Corrupt Practices (7 page)

“What reasons?”

“That’s personal and confidential. They have nothing to do with this.” No matter how much I plead or cajole or point out that he
looks
like a drug user, he won’t budge.

I glance around the courtroom. To my dismay, it’s filling up. The Church of the Sanctified Assembly has been so high profile recently—only last month it ensnared a Hall of Fame ex-NBA player and a Grammy-winning songwriter in its ever-widening net—that the news media is interested in anything it does. Deanna, the only person I do want to see, hasn’t arrived yet.

United States Attorney Neil Latham and his young assistant walk into the courtroom and take their places at the counsel table. Latham is powerful, pompous, and on the fastest of career tracks—Princeton undergrad, Harvard Law School, editor of the Law Review, president of the National Black Law Students Association, a top partner in a large international firm before becoming US Attorney. At forty, he’s one of the youngest US Attorneys in the country. He’ll be a federal judge someday, but his aspirations go much higher than just the district court.

I can hear the courtroom filling up, can actually
feel
the spectators approach like the advance guard of an invading army. Where’s Deanna? I don’t dare look back. When fear is rational—in the heat of war or in the throes of a natural disaster—the presence of others is comforting, a way to diffuse the cruel force of uncertainty. But with a phobia like mine—an irrational fear of something with no true inherent threat—the presence of others is incendiary.

The hearing was set to start at 1:30, and it’s already ten minutes after that. The marshals should have brought Rich into the courtroom twenty minutes ago. Maybe there’s a holdup over clothing. Neither of us wanted him to come into court in a jail jumpsuit, so I arranged to have a suit and tie delivered to the detention center. Proper attire has always been important to Rich. He insisted on a charcoal blue suit and a blue tie. He says a blue tie signifies honesty.

I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Sorry I’m late,” Deanna says.

She’s dressed in her black T-shirt and pants and still has the piercings in place. The tattoos on her arms are visible. I didn’t expect her to wear a business suit, but this is unacceptable. Only when I see her expression of remorse for her tardiness do I understand—no matter what I’ve told her about my stage fright, she doesn’t get it. She still thinks it’ll be like before, that I’m still me, that all she’ll have to do is stay quiet and enjoy my performance. She sits down directly behind me on a long bench where young associates and paralegals usually sit so they can whisper in lead counsel’s ear.

“Where’s Rich?” she says.

“They haven’t brought him in. Probably just a glitch in logistics.”

“All rise,” the clerk cries out, and I stand up herky-jerky on shaky legs.

Our judge, the Honorable Cyrus Walker Harvey, is a crusty old-timer. He’s in his late seventies, but with his bald dome, pasty skin mottled with liver spots, and triple-chin, he looks older. He’s a loose cannon who’s been known to shout down lawyers he doesn’t like. He could have gone senior years ago—meaning a reduced workload at full salary—but he stubbornly remains on active status with a full slate of cases. The good news is that he doesn’t trust the US government.

The clerk says, “Criminal Case 2011-455-A, United States of America v. Richard Elton Baxter. Will counsel please note their appearances for the record?”

“Good afternoon, Your Honor. Neil Latham for the United States.”

“Parker Stern for the defendant.” I can barely hear my own voice.

The judge raises his hand to his ear. “Speak up, counsel.”

“Parker Stern for the defendant!” It’s a crackly shout. I hear a few titters behind me and feel my cheeks flush. I sense Latham’s eyes on me.

The judge raises his eyebrows over his half-size reading glasses. With many other lawyers, Cyrus Harvey’s short fuse would have ignited after this misstep, but he’s cutting me some slack. “We’re here for the arraignment hearing on the indictment. Is the defendant present in court?”

I look at Latham, who looks at me. I want to tell the judge that I don’t know where my client is, but I’m paralyzed, so I shake my head.

The judge squints at me. “Mr. Stern, does the defendant waive the right to be present?”

