Innocent

CHAPTER 40

Nat, June 26, 2009 Something is wrong. When I arrive at the Sterns' offices on Friday morning, my dad is in a do not disturb conference with Marta and Sandy in Stern's office. After I spend forty-five minutes in the reception area among the steakhouse furnishings, Sandy's assistant emerges to suggest I go over to the courthouse, where the defense team will join me shortly.

When I get there, the PAs have not arrived either. I send a text to Anna from my seat in the front row: "Something is wrong. Sandy sicker????? Very mysterious."

Marta finally comes in but bustles straight through the courtroom to go back to Judge Yee's chambers. When she reemerges, she stops with me for just a second.

"We're talking to the prosecutors down the hall," she says.

"What's up?"

Her expression is too confused to connote anything very clear.

A few minutes later, Judge Yee peeks into the courtroom to check on things. Without his robe on, he's like a child at the door, hoping not to be observed, and when he catches sight of me, he motions me in his direction.

"Coffee?" he asks when I arrive in the rear corridor.

"Sure," I say.

We go back to the chambers, where I spend a few moments inspecting the framed sheet music on the walls. One, I realize, is signed by Vivaldi.

"We gotta wait for these guys," the judge tells me without further explanation. I am locked in witness land, where I cannot ask any questions, of the judge least of all. "So what you think?" he asks when he has brought in coffee for each of us. The judge has pulled out a drawer on the big desk and is using it as a footrest. "You think you gonna be a trial lawyer like Dad?"

"I don't think so, Judge. I don't think I have the nerves for it."

"Oh yeah," he says. "Hard on the nerves for everybody. Lotsa drunks. Court make lotsa drunks."

"I suppose I should worry about that, but I meant I don't really have the personality for it. I don't actually like it very much when people are paying attention to me. I'm not cut out for it."

"You can never tell," he says. "Me? How I talk? Everybody like, That no job for you. They all laugh-even my mama. And she don't speak three words English."

"So what happened?"

"I got an idea. You know? I was boy. Watchin Perry Mason, on TV. Oh, love Perry Mason. In high school, I got a job with newspaper. Not a reporter. Sell the paper. Tribune from here. Tribune want more subscriber downstate. So I go knock on door. Most people, very nice, but all them, every one hate the city. Don't want city newspaper. All very nice to me. 'No, Basil. Like you but not that paper.' Except this one guy. Big guy. Six three. Three hundred pound. White hair. Crazy, crazy eyes. And he see me and he come out the door like he gonna kill me. 'Get off my property. Japs kill three my buddies. Get off.' And I try to explain. Japanese kill my grandfather, too. But he not listenin. Don't wanna listen.

"So I go home. My mama, my daddy, they like, 'Man like that. He won't listen. How people are.' But I think, No, I can make him understand. If he have to listen, I can make him understand. So I remember Perry Mason. And the jury. They gotta listen. That their job. To listen. And okay, I don't speak English good. Tried and tried. I write like professor. Straight A in English all through school. But when I talk, I cannot think.

Really. Like machine get stuck. But I say to myself, People can understand. If they have to listen. PA at home-Morris Loomis-I know him since grade school. His son, Mike, and me, good friend. So after law school, Morris say, 'Okay, Basil. I let you try. But you lose, then you write briefs.' And first case, I stand up, I say, 'I don't talk English good. Very sorry. I speak slow so you understand. But case not about me. About witnesses. About victim. Them you must understand.' And the jury, they all nod. Okay. And you know, two day, three day, they all understand. Every word. And I win. Won that case. Won ten jury in a row before I lost. Sometime in jury box, one whisper to the other, 'What he say?' But I always tell them, 'Case about the witnesses. Not about me. Not about defense lawyer, even though he talk a lot better. About witnesses. About the proof. Listen to them and make up your mind.' Jury always think, That guy, he not hiding nothing. I win all the time.

"So you can never tell. Court very mysterious, what jury understand, don't understand. You know?"

I laugh out loud. I love Judge Yee.

We talk about classical music for a while. Judge Yee knows his stuff. It turns out he plays the oboe and is still in the regional orchestra downstate and frequently uses his lunch hour to practice. He has an oboe that has been muted so you can hear the notes only from a few feet, and he actually plays through a Vivaldi piece for me, in honor of the sheet music on the walls. I am pretty much a musical ignoramus, even though I am interested in it as a language. But like most kids, I chafed at piano lessons for years until my mom let me quit. Serious music is one of those things I have on the list for "When I Grow Up."

