Sid opened the fridge and took out one of the two vials of pentobarbital. He hadn’t been sure whether it needed to be refrigerated, so he’d stashed the vials in the fridge’s crisper to be on the safe side. His gardening scissors were in what he liked to call his “miscellaneous device” cabinet. He snipped around the collar of the container, removed the plug, and poured the liquid into a juice glass. It was clear, like springwater.
In the living room, he sat down on the sofa and set the glass on the coffee table. This was as good a place as any for them to find him. He didn’t like the idea of being discovered stretched out on his bed like an invalid. Here, he could get comfortable without disturbing the cats and maybe reread the first paragraphs of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland while he waited for the big black door to swing open.
Then he remembered that the New York Times article had mentioned that pentobarbital had an unpleasant taste. A glass of wine apparently hid the bitter flavor and helped smooth the liftoff. As he sat staring at the glass, he pondered what kind of wine might go best with an entrée like this. Sid wasn’t a connoisseur, but he didn’t want to go out drinking the equivalent of Boone’s Farm, for Christ’s sake. This was not an occasion for some of his bargain-bin, two-for-twelve-dollars plonk. Also, as he thought about it, he wasn’t sure whether he’d want red or white, or maybe some sparkling wine. It was a big decision, maybe the last he would make.
Sid pulled himself up and started toward the kitchen to look over his very limited wine selection. Halfway across the room, he changed his mind and decided he would make one last attempt to find the file of Dodgson photographs, his old unpublished treasure trove, which had mysteriously disappeared. Suddenly, of all things, he wanted most to see the images of those sweet children one last time.
The renewed search of his house by Patterson and his myrmidons a couple months back had been a near-death experience for Sid. It shouldn’t have been that big a deal. Sid was familiar with the drill now, and he knew to get out of the way and let the agents go to it, yanking doors open, shouting to one another, running up and down the stairs, and terrifying the cats.
After the initial whirlwind, he and Patterson had taken their familiar seats on the sofa and wingback, with Claire shooed into the background. This time, though, when Patterson started asking him questions, Claire had shouted, “Sid! Don’t be a dope. Call Linda Ames!” Agent Patterson had given Claire a weary look, and that was the end of that.
The awful part—the true, two-handed head squeezer—came afterward, when Patterson had walked straight through the house, into Sid’s study, and up to the antique oak credenza behind his desk. With the bottom dropping out of his stomach, Sid had realized that Patterson must be looking for the drawer with the false compartment, where Sid kept Dodgson’s clandestine pictures of Alice Liddell, Beatrice Hatch, and his other naked little cherubs.
Sid drifted from the living room, where the glass of poison stood waiting, toward his study, hoping the file might have magically reappeared in its old hiding place. He stood in the doorway, hesitating. He knew it wouldn’t be there. He was stalling. He’d always been a terrible procrastinator.
On the morning of the second search, Sid had been forced to watch from this very spot, not saying anything or even looking concerned, as Patterson pulled out the drawers of the credenza and ran his fingers along their tightly crafted seams. Soon, he was lifting the false panel out of the oversize lower right-hand drawer and reaching his big paws inside.
Sid had assumed at this point that he was a dead duck. The rebarbative AUSA Campanella would tell Judge Norcross that Sid had flouted the court’s no-porn order, and the judge would stick him back in jail again. Sid’s fellow inmates would be waiting to finish him off, if he didn’t die of natural causes first.
To Sid’s astonishment, when Patterson groped into the secret compartment, he’d only run his hands around inside briefly and moved on to other drawers. Even today, Sid had no idea what the fuck had happened.
Over the years, Sid had regularly taken the Dodgson file out and examined the photographs it contained, one by one, trying to imagine the real-life scenes the photos captured. It was true, he had to admit, that these innocent, naked little bodies did something for him, as they no doubt had done for Dodgson. Looking at them would send Sid off to bed, in a pleasant hum, to sweet dreams. Did this mean he was as evil as Campanella said he was?
Sid floated across the study for one last, hopeless look into the credenza, but the secret compartment was still empty and the file was still nowhere to be seen. There was no other place he could imagine having put the goddamn thing.
Beyond the Dodgson photographs, Sid knew he had looked, from time to time, at what was probably, technically, child pornography mixed in with other garbage he found on the Internet. The confusing thing was that the government had found so much of this crap, and so much that he not only couldn’t remember seeing, but couldn’t imagine himself ever wanting to see. It made him sick, and hardly any of it seemed familiar. Had he been that crazy?
The psychiatrist Ames sent him to kept hinting that his postfuneral porn binges may have been an expression, somehow, of his anger at his mother. Mom had ruined his life, supposedly, and then abandoned him by dying. This seemed like psychologistic horseshit, but who knew? Who, in the end, had more than the slimmest grasp on what was really going on inside him? Certainly not him. Soon it wouldn’t matter.
Back in the kitchen, Sid noticed a half bottle of decent pinot noir, left over from yesterday’s dinner and still sitting on the counter. It would do. He got out a wineglass, filled it right up to the top, and took a couple long swallows, more for anesthesia than enjoyment. Back in the living room, the juice glass was still waiting for him with its clear, placid contents.
