by Wick Downing
Grandfather looked terribly frail as he struggled to get out of his chair. I felt awful—for him, for Mr. Alvarez, and for the whole Alvarez family—as I watched him feel his way up to the lectern and take it with both hands and then hold on as though he had to, to keep from falling down.
What could he do?
Chapter Eighteen
GRANDFATHER SEEMED CONFUSED, standing at the lectern, not sure of where he was. Some of the jurors looked concerned, but Mrs. Able had a comfortable smile on her face. “Have we met, Mrs. Able?” Grandfather asked her.
“No, Mr. Hope.”
“Well, your voice sounds familiar, but voices are like faces and sometimes I can’t tell them apart.” Both Manuel and I were ready to jump up and help him if he started to fall. “Your Honor, can I talk to my associate a moment? We can do it right here if it’s all right.”
“Of course.”
I got up quickly and put my hands on his thin old arms. “How do you feel, Grandfather?” I whispered, very low so no one could hear me.
“Never felt better,” he said very softly into my ear. “I need to know what that Able woman feels right now. Is her guard up?”
“No,” I whispered as I tried not to show my surprise. “She thinks you’re a pathetic old man.”
He managed a feeble nod. “Go back to your chair and look like you’re afraid I’ll have a stroke. Go on, now.” As I started to leave, he kind of lost his grip on the lectern and almost fell, but caught himself.
“Mrs. Able, you still there?” he asked in a voice so weak and old you had to lean forward to hear it.
“I haven’t moved,” she said.
“Did I hear you right? You said your husband fired my client that day—let’s see . . . right before Christmas, wasn’t it? Then Mr. Alvarez drove off and came back. Was he still drunk?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I was afraid he’d crash that old pickup truck he drives into our building.”
“But he parked it, and you watched him go in the garage or somewhere, and come out with tools in his hands?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In a hurry, was he? Or did he have all day?”
“He certainly didn’t act like someone who had all day.”
“Well, what did he do with all those things in his hands?”
“He tossed them in his truck.”
“In the back of the truck, or in the cab, or just where was it that he tossed them?” Grandfather asked.
“I’m not sure, actually,” she said. “I was so frightened. The bed? I think he just tossed them in the bed.”
Grandfather slumped forward with what looked like despair. “That’s in the back of the truck, isn’t it? Not in the cab?”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. Didn’t he take the time to hide them in the cab?”
“He did not,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “He just threw them into the bed of his pickup truck, staggered into the cab, and drove away.”
The jurors looked interested again. All of them had questions on their faces, and Grandfather acted like he was very discouraged by everything she said. “Mrs. Able, you do the accounts and keep the records for the business?” he asked, as though all was lost.
“Yes, sir.”
“When someone works for you and your husband, you must keep a record of it, then. Is that right?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Mr. Applewhite said. “Relevance.”
“I intend to tie this up,” Grandfather said.
“On that basis, I’ll allow you to continue,” the judge said. “You may answer the question, Mrs. Able.”
“We keep careful records, Mr. Hope,” she said, but it seemed to me that her antennae had poked up. “For tax purposes.”
“You filed taxes for your business last year, then?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. Her eyes had narrowed a little tiny bit, with suspicion.
“Your records show that you paid a man by the name of Juan Lucero for some work, don’t they?”
I felt a little prickle, as if the tip of a feather was working its way up my spine. “I’m not sure,” Mrs. Able said, looking troubled.
“Mrs. Able,” Grandfather rasped out, dropping his act. His voice all at once got strong, like the jaws of a steel trap. “Isn’t it a fact that Manuel Alvarez and Juan Lucero put tile down in a patio in your building on December twenty-third of last year?”
She frowned, as though doing her best to remember, but her breathing was jerky. “Juan may have done something for us that day, but Manuel was far too drunk to have done anything.”
“You know who Juan Lucero is, I take it, don’t you?”
“I . . . No. I’ve never met him.”