There is a knock as the judge is about to begin another piece. Marta is there.

"Judge," she says, "we need a few more minutes. My father would like to talk to Nat."

"To me?" I ask.

I follow her down the corridor to what is called the visiting attorneys' room. It's not much bigger than a closet, with no windows and a beaten desk and a couple of old wooden armchairs. Sandy is in one of them. He does not look particularly well this morning. The rash is better, but he looks more depleted.

"Nat," he says, but does not bother to try to get up to greet me. I come around to shake his hand, then he motions for me to sit. "Nat, your father has asked me to speak to you. We have reached a plea bargain with the prosecution."

I keep thinking with this case, Well, I'll never have a shock like that again. And then there is something else that knocks me flat.

"I know this comes as a surprise," says Stern. "The murder charges against your father will be dismissed. And he will plead guilty to an information the prosecutors will file in a few minutes, charging him with obstruction of justice. We have had quite a bit of back-and-forth this morning with Molto and Brand. I wanted them to accept a plea to contempt of court instead, which would give your father a chance to keep his pension, but they insist it must be a felony. The bottom line is the same. Your father will be in custody for two years. And can then go on with his life."

"'Custody'?" I say. "You mean jail?"

"Yes. We've agreed that it will be the state work farm. Minimum security. He won't be far away."

"'Obstruction'? What did he do?"

Stern smiles. "Well, that was one of the morning's problems. He will admit he is guilty, that he willfully and knowingly obstructed justice in this case. But he will not go into details. I take it there is someone else he does not want to implicate, but candidly, he won't even say that much. Molto was not satisfied, but in the end, he knows this plea is as good as he is likely to do. So we have an agreement. Your father wanted me to tell you."

I don't hesitate. "I need to talk to my dad."

"Nat-"

"I need to talk to him."

"You know, Nat, when I first began in this line, I swore to myself I would never let an innocent man plead guilty. That resolve did not get me through my first year in practice. I represented a young man. A fine young man. Poor. But he was twenty years old with never so much as an arrest after growing up in the bleakest part of Kehwahnee. That fact speaks volumes about his character. But he was in a car with childhood friends, they were sharing a few bottles of malt liquor, and one of them saw a man who had two-timed his mother, and this young man had a gun in his pocket and shot this two-timer through the window of the car with no more reflection than it took to say the word 'dead.' My client had nothing to do with that murder. Nothing. But you know how things go in this process. The killer said his friends had been together in the car to help him hunt the decedent down. He told that tale to avoid the death penalty, which was being freely applied in this county in those days. And so my client was charged with murder. Better sense told the prosecutors my client was not involved. But they had a witness. And they offered my client probation for a lesser plea. He wanted to be a police officer, that young man. And would have made a fine one. But he pleaded guilty. And went on with a different life. And clearly that was the right decision. He became a tile layer, he has a business, three children, all through college. One of them is a lawyer only a little older than you."

"What are you saying, Sandy?"

"I'm saying that I have learned to trust my client's judgment on these matters. No one is better equipped to decide whether it is worth brooking the risks."

"So you don't think he's guilty?"

"I don't know, Nat. He is adamant this is the proper outcome."

"I need to see my father."

I take it that he has been down the hall in the witness room with Marta, and Stern wants to speak to him before I do. I help Sandy to his feet. I am alone only a few minutes, but I have started crying by the time my dad walks in. The startling part is that he looks better this morning than he has in many months. A self-possessed look has returned.

"Tell me the truth," I say as soon as I see him. He smiles at that. He leans down to embrace me, then sits opposite me, where Stern sat before.

"The truth," he says, "is that I did not kill your mother. I have never killed anyone. But I did obstruct justice."

"How? I don't believe you could have done that with the computer. I don't believe it."

"Nat, I'm three times seven. I know what I did."

"You lose everything," I say.

"Not my son, I hope."

"How will you support yourself afterwards? This is a felony, Dad."

"I'm well aware."

"You'll give up your judgeship, your law license. You won't even have your pension."

