Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause

by Grif Stockley

  Jill has sandwiched Leon Robinson between Yettie and her other witnesses. As he struts to the witness stand, I feel my heart kick into overdrive. My tongue goes to my false tooth, on which I will be paying for the next six months. My body was sore for three days. If Leon has told Jill that his friends and I got acquainted that night in the parking lot, I haven’t heard it.

  Judging by the way Leon is sashaying to the front of the courtroom, someone must have told him he is the star witness in this case. In his red cowboy shirt with its requisite whorls, buttoned-down pockets, and fancy stitching and new, starched Lee jeans that slide down over brown cowboy boots that gleam with a military spit shine, Leon, his pompadour waved even higher on his head than at the probably cause hearing, looks cocky instead of nervous. Surely, like Olivia, he must be pretending confidence he can’t be feeling. Unless Leon has had a vastly different life from most Arkansans, he hasn’t appeared before this many people since the night he graduated from high school.

  Jill has him well rehearsed, however, and he testifies in an arresting country voice that for the first time has a little twang in it, like George Jones singing, “I stopped lovin’ her today.”

  After reviewing his length of employment (three years, not a record, but unusual given the turnover at the Blackwell County HDC) and training, Jill asks him to describe what happened when Pam was electrocuted.

  I follow his testimony in the transcript from the probable cause hearing. He repeats it almost verbatim.

  “If Dr. Chapman had of jus’ told me how bad it was really gonna hurt, I’d of known to holt her a lot tighter,” he says earnestly.

  “I

  didn’t want to hurt her by squeezin’ too hard. I liked Pam a lot.”

  He gets through his testimony this time without tears, though, as last time, his voice becomes hoarse with emotion.

  Jill has left me as little as possible. As I stand up to crossexamine him, Leon shoots me a look of pure hatred, which I interpret as fear. We are on my turf now.

  “How much do you weigh, Leon?” I ask as if we are old friends comparing diets.

  “About one-seventy,” he says, his voice sullen.

  “How old are you?”

  Not understanding where I’m going, he volunteers, “I’ll be twenty-five in October.”

  “Would you say you’re in pretty good shape?”

  Too macho to admit he doesn’t lift more than a pool stick and a can of beer when he finishes his shift, he says in his George Jones voice, “I’m all right.”

  “Despite being a hundred-and-seventy-pound, twenty-four year old in good condition, you couldn’t hold on to Pam’s hands when she pulled away?”

  Leon’s lower lip puffs out as if a bee had stung it.

  “I said every way I know how,” he huffs, “I would have kept aholt of her if I had been told she was gonna kick like a mule.”

  Leon’s whining cuts through the room like a power saw being revved up. I ask, “How long have you known Dr.

  Chapman?”

  He is wary now, but he has no choice about answering my questions.

  “It hadn’t been a year, I guess.”

  “Would you say you and he were friends?” I ask, turning as I finish to look back over my shoulder. In the courtroom I have noticed a couple of men whose knuckles look familiar.

  Unable to restrain a dry chuckle, Leon looks into the audience.

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “But you don’t have anything against him?”

  No genius, Leon has started going on smell. He sniffs, “He don’ give me no trouble, an’ I don’t give him any.”

  I am in no hurry.

  “So you know of no reason why you wouldn’t try to do exactly what he said when it came to holding on to Pam.”

  I can’t resist looking at Jill. She is on the edge of her seat and she knows something is coming.

  “Have you ever heard of a group that has the reputation of hating African-Americans and goes by the name of the Trackers?”

  Jill shoots out of her chair like a Roman candle. “I object, Your Honor. This isn’t relevant.”

  Judge Tamower looks at Jill and then at me. I’d rather not have to telegraph it all to Leon, though right now the question is like a neon sign blinking on and off. “Of course it is. Your Honor,” I say.

  “Every one of the jury answered this question This isn’t precisely true, but it’s close.

  The judge, bless her liberal heart, helps me out.

  “I’ll allow it. Answer the question, Mr. Robinson.”

