The One-Eyed Judge

by Ponsor, Michael;

  “I don’t know.” Sid looked at her. “Like I told you, I’ve been pretty … I haven’t been myself for a while. I could have done a lot of things, I guess, but I honestly can’t believe I ordered that DVD.”

  “Okay.” Ames let Sid see she was examining him carefully. His nonexplanation was not going to do him any good with Norcross, let alone with a jury. “Campanella told me before court that you admitted to the raid team that you were expecting the DVD, that it was yours.”

  Sid looked shocked. “That’s bullshit! I never admitted anything of the sort. I couldn’t have.” He looked into the distance again, trying to absorb this new blow. After a few seconds, he turned to her, glaring. “Can they just lie like that?”

  “Campanella says his agent will testify that you said you weren’t surprised when it arrived, or something like that.” Ames paused, continuing to keep her eyes on Sid, who had collapsed back into his six-weeks-to-live stare. “Could be Campanella’s pretending he’s got more than he has.” She pushed on. “But they’ve got the form, Sid, filled in with your credit card number and security code, your address, et cetera. Any memory of that?”

  “Zip. I don’t see how …” He started to say something, then stopped and shook his head. “I just don’t see how I could have done that. I’m not into that stuff.”

  This all sounded pretty soupy. If she were forced to bet, Ames would put her money on Sid’s having ordered the DVD deliberately. In the one-in-a-hundred chance that he really was innocent, or the one-in-ten chance he couldn’t stand up and admit he was guilty, which would knock out any possible plea deal, this case was going to be a back—and heart—breaker.

  Ames decided to move on to a more pressing issue and leaned forward, dropping her voice.

  “You don’t have any other material like this sitting around anywhere they didn’t think to look, do you? Any stuff they missed?” The Marshals’ attorney-client conference room was supposed to be private, no cameras and no microphones, but Ames never entirely trusted that.

  Sid’s face twitched up to her. “No, for heaven’s sake, I don’t think I ever had any. …”

  “Campanella tells me they dug out a fair amount of porn on your home computer, including some underage material. How about a work computer or an iPad? Hard copies stuffed in a folder somewhere?”

  Sid jumped at the sound of a sharp clang in the distance followed by a male voice shouting.

  Ames recognized the groan of the big steel door that opened on the courthouse’s sally port. The Marshals must be bringing in more prisoners.

  “They’ll find some fairly …” He hesitated. “Some fairly ugly pictures and video clips, okay? I’m not even sure what.” Sid looked anxiously in the direction of the noise, which now had a sinister, metallic tone, as though it were a huge, dying robot.

  “It’s okay,” Ames said. “Just the sally port with some more customers.”

  “But nothing like the DVD, okay? I’m not into that.”

  She pressed a little harder. “Nothing you’ve ordered on its way to you in the mail?”

  “No fucking way.” He hesitated, flushing. “They’ll probably, like I say, find …” He paused again, struggling. “Some, probably some pictures, probably some videos, on my computer. I can remember sites, I think, like ‘Barely Legal’ and ‘Horny Teens.’ That kind of crap.” He looked up at her with a pained expression. “But doesn’t everyone look at that stuff once in a while? In the army, porn was like comic books at summer camp. Nobody thought twice about it.”

  “Adult porn’s not a problem, Sid. Even I’ve checked it out once or twice.” Ames sniffed. “Heck, I bet even our buddy Campanella has, if he’s human. I’m talking about little kids.”

  “No. There was some of that in Saigon, underage Asian prostitutes and that sort of thing. It didn’t shock me—people needed money—but it never did anything for me. I …”

  “Sex with a minor in a foreign country gets you fifteen years nowadays, mandatory minimum.”

  “Well, that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about.” He hesitated and swallowed. “I paid for sex a couple times over there—everyone did—but never with a child. Jesus!”

  “I hear you, but I also need you to understand. Patterson and his team will be on the lookout, and if they find more pictures or videos like this DVD, you will be, pardon my French, shit on a stick.”

