Presumed innocent

Chapter 27

They cannot find the glass.

Nico admits this as soon as Stern and Kemp and I arrive on the third morning of trial. The first witnesses will be called today.

"How in the world?" asks Stern.

"I apologize," says Nico. "Tommy tells me he forgot about it at first. He really did. Now there're looking high and low. It'll turn up. But I have a problem." Della Guardia and Stern stroll away, conferring. Molto watches them with obvious concern. He seems reluctant to leave his place at the prosecution table, like a whipped dog. Really, Tommy does not look well. It is too early in the trial to be as exhausted as he appears. He has a yellow cast to his skin, and his suit, the same as yesterday's, does not seem to have had any time to rest. I would not be surprised if Molto never made it home last night.

"How can they lose a piece of evidence like that?" Kemp asks me.

"Happens all the time," I answer. The Police Evidence Center, over in McGrath Hall, has more unclaimed items that a pawnshop. Tags get knocked off, numbers are reversed. I started many cases with evidence misplaced. Unfortunately, Nico is right: the glass will turn up.

Stern and Della Guardia have agreed to advise the judge of this development, before he takes the bench. We will all go back to chambers. This will save Nico from a public whipping. Stern's concession on points like this, minor courtesies, is the kind of thing that has made him popular around the P.A.'s office. Other lawyers would demand to be on the record so that Nico could take a hiding before the press. We all wait a moment in the judge's outer office, while his secretary, Corrine, keeps an eye on the phone light to see when the judge completes the call he is presently taking. Corrine is stately and large-chested, and the courthouse wags regularly speculated on the nature of her relationship with Larren, until last fall, when she married a probation officer named Perkins. Larren has always been a ladies' man of some renown. He divorced about ten years ago, and over time I've heard a lot of tales about him drinking Jack Daniel's in the pretty-people night spots down on Bayou Boulevard, that pickup strip which certain sages refer to as the Street of Dreams.

"He says come right in," Corrine tells us, putting down the phone after a brief conversation with the judge to announce our group. Kemp and Nico and Molto precede us. Stern wants a moment with me to confer.

When we enter, Nico has already begun telling the judge the problem. He and Kemp are in armchairs before the judge's desk. Molto sits a distance away on the sofa. The chambers, the judge's inner sanctum, has a distinguished hearing. One wall is solid with the gold-toned spines of the state law reports, and Larren also has his own Wall of Respect. There is a large picture of the judge and Raymond, among a number of photos of the judge with politicians, mostly black.

"Your Honor," Nico is saying, "I learned the first time last night from Tommy."

"Well, I thought Tommy indicated yesterday that you had the glass and he simply had overlooked this matter. Tommy, I'll tell you something right now." The judge is on his feet behind his desk, looking rather legal in a purple-toned shirt with white collar and cuffs. He has been roaming in his books and papers as he listens, but now he turns about and points a stout finger at Molto. "If I have the same kind of bullshit from you in this case I've had in the past, I'll throw you in the lockup. I really will. Don't be tellin me one thing and meanin something else. And I want to say this right in front of the prosecuting attorney.

"Nico, you know we've always gotten along. But there's a history here." The judge tips his large head in Molto's direction.

"Judge, I understand. I really do. That's why I was concerned as soon as I learned of the problem. I really do believe that it's oversight."

Larren glances balefully at Della Guardia from the corner of his eye. Nico does not even flinch. He is doing a pretty good job. He has both hands in his lap and is making his best effort to appear the suppliant. This is not an attitude that comes to him naturally, and his readiness to humble himself before the judge is actually quite winning. There must have been hell to pay last night between Molto and him. That's why Tommy looks so bad.

Larren, however, is not about to let the subject go. As usual he has caught all the implications quickly. For better than a month the prosecutors have been promising to produce a glass they knew they could not find.

"Isn't this somethin?" the judge asks. He looks, for support, to Stern. "You know, Nico, I don't issue these orders just for the hell of it. You do with your evidence as you like, but really-Who had this glass last?"

"There's some disagreement, Judge, but we believe it was the police."

"Naturally," says Larren. He looks off toward the distance in disgust.

"Well, you see what we have here. You have defied an order of the court. The defense has not had an opportunity to prepare. And you have given an opening statement, Nico, in which you must have referred to this evidence half a dozen times. Well, that's your problem now. When you find the glass, assuming you find it, then we'll determine whether or not it comes into evidence. Let's go try this case."

Nico's difficulties, however, are more complex than one angry judge. The state case has been prepared with the witnesses expected in an established sequence, referred to as an order of proof. The first person to testify is supposed to describe the crime scene, and accordingly, he will mention the glass.