“He does not,” I say, and then force out the words, “Your Honor.” They come out as an afterthought, which makes me sound disrespectful.

The judge scowls at me, and I don’t know if it’s because he thinks I’m being sarcastic or because he believes that Rich and I are playing some sort of game.

“Where is the defendant?” the judge asks.

It’s really a question he should ask the marshal. I feel the perspiration on my chest and underarms seeping through my cotton dress shirt. I stand mute for five, ten, thirty seconds, wanting to tell the judge that I have no idea where Rich is, but the words are irretrievable, mired in mental quicksand.

There’s a rustle from behind me, and Deanna says, “Your Honor, we expected our client Mr. Baxter to be here. Is there a way to check on his status at the jail?”

Judge Harvey’s eyes expand, twin moons half-covered in fog. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my courtroom looking like that?”

I want to step in and take over, I really do, but the part of my brain that controls the power of speech is frozen.

Deanna straightens up to her full five feet three inches and juts out her jaw. “I’m Deanna Poulos, Your Honor. Cocounsel for defendant Richard Baxter. And I’m respectfully asking the Court to inquire about his whereabouts, unless the US Attorney knows where he is.”

The judge frowns. Deanna speaks with so much authority that he accepts her, at least for the moment. “Well, Mr. Latham?” he says.

“I do not know where the defendant is, Your Honor,” Latham says.

The judge raises an index finger and then huddles with his clerk, who picks up the telephone and dials a number. The courtroom falls silent as we wait; they should have a law school class that just teaches you how to wait.

While the clerk is still on hold, a marshal bursts into the courtroom. “My apologies, Your Honor.” Without waiting for permission, she approaches the bench and whispers something to the judge.

Judge Harvey taps his fingers on the bench three times but otherwise seems impassive. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to take a short recess because of a procedural matter. I’ll see counsel in the United States v. Baxter case in chambers.”

The judge goes through the private door into his office, while Latham and I follow the marshal through another door that leads into a hallway, and then to an anteroom where the judge’s secretary sits. She shows us inside. Judge Harvey has already taken off his robe. He sits behind his desk in shirt sleeves. From up-close, his eyes are rheumy and red.

“Sit down, gentlemen,” he says.

We sit. He takes out a cloth handkerchief and wipes his brow, which doesn’t seem damp, and I wonder if it’s a sympathetic reaction to the sweat that’s undoubtedly glistening on my own forehead.

“I just received some startling news from the detention center,” the judge says, blinking his eyes. “They tell me that the defendant Richard Baxter has committed suicide.”

It’s been three weeks since Rich died, and I still see his eyes swimming in their hollow sockets, hear him insisting that he was framed and pleading with me to get him out before his son’s birthday.

Shortly before he was to be transported to the federal courthouse for the arraignment hearing, he was found hanging in an empty holding cell. The blue silk tie that I’d picked out for him had been fashioned into a noose and looped around a low-hanging fire sprinkler. Jail administrators believe that the pipe held only because of his light weight. They cite Rich’s despondency over his drug use and his fall from grace as contributing factors. The other inmates in the vicinity claim to have seen nothing.

I didn’t attend his funeral because there wasn’t one. The teachings of the Church of the Sanctified Assembly forbid a funeral for a person who commits suicide. The bodies of suicides must be cremated without delay and without memorial. Assembly dogma teaches that the nuclei of cells of a suicide are physically corrupted and that this contamination can be transmitted from person to person like an infectious disease.

Although I have no proof, I have doubts about whether Rich killed himself. First of all, I can’t see how he could have looped the tie around that pipe, much less crawled up on the ledge. And then there’s the way he talked about his wife and young son. He loved both of them so much that he actually fooled himself into thinking that he could get out on bail in a matter of days in time for his son’s birthday, despite the cash and the false passport.

