Authors: Unknown
It occurred to him to speculate on what calumnies he might expect from his colleagues at the office when the bombshell burst. Pel Simmons had been genuinely concerned and more than fair in letting him take a leave of absence for the duration of the trial and with no disruption in the flow of his semimonthly paychcques. It was an indication of his faith and trust in Bill, a lovely way of saying, ‘I like you, I want. to keep you in my company.’ Of course, Pel wasn’t aware of anything beyond what he had read in the newspapers and what little information Bill had vouchsafed him, which was precious little.
Soon, Bill glumly reflected, there would be one hell of a jarring note, one diamond-bright cog in Pel Simmons’ quietly purring nondescript machine to fuck up the works. It would mean his job, ultimately. Not quickly - there’d be no pink slip stapled to the paycheque - it would take a year or so to phase him down and out. Don Goetz would move into his slot, reluctantly, of course, hating like hell to depose the master, flushed and angry at the injustice of it all, at the same time feeling the soft leather of the Eames recliner edging closer while his eyes sought the restful and mysterious silences of the Motherwell.
And that would be it. He’d be out! On the street! Pounding the pavement, avoiding dogshit. Thump! Thump! Thump! His heart was playing handball against bis chest. Pods of perspiration glistened on his forehead. Was he having a coronary? That would cap it. To drop dead, right here in the courtroom, in the presence of the nearly picked jury. He wouldn’t mind. It would help Velie’s case. Elicit sympathy. Guarantee a conviction. Put the prick away for the limit.
Bill studied Hoover through a haze of sweat droplets clinging to his eyelashes, rendering an image that was blurred, distorted, and malevolent. Like a jungle animal, the son of a bitch had padded into his life and had quietly devoured all he possessed and prized - family, career, the love and respect of his wife, all that really mattered.
He could feel the flexing of his skin at the corners of his mouth and knew he was smiling. It always happened when he hit bottom, when his depressions and despondencies became intolerable. It was then some inner survival mechanism switched on, and a smile came to the rescue. And with the smile, an accompanying thought: If I’m destroyed, so will you be, you bastard!
Scott Velie wheeled around to the bench.
‘This jury is acceptable to the State, Your Honour.’
‘Very well,’ Judge Langley said, keeping things moving. ‘The bailiff will swear in the jury.’
Janice saw Hoover look up from his pad and turn to the twelve men and women, who rose in a body and faced the bailiff at the far end of the courtroom.
Reading from a sheet of paper, and in a voice that was low and grave, the uniforped man tremulously intoned the prescribed litany.
‘Do you solemnly swear that you shall well and truly try and true deliverance make, between the people of the State of New York and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, according to the evidence and the laws of this State …’
Hoover’s face radiated purity and innocence as his. twelve peers, whose duty and responsibility it would be to decide the guilt or innocence of one Elliot Suggins Hoover ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’ of the charge of ‘feloniously, wilfully, and with malice aforethought’ kidnapping one Ivy Templeton, were sworn in.
Watching Hoover watching the jury, the bland exterior enveloped by a will of tempered steel, pursuing the ends of his own self-interests with no apparent care or awareness of the mischief and malice of his acts and no shred of concern for the irreparable harm he was doing them, Janice knew that with all of Velie’s confidence and Bill’s assurances, it would be Hoover’s single-minded obstinacy that would prevail in the end.
It was at this sepulchral moment that Janice knew they-would lose the case.
‘… So help you God?’ The bailiff looked up from his paper towards the jury.
The organlike chorus of ‘I do’s’ vibrated throughout the partially filled courtroom.
‘Be seated,’ Judge Langley instructed the jury and, turning to counsels’ tables, asked, ‘Are both sides ready to proceed?’
As Velie and Mack affirmed that they were, Judge Langley’s eyes flicked up at the wall clock. ‘It’s ten past eleven, Mr Velie,’ he said in an offering voice. ‘If you wish a continuance until after the lunch break before making your opening remarks’
‘Thank you, Your Honour,’ Velie interposed. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to conclude what few remarks I wish to make to the jury well before the noon break.’
‘Very well,’ Langley said, somewhat nettled. ‘Proceed.’
