Glengeyer was the Cajun Star’s seasoned skipper, a calm, humble man who happened to have sailed every ocean. But now, he was without his ship and his judgment was under close scrutiny. It had been his call to obey the order from headquarters to sail from Hanover, Germany, despite news of an incoming storm. But the cable from Victory Lines was hardly the sort of message he could have blown off. The shipment was on a tight schedule to reach Helsinki, Finland, and Glengeyer was expected to click his heels and sail.
Now, a courtroom seven thousand miles away and seven years after that fateful night was the venue chosen to dissect Glengeyer’s decisions and observations, which stood in sharp contrast to Captain Tucker’s. One of them was a liar. And Jonathan was convinced it wasn’t Glengeyer.
“Your Honor, I’d like to go over Plaintiff’s Exhibit Fifteen, the redacted log of the USS Meecham on the evening in question.” It described only the general location of the vessel—logged every two to four hours—and named the watchman on duty at each interval.
Peyton briefly examined the three-page document before nodding approvingly.
“Captain, is this a copy of your ship’s log?”
“It’s a redacted version, summarizing the information about our location, heading and other events.”
“Is there an original document?”
“Yes.”
“Which one is more trustworthy?”
Peyton instantly objected, but was nervous doing so.
As anticipated, the judge sustained it. Jonathan was pushing to discredit the redaction by showing that there was a more accurate, original document, even though Judge Breaux had prohibited its use because of a perceived risk to national security. The judge had told jurors to treat the redaction as equivalent to the original.
In a futile gesture meant only to preserve the issue for appeal, Gary Green stood up and restated his objection to the exclusion of the original log, but the judge overruled him before he could finish his sentence.
Jonathan handed the document to the captain. “Isn’t it true that according to the entries at seven and eleven-thirty, your vessel could have been anywhere in a six hundred square mile area?”
“Only if you completely disregard other evidence.”
“It’s a yes or no answer, Captain. Based on this redacted information, your vessel could have been much closer to the Cajun Star that night, correct?”
“Uh—”
“Isn’t it possible based on this sanitized log?”
“It’s not sanitized; it’s redacted.”
Jonathan asked the judge to make the officer answer.
“Let’s not quibble, Captain,” said Judge Breaux. “You can’t invent a third choice to a yes or no answer.”
“Fine, yes,” the captain said with a scowl.
Jonathan grabbed his red marker and drew a large circle on the map, representing the area delineated by the redacted log. It put the site of the alleged collision potentially far closer. He then gleamed proudly at Gary and Allen. He’d made the naval officer buckle, at least a bit. No one had expected anything more than a stalemate. But Jonathan’s balloon of optimism was short-lived. It wasn’t enough to show that the Meecham was closer to the Cajun Star, but rather that it collided with it. That meant convincing the jury that the radar and navigation data on the multimillion-dollar military vessel was wrong. Worse yet, photographs of the Meecham taken in Norway six days after the alleged collision showed no damage at all—not a scratch. The Cajun Star had a twenty-foot gash in its hull.
“In the days following March 19, 1989, where did your vessel sail?
“We continued our training and then made port in Bergen, Norway.”
As Captain Tucker answered, the heavy-set bailiff stepped away from the wall and wandered to the center of the proceedings, staring vacantly at the ceiling for a few seconds.
Jonathan gazed at him.
The man then collapsed, his head jolting violently. He began foaming at the mouth.
Someone near the jury shouted, “Call a medic!”
“Not again,” Judge Breaux groaned into his mike.
This was the second time the bailiff had interrupted the proceedings with an epileptic seizure.
Jonathan immediately went to his assistance. He loosened the man’s collar and turned his head to the side to make sure he wouldn’t choke.
“Counselor, take that gun away,” the judge added.
Jonathan, now on his knees, removed the firearm from the bailiff’s holster and handed it to the clerk. As Jonathan stabilized the man’s head, a wave of vomit exited the man’s mouth and splattered across Jonathan’s lap.
I’m having a real bad day, Jonathan thought.
The judge ordered an early lunch recess.