  There was a long silence. Finally, Sid just said, “They’ll find evidence on my hard drive that I’ve visited porn sites, okay? Adult porn sites. It’s embarrassing enough to have to admit that.” He paused and a look of disgust came over his face. “I flat out lied to my intern when I finally got her on the phone about the cats. Told her I wasn’t into porn at all. But I honestly can’t believe I ordered that video.”

  “Okay, fine. We’ll leave it at that.” Ames nodded. “New topic: Have you got a mortgage on your …”

  A deputy marshal, a Hispanic woman with dark, curly hair, poked her head through the door behind Sid. She’d obviously been monitoring the room, just out of earshot. She tossed Sid a sandwich in a plastic baggie.

  “I’d eat up,” she said. “Judge sends you back to Ludlow, and this will be your last bite until dinner. You’re going to miss lunch.”

  Sid stared down at the sandwich as if it had just landed from outer space.

  Ames broke in. “Give us a minute, okay, Carmen?” The deputy disappeared, and Ames turned back to Sid. “Have you got a mortgage on your house?”

  Sid looked surprised. “No, I … I paid it off with mother’s insurance.”

  “Any problem giving the government a deed to secure your appearance and good behavior if we have to?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Ames spoke quickly. “You sign a deed transferring your house to the government. They don’t record the deed, just keep it in their files. But if you skip out, or get into any monkey business, they trot down to the Registry, record the deed, and they own your house. Simple as that. It’s a form of bail. If there are no problems, they tear the deed up once the case is over. You willing to do that?”

  “The house is about all I have, Linda, but I’ll do anything to get out of here.”

  “Even if Norcross goes for it, you won’t get out today. We’ll need time to get the paperwork done and a good real-estate lawyer, my friend Bruce Brown.” Ames’s retainer was $50,000, and with extra expenses, it would evaporate quickly even at her below-market rate of $350 an hour. If the case went to trial, Sid would probably end up paying her at least $300,000, probably more, and even then Ames could end up taking a bath on the case.

  “How do you feel about home confinement?” she continued.

  “It would be a big improvement.” Sid shrugged. “Except for classes, I haven’t been getting out much lately anyway.”

  6

  The FBI had no assigned space in the Springfield courthouse, so Mike Patterson was camping out in the U.S. Marshal’s area, using a spare office with a dented metal desk half buried under file cartons. Assistant U.S. Attorney Campanella pursued Patterson downstairs during the recess, obviously looking for feedback about how his pitch to Norcross was going. Patterson tried to walk quickly to let Campanella know he had something else he needed to get to, but his bum ankle slowed him down.

  He hated that his injury from Afghanistan was acting up again. If the ankle didn’t improve soon, he’d be looking at a disability retirement, a depressing prospect. At fifty-one, he had twenty-two years with the Bureau, continuous except for his reserve deployments. He loved the work, and he took pride in being a role model for the younger black agents.

  “Why do you think he took the recess?” Campanella asked as they stepped into the cramped office.

  Patterson spoke over his shoulder. “Probably needed to take a shit.”

  He draped his navy suit jacket over the back of the chair, lowered himself in
to the seat, and began pulling out drawers to find something to write on. Some ideas were floating around in his head about another, much more serious, case he was working on, and he wanted to jot them down before the recess was over.

  “I doubt he needs a note from his deputy for that.” Campanella was standing in the doorway. “So what’s your take on how things are going? I don’t like this wild-card stuff about Norcross’s lady friend knowing the defendant.”

  “We’ll check her out.” He found a yellow pad and began writing.

  “Cranmer doesn’t belong on the street, that’s for sure,” Campa­nella was saying. “Do you think I should have pushed for recusal?”

  “Never piss a judge off unless absolutely necessary.” Patterson finished his note and tossed his pen down. He leaned back in his chair and pointed at Campanella. “I’d like this guy locked up, too, but it’s not going to be easy to sell that to Norcross.”

