The One-Eyed Judge

by Ponsor, Michael;

  Judge Norcross prided himself on never getting angry in the courtroom, or at least never showing it. In nearly five years, he had avoided losing his temper. But he could feel the inkling of fury starting at the back of his head and beginning to sweep up over the top of his skull. This man, this college professor who took pleasure in watching a small child being raped and tortured, who’d been ready to pay money to support the people who’d made the video, this man who was getting the deal of a lifetime, was actually trying to bandy words with him.

  Norcross felt his face growing warm and was on the point of speaking when Ames eased up onto her feet.

  “May I request a recess, a short recess?” She spoke without any trace of annoyance. “My client is a little confused. It’s definitely my fault, Judge, and I apologize. If I could just have a few minutes, I know we can straighten this out.”

  AUSA Campanella leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his stomach in disgust. The door to the courtroom closed. The kid was gone.

  Norcross did not bother to hide the irritation in his voice. “The court will be in recess. Let Ms. Johnson know when, and if, your client is ready to resume.”

  33

  Lindsay Norcross sat in an Adirondack chair on the stone terrace behind her uncle’s house, feet propped up on a small bench. A boy sitting next to her, a skinny classmate named Bobby, handed her a joint, and she took a hit. The third member of their group, Bobby’s friend Candace, was pacing around the terrace, peering in through the big French doors.

  “Nice house.” Candace leaned against the glass, shading her eyes to get a better look.

  The day was overcast, like most of December, but the clouds had thinned and the afternoon air had lost its bite. Lindsay was comfortable sitting with her parka open. Marlene, Lindsay’s sidekick and confidante, was haunch-down in her perennial spot next to Lindsay’s chair, keeping an eye out for squirrels. Lindsay stroked the dog’s thick neck, took another drag, and blew the smoke out. Jordan was away at her little pal’s house, the nanny had the day off, and Uncle Dave would not be home until dinnertime.

  Lindsay passed the joint back to Bobby. He spoke over his shoulder. “Don’t be nosy, Candace. Come over here and sit down. Be a courteous guest or we won’t get invited back.”

  The breeze came in soft, wet licks, doing little to carry away the smoke. If the aroma lingered, and Uncle Dave asked what the smell was when he came home, Lindsay would just lie. He probably wouldn’t notice. A lot of things went past him, such as Lindsay’s habit of cutting school in the afternoon now and then. Candace had a car and was happy to give people rides. This was the first time Lindsay had asked them to stick around.

  “So how’d you meet this guy?” Bobby started to hand the joint back to Candace. She was a very petite black girl, barely five feet tall. Her father taught Italian at Smith College.

  Candace waved the joint away. “Stopped smoking last summer.” She plopped into the chair on the other side of Bobby. “It was stunting my growth.”

  Lindsay smiled. It felt good to relax a little, even if it was just the punch of the weed loosening her bolts. If she got caught, she’d tell Uncle Dave that she wasn’t getting high; she was self-medicating.

  “So how’d you meet this guy?” Bobby asked again.

  Lindsay looked up at the cottony sky. “Met him in the ‘Party Time’ chat room.”

  “Oh wow.” Candace twisted to look over at Lindsay. “Drop that dude.” She put her hand on Lindsay’s arm. “Seriously, Linds. P.T. is bad shit.”

  “The guy seems okay.” Lindsay sounded tired and distant even to herself, and she made an effort to perk up. “He has this old pickup, and he wants to show me around some afternoon.” She scratched the top of Marlene’s head absently. “He sent me a picture. Him and his cute little truck. Now he wants me to send him one.”

  Bobby snuffed out the joint on the wet terrace and popped the roach into his mouth. “Bad idea.” He chewed and ran his tongue around his teeth. “Really bad idea, Lindsay.”

  “Sometimes bad ideas feel good.” Lindsay reached inside her parka and kneaded the skin under her arm. “I doubt I’ll do it.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Candace said.

