The Defense: A Novel (11 page)

“Yes,” she said, still angry but now a little curious.

“Dr. Goldstein, according to your findings, the judge could have written the disputed note.”

“No.”

I took a yellow Post-it note out of my pants pocket and handed it to the well-dressed Hispanic juror.

“This note was handed to me by the prosecutor this morning. Please pass it around to your fellow jurors.”

YOUR CLIENT’S GOING DOWN. I’LL HAVE HIS BAIL REVOKED BY 5 P.M.

“The jury will see the ‘G’ at the beginning of ‘going’ is in fact the same letter that I’ve blown up here, in this poster. It’s the same method of construction used by the author of the disputed handwriting. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

“I already said it was similar.”

“On your evidence, the murder note could have been written by the defendant or the judge or the prosecutor?”

“No. You’re twisting everything.”

“Let’s allow the jury to look at the note. They can decide.”

The note passed around the jury. One by one they looked at the note. Looked at the blown-up “G” from “going” and looked at Miriam. The look was the same; Miriam was a kid with her hand in the candy jar. She put her head in her hands. The jury would think her presumptuous, cocky, not one of them.

“Let’s be clear about this, Doctor. Some graphologists say that a person who puts a pronounced tail on their letter ‘G’ has sexually deviant tendencies, but not all graphologists have the same opinion, right?” He thought I was throwing him a rope, and he grabbed it.

“That’s right.”

“Doctor, isn’t it correct that we construct letters of the alphabet according to how we were initially taught to write them, either at home or in school?”

“That’s a big factor, but not the only one. Some people alter their handwriting as they get older, but not substantially; I grant you that.”

“So, the nuns who taught me to write in Catholic school. If they put a tail on the letter ‘G’ when they wrote it up on the blackboard to allow me to copy it, that wouldn’t mean they were sexually deviant, now, would it?”

The members of the jury who wore crucifixes seemed to sit up a little straighter.

“No. It wouldn’t.”

“And it doesn’t mean that the judge or the prosecutor have deviant inclinations either, or indeed, whoever wrote on this one-ruble note. It’s more than likely to do with the way they were taught to write, and lots of perfectly normal people construct that letter in exactly the same way, correct?”

“You’re right.”

“It’s a fairly common way of constructing that letter?”

“Yes.”

“There’s maybe two hundred people in this court. How many would construct that letter of the alphabet in the same way? A quarter? A third of them?”

“A good many would construct it that way,” he said. He was backpedaling rapidly. His hands shook as he took a sip of water. I’d taken him to a place he really didn’t want to go, and Goldstein wanted to get out as quickly as possible and move on.

The jury finished handing around Miriam’s note, and the court officer handed it to the judge. If possible, she looked angrier with Miriam than with me. I’d almost finished with Goldstein; the lid was on the coffin, and I just had to nail it down.

“It’s impossible to tell if someone is sexually abnormal just from their handwriting, isn’t it?”

“I would have to say yes. On reflection, it’s impossible,” he said, quick to divorce himself finally from graphology. Unfortunately, that was the end for Dr. Goldstein.

“You now say it’s impossible, yet in the year 2000, you wrote a paper entitled,
Identifying Repeat Sexual Offenders through their Handwriting.
In this paper you say you can identify rapists, pedophiles, and deviants from nothing more than their tax returns. You did write this paper, didn’t you?” I held it aloft for the jury.

Goldstein stared straight ahead. His jaw and mouth worked soundlessly until he nodded.

“I take it that’s a ‘yes.’ So, Doctor, given that your sworn testimony today is that it’s impossible to identify sexual practices from handwriting, but in the year 2000, you wrote a paper claiming that not only can you identify sexual predators from their handwriting but that you can discern what kind of predator they are…” I paused. I hadn’t actually asked a question yet, but the pause served to let me look at the jury as if I were taking my question from them. “The question this jury will want an answer to is this: Doctor, were you lying in your paper in 2000, or are you lying now? Which is the lie?”

