The Laws of our Fathers kc-4

by Scott Turow

  Eddgar stands on the worn greyish carpet at the foot of the bench, ill at ease as the focal point of lurid interest. A paper he has carried up with him is clutched in both hands. He is a smallish, stout man in a wool sport jacket. No one will be surprised when he answers that he was once a professor. He nods to me in a brief lapse into familiarity.

  'Dr Eddgar,' I say aloud. Marietta then cries out her 'Hear ye's,' and I motion Eddgar to the stand. He takes a seat and extends his face to the microphone. He smiles tentatively in my direction, as if he holds some hope for protection. He's ready. Administering the oath, I take note of the eyes, still an astonishing blue.

  'I swear,' he answers firmly and opens the button on his sport jacket when he sits again.

  'Mr Molto,' I say, 'you may proceed.'

  Tommy pouts when he stands. He does not look at his witness. The tone of the first few questions reconfirms my previous impression: Eddgar and Tommy, both zealots at heart, do not care much for each other. They are formal with one another, which ironically makes the direct especially crisp. It lends Tommy an element of cool control, something ordinarily lacking in his presentation.

  'How are you employed?'

  'I am the elected representative from the 39th state senatorial district.'

  'Do you have any other employment?'

  ‘I have an adjunct appointment as a professor of divinity at Easton University.'

  Eddgar describes his district, which comprehends the campus environs at Easton and an area of public housing, one of the first scattered sites plunked down on the border of Kindle and Greenwood Counties years ago on a former military base. He has been elected now to seven consecutive two-year terms and is the chair of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. Funding requests for police and prisons pass through his committee, as well as certain appointments in the Department of Corrections. Four years ago, he won the nomination of the state Democratic Farmers amp; Union Party for state controller but lost the general election.

  After quite a bit of this, we finally reach the first crescendo. 'Sir,' Molto asks, 'are you acquainted with the defendant in this case, Mr Nile Eddgar?'

  ‘I am.'

  'How do you know him?'

  'He is my son.' Eddgar does not make it through the answer. His composure, perfect to this point, vanishes as a quaver surrounds the last word. A sound, more hiccup than sob, erupts, though it may not be audible anywhere but up here on the bench. Eddgar braces himself on the front rail of the witness box. The courtroom is still, as we wait for him to recover.

  'Do you see your son here this morning?' Tommy asks, turning to Hobie. After Hobie's stunt this morning the two are in the fullest throes of trial hatred, a state of mind fully akin to the one in which men at war shoot each other. Tommy wants Hobie to spare Eddgar the discomfort of having to point out Nile for the record. Instead, Hobie pretends to be busy in the big white cardboard banker's box on the defense table and never looks Tommy's way. He murmurs something to Nile, though, and Nile once more props himself on the arms of his leather bucket chair and begins to rise. He could not look any guiltier if he tried. He cannot even bring his eyes toward his father. He stares directly at the oak baffles on the wall in front of him. Eddgar attempts to lift his hand and instead covers his mouth. He begins to cry out loud. Throughout the courtroom, it feels as if no one can even breathe.

  'Record will reflect identification,' I say coldly, gazing hard at Hobie. Has he lost his mind? How does this help? A man who misses nothing in the courtroom – he can probably tell you the level of the corner water cooler and how many steps from the lockup door to the witness stand – he continues feigning obliviousness, while his client, visibly whitened, crumbles back into his seat at Hobie's side. On the stand, Eddgar has his handkerchief out and pats his eyes. Tommy puts a few questions to him about Nile's upbringing, then changes subjects.

  'Do you know a man named Ordell Trent?' he asks.

  ‘I do.'

  'How did you meet him?'

  'I was introduced to him by Nile.'

  'And how did that take place?'

  'I asked Nile to make the introduction.'

  'Can you explain why?'

  'Objection.'

  'If it's a conversation with the defendant, I'll allow it. Is this something you told Nile, Dr Eddgar?'

  'In various forms over the years. And we certainly discussed it after the meeting. Definitely.'

  'Go ahead,' I say.