“Your husband has, though, hasn’t he? In fact, he hired Mr. Lucero to work for you. Correct?”
“I don’t really know, sir. I’d have to look at my records.”
“There is a patio in your building, and Juan Lucero laid tile in it last December, and you paid him for it. Can we go that far?”
She smiled like she wanted to be helpful but couldn’t be just then. “I can’t be certain without going through my records.”
The jury didn’t know what was going on, but they sensed something was happening because of the way the judge and the prosecutor were glaring at her. “You knew Mr. Lucero was a Mexican without a work permit, what they call an illegal alien, didn’t you?” the old man asked.
“I knew nothing of the sort!”
“It was your husband who knew that?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Grandfather nodded as though to thank her for the information. “Now, Mr. Alvarez claims you and your husband owe him some money, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does, but I can assure you that we don’t. Although perhaps that’s why he stole those tools, sort of to pay himself back.”
“He has sued you for over a thousand dollars, hasn’t he?”
“Something outrageous,” she said.
“Of course, you and your husband both know Mr. Alvarez isn’t a United States citizen and that he needs a work permit to remain here. Right?”
“Yes. It was quite legal to hire him, which we did to help him.”
“You also know what will happen if he’s convicted of theft?”
Mr. Applewhite started to object but changed his mind. “I . . . well, not really,” Mrs. Able said.
“He’d be deported,” Grandfather told her. “He’d have to go back to Mexico. If that happened, there wouldn’t be any way for him to collect the money he says you owe him. Didn’t you and your husband know that?”
“I certainly didn’t,” she said.
“One last question, Mrs. Able. Would you mind bringing your tax records for last year to court so we can clear up just exactly when it was that Juan Lucero did that work for you?”
“Yes, I’d mind!” she said in a huff, and looked at the prosecutor for help. But the expression on his face was not friendly.
Judge Merrill glared at the clock on the wall. “It’s early, but we need a recess,” he said to the jury. “I’m going to excuse you now, ladies and gentlemen, but you are to return at one o’clock. You are not to talk about the case to anyone, including each other. Do any of you have any questions about what I’ve just said?”
The jurors shook their heads in a whole bunch of no’s and got up to leave. Mrs. Able stood up too.
“Please remain seated, Mrs. Able,” the judge said to her. As soon as the jurors were gone, he frowned down on her from the bench. It made her squirm. “Mrs. Able, I am ordering you to bring last year’s income tax records with you this afternoon at one o’clock,” he said, “as well as any other record that might indicate whether or not Juan Lucero worked for you last year.”
“My goodness,” she said innocently. “Whatever for?”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes, but am I on trial here? I thought, well, it’s him, isn’t it?”
&nbs
p; “You are excused until one o’clock,” the judge said to her, and stood up. “We are in recess.”
Mr. Applewhite jumped up too. He started to say something to my grandfather, then changed his mind. “We must look into this,” he said to Bosse as they grabbed their briefcases and ran off.
The old judge started to wilt for real this time. Manuel saw it too and we helped him into a chair. “That was so wonderful,” I said as tears came into my eyes. I hated that, because I didn’t feel at all like crying.
“I caught her in a lie,” he said gruffly. “Manuel, this thing could be over very soon. Can you be at my office at twelve thirty?”
“Sí” he said, staring at the old man with something like wonder.
“Go eat, then.”
I looked behind me to see if Ron Benson was still there. He hadn’t moved, and his smirk hadn’t changed either.
“Kate, I need to sit a few minutes before we go back to the office,” Grandfather mumbled at me. Then, just like that, he fell asleep.
It happened so quickly that it looked like he’d died. Ron jumped up and kind of rode to my rescue. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked, looming over me like The Hulk. “Should I call a doctor?”
I thought it was nice of Ron to care about the old man. “No, he’s okay,” I said. “Just taking a nap. Nothing to worry about.”
“What just happened in your case?” Ron asked me. “Why is the judge being so hard on Mrs. Able? I don’t get it.”
