The Laws of our Fathers (31 page)

    'Sometimes with these people -' Fred stops. 'With an offender sometimes -' He wipes his mouth with both fingers. 'An experienced officer, sometimes I think I know pretty well when someone's giving me a line.'

    'Yes?'

    'We don't always want to take them down to the Hall for the box.'

    'The lie box?'

    'Right. Here we couldn't. She's laying there with tubes coming out of everywhere.'

    'So what did you do, Officer?'

    'We tell them we're giving them a box, only we don't' 'You created that impression?' 'That's it.'

    'And how did you do that?' 'We put something on her head.' 'What?'

    'Something we borrowed from one of the nurses.' 'What?'

    'That strap-like, you know, for the heart test?'

    'EKG?' 'Right.'

    'And you put that around her head? So you could test what she was thinking?'

    Lubitsch doesn't answer. His eyes roll up to Hobie and fix him with a dark look meant for the street.

    'And was it just the pressure strap? Was that the entire apparatus?'

    'No. It had a piece of telephone cord attached.' 'Attached to what?' 'The thing on her head.' 'And what else?'

    'A machine.' Lubitsch looks hard at Hobie. Obviously there's no point. 'A copying machine.' 'A photocopying machine?' 'Right. We borrowed that from the nurses, too.' 'Then what did you do?' 'Asked a question.' 'And?'

    Lubitsch shrugs. 'Then we pressed a button on the machine.' 'For what?' 'The answer.'

    'You get the answer from the machine?'

    'That's what we say.'

    'Is that what you said to Bug?'

    'Right.'

    Hobie doesn't speak. Instead, he simply beckons for more with the back of his hand.

    'See, we put a piece of paper in the machine before we start. Okay? Then when we press the button, it comes out and we show it to her. Okay?'

    'And what was written on the piece of paper?'

    ' "She's lying." ' There is laughter, of course, a rippling chorus loudest from the jury box.

    'So you had this young woman sitting there with a rubber strap

    on her head and a piece of telephone wire that was attached to a Xerox machine, and then you pressed a button and it produced a piece of paper that said she's lying and you showed that to her, right?' 'Right.'

    'And she believed it?' 'Because she was lying.'

    Hobie looks to me, without even bothering to voice the objection. I strike Lubitsch's last answer and Hobie expels a magnificent sigh of disgust as he walks back to the defense table, winding his head. Cops.

    'Are we done?' I ask.

    Hobie argues vociferously that Lovinia's testimony has to be suppressed. He calls the police 'deceptive' and 'exploitative,' as if the Supreme Court hadn't long ago decided to tolerate such conduct in the name of effective law enforcement. When Molto comes to the podium to respond, I greet Tommy with a dour look. He was running changes on me this morning. One of the iron rules of my courtroom, especially for the prosecutors, is that you pay the price when you mess with the judge. The P As will run you over if you let them, and as a woman, I feel the need to be particularly firm. I'm frosty enough with Tommy to scare him. But I deny the motion in the end. No right of Nile's was violated by what the police did to Lovinia. Bug, especially as a juvenile, would have a pretty strong argument that the statements she made to Lubitsch and Wells can't be used against her. In fact, now that I think about it, I see how Hobie persuaded Bug - and her lawyer - that she could ignore Molto's threats to throw out Bug's deal if she came off her prior statements. Given this monkey business, there's no way Tommy could risk reprosecution, since Bug might walk completely. Hobie, the pro, does not miss a beat when I rule.

    'In the alternative, Your Honor,' he says, 'I'd like to make the officer's testimony part of my case. So I don't have to recall him.' Relieved, Molto ventures no objection, but says in that case

    he'd like to ask a few more questions of his own. He stands at the prosecution table.

    'Officer Lubitsch, after Ms Campbell admitted she was lying -'

    'Objection.
He
told her she was lying.'

    'Rephrase the question.'

    'After this mock-polygraph,' says Tommy, 'Ms Campbell made a statement, correct? And is it fully set forth in your report?'

    Lubitsch testifies that each of his reports is an accurate rendition of what Lovinia said.

    'And returning to September 12 in the hospital, did you ever tell Ms Campbell what Hardcore had previously told the police?'

    ‘I didn't know
what
Hardcore had said. It wasn't my case. Montague asked me to talk to Bug because I knew her. That's all. She told me a story, we did our lie-box thing, and she made her statement.'

    'You didn't tell her what Hardcore said?'

    'Nope. That's not my s.o.p.'

    Tommy nods. He's just made up a great deal of ground. Sorting through it all, the critical issue in evaluating Bug's testimony is whether what she said to the cops in the first place was true. I could believe she told them what they wanted to hear, not so much because she seems easily cowed - even at fifteen she isn't - but because she's clever enough to deal that way. But if Bug didn't know what Core had said, there' s only one way, realistically, her sworn statements to Lubitsch could match Hardcore's version of events: because that's what happened out on the street. At least, that's the way I add it up. Tommy does, too. He's gone back to his seat with an unbecoming little swagger, enjoying the fact that he's finally put Hobie in his place.

    In his chair, Hobie again is taking his time, his lips gummed over each other, staring at Lubitsch once more, puzzling something through.

    'Officer, did you figure on testifying in this trial?' he asks suddenly.

    'Huh?' answers Lubitsch.

    'Did you have it in mind as this trial was coming up that you'd end up as a witness?'

    'I don't know. I thought I might.'

    'You did?' Hobie pushes through the mess of papers on the table. 'You weren't on the state's witness list.'

    Lubitsch has an uncomfortable moment. His eyes briefly close, lizardlike.

    'I saw Montague at Area 7 last week. He said the witness might be doing a spin, and if she did, I was going to have to come stand behind my paper.'

    'Just a warning.'

    'That's all.'

    'You didn't go review your reports at that point?'

    'No. I kind of live a day at a time, counsel. I woulda thought she was too smart to flip, but you live and learn.' That's meant as a jibe. He's clearly had an earful about how Hobie led the girl astray.

    'And how did you find out you were going to have to come testify today?'

    'When I come on the job at eight, at roll call, I got a message: phone Montague.'

    'You didn't spend the day yesterday getting ready to testify?'

    'I'm off Wednesdays. I was putting up sheetrock, if you want to know.'

    'And when you reached Montague today, did he explain why you were gonna be needed in court this morning?'

    ‘I don't know,' says Lubitsch, vamping. 'Sort of.'

    'Sort of,' says Hobie. 'Well, at some point today did someone - Molto, Montague, Mr Singh - did one of them explain that Lovinia had testified that in persuading her to change her story, you'd told her what Hardcore had to say?'

    'I heard that.'

    'And you realized, didn't you, that it would help the state if you could testify that didn't happen?' 'Nobody told me what to say.'

    'I understand, Officer. But you've been around a lot of trials, haven't you? And you recognize the significance of your testimony that you didn't tell Bug, don't you?'

    Lubitsch's eyes cheat just a trifle in my direction. I get the feeling that in somebody else's courtroom Fred might try a line, a dodge.

    ‘I have the picture generally.'

    'Now, Officer, I want to hand you a copy of your report of September 12, marked as Defendant's Exhibit 1, and I'm gonna ask you to read out loud the part where it says you didn't tell Lovinia Campbell what Hardcore had said.'

    Lubitsch sits a minute, staring outward. He has that look again: stop fucking with me. He bothers only with a bare glance at the report, which Hobie has laid on the rail of the witness box. He does not even touch it.

    'It's not there.'