"What did Mr. Tripping talk about?"
"Not him, sir. Dulles." Huang spoke softly and stared at a spot on the floor in front of her. "The boy asked his father whether it was true that Mr. Tripping had been involved in a plot to assassinate the president of the United States seven or eight years ago. The child had brought a news clipping with him. Something he had taken off the Internet."
Robelon was on his feet, pounding his fist on the table. "I'm going to object to this line of questioning, Judge. That case was never brought by the government. There's no need to add any mention of it to this record. I move to strike."
Moffett seemed to miss the point about the gravity and magnitude of the accusation, as well as the boy's concern about his father's possibly violent history. The judge seemed more interested in the level of the child's intelligence.
"Motion denied. The boy was able to find that news article by himself?"
Huang was on firm territory here. "On-line, on his computer. Dulles is a very smart young man. Tests way beyond his age range. Although he's only ten, he's capable of reading at a college level."
"So I don't have to worry about swearability?"
A child of ten could not be presumed to understand the meaning of an oath. Moffett seemed relieved to know he would not have to grapple with that problem, too.
"He has the intellectual capacity to have an oath administered. What I can't guarantee is whether or not he will choose to give false testimony in your courtroom."
"That puts Ms. Cooper in a very difficult position, Ms. Taggart. Suppose I let her call the boy to the stand, and you haven't allowed her to speak with him first. Suppose he testifies in an exculpatory fashion, denies that his father injured him. Let's say-and I never know what Ms. Cooper has in her arsenal-but say she knows the boy's statement is inconsistent with things he has said before."
"That's possible."
"Well, then Ms. Cooper's stuck. She can't cross-examine him. She can't impeach her own witness."
Taggart glared at me. "She can have Dulles declared a hostile witness."
I was back on my feet. "I don't know whether Ms. Taggart's ever tried a case to a jury. I would guess not. If you think I'm about to put a ten-year-old child through that experience, emotionally or legally, you need a refresher course in trial advocacy."
"Judge Moffett," she went on, "Dulles Tripping is at massive risk for the development of a mental disorder-"
"Which I certainly have no intention of compounding," I added.
"I've already told you to sit down, Ms. Cooper. How so, Ms. Taggart?"
"The risk factors start with the multiple loss of caretakers throughout his young life-mother, grandmother, and now father. Even a stepmother. You may not be aware, Your Honor, that Mr. Tripping remarried for a brief period, a few years back. Second, parental suicide increases the risk of his own suicidal ideation. Third, being abused-or witnessing abuse-by his father increases Dulles's risk of disturbing conduct. And-" Taggart's volume dropped as she made reference to Andrew Tripping.
"What?" Moffett asked, cupping his hand to his ear.
"I was talking about the paternal psychosis that's been diagnosed. Mr. Tripping is a schizophrenic. It increases some tenfold the probability that Dulles will inherit that same condition."
The swinging doors creaked behind me again. Moffett had turned his chair toward the wall, tapping his fingertips together as he tried to settle on a Solomonic solution.
I swiveled to see who had entered the room this time. The man who stood with his back to the door, getting his bearings, seemed out of place in the drab surrounds of the criminal courthouse. There was an air of elegance about him, with his charcoal gray bespoke suit, horn-rimmed glasses, barrel-cuffed shirt, and tasseled loafers. I guessed him to be in his early forties, and at five-eight, a bit shorter than I am.
I watched as he sauntered down the aisle, Robelon and Tripping engaged in an animated discussion as they eyed him, too. There was in him none of the strident urgency that blanketed so many of the earnest young defense attorneys who walked these hallways every day.
The judge pushed his chair around so that he faced us again. "This mention of schizophrenia by the doctors, Mr. Robelon, you're not gonna spring any kind of psych defense on us in the middle of the trial, are you?"
"No, sir."
Tripping looked over his shoulder at the man in the gray suit, now seated three rows behind him, who mouthed something-several words-to the defendant. I could not make out what he said.
"Just a minute," Moffett said, slamming his gavel on his desktop. "Mr. Tripping, you wanna pay attention to these proceedings or you wanna play charades with the people in the peanut gallery? You, you got business here?"
The man answered, "Yes, I do." Moffett's courtroom was more casual than most. The fact that the man did not rise to respond to the judge was not taken as a sign of disrespect by the court, but there seemed a touch of arrogance about it to me.
"You a lawyer, too?"
"Yes, sir."
"Jesus. I'm choking to death on lawyers here. Get me an Indian chief. Doesn't anybody go to medical school anymore? Who are you?"
"Graham Hoyt." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small leather case, black alligator, and removed a business card from it, standing to pass it to the clerk to give over to the judge. Then he looked at me and nodded, passing another card.
"I'm the guardian ad litem for Dulles Tripping. The family court appointed me to protect his interests during the pendency of this case."
"You're late. Ad litem. Come latum. " Moffett chuckled to himself.
"No one informed me about this hearing. I just happened to call Mr. Robelon's office this morning and his paralegal told me what was going on today."
Great. He's obviously tight with the defendant. For every step forward I try to take, I get pushed back two or three.
"You here to oppose the prosecution's motion to interview Dulles?"
"Actually, no, Your Honor. Maybe I can broker some kind of arrangement that would be satisfactory to everyone."
I glanced over my shoulder to reassess Hoyt. This was the first time in six months anyone had even suggested listening to me to see whether what I wanted was reasonable. He smiled at me and I reflexively returned the smile.
"How about saving the court some time. You know what the kid's gonna tell her?"
"The truth, Your Honor. Dulles Tripping will simply tell Ms. Cooper the truth. He's going to say he was playing lacrosse the afternoon before he met Ms. Vallis and got hit in the face by a stick. Happens on playgrounds across America every single day."
5
"Be careful what you wish for," I said to Mercer as I dropped an armload of case files onto my desk.
"What now?" He vacated my chair and opened a paper bag with our sandwiches and two bottles of water.
"I pushed and pushed to get the kid. Looks like it's going to happen now, but he's clearly been sanitized. You think I'm better off without trying to use him at trial?"
Mercer's judgment and insights were sound. "What's to lose talking to him? Keep fighting for the interview. We always knew this case was a crapshoot. You're good with kids. Maybe he'll surprise you and respond to some warmth in his life."
"The judge wants us to go on with jury selection this afternoon and do our opening statements tomorrow. How the hell do I open when I'm not sure what my witness list looks like?"
He bit into the baguette full of roast beef and all the trimmings. "Nothing you haven't done before, Ms. Cooper. Understate what you're gonna give 'em the first time you talk to them. Robelon gets up next and reinforces that you got zilch. Then out of the bag, you pull a surprise witness. He's smart, sympathetic, sincere-puts you over the top. Bingo. Tripping's dead meat."
"And best of all is that we can try to get Dulles into a better situation as soon as it's over. Place him in a stable, loving foster home and keep him out of reach of his crazy father until he's college age. That would be the real blessing of a conviction in this case."