2
Federal courtrooms are austere places that rarely provide entertainment. But the Victory Lines case had not ceased to do so, in the form of the most bizarre delays Jonathan had ever seen.
He walked out of the courthouse shaking his head in disbelief. His pants were soaked from a hasty rinse in the restroom, but the stench wasn’t entirely gone. Jonathan set his briefcase down and gazed up, taking in the humid air. The sky was a bright shade of blue, something it hadn’t been in weeks. He glanced back at Gary, who was in the lobby on his cell phone bickering with the firm’s accountant.
Jonathan leaned on a wall at the edge of the steps, closed his eyes and faced the sun, his cheeks warming gently. With little sleep to think straight, his mind wandered off a bit until it settled on something familiar: the first day of the trial.
It had been Gary’s moment to shine, and Jonathan was merely a studious third-chair. Gary had meticulously presented his opening argument before asking the Cajun Star’s skipper, Glengeyer, to take the stand.
Gary and Jonathan had prepped Glengeyer over the prior weeks. But it had been a delicate process because juries distrust witnesses who appear excessively coached. Besides, Glengeyer’s greatest asset was his aura of sincerity—something neither lawyer wanted to jeopardize.
Gary had the instincts of a gambler and the subtleties of a surgeon. His direct examination of Glengeyer had painted a picture of a veteran sailor who had made the right decisions in the face of insurmountable odds.
Gary paused frequently. Long pauses. To Jonathan, this passive style was a sign of shrewdness rather than age. But not everyone admired his style. A native of Shreveport, Gary’s Southern accent and mellow ways could be a curse on any juror prone to daydream. A reporter once called him “Plato,” and not as a compliment.
Captain Glengeyer, under oath and in a suit and tie for the first time in his life, had responded calmly and methodically. He was a great witness overall, but his eyes betrayed a fear, perhaps of becoming the fall guy for his employer. Everyone in the industry knew Victory Lines’ reputation for mistreating its employees: no sick time, low wages and shipments on schedules so tight the crew hardly ever had shore leave. It was the worst shipping company Jonathan had ever encountered, and even worse than the military, he’d been told. So it would not have surprised him if Glengeyer were sacrificed the moment Victory Lines saw an advantage in doing so. And neither Jonathan nor Gary had any duty to fight for Glengeyer’s best interests if that happened.
“The storm had been raging for hours,” Glengeyer had recounted under oath, the deep lines on his forehead accentuating his somber demeanor. “The massive swells rocked my ship as if it were a toy.”
It was true. The Cajun Star had entered a storm about two hours after leaving the port of Hanover, Germany. By early evening Glengeyer was in his cabin, but he was well aware of the storm’s strength. “Everything that wasn’t nailed down had moved or fallen over,” he had said.
Glengeyer’s recollection of the night was crucial to the plaintiff’s case. At around 9:20 P.M., Glengeyer recalled for the jury, one of the Cajun Star’s lookouts caught a glimpse of a red light off starboard. The sailor couldn’t tell the distance, but he reported the sighting to the bridge, which then al
erted Glengeyer via intercom. Less than a minute later, the bridge once more notified Glengeyer that another lookout had spotted lights some distance away.
“I raced up the stairwell to the bridge. The watch team was pretty tense,” Glengeyer had said. “Understandably so. An hour earlier, the powerful winds had knocked an antenna mast onto the main radar, damaging it beyond repair. We were sailing blindly into the stormy night.”
Gary masterfully continued to pave the way for the jury to understand what had happened that night, to which Glengeyer responded perfectly.
“I told my first officer to look hard for the other vessel, and I grabbed a pair of binoculars myself. I told him to send two crewmen, Martinez and Solano, to help look for the other vessel. I also turned on all auxiliary upper deck lights and the aft searchlight—every bulb on the ship—so as to be seen.” Glengeyer’s eyes were wide open as he described the tragedy that unfolded. “I then threw on my coat and stepped onto the bridge’s starboard outer deck. The raindrops hit my face like bullets. The wind was so strong I had to grab onto the handrail to stay on my feet. I couldn’t see a thing. The first officer pointed his searchlight in various directions, but all that was visible was a wall of rain and some of the whitecaps of the giant swells nearby.”