  Campanella started. “Really? The guy could run, and he’s a child molester. I mean …”

  “Norcross is going to wonder where Professor Dumbledore might run to. Hogwarts? My son was a big Harry Potter fan. You have kids?”

  “Just one, a boy. But he’s only two. Not reading yet.” A happy look came over Campanella’s face. “He’s such a great little guy.”

  Patterson touched his heart. “Girl and a boy: sixteen and fourteen. Best things that ever happened to me.” He leaned over the desk and steepled his hands. “Cranmer’s not going to take off, Paul. He’s nearly seventy, for God’s sake. A bigger risk is that he’ll escape riding downstream on a bottle of Seconal—everyone’s favorite ticket to the next world. I’ve had that happen.” Patterson reached around, took a bag out of his jacket pocket, and held it out. “Want a pistachio?”

  Campanella shook his head. “He could hurt some child or …”

  “I’m on your side, Paul, but I really doubt it.” Patterson poured a small pile onto the desktop and began prying the shells open. Courtrooms, for some reason, always made him hungry.

  Campanella scratched the back of his neck. “So what’s the …”

  “My take is Cranmer’s a looker, not a toucher. Typical of the type. Middle-aged adult male. Lives alone or with a parent. Sits in front of his computer with his Kleenex box late at night, brings up his favorite kiddie porn, watches for a while, and jerks off. Then he wipes up and goes to bed. That’s his love life. It’s pathetic, but very few of these guys actually hurt anybody, at least not directly.” He paused to finish chewing, swallowed, and resumed. “Judges, at least where I come from, tend to release these guys to await trial, even if they know they’ll clobber them after they’re convicted. So, take your best shot, but my advice? Don’t expect much help from the court, not at this stage. Save your ammo for the sentencing hearing.”

  “Love life,” Campanella muttered, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Mike, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I hate these guys. Even if they only look, they make me sick. Some of these kids are as young as my son.”

  “Ugly, and the more you see of it, the uglier it gets.” Patterson swept the small pile of shells into his hand and dumped them into the wastebasket. He pointed at Campanella and then at himself. “On the other hand, there’s many a lonely college boy who’s done something like the same thing, right? They’re just not into five-year-olds, that’s all.”

  Sirens started up in the distance. A fire station occupied a corner a few blocks from the courthouse, and emergencies constantly called the trucks out. Campanella, still frowning, glanced up in the direction of the increasing racket.

  “That’s a big difference, Mike. Going to the Penthouse website is not the same.”

  “True, but I doubt we’d have bothered with this runt if he weren’t a hotshot professor. We get headlines, and that means a big bang of deterrence for a popgun prosecution. His tough luck.”

  “Popgun? Come on.”

  “Sorry. Let’s just call it a fish-in-a-barrel child-porn consumer case. Here’s how it will go. Our professor will whine about how unfair it all is. His lawyer—watch out for her, by the way, she’s a weasel—will beat him over the head with a polo mallet until he pleads guilty. After he squirms for a while, he’ll take the mandatory five years, because if he doesn’t, the jury will convict him, and he’ll end up with eight or nine years, or even more if Norcross gets really steamed at him. The five years will put a big crimp in his life. He’ll lose his job and have to register as a sex offender and so forth. Two years, or even a year, would probably be plenty for a sad sack like him. But you know what?” Patterson took off his glasses and tossed them on the desk. “To coin a phrase: Frankly, I don’t give a damn. The kids in those videos have their lives messed up a whole lot more than his ever will be. And why? Because respectable types like him look at this garbage, buy it, and swap it over the Internet.” Patterson sat up, wincing, and scrubbed his hands around his eyes. “He deserves what he gets. Did you see the report about what happened to the girl in his DVD?”

  “Yeah. It will be part of my pitch to Norcross.”

  The sirens were fading, heading west toward the interstate. One of the marshals down the hall must have been monitoring the fire department frequency. He called out: “Eighteen-wheeler on its side on I-91.”

  “Well, good luck. I’m all for locking the guy up right now, instead of waiting for him to plead guilty. He won’t have an easy time in detention, that’s for sure.”