Sid set the wineglass down and lifted the glass of pentobarbital. He may have been on the verge of drinking, or he may have simply been contemplating his version of Socrates’s hemlock, but whatever he was up to was interrupted by a hesitant but clear tap on the front door.
Of course, the easiest thing, if he was so determined to off himself, would have been to ignore the interruption and down the cocktail. But Sid was curious, and then surprised, when he peeked through the sidelight to see that it was Linda Ames’s son, Ethan.
“Just a second!” Sid hurried back to the coffee table, picked up the two glasses, walked into the kitchen, and dumped them into the sink. He still had the other vial.
A smile broke onto his face when he opened the door. He couldn’t help it.
“Ethan, my lad. What brings you here?”
After the overnight storm, the clouds were still heavy. The overcast muffled everything, and undulating shadows stretched across the snow in his front yard. Ethan’s breath came in short puffs.
“Mom says I’m not supposed to bother you, but I wanted to just say hi to the cats.” He pointed over at Sid’s Volkswagen, half buried in snow. Given Sid’s home confinement, Jonathan hadn’t bothered to shovel it out. “Plus, I could help with your car. Mom says you’re going to court soon.”
“Come on in.” Sid stepped back and opened the door. As Ethan entered, Sid added, “I have some leftover cupcakes. Do you prefer chocolate or yellow?”
“It’s only for a minute. Mom says—”
“Don’t worry about that.” Sid put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder and bent down, dropping his voice and speaking conspiratorially. “We don’t need to tell her about this. It can just be our little secret.”
PART FOUR
DISPOSITIONS
38
On the Saturday before jury selection in United States v. Cranmer, Chitra and Erik were in chambers banging out memos on late-filed pretrial motions. Chitra’s topic was a provision of the child pornography law that made an exception for materials, otherwise illegal, that had, in the words of the statute, “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Judge Norcross ha
d Chitra looking into whether Dodgson’s published photographs of children—ones that appeared in the academic biographies and articles found in Cranmer’s library—fell into this protected category, and, if they did, whether the government could put them into evidence anyway, not as proof of a crime but to show Cranmer’s so-called “criminal state of mind.”
Erik was bent over his desk in a jumbled nest of books, hammering away on an even thornier assignment: the wording of an instruction that would guide the jury in determining whether Cranmer’s pornographic stills and videos depicted real, or only virtual, children. Possession of the charged material was a crime only if the images featured actual, flesh-and-blood kids—not cyber creations—and advancing technology made it hard to tell the difference.
The lengthening winter had hit bottom, congealing into the shortest days of the year, with temperatures dropping below zero at night. By late afternoon, the weak January sun, reduced to an apricot smudge on the western horizon, barely penetrated the overcast. The atmosphere in the Norcross chambers was murky.
Chitra didn’t notice. The last-minute research was giving her an interesting slant on the whole area of child pornography law and a new opportunity to wrestle with Erik in their ongoing debate. Her co-clerk had been distant lately, which was making Chitra uncomfortable. A little argument would be both good fun and a chance to pry Erik out of his shell. She was standing in her usual position in his doorway, gesticulating as she spoke.
“The plain words of the literary escape hatch seem to cover Dodgson’s pictures, but that bothers me because …”
Erik gestured at Chitra with his coffee cup, not bothering to look up at her. His voice was flat. “Because they’re protected only because Dodgson took the pictures, right?” He glanced at her and quickly dropped his head, continuing to grind away on his own project. “You are so predictable, Chitra.”
They were in weekend attire. Chitra was wearing bleached jeans and a navy blue Yale jersey. Erik had on khakis and a plaid lumberjack shirt. Chitra’s thick black braid fell almost to her waist, brushing the small of her back as she lifted her chin to respond.
“Sorry, Erik, I am who I am.” Her voice was a little sharper than she intended. “And what I’m wondering—”
“You’re wondering why it’s the person who’s taken the pictures that protects them and not the content of the pictures themselves.” Erik set his coffee down, put his hands behind his head, and stretched. His face was unhappy, and he didn’t try to hide his impatience.
“Exactly,” Chitra said. “If someone enjoys drooling over dirty pictures taken by a famous writer or artist, then the pictures have literary merit, and he’s safe. But if the same photographs were taken by Joe Nobody, then we lock the drooler up for five years, minimum.”
Erik shrugged. “The law has boundaries, Chitra. A lot of the time, they’re arbitrary. Too bad for the porno fans.”
The new baby had to be wearing Erik out. His fatigue was making him short-tempered, and Chitra realized it was time for a tactical retreat. She stepped away from Erik’s door, then ducked her head back. “How’s little Miss Becky? How old is she now?”
“Four months and doing great.” Erik smiled, rallying a little. “Just a great little girl. Her brother and sisters adore her.”
“I keep asking you for pictures, but you don’t bring me any.” Erik had his head down, withdrawing. Chitra couldn’t resist the push to keep talking. “By the way, I may have to leave early. Tom’s coming out from Boston tonight.”
Erik looked up with a muted twinkle. “Things going well with that guy, eh?”