Jonathan had glanced at the jury repeatedly. Everything looked good. They were fully tuned in to the skipper.
“I was worried that we were on a collision course with another vessel, so I ordered the helmsman to pull back to eight knots and signal six short blasts on the ship’s whistle—as required under international maritime rules—but it just didn’t seem loud enough in the midst of the raging storm. I then ordered left full rudder, all the time hoping to steer clear of the danger. I knew that if we had a collision in that weather, we’d be dead in no time. For starters, no helicopter would be able to rescue us, and we didn’t have the most modern lifeboats, if we could even get to them in time.” Glengeyer had momentarily gone off-script, but he glanced at the plaintiff’s table as if to acknowledge that he’d pointed out one of the ship’s flaws. Fortunately for Gary and Jonathan, that was his only mistake during direct examination. He didn’t mention the unreliable thirty year old diesel engines that powered the Cajun Star, nor the lackluster training given to his crew, nor the old navigation instruments and radios.
“I waited with the others on the bridge,” Glengeyer had said. “Patiently waited. Five minutes, I think. Or perhaps six or seven. And then I felt things were fine. We hadn’t seen anything, so I told the helmsman to resume our original course.” Glengeyer then sat back in his chair and shook his head. “But then, suddenly, one of our lookouts—perhaps Martinez—shouted into the intercom. ‘Vessel incoming, ten degrees starboard, two hundred meters,’ I remember hearing.” Glengeyer paused to wipe his brow with his handkerchief. “I heard the first officer yell to turn left full rudder again. The searchlight moved to point at about two o’clock from the bridge. And that’s when I saw the scariest thing a sailor could ever see: the bow of another ship appear out of nowhere and head straight for us. The vessel sliced through a massive swell at great speed, and with no lights.”
The room had become so quiet, all that was audible was the gentle typing sound from the court reporter’s station.
“At that moment,” Glengeyer testified, his voice tiring, “I was fixated on the top deck, where some of the heavy cargo was situated. A cable had just snapped, and then another and again another. They whipped about like crazed snakes. The three, twenty-ton turbines they held in place began to shift as our ship listed to the port side. And a dozen thirty-foot metal tubes next to them also moved abruptly. I spotted my crewman, Martinez, and clenched the handrail. He was running back toward me, but he was midship some eighty feet from the bridge. He ran faster, his handheld flashlight bobbing up and down from his efforts, his body bumping a few times into the railing as he tried to make it to safety. ‘Run, run!’ I told him, but it was too late. I could only watch in horror.”
Glengeyer paused again, and Jonathan sensed it was unrehearsed. Gary had told the old skipper to be himself, even if that meant being upset in front of the jury. Glengeyer had earlier told the lawyers how he cared for his men. Martinez was one of forty-three crewmen on the Cajun Star. “He was a normal, quiet guy, a native of El Paso, with a daughter and a pregnant wife at home. He’d celebrated his fifth anniversary with Victory Lines the week prior to that night.”
Glengeyer appeared to be choked up for a moment before resuming his testimony.
“The vessel swayed in the other direction,” he went on, “and the turbines collapsed from their support and screeched across the deck. Martinez disappeared under the first one. The cargo plunged into the sea. I turned to starboard and saw the other disaster in the making. The other vessel was closing in rapidly, though it began to turn as a last-ditch maneuver. I grabbed the handrail again, ducked behind the metal railing and braced for the impact. Suddenly two powerful searchlights on the other vessel beamed in our direction, blinding everyone on the bridge. That’s when a loud thud resonated, followed by a high-pitched screech—like nails on a chalkboard, but a thousand times louder. The hit knocked me down, but I quickly got up and looked at the gray-hulled ship pass just feet away from me. I squinted, my eyes burning from the strength of the lights pointed at us. I couldn’t understand why they were doing this. First, they’d approached without a single light on and then they were blinding us. I simply gazed at the vessel as it disappeared into the wall of rain, its searchlights finally fading in the darkness. The ship was gone as if nothing had happened.”