"I'll try not to land on your doorstep." He actually smiles. "Nat, this is a compromise. I plead guilty to something I did and serve the sentence, without risking conviction for something I'm completely innocent of. Is that a bad deal? After Judge Yee rules about whether all the computer evidence can come in, one side will have the upper hand and this kind of resolution won't be possible. It's time we get this over with and move on to the rest of life. You need to forgive me for all the stupid things I did in the last two years. But I did them, and it's not wrong that I pay this price. I can live with this outcome and you should, too."

We stand in unison and I hug my father, blubbering foolishly. When we break apart, the man who never cries is weeping, too.

Court is convened in a few minutes. Word of what is about to transpire has hit the courthouse, and the buffs and PAs stream into the courtroom, along with at least a dozen reporters. I do not have the heart to go in at first. I stand at the door, through the grace of the courtroom deputies, who allow me to watch the proceedings through the tiny window in the door. There is so much misery in this building, which is full of the anguish of the victims and the defendants and their loved ones, that I actually think the people who work here every day go out of their way to be especially kind to the people like me who, through no will of their own, are caught in the thresher called justice. One of them, an older Hispanic man, actually keeps his hand on my back for a second when the session begins and my father rises to stand between Marta and Sandy before Judge Yee. Brand and Molto are on Stern's other side. My dad nods and speaks. The prosecutors hand up papers, probably a formal plea agreement and the new charges, and the judge begins questioning my dad, an elaborate process that has been going several minutes already when I catch sight of Anna. I sent her a simple text-"My dad is going to plead guilty to obstruction to end the case"-only a few minutes ago. Now she is tearing down the hall, dashing in her high heels, with one hand at the V of her blouse, because her go-to-work underwear is not meant for running.

"I don't believe this," she says.

I explain what I can, and then we enter the courtroom arm in arm and proceed to the front-row seats still reserved for my father's dwindling family. Judge Yee's eyes flick up to see me, and he emits the minutest smile of reassurance. He then looks back down to the form book in front of him, which contains the required questions a judge must ask before accepting a guilty plea. Notably, Judge Yee reads the printed text without any of the grammatical errors that emerge when he is speaking on his own, although his accent remains strong.

"And Judge Sabich, you are pleading guilty to this one-count information because you are in fact guilty of the crime charged there, correct?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"All right, prosecutors. Please state the factual basis for the offense."

Jim Brand speaks. He describes all the technical details concerning the computers, the "object" now present on my dad's hard drive that was not there when it was imaged in early November 2008. Then he adds that a night custodian in the courthouse, Anthony Potts, is prepared to testify that he recalls seeing my father in the corridors there one night last fall and that my father seemed to speed away when Potts observed him.

"All right," says Judge Yee, and looks down to his primer. "And, Mr. Stern, is the defense satisfied that the factual basis offered constitutes sufficient competent evidence to prove Judge Sabich guilty were the matter submitted to trial?"

"We are, Your Honor."

"Judge Sabich, do you agree with Mr. Stern about that?"

"Yes, Judge Yee."

"All right," says Yee. He closes the book. He is back on his own. "The Court wish to compliment all party on a very good resolution for this case. This case very, very complex. This outcome that defense and prosecution agree to is fair to the People and the defendant in judgment of the Court." He nods several times, as if to enforce that opinion on the reporters across from me on the other side of the front row.

"Okay," he says. "Court find there is sufficient basis for guilty plea and accept the plea of defendant Roz-" He stumbles with the name, which comes out something akin to "Rosy"-"Sabich to information 09-0872. Indictment 08-2456 is dismissed on all count with prejudice. Judge Sabich, you remanded to custody of Kindle County sheriff for a period of two year. Court adjourned." He smacks the gavel.

My father shakes hands with Sandy and kisses Marta's cheek, then turns to me. He starts when he does. It takes me a second to realize it is Anna he is reacting to. It's her first time in court, and she is plainly unexpected. Like me, she has spent the last ten minutes crying quietly, and her makeup is all over her face. He gives her this complicated little smile and then looks at me and nods. Then he turns away and without a word from anyone places his hands behind his back. He is fully prepared for this moment. It occurs to me he has probably been through it a hundred times in his dreams.

Manny, the deputy sheriff, fastens the cuffs on my dad and whispers to him, probably trying to be sure they are not too tight, then pushes my dad toward the courtroom's side door, where there is a small lockup in which he will be held until he is transported to the jail with the rest of the defendants who have appeared in court this morning.

My father leaves the courtroom without ever looking back.