“She’s a liar,” I told him. “Their whole case is a lie,” I said, leaning hard on the word lie. “My grandfather just caught her in their big, fat lie, and the judge wants her to bring records to court, which will prove it.” I watched his face for a reaction. “You don’t want to underestimate my grandfather, Ron. He’s very good at catching people in lies.”
Ron smiled at me. “I can tell he likes hardball,” he said. “Well, you know something? So do I. But I’m more basic about it than he is.” I waited for the punchline. “He plays with words, but I tend to get physical.”
“Are you threatening me again?” I asked him.
He showed me the palms of his hands and his smile got even wider. “You’re way too sensitive, Kate. I just like to play hardball.”
Then he walked out of the courtroom, leaving me alone with my tired, but wonderful, old grandfather.
Chapter Nineteen
WHEN GRANDFATHER WOKE UP, he sat very still for a moment. “Kate?” he asked, as though trying to discover where he was.
“I’m right here, Grandfather,” I said. “Who did you expect?”
“Well now, young lady, at my age I never know what to expect when I wake up. Might have died and gone to heaven.” He struggled out of his chair. “We’d better get back to the office. Bring my briefcase if you will, but leave the spittoon.”
“Thank you, God,” I said.
“I did good work today,” he said as he struggled down the courthouse steps. “Trial work can fill a lawyer’s soul with fine music, which you’ll find out one of these days. But you have to know the tricks.”
“I hate it when you tell me that the law is just a bag of tricks! Isn’t there justice? Isn’t that what lawyers do? You’re turning me into a real cynic, Grandfather. Stop it.”
He laughed. “A little cynicism don’t hurt when it comes to practicing law. But trial work isn’t all tricks, Kate,” he said, as his tired old legs tried to keep up with his spirits. “It takes a special kind of awareness to be a good trial lawyer, and you have it, Kate darlin’—at least, I think you do. So did your father, and so do I.” Then he told me how a trial lawyer has to “get to where he feels the jury,” because the jurors will watch every move he makes, even during recesses. “They want to know if they can trust him or her, if the lawyer truly believes in the case. So you must always act with total, sincere conviction in the righteousness of your cause, even when you know your client’s a liar.”
“In other words, a good lawyer is a hypocrite?” I asked.
“It’s called effective advocacy,” he said. “Mind games, your father called them. He was the best. Don’t object to questions when the answers don’t hurt you, for example. It helps if the other side thinks you’re a dunce. Truth is, some of the mothers on the jury may even want to help you.”
“Grandfather!” I said. “That’s totally sexist!”
“Well, I don’t care if it is.”
He told me I’d have to learn how to set up a witness, like he’d done with Mrs. Able. Once she thought he was in a daze, she’d dropped her guard. Bosse was kind of a smart aleck too, and he’d enjoyed punching a hole in that big balloon of an ego the man had.
A CLOSED sign hung on the door of the office, because the lawyers were in trial, but Mrs. Roulette was there, typing letters and straightening out files. Grandfather was still hyper-full of the “good work” he’d done that day, and Mrs. Roulette had to listen to him too as he told us about the wizardry and magic that lawyers all over the nation generated on a daily basis, even though few people would ever appreciate their artistry—until she told him she’d heard it before and to leave her alone, because she had work to do. So he dragged me into his office, sat in his chair, and pulled out a plug of tobacco. I reminded him just in time that his cuspidor was still at the courthouse. “So it is,” he said, putting the plug away.
“That phone should ring soon,” he said, propping his feet on his desk. I hated him for doing that—if he tipped over backward and smashed into the floor, he’d shatter like a glass jar. But I couldn’t stop him. “I offered to plead Manuel to drunk driving,” he said. “Reggie might wish now he’d taken it. Why don’t that telephone ring?”