  Thinking he’s about to be trapped, Leon says nonchalantly, “Sure, I heard of it.”

  I have been waiting to ask this question for weeks, and I don’t waste any time.

  “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Trackers, Leon?”

  On her feet again, Jill says, “I object again. Your Honor!”

  her voice anxious for the first time all day.

  “I have no idea how Mr. Robinson is going to answer, but all Mr. Page is trying to accomplish is to prejudice this jury.”

  “On the contrary. Your Honor,” I say, “if Mr. Robinson let go of Pam when she was shocked because he hates black people and he thought in a moment of anger she would attack Dr. Chapman, the jury, in deciding what my client’s own state of mind was, should be allowed to take this into ac count. ” Shaking her head angrily, Jill says, “That’s guilt by association, Your Honor. Just because Mr. Robinson may have been in some kind of club doesn’t prove he did anything.”

  “The Trackers is not just some kind of club, Your Honor.

  It’s…”

  Cutting me off. Judge Tamower says, “Sit down, Mr.

  Page. You’re not testifying. Answer the question, Mr. Robinson

  I plop down, trying not to look too relieved, thinking this entire case (unless Andy is lying) is about guilt by association.

  Leon, righteously indignant, yelps, “I’ve never joined them or nothin’ like them.”

  After a few more questions, I sit down, thinking that with a little luck, we’ll know about that tomorrow.

  As I return to my seat, Andy, without even a glance at me, rises suddenly and says in a loud voice to the judge, “Your Honor, I want to fire Mr. Page and represent myself!”

  Staring at Andy as if he has suddenly gone crazy. Judge Tamower stands up, too, and says, “I want the lawyers and Dr. Chapman back in my chambers immediately. The court will be in recess for fifteen minutes.” With that, she flees the bench through a side door.

  I turn to Andy and snarl in a low whisper, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  In front of the jury, Andy grabs my arm and says, “You broke your word! I warned you not to do this!”

  “Come on!” I say, furious.

  “She’s not going to let you.”

  Shaking with rage, I look into the stunned faces of Jill and her young assistant as they hurry past our table.

  In chambers, the judge has taken off her robe as if she is through for the day. Underneath it, she is wearing a red dress almost identical to Olivia Le Master’s.

  “What is your client’s problem, Mr. Page?” she yelps at me. Whatever sympathy she may have had for our case seems a distant memory.

  Judges do not like surprises, nor do they like defendants to represent themselves.

  For an instant I consider trying to explain what I believe is in Andy’s mind. The truth that Andy thinks I have wrongly injected the issue of race into this case, when, in fact, that is what it is primarily about as far as I’m concerned is too bizarre, too threatening. Instead, I say, “We are having a disagreement over trial tactics. Your Honor.”

  “Your …” Andy begins.

  The judge loses her temper.

  “I don’t want to hear from you, Dr. Chapman,” she yells, pointing a finger at him.

  “If you didn’t want a lawyer, you should have thought about that a long time before today. I’m not allowing you to represent yourself; I’m no
t allowing Mr. Page to quit as your attorney, and I don’t want you to speak here or in my courtroom again until you’re spoken to! Is that clear?”

  Andy shakes his head.

  “Then I refuse to participate in this trial any further.”

  Judge Tamower looks at me and then back at Andy as if she wants to make pressed meat of both of us. Lawyers are supposed to be able to control their clients, and defendants dressed as nicely as Andy are supposed to behave themselves and go to prison, if not with smiles on their faces, at least with stoic calm. It is not as if I am back at the Public Defender representing some dope-crazed space cadet.

  “That’s fine with me,” she says grimly.

  “You can spend it in a holding cell.”

  Great! I can hear the talk on the street: Page can’t even keep his clients out of jail during their trials. I look at Jill and send her a silent prayer: we’re both lawyers, even if we hate each other’s guts right now. There is a smirk on her face as if she is daring me to keep Andy company. Desperately, I look over at the huge bailiff, who seems more than willing and able to take each of us under one arm, and notice the clock. It is after four.