  'Basically, I believed that street gangs, like Hardcore's, have done something no one else has, namely organize the poor community. And if that organization could be put to positive uses -particularly expressing the political will of the poor community – instead of the present unhappy ways those energies are employed, well, that would be a tremendous overall gain for everyone: the gang members, the poor community, and the city as a whole, which obviously would benefit in seeing a redirection of those efforts.'

  Speaking in his mannered way, his voice still slowed by Southern cadences, Eddgar seems to have scored over in the press box. His answer, carefully spun for public consumption, is being dutifully scribbled into a number of spiral-topped notebooks.

  Glancing over, I allow myself to look reluctantly at Seth. But for the first time since this trial started, I am beside the point. He is focused on Eddgar with an intensity suddenly reminiscent of the man I knew decades ago.

  Tommy moves on to the meeting between Hardcore, T-Roc, and Nile. Eddgar has given the state a page from his Day-Timer fixing the meeting at June n, earlier than Hardcore seemed to recall it. In bare strokes, Eddgar describes the irritation and disbelief T-Roc and Core showed for his proposal to turn the gang into a political organization.

  'How did you leave it?' Tommy asks.

  'That they would get back to me, through Nile.'

  'All right, sir,' says Tommy. Rudy waves him to the prosecution table, where he hands Molto a note. Tommy reads it, then leans down to his colleague. The two confer briefly, debating something, then Molto straightens up, drawing himself to full height in his frumpy suit. 'During that meeting in T-Roc's limousine, sir, did T-Roc or Hardcore, did either one of them offer you a bribe?'

  'No,' says Eddgar. Tommy turns to Hobie to preen, and is still faced that way when Eddgar clears his throat and adds, 'They didn't actually offer me money.' Molto's head shoots around toward the witness, then he looks down to Rudy's note and shoves it back crossly to his trial partner. The PAs were taking a chance, having apparently forgotten, during the frantic rush of the lunch hour, to go over this subject with Eddgar when he arrived. Behind them, Hobie peeks up from his notes with a quick, cutthroat grin.

  Tommy begins again. 'Calling your attention to the first week of September 1995, did you and Nile again have occasion to speak about Hardcore?'

  'Yes, sir, we did.'

  'Can you tell us where you were?'

  'We spoke by telephone. I was at my home in Greenwood.' 'All right. And please tell us what was said and by whom.' 'He merely told me that Core wanted to talk to me again.' 'And how did you react?'

  'I told him that was very good news, that I'd be pleased to meet him wherever he liked.'

  'And how were the time and place of the meeting set?'

  'Well, as I recollect, I was taking the approach that I'd go anywhere, anytime. Core wanted to meet at Grace Street, and Nile suggested that the very early morning would be the wisest time for me to go down there.'

  'Nile suggested it?'

  'That's correct.'

  Score for the prosecution. Nile set up Dad. At the defense table both Hobie and his client appear calm. Tommy travels along a bit, beneath the courtroom lights. In the same stoical tone he has maintained, he asks, 'And who, sir, was June Eddgar?'

  'My wife.' Eddgar takes a beat. 'My former wife.' Once again, he does not make it through his response and goes on, handkerchief in hand. Tommy politely sorts through the history of Eddgar's relationship with June: separation in 1971, an amicable divorce in 1973, continuing contact
s and friendship. June remarried in 1975 to William Chaikos, a veterinarian in Marston, Wisconsin. That marriage ended in 1979. Thereafter, she periodically visited Greenwood County to help Eddgar in his political campaigns – in 1980, when he ran for city council, in 1982, when he was elected Mayor of Easton, and several times after that for his senatorial campaigns. Eddgar answers quietly, ignoring the occasional tears as best he can. I find his inability to fully contain himself touching. Twenty-five years ago he was committed to accepting the inevitable harsh mechanics of history. I think what I never expected to: He's changed.

  'And did Mrs Eddgar visit you or Nile from time to time?'

  'She did.'

  'When did she visit Kindle County last?' He blows his nose and lifts his head to say she had come over Labor Day and had remained for a few days to shop in the city. 'Had Mrs Eddgar remained involved in your political career?' 'Her home was in Wisconsin. She preferred the country. But I always depended on her advice. She was up to date with most of my activities.'

  'Did you discuss this anticipated meeting with Hardcore?'