An unanswerable question is clearly the best kind. It didn’t matter what he said; no one would believe a word. Indeed, he said nothing. He simply hung his head. Two of the black women on the jury physically recoiled from Dr. Goldstein with a healthy look of disgust on their faces. The rest of the jury looked angry at the doc or just couldn’t look at him at all and stared at their shoes instead.

No re-examination from Miriam. Her note had given me the idea. The “G” in her note had been written in a similar way to the letter “G” that Goldstein focused on in his report, and it didn’t take long to find another similar letter in the trial bundle. Lucky it was from the judge. Doc Goldstein walked sheepishly from the witness stand to take his place at the back of the court.

“I can’t stand any more of this today,” said Judge Pike. The armed guard came back into court to escort the jury to their room before they left for the day.

“All rise,” said the security officer. Pike slammed the door of her chambers closed on her way out. The court began to empty. It was four thirty. Miriam went into a huddle with her team. The jacket felt heavy on my shoulders. I’d run my persuader as best I could; if it worked, then Volchek should have been dancing a jig. When my gaze fell across him, I saw him smiling, but Arturas, curiously, was not.

As the reporters rushed out, I saw one man standing against the exiting tide: Arnold Novoselic. He buttoned his coat and slipped along the benches as he made his way toward the prosecution table, his gaze permanently fixed upon me.

I shook my head, but his stare never faltered and his look seemed to be one of determination. At least I knew Arnold wasn’t just here to observe: He was batting for the prosecution.

Miriam ignored her team once she registered Arnold’s approach. She met him before he could reach her table, and they sat down on an empty bench together. I glanced at Volchek and saw that he’d remained seated with his arms folded. As I looked back at the benches, I saw both Miriam and Arnold turning their eyes away from me: Arnold had told Miriam about the bomb.

They got up together and made for the door. Miriam’s team saw their leader leaving and quickly packed away their files and followed her. Before Miriam reached the door, she turned back and looked at me with a puzzled expression. I thought that could only be bad news. After the pounding she’d just taken, she should’ve been looking at me like I’d just keyed her car. Averting her gaze, she scanned the emptying room, and her eyes found the three men in crisp suits whom I took to be feds. Arnold and Miriam waited at the door, and I saw Miriam introduce the jury consultant to the FBI before they left together.

I hung my head and swore under my breath. I’d run the perfect persuader and hopefully bought enough trust from the Bratva, but all that was about to change. From the look on Miriam’s face as she left the court, I knew I had a fifty-fifty chance of being arrested the second I stepped out of that courtroom and Amy wouldn’t live a moment longer.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I felt more and more uncomfortable as the courtroom emptied. The Russians didn’t move from their seats. Within a minute, I was alone with them in the courtroom.

“Victor, get the door,” said Volchek.

Big Victor looked like he could eat his way through any door. He had a huge set of shoulders and a neck like a Michelin tire. Victor put his hands on the rail as he got up, and I noticed that his knuckles were misshapen and scarred. His nose looked like it had been set improperly after a bad break, and I figured him for a fighter. I’d been the toughest kid on my block and quickly grew to be the best young boxing talent in Brooklyn. But when I started training in Mickey Hooley’s, I quickly realized I didn’t have what it took to be a pro fighter. I still liked the training, though. Until I was eighteen, if I wasn’t hustling in the street, I was in the gym, pounding the shit out of something. That was a long time ago, and even though I had a little talent, I didn’t rate my chances against Victor.

Victor walked slowly toward the exit. He put his wide back to the double doors, barring entry. It looked like we were going to have a little talk.

“I want to talk to my daughter,” I said.

“I will rape and kill your daughter if you ask that question again,” said Arturas.

I didn’t know what the hell had gotten into him. He should’ve been pleased things had gone so well. I shut up and silently vowed that if I got out of this, Arturas would suffer. Volchek, on the other hand, seemed much happier.

“You did well, lawyer. If you do as I ask, your daughter will be returned to you unharmed,” said Volchek, now trying to take up Arturas’s trademark smile.

“We’re not risking the security checks again. The courthouse stays open all night, and there are people all over the building for night court. You will stay in the little office upstairs. Don’t worry. Gregor will be back soon. You will have plenty of company. Victor and Arturas will also stay to keep an eye on you,” said Volchek.