  “Judge, it’s getting late. Why don’t we quit for the day, so I can have a chance to talk to Dr. Chapman?

  This is a capital case, after all.”

  I have said the magic words without ever having mentioned the dreaded word: appeal. It could go on forever if she screws up. No judge likes to be reversed, especially this woman. A thin, bloodless smile comes to the judge’s lips.

  “That’s the first good idea,” she says firmly, “you’ve had all day, Mr. Page.”

  Oh yeah, Clan, this woman has the hots for me all right. I nod, grateful beyond words I don’t have to go back out there to the defense table alone.

  in my office, Morris listens to my account of our conversation with the judge and then looks at his brother as if Andy had told Judge Tamower he had seen her mother in a Juarez whorehouse.

  “You’re one crazy nigger,” Morris tells his brother.

  “We’re trying to save your ass, and you want to fuck it up with this stupid shit! You think you’re gonna have a rat’s-ass chance in hell sitting in a cell while your lawyer does a solo act. That’s bullshit, man!”

  In a rare concession to the pressure he must be feeling, Andy loosens his tie.

  “I don’t expect you to understand this either, Morris.”

  Morris, seated across from his brother, has his feet up on my desk. He puts them down on the floor and gets up to pace.

  “I understand this,” he says, his dark face anguished.

  “You’re the most selfish motherfucker who’s ever had the nerve to draw a breath! Have you thought one Goddamned minute about what it’s gonna do to me, knowing you’re in prison for the rest of your life or a piece of fried meat in the ground? Forget our mother and daddy’s memory; forget their families. They’re mostly dead. What good are you gonna do anybody in prison? We don’t need another nigger convict.

  You’re throwing away the one chance you have! Even if by some miracle you walk, the white assholes who run these things are gonna bust their asses to keep you from being a psychologist again, and then what will all those shit for brains you’re so crazy about do? You think white folks care about a nigger retard? Bullshit! I’ve been out there and seen the way those little black monkeys climb all over you. Who’s gonna give a shit about them while you’re in prison getting fucked up the ass by some crazy dude who’ll pile-drive you into the concrete after he’s stretched your asshole to the size of a manhole cover? This ain’t the time,” he pleads, his voice winding down to a whisper,” ‘to tell white folks what a shitty place for us this country is.”

  Morris, to my amazement, is almost in tears. His eyes are red, and his voice is so hoarse I can barely hear him.

  He probably doesn’t understand Andy much better than I do, but there is no doubt about the love he feels for him.

  Andy shifts uncomfortably in his chair but says nothing. I don’t get it. Andy isn’t stopping at cutting off his nose to spite his face; he’s taking his eyes and ears, too. People who actually do things this drastic on principle are, in my experience, few and far between. The last one in the legal profession was Thomas More.

  “We’ve got a chance, Andy,” I say, filling the silence.

  “But you’ve got to stay and fight.

  If you don’t stick around to explain your side of the story, the prosecutor will fill in the blanks for the jury on closing argument.”

  Like some kind of black Buddha, Andy stills himself and draws his hands together beneath his trim goatee. I look at Morris, who, judging by the agonized look on his face, has withdrawn into his own private hell.

  “I know you feel I’m betraying you, Andy,” I say, from behind my desk, “but at some point you simply have to start trusting me.”

  From behind his hands, Andy says bitterly, “Olivia trusted me, and look what she’s getting.”

  I slam my fist on my desk in frustration at this man.

  “She betrayed you!” I yell at him.

  “She had the opportunity to convince the jury she is still passionately committed to you even though her child is dead, and she lied!”

  Wearily, Andy shakes his head, “She’s ashamed,” he says, his voice under control.

  “She can’t imagine people would understand how she could be involved with anyone right now, much less a black man, after what has happened.”

  He has just admitted that the woman he supposedly loves is as racist as the rest of us. I look at Morris for support, but he merely shrugs, as if his brother were another species. I still believe that Olivia is calibrating her performance as best she can, but I don’t dare risk fighting this battle again. Andy, I decide, is a lost cause.