  Hobie objects – correctly – that the question calls for hearsay. Tommy moves then to the events of September 6 and 7, with Hobie making persistent hearsay objections, most of them well-founded. The reporters and onlookers seem baffled by the arcana of the rule which allows a witness to testify about what someone said she would be doing in the future but not what she said she'd done in the past. Eddgar is allowed to say he was needed by his State Senate Office staff on the morning of September 7, but he may not relate his conversations with his staffers, nor may he testify that he asked June to meet Hardcore in his place. I do admit in evidence the note found in her purse in which she recorded Eddgar's directions. Stained at the corner with a rusty brown I know to be blood, the slip of paper is handed up in its plastic jacket. There is a sloppy line drawing of the streets and the words 'Hardcore. Ordell Trent. 6:15.' in a somewhat erratic hand. Finally, because a witness is allowed to testify about his own state of mind, I let Eddgar explain why he asked June to meet with Hardcore, even though he can't relay his actual conversation with her.

  'I believed,' says Eddgar, 'that she would recognize the potential importance of the meeting with Core and would understand it was critical that someone see him personally.'

  'And why was it critical?'

  ‘I didn't want to insult him,' Eddgar answers. He rolls his lips into his mouth in a further effort at self-control.

  'And this meeting you had with Mrs Eddgar at about 5:30 the morning of September 7 – was that the last time you saw her?'

  'The last.'

  Tommy waits an appropriate interval to allow the solemnity of death again to fill the courtroom.

  'Now, on that day, on September 7, you were interviewed by Detective Lieutenant Montague. Do you recall that?'

  'I do.'

  'And, sir' – Tommy puts his file down and folds his arms -'were you fully candid with Lieutenant Montague when you spoke to him?'

  ‘I was not.'

  'And in what manner were you not fully candid?'

  Hobie objects. 'Mr Molto's impeaching his own witness,' he says. Lawyers in this country have been allowed to question the credibility of their own witnesses for forty years now. Hobie is simply trying to break Molto's collected rhythm, and I point him to his seat.

  'He asked me,' Eddgar answers, 'if I knew why June had gone to Grace Street and at first I told him I didn't know.' 'And why did you tell him that?'

  Hobie objects again. 'Now he's rehabilitating his own witness.'

  'Do you intend to cross on this subject, Mr Turtle?' Hobie averts his face, looking for a dodge he can't find. 'Sure,' he finally says.

  'Then you may as well hear the rehabilitation. Go ahead, Dr Eddgar.'

  'I was very reluctant to disclose my political involvement with Hardcore. I realized it was likely to be controversial. And I didn't think it had any relationship to June's death.'

  I'm sure Molto and he have worked on this answer for some time, but it's a good one. Political self-preservation, Eddgar is saying. He didn't want to be publicly allied with BSD. But no matter how artfully packaged, this is the first trace of the Eddgar of old. He was instantly capable of a cold-hearted decision: June was dead, anyway, why soil his skirts? Tommy walks along a moment, studying his shoes.

  'Senator, let me cover one final subject with you. I'm sure Mr Turtle will bring this out, sir, but I believe you have told the police that you don't know of any motive for your son to do you harm – is that fair?'

  'That's my view.'

  Tommy nods equably, as if this is all right with him. 'Senator, let me take you back to the meeting with the gang leaders and Nile in the limo. Had you informed your son that you were going to suggest this plan to T-Roc and Hardcore for BSD to become involved in politics?'

  'He claimed I hadn't. As I said, I've mentioned the subject to him often through the years, but I suppose he paid less attention than I imagined.'

  'He told you afterwards you took him by surprise?'

  'Right.'

  'And what was his emotional state as he told you this?'

  'He was put out.'

  'Do you recall what he said?'

  Eddgar has stiffened slightly. Apparently, Tommy didn't give him a preview on this line of questioning. ‘I believe he said I was using Hardcore.' 'Did you and your son argue?'

  'Nile and I have always had our moments. We had a somewhat heated exchange standing there on the street, and then within a day or two we both calmed down.'

  'But he was very angry at the time?'

  'At first.'

  'At first,' repeats Tommy. Hobie has ceased the note-taking and is watching Molto intently. Like Eddgar, he has seemingly been taken unawares. Beside him, Nile has lowered his face to the defense table as he twiddles with a rubber band. It's impossible to know if he's even listening.