I thought then that Gregor must have been the monster who put my lights out in the limo. When I’d woken up on the limo seats, he was gone.

I’d spent more than one night in this courtroom, and in hindsight, I regretted every single one of them.

Christine once told me that she felt alone in our marriage. In the last year of our relationship, I hadn’t actually slept in our house that often. Jack and I were killing ourselves to cover the courts twenty-four hours a day, and I’d missed my family. I had told myself I was doing it for them, so they could have a better life. But Christine and Amy really just wanted to see me. Even with all the extra work, the money still wasn’t coming in too fast. Christine asked me if I was really working or if I was having an affair. She didn’t really think I was having an affair; she was just angry. This wasn’t the kind of life she’d expected. In the aftermath of the Berkley case and my law license being suspended for six months, instead of staying home, I headed out to the bar and spent more time away from the people I loved the most. I came to realize that I didn’t want to face Christine and tell her that I’d thrown away all those nights spent in the Dracula Hotel; that I’d missed Amy’s school plays and sports days to duke it out in court with a judge; that I’d sacrificed our marriage for nothing. Up until last year, Christine and I’d had a pretty good marriage. We had a good house in Queens, a smart daughter, and even though I didn’t make that much money and worked impossible hours, we had been reasonably happy. Or so I had thought.

I’d met Christine in law school. I didn’t speak to her for the first month of school. I just couldn’t summon up the courage. There were plenty of pretty, rich girls in my class and not too many guys like me, who turned up to lectures with ripped jeans, oil on their T-shirt, and the stink of last night’s beer still on their breath. Back then I wasn’t a bad-looking guy, and I didn’t lack attention from the girls who wanted to slum it for a night. But I wanted Christine. We had met for the first time on the day after Saint Patrick’s. I stumbled out of Flannery’s at nine a.m., still drunk, and jumped in a cab to take me to class. Before the cabdriver took off, a girl opened the passenger door and hopped in beside me; it was Christine.

“You’re going my way, right?” she said.

“Right,” I said.

The cab pulled away, and she began stripping down to her underwear. She took off her top and her jeans and dumped them on the floor of the cab, reached into her bag, put on some deodorant and a fresh pair of pants and a top. She had been on an all-night drinking session, too. Throughout this performance, she didn’t say a word. The cabbie and I just stared, openmouthed. We pulled up outside the entrance to the law school, and she paid the fare, got out, tucked her long brown hair behind her ear, and said to me, “Sorry. Are you shocked?”

“No,” I replied. “I’m delighted.”

That was the start of it. We met again that same evening and fell in love over a pitcher of beer and a bucket of shrimp that I hadn’t paid for.

She was free. That was what I loved about her. I loved her even more after we got married and she gave me Amy to hold for the first time. Amy had the same free spirit as her mom.

I felt that vibration at the base of my spine again, the same vibration that I’d felt earlier in court, and I guessed that was Arturas deactivating the device.

“Do you know what pleased me most of all today?” said Volchek. “You didn’t flinch when you felt the bomb arming. I saw Arturas arm it. You understand what you have to do now to get your daughter and get out of this.” He gestured to the witness box. “If I gave you a chance at cross-examining Benny, what would you ask him?”

“I don’t know yet. The obvious questions spring to mind, that he’s trying to implicate you to save himself. That he made a deal with the prosecution to avoid a life sentence and that he’s no more credible than your average jailhouse snitch.” My train of thought led me into a question, something that had bothered me about this case since I’d first read about it in the paper. Volchek was on trial for a single murder, the murder of Mario Geraldo. Volchek was the head of a vast, multimillion-dollar criminal organization. If Benny got caught in the middle of a hit, why didn’t he make a good deal? Why didn’t he spill his guts to the FBI about Volchek’s entire operation and walk into witness protection instead of giving him up for one murder and having to do serious prison time when all of this was over?

“You see, the problem with attacking Little Benny because he’s a snitch is a little flawed because he only dropped the dime on you for this murder. He didn’t tell the feds about the rest of your operation. That gives him some credibility as a witness. He could have told them, couldn’t he?” I said.