At that point Glengeyer had reached the pinnacle of the plaintiff’s case: the identification of the mystery vessel. Gary had been salivating for it to come out just right. If the jury believed him, they would rule that Martinez’s death, the lost cargo, and the damage to the ship was caused by another vessel, and not by Glengeyer’s negligence, and thus the defendant insurance carrier would be forced to pay. It was as simple as that.
“What did you see?” Gary asked at that moment.
“A military ship for sure. And its pennant number—five-six—which I later found out was the Meecham.”
“And then?” Gary pressed on.
“Immediately after the collision, I ran down to the starboard deck with two crewmen to search for our man overboard, although I knew it was an impossible task. But God, we tried. I sent another crewman down to check for flooding, and I leaned over the side of our ship to inspect the damage. I could barely see through the rain, but what was there wasn’t pretty: a huge gash in the bow, just above the waterline.”
Gary’s questioning had left everyone in the courtroom on the edge of their seats—a first for a jury that since voir dire had shown little interest in the subject matter of the litigation. And that’s when he guided Glengeyer to explain the traffic rules at sea. Under the International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea—the so-called colregs—a vessel’s duty to give way depends on how the vessels approach one another. Since the USS Meecham had sailed in an angle sufficient to be deemed a “crossing” situation, the rules required that the Navy ship yield to the Cajun Star. In other words, according to Glengeyer’s testimony, the Navy was squarely to blame for the collision.
Glengeyer’s testimony that first day of trial was a chilling account, and it was etched in Jonathan’s mind as if it had happened an hour ago. But it hadn’t, and Jonathan worried that the jury would not have a solid recollection now that weeks had gone by.
The sun continued to warm Jonathan’s face. It was a peaceful feeling, accompanied by the sounds of traffic and a light breeze that carried the odor of diesel fuel.
Gary finally came out to the courthouse steps. He put on his large gold-rimmed sunglasses. “Why didn’t you go home to change clothes?”
“It’s okay. I got most of it off,” said Jonathan, glancing at his left pant leg, still soaked from the knee down to the cuffed bottom. “It’s only vomit; let’s grab lunch.”
&n
bsp; “If I can ignore the smell.”
* * *
The two lawyers sat in a corner booth at the Palace Café on Canal Street. They aired their frustrations at the morning’s proceedings. And a pair of Ketel One and tonics soon appeared in their hands to help them along.
“It’s really too bad,” Gary said.
“What?”
“Our best moment was Glengeyer’s testimony, now weeks ago—an eternity for a jury. But then again, Peyton cross-examined him quite effectively.”
Gary was right. Peyton had carved up the old skipper’s testimony into small, digestible pieces, and poked enough holes in the plaintiff’s case to drive a semi through it, particularly the most glaring weakness: if there had been a collision, why did the Meecham show no signs of damage? Worse yet, Glengeyer was the only person on the Cajun Star who claimed to have seen the Meecham’s pennant number.
“Here’s to your first sanction,” Gary said, raising his glass over the table. “Just don’t get too many; I need you in this firm.”
“Cheers,” Jonathan said timidly, his mind wrestling with something else. Something even more troubling. A fact that Gary had dismissed long ago, in one of their first conversations about the case. And it was itching to come out again, even though he knew Gary wouldn’t want to revisit the issue. “I still don’t understand,” Jonathan said. “Why is the Navy so feverishly denying the incident ever happened? It just doesn’t make sense. The statute of limitations has long passed. We can’t sue them now.”
“You’re right,” Gary said after a long pause. “In other collision cases, the Navy never categorically denied being involved, and they’ve never been so tight-fisted with their records, even when they’ve been defendants.”
Jonathan knew this well. He had researched ample collision lawsuits brought by commercial and private vessel owners against the United States. In almost every case, evidence of the ship’s course, radar readings and related records were made available with little or no resistance, and the Navy rarely made a fuss about its crewmen testifying.
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