Scott Velie commenced his prepared speech as he sat, holding in abeyance his moment for rising, which was timed to occur at the delivery of a key sentence halfway into his brief statement. He began by swinging his chair around to the jury box and facing his twelve fellow citizens with an air of easy confidence. His voice was subdued, conversational, aimed at alleviating whatever tension might exist among them and putting them at their total ease.
‘You know, folks,’ he began, ‘there are few crimes committed today for no reason. Sometimes somebody’ll do something that’s against the law and either not know why he did it or be unable to distinguish between right and wrong. In many such cases those people are deemed by the law to be suffering from a mental disease and are often adjudged insane. But in the great majority of cases people commit crimes for a reason. And these reasons are many. Hatred, fear, jealousy, the desire to appropriate what doesn’t belong to them. You name it, the court records are full of reasons why people commit crimes.’
He hunkered forward, hands clasped, arms resting on knees, and went on, confidentially. ‘Now you know, there are reasons behind reasons for committing crimes. Take hatred. There are many reasons why people hate other people - and some of these reasons are strong enough to cause a man to rob, maim, batter, injure, and even kill another person. Sometimes these reasons behind the reasons are the only hope a man who is proved to have committed a crime has to keep out of jail. His lawyer will often build a defence based on this reason behind the reason and call it an extenuating circumstance. Now this is what I’m getting at and, please, listen to me good. In any crime, and especially a capital crime, there can be no reason behind the reason, no extenuating circumstance to absolve a man from accepting the full responsibility of his lawless act; there can be no reduction of his liability for that lawless act; there can be no condoning, forgiving, forgetting, and no acquitting him from paying the full legally prescribed penalty for his lawless act. Not in the name of extenuating circumstances, not in the name of mercy, mother, or God in heaven!’
On this dramatic note, Velie shot to his feet - a move so sudden and unexpected as to cause several jurors in the first row to flinch - and pointing a finger at the bench, he shouted, ‘Not in a court of law! Which is where you are sitting today! A court of law, ladies and gentlemen! Not a church, which is constituted to dispense God’s forgiveness. But a court of law, which is constituted to dispense man’s justice!’
Scott Velie’s eyes travelled slowly across the courtroom towards Elliot Hoover, sitting motionless beside his attorney.
‘Today, in this courtroom,’ the district attorney continued, ‘a man stands accused before us of a crime so heinous and offensive to society as to be, along with wilful and premeditated murder, categorized a capital crime. For there can be no more despicable act of lawlessness, outside of the taking of another human being’s life, than the taking of another human being’s child…’
There were several choice moments in Velie’s cracker-barrel sermon when Brice Mack might have objected, but he restrained himself. Juror Number Seven, Graser, Mack had noticed, seemed singularly unimpressed by Velie’s approach and, at one point, during his admonition that God’s forgiveness was to be found in church and not in court, even antagonistic. Juror Number Three, the carpenter and devout Catholic Mr Fitzgerald, wasn’t buying either. But Velie ploughed ahead, scourging the courtroom of God’s mercy and setting the stage. Mack realized, for the confrontation with the reincarnation issue, the mainstay in the defence’s case.
‘And we will further prove that it was a carefully considered and premeditated act. Through eyewitness testimony, we will demonstrate the care and planning that went into the engineering of this depraved and heartless crime. We will develop eyewitness testimony to show how many times Elliot Hoover lurked outside the child’s school, in disguise, stalking his victim; the number of times he visited the apartment house in which the child lived, for the purpose of casing it; how he ultimately moved into the apartment house to be in a better position to steal the child; how he consciously, knowingly, and intentionally created an incident, a diversion: a brutal attack on the child’s father which enabled him to gain access to the apartment and take the child; how he sneaked out the back door and secreted the child in his hideaway …’
Brice Mack glanced at the wall clock. Eleven twenty-five. Velie, he knew, would continue his harangue until just short of the noon hour, at which point he would wrap it up with a dramatic denunciation of his client’s execrable and depraved act and call for the full penalty allowable by law. Then, following the lunch break, some two hours in the future, the moment would finally arrive when the defence of Elliot Hoover would formally begin. When two months of hard, round-the-clock, frantic activity would all be risked on a single throw of the dice: proof of the existence of reincarnation.