It did, just as my stomach growled like a grizzly bear. I was starved, but watched him yank the telephone out of its cradle. “Hello! . . . Reggie? . . . You don’t say! . . . Well, if you were to call the Immigration Service, I expect they’d tell you who tipped them off . . . No, Reggie, it’s too late for that . . .
“You’ll dismiss anyway?” He raised a fist in the air in a victory salute. “Let’s do this. I don’t need to be in court when you dismiss it, and neither does my client. You go ahead and do it without us there. Then you can explain it to the jury any way you want . . . Good luck to you too, Reggie.” He hung up.
“What happened?” I asked.
The old man had a great big wonderful smile that stretched from ear to ear. “The Ables got themselves a lawyer, who called Reggie and told him he don’t have a case now. They won’t testify. They’ll take the Fifth! They’ll refuse to answer any further questions on the grounds that it could incriminate them.”
“What crime did the Ables commit?”
“Perjury, among others. They are the ones who are in trouble now, and it’s serious. They lied to the police. Then they came into Judge Merrill’s court and lied some more!”
“You knew it all along, didn’t you?” I asked him.
“Course I did. But knowing it doesn’t do any good if you can’t prove it. The worst thing in the world for a lawyer is to know his client is innocent when he can’t prove it. When all he can do is sit there and watch him get convicted anyway.
“Well, today I stopped that from happening! I made the right guesses, which you have to do when you try a case. So you see, it isn’t all tricks, Kate.” His face radiated with a huge grin. “A whole lot of it is pure luck!”
How wonderful, I thought. “Justice” isn’t all tricks. A whole lot of it is pure luck. “What guesses?” I asked him.
“I guessed when we first got this case what the Ables were up to. They owed Manuel a thousand dollars, so they cooked up a scheme to beat him out of it. If he was deported, there wouldn’t be any way for him to get paid. So they got him drunk and stuffed those tools in his truck and framed that theft charge on him. But when Juan Lucero showed up on our witness list, they knew they were in trouble. I thought it was Reggie who had Juan deported, but it was Able.”
There was a knock on the door. “Seño
r Hope?”
“Manuel!” Grandfather called out. “Come in. Sit!”
“Judge, I’m starved,” I said, thinking of the great roast beef sandwich with Swiss cheese and mustard that Mom had put in my pack.
“You go right ahead, young woman. Would you mind stopping by the courthouse and fetching my spittoon?”
I didn’t want to eat alone, and hadn’t seen Mike since Sunday, when he ran away from me after getting beaten up by Ron Benson. Would he have lunch with me now? The truth was, I missed him and wanted to see him, and I was fully prepared to part with half my sandwich. I called him from Mrs. Roulette’s phone.
But his mom answered, and told me he and Sally Lipscombe were hanging out at Aylard’s Drugstore. Knowing he was with Sally didn’t exactly make me cheerful, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin my lunch. I had a picnic by myself, in the park across from the courthouse, and tried to focus my mind on Herman and Miss Willow and everything that needed to be done to get that case ready for trial. I needed to find Spencer Phipps and talk to him. What had he seen? All I knew was that he thought the police reports were wrong and that Herman had been a hero. And what about Tomato Face and his buddy, who’d knocked Miss Willow down? I needed to talk to them, too. Would Willis Suggs know them?
It was hard not to think about Sally Lipscombe and all her ploys. She wanted Mike for her boyfriend, but I needed him for his skill. He was my investigator, working on a case. I finished the sandwich, then walked to the courthouse for Grandfather’s cuspidor.
The CLOSED sign was still in the window, but Mr. Alvarez and Mrs. Roulette had gone. I took that smelly old spittoon into Grandfather’s office where he sat behind his desk, yelling at some poor lawyer on the other end of the line. Mike and Sally were probably kissing by this time, I thought, and planning their elopement. I sat down and waited for Grandfather to hang up so I could tell him I wanted the rest of the day off.
“Are you here, Kate?” he asked as he put the phone in its cradle.
“Sort of,” I told him, feeling lonely even though I was with someone.
“Tell me what you learned today.”