  'Now, you told us, Senator, that Nile introduced you to Hardcore. Correct?'

  'Yes.'

  'And whose idea was that?'

  'Mine, I think. We were having one of these discussions about what Nile was doing, his work, how it was going, a father-son talk, I guess, and he mentioned this concern about Kan-el's parole and I said, "Nile, well, why don't you have him talk to me, I might be able to help." Something like that.'

  'And how did he respond to that suggestion?'

  ‘I don't recall.'

  'Did you bring up the subject again?'

  Eddgar looks to the ceiling. ‘I believe so.'

  'So you had to suggest more than once that it would be a good idea for you to meet Hardcore?'

  'Yes. I'm sure I did. I had this notion about the gangs, that -Well, I've testified to that.'

  Tommy takes a step closer. 'Did Nile talk to you about his work often?'

  'All the time. As I said, the subject interested me.'

  'Did Nile tell you he'd requested assignment to Grace Street cases?'

  'Oh yes.'

  'Do you happen to remember, Senator, whether you suggested that assignment to him?'

  'I might have.' Eddgar nods serenely, but a certain calculating light has come over him. He's trying to recollect everything he may have unwisely admitted to Tommy in their many interviews. ‘I believe I did.'

  'Now, his job as a probation officer, Senator- do you remember who suggested that line of work to Nile?'

  'I'm sure I did.'

  'You did?'

  'Yes. Nile was at a point – Well, he was like many younger folks, he was casting about, and I suggested it, I said, "Go on back to school in social work, you like all that." '

  'And how long did it take him to do the school work?'

  'Eighteen months, as I remember.'

  'Did he do a thesis?'

  'He did.'

  'What was the subject?' 'Street gangs.'

  Molto looks at Eddgar. 'Yes, I suggested that to him,' Eddgar says. 'And you helped him get his job, too, didn't you?' ‘I made some calls.'

 
Tommy assesses Eddgar, straight on. 'And can I ask, Senator did you ever feel, sir, that Nile was undertaking these activities school, the job, the assignment, arranging the meeting with Hardcore – in any way because he was pleased by your interest in him?'

  As Eddgar is deliberating, Hobie rumbles to his feet. 'Your Honor, I'm sittin here just wonderin whose side he's on anyway?' His hand, big as a paving stone, is directed at Tommy.

  'Is that an objection, Mr Turtle?' Hobie, of all people, is hoping to cue Eddgar, who still seems to have little idea all this is coming at his expense.

  'I'd say it's an observation, Your Honor. My objection is that Senator Eddgar can't testify to what the defendant felt.'

  'Well, Mr Tuttle, I'd say, Keep your observations to yourself. The question is what the Senator believed. And I find the line of questioning directed at impeaching earlier testimony. Proceed, Mr Molto.'

  Eddgar speaks enough of the lingo to catch the drift. Accustomed to being in charge, he swivels my way in the witness chair, looking both stumped and somewhat imperious. The question is read back.

  'I'm not sure I ever thought about it in those terms.'

  Tommy eyes him briefly before he nods in the same sage manner.

  'Now, let me see if I get this, Senator. Your son had spent more than three and a half years following your suggestions about his education, his thesis, his job, his cases. And then, according to what he said to you, he suddenly found out as he sat in the back of that limousine that in everything you'd suggested to him, you had a political agenda of your own?' Tommy utters this question in a placid tone. He might even be said to sound somewhat respectful, but everything else in his manner is stone-cold. I see what's going on now. Molto is one of those grey men of the bureaucratic world whose whole life has been spent in service to the likes of Eddgar, the savvy pols with the winning public manner and the unrestrained private appetite for glory. For such men, Tommy has risen and fallen, with few of them bothering to look back to him in the dust. And now he has the opportunity to call one to account. In what may be the most bizarre moment yet in an entirely unorthodox case, Tommy Molto, prosecutor for life, stands before the bar, advocating the defendant's point of view and lacerating the crime's intended victim with the professional calm of a surgeon. In his emotional funk, Eddgar seems to be the last person in the room to recognize what has taken place.