  Bobby sighed. “At least for me, most of the time a bad idea is just a bad idea.”

  For a while, nobody spoke. They sat, tilted backward by the angle of the chairs, looking at the tops of the trees at the far edge of the lawn. Blue jays were making a racket somewhere off in the woods.

  Finally, Bobby brought up a new topic. “It sucks they suspended Mr. Scanlon.”

  Candace squirmed forward in her Adirondack chair. She had to bend her toes down to reach the ground. “It totally stinks. I love Latin.”

  “Me too,” Lindsay said. “I like how it fits together.”

  “Now they’ll have to get a substitute.”

  Bobby shrugged. “Nothing they can do. Somebody said he was up to something. Once that happens, they have to investigate. It’s the law.”

  “Do they know who complained?”

  Bobby looked at Lindsay and raised his eyebrows. He knew, but he wasn’t telling.

  “It’s like that case your uncle has,” Candace said. “The porn professor. It’s in the paper all the time. Ms. Cooper took her class to watch.”

  “Yeah,” Lindsay said. “I heard.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be a judge.” Bobby shook his head. “Couldn’t do that.”

  Marlene had been making muffled squeaks and shifting her front feet back and forth as a squirrel crept farther into the backyard. Now she suddenly bolted across the lawn. The squirrel took off into the brush and Marlene crashed in afterward.

  “You go, girl!” Candace laughed, clapping her hands. She grinned over at Lindsay. “Awesome dog!”

  “Very cool.” Lindsay looked at Bobby, who was slapping his pockets and squirming around. “What are you hunting for there?”

  “Trying to find my other joint.” Bobby was getting frustrated. “Problem is, you have all these stupid pockets in the wintertime.” He shook his head and sat back. “I give up.”

  “Where do you buy?” Lindsay asked.

  “Don’t buy at school,” Candace said. “They’ll kick your butt out.”

  Bobby laughed. “There’s this sort of totally insane wacko sinister dude at the Holyoke Mall who has amazing product.”

  Candace broke in. “You have to come with us sometime. He’s …”

  At that moment, they heard a car door slam, and they all jumped. Marlene’s performance with the squirrel must have masked the sound of the car’s approach. They also heard crying.

  Lindsay sat up with a worried expression. “It’s Jordan. Crap. She’s home early.”

  At that moment, Claire walked around the back of the house, cradling a bag of groceries in one hand and resting the other on Jordan’s shoulder. Lindsay, Bobby, and Candace just froze, and Claire stopped, pulling her chin in, as astonished as they were. Marlene pranced down the lawn, wagging her tail ecstatically.

  Lindsay stood. “Hey. What’s up, Jord?” She kept one hand on the Adirondack chair to steady herself.

  Claire’s face was not friendly. “Jordan’s having a tough afternoon.” She shoved the dog back with her foot. “Okay, Marlene.”

  “We’re supposed to have costumes,” Jordan said. Her face was streaked with tears, and her voice was scratchy. “For the holiday pageant. Brianna’s aunt is making her one. Mom always …”

  Lindsay felt like a complete asshole. She could see all this stuff moving back and forth across Claire’s face. Claire was struggling about Jordan—trying hard to figure out what to do—and now she was also getting really pissed about the weed. The smell of it was strong. You could see she knew exactly what they’d been up to, and it was just too much for her.

  Lindsay walked over, stooped, and gave Jordan a hug.
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  “Hey, it’s okay.” She pointed toward the house. “There’s raisin cookies.”

  Jordan shook her head, angry. “I just want to read my book.” Her voice rose. “I don’t want to talk to anybody.” She turned abruptly, sniffling, and stalked into the house. Over her shoulder, she called out, almost yelling, “And you smell funny!”

  Bobby and Candace said their good-byes and took off pretty quickly. As they hurried around front, they called out “nice to meet you,” trying to sound all friendly, but in a way, that showed they knew Claire had picked up on everything. Lindsay wasn’t sure how horrible all this was going to get, but it seemed like it might be bad.