  Campanella turned to leave. “Well, thanks. I can see you’ve got stuff to do.” He hesitated. “I’ve second-chaired a lot of trials, but this is my first one solo. I appreciate the help.”

  Patterson’s experience made him sensitive to the odd situation he and Campanella occupied. As the responsible AUSA, Campanella was technically in charge; he was Patterson’s superior, subordinate only to the U.S. attorney in Boston, Buddy Hogan. But Patterson was vastly more experienced with these prosecutions. The setup reminded Patterson of the army, where a hairy-knuckled master sergeant with twenty years of active duty might find himself taking orders from a second lieutenant fresh out of some college ROTC program. The trick was to manage the new man tactfully—try to keep him from screwing up and getting them both killed.

  “You’ll do fine, Paul. This one’s not going to be hard.” As Campanella started to leave, Patterson glanced at his watch. “This recess is going longer than I thought. Have a seat for a second.” He pointed. “Shove that box over there.”

  Campanella hefted a carton off the chair facing the desk onto an adjoining stack and sat down. The box had a notation, “U.S. v. Hudson,” on its side in black Magic Marker.

  “Let me tell you the real reason I’m here, and what’s put me in such a ratty mood,” Patterson said. “This case of yours just happened to come along. I’m here on a temporary transfer, one year max, to help out with the A.G.’s ‘Project Safe Childhood’ initiative targeting the big-time touchers, the worst of the worst. Don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I wouldn’t be up from DC for a penny-ante case like Cranmer’s.” He took the bag of pistachios out of his pocket again and poured another small pile on the desk. “My wife and the kids will move up at the end of the summer, once Fran has our place rented.” He paused and shook his head. “Right now, I’m supposed to be coaching my girl’s summer-league softball team. They got toasted in their last two games.” He was looking down, busily prying open shells and frowning. “Margaret, my sixteen-year-old, is a slugger, but I can’t get her to pick her pitches. She keeps popping up.”

  “Sounds frustrating.” Campanella spoke automatically, being polite but looking unhappy. The “penny-ante” reference had clearly stung.

  “Here’s why I’m here,” Patterson said. “Like I said, we have the lookers and touchers. The lookers are the sad guys; the touchers are the bad guys. The lookers are mostly so depressing, they make you want to migrate to another planet. The touchers make you want to commit murder.”<
br />
  “I haven’t drawn one of those yet.”

  “Some of these guys—they’re always males, and, by the way”—he gave Campanella a steely look—“they’re nearly always white. Child porn is mostly not a black sport. If it were, the penalty would probably be mandatory life, not just five years.” He shifted in his chair, and an angry expression washed over his face. “Anyway, some of these guys have a real scary grasp of adolescent psychology. They circle over certain Internet chat rooms like buzzards, pretending to be teenagers, and they are very, very skillful at grooming vulnerable underage girls they connect with.”

  “Right. We had a seminar in Atlanta about this.”

  “So you know. Pretty soon, it’s him and the girl, Romeo and Juliet, against the cold, hard world. He’ll talk her into sending him pictures. Then he’ll get her to send live images of herself that are more and more explicit. Masturbation. Bananas. Beer bottles. That sort of thing. He’ll store the videos in his collection of stroke shows to swap with his buddies.”

  “We should just execute these guys, Mike. I’m serious. I know I’m not supposed to say that, but really …”

  “Yeah, but the worst comes if he can sweet-talk the girl into meeting him somewhere. Once she’s in the car or the motel room, it’s game over. Sometimes they just disappear.”

  “Just take a chain saw and …”

  “We think you’ve got one of the worst in your neighborhood.” Patterson held up three fingers. “Three girls, two thirteen-year-olds and a fourteen-year-old, have gone missing in the last year after Internet chats with what sounds like the same guy. In each case, he convinced the girls to meet him. We think the groomer might have a partner who helps with the grab. Anyway, the girls have vanished. The families are out of their minds.”