‘… and for the damage he has done this family in his unwarranted attentions, leading up to the perpetration of - instead of ‘execrable’ and ‘depraved,’ as Brice Mack had predicted, Velie resorted to - ‘this degenerate and evil crime of kidnapping, and the incalculable damage he might have done to the child, the State demands that Elliot Hoover be found guilty of kidnapping in the first degree, and that the court assess upon him the maximum penalty allowable by law.’
The courtroom heaved a long and weary sigh as Scott Velie nodded to the bench that he was through. The time was eleven fifty-seven. Judge Langley rose.
‘We’ll take our noon recess now. Court will reconvene at one thirty.’
A murmuring hum accompanied jury and spectators to their respective exits.
Janice remained standing while Bill and Scott Velie exchanged friendly smiles topped off by supportive winks, expressions of confidence, as each knew the moment of truth was upon them. Janice saw Brice Mack speaking animatedly to Elliot Hoover, as they slowly gravitated towards the prisoner’s door in the company of the armed guard. They would all eat lunch now, Janice thought, partake of sustenance, renew their energies for the ordeal ahead. The condemned would eat a hearty meal. All of them.
*
It would be a four-martini lunch for Bill, Janice calculated, since he’d just finished his second, and they hadn’t ordered as yet. She, too, had relented on this day and was nursing a double J & B with water.
Pinetta’s was located in an alleyway just east of Foley Square, within easy walking distance of the Criminal Courts Building. Featuring a Tudor facade with South-of-France striped awnings, the restaurant was the happy marriage of two stores with upper lofts merged into a Dickensian fantasy. A collection of small panelled rooms, authentically furnished and decorated in the tradition of the Cheshire Cheese offered quasi-private dining-rooms on three levels. Staircases went up and down in the least expected places. A charming and totally unexpected treat to have discovered in this rather bleak and monotonous part of town.
Catering almost exclusively to a clientele made up of the more affluent members and guests of the Criminal Courts Building, it was possible, during ongoing cases, to reserve a luncheon table for the duration. Bill and Janice’s table was located on the second-floor balcony, not too noisy, and well serviced, but with one serious drawback. Below them, visible from every angle of their table, was Brice Mack’s long deal table, around which his ‘team’ gathered each day: five, sometimes six men of varying ages and social backgrounds eating, drinking, smoking, and jabbering their reports and opinions to the ‘boss,’ Brice Mack, who sat at the head of the table.
Twice Bill sought another table from the manager and twice was put off with the polite promise: ‘Soon there will be plenty of tables, sir. The case in Part Four goes to jury any day now.’ The ‘any day now’ stretched into three weeks.
A week before - it was a Monday, and Janice had skipped lunch to run some errands - Bill had invited Scott Velie to join him. Over tankards of beer and short ribs steeped in creamy horseradish sauce, Velie had identified each of Brice Mack’s cohorts for Bill and filled him in on their backgrounds.
‘The two young guys are lawyers doing research and general legwork in the courthouse. The dignified old duffer with the rimless glasses and the goatee is Willard Ahmanson, professor of religious studies ‘at NYU. The thin pimply guy is a legal secretary, name of Fred Hudson; he used to work as a court clerk. The old disreputable-looking character drinking whisky neats is an ex-cop named Brennigan.’ Velie smiled and winked. ‘Private eye.’ Then, after chewing a forkful of meat and washing it down with beer, he added, ‘They’re all on run-of-the-trial retainers, which, when added up, comes to quite a piece of change.’
‘Hoover’s got plenty.’
‘Really? Well, that’s not all he’s paying for. They’ve got a Hindu maharishi stashed away at the Waldorf. A man named Gupta Pradesh, reputed to be one of India’s leading yogis. Flew him in all the way from Calcutta.’
Swallowing the rich food, Bill had experienced a momentary nausea as the full breadth and scope of Hoover’s defence suddenly struck him. There were no lengths or extremes the son of a bitch wasn’t prepared to go to prove his fucking point.
Why is he paying a detective?’
‘To get a line on your daughter’s nightmares. Brennigan’s been nosing around Dr Kaplan’s office. With no luck, I’m pleased to say.’
Bill felt a quick surge of warmth for Kaplan and for all doctors in general. They were like priests. Tight-lipped. Under the Hippocratic Oath to betray no confidence.