Another question nags at me. If Rich was murdered, would that mean that there was something to his and Layla’s belief that Harmon Cherry had been murdered, too? During the past three weeks, I’ve talked to federal jail authorities and law enforcement officials, who’ve dismissed my concerns.

“Suicides in a federal jail are rare, but staged suicides are unheard-of,” one cop told me. “He was a meth user who just a few weeks earlier was worth millions. He was going to spend years in prison. The only mistake was that he should have been on suicide watch.”

On this night, Manny, Deanna, and I are sitting at a corner table at The Barrista. A rowdy crowd is here, but I try to shut out their raucous laughter and harsh shrieks and focus on my colleagues. It doesn’t work. On an ordinary night, the three of us can seamlessly talk about our lives and squabble about politics and dissect the strengths and weaknesses of our favorite sports teams. Tonight, we sit in virtual silence and stare at each other like strangers.

Finally, Deanna says, “This is bullshit.” She stands up and pushes her way through the crowd toward the kitchen. She quickly returns, her hand hidden beneath her apron. When she sits down, she leans in confidentially, at the same time pulling out a bottle of Hennessy cognac. “If anyone reports this to the alcohol beverage control police, I’m fucked.”

Manny, the collector of fine wines, leans in and checks the label. “VSOP. Very nice.”

She discreetly pours a generous amount of cognac into each of our coffee cups and hides the bottle under the table. She holds up her cardboard cup. “To Rich Baxter’s memory. May he rest . . . may he rest wherever Sanctified Assembly followers rest.”

We touch our cardboard cups together. When I swallow the liquid, the alcohol singes the back of my tongue; then the heat dissipates, radiating a mellow warmth throughout my body.

Manny takes a sip and makes a face. “Hennessy mixed with tepid cappuccino. You’ve defiled an elegant brandy.”

Deanna reaches down, takes the bottle, and pours more into his cup. “Here, Manny. Drown your sorrows.” I extend my cup toward her. She refills it and replenishes her own.

And still, there’s an awkward silence.

“Why’s it so hard to talk about him?” Deanna says.

“Because it’s horrific,” Manny says. “So sad. The man was only thirty-eight years old, with a wife and small child. It was such a waste.”

“I look at it another way,” Deanna says. “I think we can’t talk about this because the act of suicide is so accessible, because it’s so human. No other species does it. Not really. And there’s a perfect logic to it—what better way to end pain? And it works for the atheist and the true believer. For the atheist, the nothingness of death ends pain. For the believer, the afterlife does, unless you believe that suicide’s a sin, that there’s a hell, which I don’t. Sometimes I feel like there’s something captivating about the whole idea, like Romeo and Juliet, or Mark Rothko, or—”

Manny visibly shudders. “My God, Deanna. Don’t talk like that. We’ve had enough with . . .”

I don’t know whether Deanna is just being provocative or really means it, but I reach out and take her hand, a rare display of affection outside the confines of our sporadic trysts. She rolls her eyes and pulls away.

I take a swig of cognac. “I’m beginning to truly believe he was murdered. I think someone strung him up to a water pipe. Nothing captivating about that.”

Deanna and Manny catch each other’s eyes. She reaches for the Hennessy bottle and splashes another shot in each of our cups. Eventually, the power of the alcohol and just being in each other’s presence impels us to begin sharing stories about Rich, some of them not so kind.

“Remember when I tried to fix him up with that college friend of mine?” Deanna says. “He was so shy with girls she told me he didn’t say more than two words at dinner . . . until he started talking about banking law and wouldn’t shut up. My poor friend ran an art gallery in Santa Monica. Finance was the last thing she wanted to talk about. They didn’t go out again.”

“He used to ask me for dating advice,” Manny says. “What the hell did I know about dating? I’ve been married forever.” Manny wed his college sweetheart when he was twenty-one, a youthful romance that’s worked. Now, at thirty-eight, he has three sons.

“I still say that the weirdest thing was him and Grace lasting so long,” Deanna says.