnsberg has pleaded not guilty and is therefore presumed innocent. Why should an innocent man have feelings of remorse?”
“What about the evidence, his prints at the scene?” The guy with the camera is goading, pushing for some flare, a show of anger-cum-sound bite.
I finally get past him.
“The public doesn’t buy his plea.” He says this to my back as I head to the elevator.
“Then the public has a serious problem with our system of justice. Maybe you should go and talk to them about that.”
“Does your client know any of the people in Nazi uniforms across the street?”
I ignore them and keep walking.
“Does he have a Nazi uniform?”
If he does, I’m hoping that Harry got to it before the cops and had the foresight to burn it. So far we haven’t seen any pictures produced by the prosecution or otherwise showing Arnsberg in any uniform. But I don’t tell the reporters this. There’s always room for surprises. I keep moving toward the elevator, taking long, fast strides.
The cameraman, his lights blazing, trails me, capturing shots from behind. I can feel the heat of the lights on my back all the way to the elevator doors. See the defense lawyer running away. Details at eleven. I step inside and push the button-sanctuary. Upstairs is off-limits to cameras. The worst they can do now is sketch me.
Inside the courtroom the scene is enough to make the owner of the local cineplex green with envy. The center aisle is jammed, people trying to find empty seats. Uniformed deputies are everywhere, against the walls, mixed in with the mob.
One of the bailiffs is confiscating black baseball caps with white stitching above the bill reading END SLAVERY. These are being worn by a group of people who want to sit together. The First Amendment may still be in effect, but not in Plato Quinn’s courtroom. If you want to send a message to the jury, you’re going to have to use invisible ink.
A muscle of a deputy, beef on the hoof, is posted at the gate to the bar railing, making sure nobody gets up near the bench or back behind the scenes. Rudalgo Ruiz, Quinn’s clerk, keeps a nervous eye on the crowd as he shuffles papers at his table in front of the judge’s bench.
Tuchio is already here, seated at the counsel table to the right nearest the jury box, privilege of the prosecution. Next to him is one of the homicide detectives, Brant Detrick, the man who worked up the case against Arnsberg. Tall and blond, Detrick is a veteran of homicide. With almost twenty years on the force, he’s the kind of witness that defense lawyers hate. You could turn him upside down and shake him, and Detrick would show not the slightest bias or personal stake in the outcome of the trial. “Just doing my job,” while he quietly hangs your client. If anything, he has gotten more difficult over the years. Now that he’s getting closer to retirement, the touch of gray at the temple and the wrinkles where his glasses crimp the bridge of his nose give him a kind of professorial look. At the far end of Tuchio’s table is a woman I have not seen before, one of his assistants, a female prosecutor, African American. Only the blind would not be aware of the racial elements in this case. It’s more difficult for jurors to ignore this issue with a minority sitting at the counsel table.
At the far end of the defense table, I see the large, hulking form of Herman Diggs, his bald black head glowing like a beacon under the courtroom’s canister lights. Herman is our investigator. A human mountain originally from Detroit, Herman backed into his current vocation after a promising football career ended with a blown knee. We found each other in Mexico, on a case that grew ugly with violence. Herman and I came up realizing that we were the only two in sight who could trust each other. With Herman at my table, Tuchio would no doubt accuse me of playing the same card.
Herman is busy checking the boxes, seven of them stacked against the wall near his end of the defense table. These transfer cases with lids on them contain the materials delivered early this morning, documents and other evidence we may need during trial.
I lay my briefcase on the table. Herman lifts his head out of one of the boxes and turns to look.
“You come in through that mess outside?” he asks.
I nod.
“People got nothin’ better to do,” Herman mumbles to himself, his head going back halfway into one of the boxes. “You see all that crap back at the office? Damn truckload. That stuff have to come over here, too?”
“I won’t know until Harry goes through it all.”