  “So,” Claire said as Lindsay followed her into the house. She clunked the bag of groceries onto the counter. “Cutting school for a little pot break.”

  Lindsay didn’t say anything, just stood watching Claire while she unpacked the bag. In the silence, the sound of the boxes and bottles hitting the counter—the different drawers and the door to the refrigerator banging open and closed—seemed especially loud. Lindsay thought about taking off to her room, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It would look as though she didn’t care what Claire thought, and she did.

  After she unloaded everything, Claire took her time carefully folding up the brown paper shopping bag and putting it in the recycling tub under the sink. When that was all over, she stood bracing her arms against the counter. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.

  “Whew.”

  “Sorry about Jordan. Mom always made the costumes. It was, like, a thing.”

  “Uh-huh. It wasn’t just the costume. Something else happened at Brianna’s that got Jordan upset.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” Claire’s mouth turned down. She pointed with her thumb at the backyard. “But we sure didn’t need to come home to that.” She paused and then hurried on, a little louder. “You know, Lindsay, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do here. Should I tell your uncle? What would you do if you were in my position?”

  Lindsay rubbed under her armpit again. It ached. “I don’t know.”

  “How stoned are you?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “Not too.”

  “I need to go upstairs to check on Jordan. Can I trust you to chop salad?”

  The atmosphere lightened a bit. Claire was probably not going to start screaming at her or anything. Lindsay nodded and took a chance at a half smile. “I can give it a try.”

  Claire switched on the oven to preheat. Lindsay got out a knife. A cucumber and a red pepper sat on the counter. It helped to have something to do.

  “The lettuce is in the fridge,” Claire said.

  Lindsay felt like she ought to say something. As Claire started upstairs, she called out, “So what’s for dinner?” She did her best to sound normal.

  Claire called back over her shoulder. “Still working on that. I can tell you one thing. It sure as hell isn’t going to be spaghetti.”

  34

  Henry’s real name turned out to be George Underwood. Within a few days of Underwood’s arrest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Campanella had Mike Patterson on the witness stand before the Springfield Grand Jury, recounting under oath his impersonation of Li’l Sis and the takedown of Underwood at the Ho Jo’s. Campanella was pleased to see that Patterson’s testimony about the duct tape and lubricant had the grand jurors looking sick, scared, enraged, or some combination of all three. After a very short deliberation, they returned a four-count indictment charging Underwood with attempted interstate travel for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, attempted use of a facility of interstate commerce to entice a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, and possession of material involving the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. In addition to the chat-room transcripts and the evidence found at the motel, a search of Underwood’s lakefront home in Vermont uncovered a load of child pornography on his laptop and other encrypted material on thumb drives that the FBI’s tech staff was still trying to crack into.

  A week after the grand jury returned the indictment, Underwood appeared for his initial appearance before Judge Norcross with his attorney, a Greenfield lawyer named Alan Spade. Campanella wasn’t surprised when Spade did not contest the government’s motion for pretrial detention. Underwood faced a minimum mandatory prison term of ten years and a sentencing guideline range of 324 to 405 months. Spade was no Linda Ames, but he could add two and two. The judge’s body language during Campanella’s summary of the evidence against the defendant made it clear that any effort to get Underwood released now would be a waste of Spade’s credibility. Daniel Webster himself, come down from heaven with the tongue of an angel, wouldn’t be able to talk Norcross into letting Underwood out for five minutes.

  After the hearing, as the deputy marshals were taking Underwood away in cuffs, Campanella was pleased to find Spade coming up to him.

  “If you’ve got a second, I thought we might chat.” Spade was a pleasant-looking man with wire-rim glasses and thinning red hair who’d picked up his dad’s small-town law practice and had done well in the twenty years since. Reputation in the western Massachusetts legal community counted for a lot, and the word on Spade was basically good. He might not have Ames’s fire, but he was a hardworking, decent guy who was known to use his spare time raising money for the United Way and the local women’s shelter.