  Yet, even as I think this, I remember the shame I felt in having an affair with a married friend of Rosa’s just two weeks after Rosa’s death. What was that all about? Probably grief, loneliness, lust. All I know is that I would never have admitted it in court to a group of strangers sitting in judgment over me. Maybe it’s possible that Olivia, despite everything I know about her, is as innocent as Andy thinks. But I represent Andy, not Olivia, and my job is not to judge the moral purity of a witness’s soul but to be an advocate for my client. While Andy may feel he has the luxury of philosophizing about the motives of Olivia, I do not.

  “You’re going to have to decide,” I say harshly, getting up from behind my desk, “whether you want to fight for your freedom or be a martyr. You can’t do both.”

  Andy is silent for once as if he is about to give up on the idea of trying to make me understand he sees no conflict between the two. I leave the two brothers in my office and go to Dan’s office to use his telephone to call Charlene Newman to tell her she will have to testify that Leon told her he was in the Trackers. After a tearful phone call from her, I agreed not to subpoena her, so that Leon would not find out she might be a witness.

  “Leon will find out within two hours if I’m subpoenaed,” she had told me. That gives me a lot of confidence in our law enforcement officers, but since they seldom make it into the Blackwell County Country Club, they have to be members of something. Leon has not been in contact with her, proving, I suppose, that the female bartenders at the Bull Run are, if not quite feminists, more loyal to their own sex than to their own race, since they apparently have not told Leon I was looking for his ex-wife.

  Seated behind his desk like Humpty Dumpty in a special oversized chair, Clan, happy as ever to eavesdrop, observes cheerfully, “You’re doing a hell of a job! Keep this up, and you’ll give a new meaning to criminal defense work.”

  I dial Charlene’s number.

  “Shit happens when your client gives his home address as Uranus,” I say glumly.

  Great. No answer.

  “Do me a favor and try this number every fifteen minutes until you leave for the day. If a woman answers, come get me.” I hand Clan a slip of paper with Ch
arlene’s number on it.

  Clan squints at the number. He needs reading glasses but won’t get them, claiming he is too vain about his looks.

  “You can’t turn a sow’s cunt into a silk purse,” he says, his face now sympathetic.

  “I think that’s a sow’s ear,” I say, happy to smile for the first time today.

  “The weird pan is that my client may really be a silk purse.”

  “Sure,” Clan says breezily, “and the Cubs’ll win the World Series.”

  I am home by seven (with nothing resolved), my briefcase crammed with work, and exhaustion begins to creep up like a shot of Novocain. Walking in the front door to find Woogie and Sarah curled up on the couch, I feel as though I have been gone a lifetime.

  “What happened?”

  Sarah asks, anxiously twisting a lock of her springy black hair, which she had decided to let grow. Woogie, probably disturbed from a nap, merely looks grumpy.

  “Are you really getting fired? Kim Keogh made it sound on TV like it was a disaster today. You seemed a little desperate in the interview.”

  Well, what the hell? The truth hurts.

  “I don’t know whether I am or not,” I say, peeling off my suit coat and tie. I’d love a beer, but with so much work to do I don’t dare drink one, tired as I am.

  “Has anyone called?” I ask, going into the kitchen for a glass of water. Tomor row I’m probably going to look like the biggest idiot ever. I pour myself a glass of water from the tap, realizing how petty my thoughts are. My client and my girl friend could end up dying, and I am worried about how I am going to come across on TV when I’m asked why Andy chose to spend the rest of his trial in a jail cell instead of with his lawyer. Self-hatred begins to work into those spaces of my brain not overcome by my growing lethargy.

  “Rainey dropped by a casserole about thirty minutes ago,” Sarah says, following me into the kitchen.

  “She said she wasn’t coming over tonight, but that she’d be all right. I’m sure she wants you to call her.”

  I do. Her voice sounds calmer.

  “Thanks for last night,” she says, declining my offer to come over and eat her own cooking and to spend the night again.

  “I