“Yes, I’m blessed that Tom is a sapiosexual.”
“What’s that?”
“A deviant who finds intelligence in women sexually attractive.”
“There’s more to you than gray matter, Chitra.”
Chitra rattled on. “I think our judge has the same proclivity. His professor girlfriend seems really smart.” Claire had dropped by the chambers during the week between Christmas and New Year’s to take the judge out to lunch, and he’d introduced her to the clerks. “I worry about him, though, with those two kids. What do you think it’s like, having them this long?”
“Hard. Extending their stay through the end of the school year must have been a wallop. You can see it in his face.”
“I still can’t figure out how that happened. Why are they still here?”
Erik tipped his cup up and finished his coffee. “Brother Ray supposedly had a relapse. Lucille tells me that the Christmas visit was”—Erik held up his fingers to make quotes—“‘too much’ for Ray.”
“How’d she find that out?”
“Lucille knows everything. She’s not sympathetic with old Ray, and neither am I. His job is to be a good dad, and he doesn’t seem in a hurry to do it.” Erik dropped his head and began writing something on his yellow pad to signal the end of the conversation. “Anyway, that’s the story.”
Back in her office, Chitra’s happy nature did not allow her to be oppressed by Erik’s mood for long. She was soon immersed in a brilliant opinion by Judge Jack Weinstein in the Eastern District of New York. Entitled United States v. R. V., it offered a comprehensive overview of the evolution of child pornography law. Chitra was surprised to learn that up until the 1880s, most state laws set the age of consent for girls at ten years. Images and accounts of adult-child sex were common throughout the nineteenth century. Even in the twenty-first century, the evidence that people who looked at child pornography presented a risk to actual children remained surprisingly thin. Some did, but most didn’t.
R. V. described how, in the 1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson’s Commission on Pornography recommended repeal of laws banning “obscene” material, child pornography became available in a few grubby, but not illegal, commercial outlets. Outrage at this eventually shut down the small network of bookstores and mail-order services that specialized in this material. By the early 1980s, the battle against child pornography was basically won. Then, the Internet hit.
Chitra was glued to the Weinstein opinion for most of an hour. When she heard Erik get up to hit the coffeepot in the copier room, she realized she was ready for her own refill.
As they bumped around in the cramped space, she started in. “Did you know that the child porn industry is almost entirely a product of the Internet?”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” Erik was bent over the minifridge, fishing out the cream. “Depressing if you think about it.” His coffee cup rested on a messy stack of old ABA journals, dangerously near his elbow. “Human beings invent painkilling drugs, which revolutionize medicine, and then immediately start sticking needles in themselves and ruining their lives. They invent the Internet, this glorious new way to communicate, and they bulldoze it full of manure. Makes you want to move to another planet.”
Chitra began, “But it’s—”
“Anyway, most of the time, the government is not going to go after people who just take a sip out of the cesspool.”
“That’s true, but it’s up to the prosecutors. If they want you, they’ve got you, or they’ve got your kid or your husband. Then it’s five years in prison, at least, and a lifetime registering as a sex offender. Is it really worth it?”
At this point, Erik flushed and took a deep, fed-up breath, as though he was about to yell. Chitra leaned back to tip away from the blow, but before Erik could speak, he bumped the stack of journals, and his coffee cup tumbled onto the floor.
“Dammit!”
“Oh dear,” Chitra said. “Here, let me help.” She began grabbing paper towels.
To her surprise, Erik spoke almost harshly. “Just leave it. Just leave it, okay?” He took the towels out of her hand, squatted, and began mopping up the floor. “Just let me handle this, will you, please?”
Chitra felt as though she’d been slapped. Watching him down on the floor, she tried to think of s
omething witty to say, but she came up dry. She wanted to retreat to her office, but Erik was blocking the doorway to the small room, finishing his cleanup.
Eventually, he stood and tossed the soggy wad of paper towels into the wastebasket. He put his hands on his forehead, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
“I should have shared something with you a while back, Chitra. But I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.” He looked down at the floor and then up at her. “Becky has Down syndrome.”
“Oh, Erik, I didn’t …”
“It’s okay. We love her like crazy. We’re not sorry, and we don’t want people thinking we’re sorry or feeling bad for us. She’s a sweet, cheerful little thing, and we love her.”
“Of course she is. Of course you …”
“But it’s been hard, naturally. It caught everybody by surprise a little.”
Chitra got up, came around her desk, and held out her arms.
“Is it okay? Would you mind?”
“Don’t overdo it.” He breathed in shakily as Chitra hugged him. It started out stiff, but after a few seconds, Erik put his arms around her and gave her a good squeeze in return. The top of her head came up to his third button. “Sorry I sort of lost it there.”
“You’re entitled. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I …”
“It’s just that she’s such a happy girl. Sleeps well. Makes no trouble. The easiest baby we’ve had. A gift from heaven.” His voice wavered. “But people in stores look at her, you know? And you can see in their faces what they’re thinking. Becky’s in for a rough time, and I won’t always be there to protect her. Sometimes it just kills me.”
The One-Eyed Judge Page 29