  Campanella shrugged. “Sure.” He glanced back at Patterson. “Got a couple minutes, Mike?”

  “Fine.”

  “I was thinking.” Spade turned to watch as the marshals escorted his client from the courtroom down to the basement lockup. He dropped his voice. “I was thinking, since George is here, we might have him join us to talk about a possible proffer. We can’t commit to anything, but, you know …”

  Patterson sniffed. “Better be a hell of a proffer.”

  Spade gave a short laugh and scratched the back of his head. “He’s up the creek, Mike. I admit that. I’d like him to hear what you might do for him.” He gave another nervous laugh. “Or to him.”

  Campanella broke in sharply. “I’m happy to talk, Alan, but you need to know that this is not a case where we’re going to be generous.”

  “I understand. But I think George may have some information you might be interested in. He could help himself out here and make life easier for all of us. Problem is, he’s not listening to me much right now.”

  Patterson began to say something, but Campanella broke in. “Fine. Like I say, we’re happy to talk.” Campanella snapped his briefcase closed. “I’ll ask the marshals to bring your guy up once they’ve booked and fingerprinted him.”

  While they waited in the U.S. attorney’s conference room on the third floor, Campanella used the time to probe just how spongy Spade’s position was. Patterson sat in as a resource, in case Campanella needed reminders about details of the investigation.

  After the usual chitchat—an imminent snowstorm and the distraction of the upcoming holidays—Campanella got to the point he was most interested in.

  “We know George had an accomplice, Alan.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “Somehow he slipped away. What was the vehicle, Mike?”

  “Dark Chevy or Ford pickup.” Patterson was wearing an especially ominous version of his game face.

  “If your client wants to help himself, the best thing he could do is tell us who this other character was.” When Spade hesitated and looked confused, Campanella pursued. “Look. You’ve got kids. My little guy just turned three.” He tipped his head toward Patterson. “Mike’s got teenagers, heaven help him.” This got a very brief smile from Spade, but no change of expression from Patterson. “Somebody is out there, Alan, somebody local, and he’s still on the prowl. We need to get him off the street.”

  Spade looked lost. “This is news to m
e, Paul. George tells me he was acting alone.” Patterson rolled his eyes at the ceiling, broadcasting his “tell-me-another-one” look. Spade’s voice went up a notch. “I’m not kidding. That’s what he said. I mean I can—”

  Patterson blew out a breath. “Well, then, he’s a damn—”

  Campanella broke in. “Then he’s not telling the truth, Alan.” He leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “We know he was working with someone else. Mike’s guys found his note in the wastebasket.”

  “It wasn’t the cleaning lady.” Patterson glared at Spade. “Your guy’s bullshitting you.”

  “And somebody else picked up the key,” Campanella added.

  Spade responded a little aggressively. “You check the desk clerk?”

  “Yeah,” Patterson said. “And she remembered some guy with a bushy beard, obviously false, and dark glasses. Big help.”

  As Patterson spoke, the door opened, and one of the agents from the raid team brought Underwood inside, holding him by his upper arm. It took a minute for the cuffs to be removed and for Underwood to take a seat next to his attorney. He rubbed his wrists and looked nervously around the table.

  “Hi.” His eyes struck Patterson and bounced over at Spade. “You didn’t tell me he was going to be here.” He nodded at Patterson. “Last time I saw him …”

  “Calm down, George. We’re just here to talk.”

  The escort agent said, “Jack and I will be outside if you need anything.” He stepped from the room and closed the door.

  The truly scary thing about George Underwood was how ordinary he looked. He had a large head, with a prominent slightly hooked nose, and his black hair was slicked straight back. Old fashioned, Clark Kent–style black frame glasses, slightly askew, perched on his nose. About Campanella’s age, he had a moist, flabby mouth like an oyster.