"Not in my courtroom," says Larren. "No, sir. We're not gonna be talkin anymore about evidence that nobody can find." Stern finally speaks up. He announces that we have no objection to Delay proceeding as he had planned.

"Your Honor, if the prosecution fails to find the glass, we will object to any further evidence regarding it." He means, of course, the fingerprints. "But for the time being, there is no purpose to delay, if Your Honor will permit it."

Larren shrugs. It's Sandy's lawsuit. This is the subject Sandy and I discussed in the judge's outer office. If we object, we can make Nico take witnesses out of the order he had planned, but Sandy thinks the advantage is greater if Nico's first witness has to explain that a piece of evidence is missing. Better that they look like Keystone Kops was how Stern put it. The disorganization will make a poor impression on the jury. Besides, there is little damage to me in the bare fact that a glass was found. And as I pointed out to Kemp, the police-evidence custodians-will eventually locate the glass; they always do.

"I would think you should give Mr. Stern an order of proof so that he has notice of when we're coming to this area again."

Molto speaks up. "We have one, Judge. We'll give it to them right now."

Tommy fiddles in the sloppy heap of papers on his lap, and eventually passes a sheet to Kemp.

"And let's put this on the record," Larren says. Nico's punishment. He must explain this screw-up in public after all.

While the lawyers are before the bench, repeating our chambers conference in the presence of the court reporter, I examine the order of proof I am eager to know when Lipranzer will be testifying. The sooner he does, the sooner the search for Leon can resume. I have tried to get Sandy's PI to look further, but he claims there is nothing to do. The list, however, provides no good news. Lip is scheduled toward the latter put of the case. Leon and I win have to wait.

Even in my disappointment, I recognize that Tommy and Nico have constructed their case with care. They will begin with the murder scene and the collection of the physical evidence, and will then start a slowly accelerating demonstration of why I am the murderer. First will come their proof, equivocal as that is, of my relationship with Carolyn; then my questionable handling of the investigation; near the end they will offer the various bits of evidence that put me at the murder scene: the fingerprints, the fibers, the phone records, the Nearing maid, the blood test results. Painless Kumagai will testify last and, I suppose, offer an expert opinion on how it was done.

Up on the bench Larren is still chewing Nico out, for the record.

"And the prosecutors will immediately advise the defense when the evidence is located. Is that correct?"

Nico promises.

With that matter settled, the jury is brought in, and Nico announces the name of the prosecution's first witness, Detective Harold Greer. He enters from the corridor and stands before Larren to be sworn.

As soon as Greer is up there, it is obvious to all of us why Nico wanted to maintain the predetermined order of proof. Juries for obvious reasons tend to remember the first witness, and Greer is impressive, a huge, well-spoken black man, calm and orderly in his presentation of himself. With or without the glass, he is the image of competence. The department is full of officers like Greer, men and women with the IQ's of college professors who became cops because it was, within their horizons, the best thing available.

Molto is doing the questioning. He looks rumpled but his direct examination is well prepared.

"And where was the body?"

Greer was the third officer on the scene. Carolyn was discovered about 9:30 a.m. She missed an eight o'clock meeting and a nine o'clock court call. Her secretary called the super directly. All he did, he told me months ago, was push the door open and look around. He could see then he needed the cops. The beat guys called for Greer.

Greer describes what he observed and the way the evidence techs did their work under his direction. Greer identifies a sealed plastic packet that contains the fibers that were lifted from Carolyn's body, and a larger packet that contains her skirt, from which more of the Zorak V fibers were obtained. Molto and he smooth over the glass. Greer describes, finding it on the bar, watching the evidence techs seal the Baggie.

"And where is the glass at present?"

"We've had a little trouble locating it. It should turn up in the police evidence room."

Next Molto raises the specter of the removed diaphragm. Greer says that in a thorough search of the apartment he found no contraceptive device. Then, with all the little bits of evidence which the police discovered inventoried before the jury, Molto moves to his climax.

"Based on your experience in nine years as a homicide detective, and the appearance of the scene, did you have any opinion as to what had taken place?" Molto asks.

Stern makes his first objection before the jury.

"Your Honor," Stern scolds, "this is speculative. This cannot be regarded as an expert opinion. Mr. Molto is asking about a hunch."

Larren strokes his cheeks with his big hand, but shakes his head.

"Overruled."

Molto repeats the question.

"Based on the position of the body," Greer responds, "the way it was tied, the signs of disturbance, the open window over the fire escape, on first looking at the scene I was of the opinion that Ms. Polhemus had been murdered in the course of, or as the result of, a sexual assault."

"A rape?" asks Molto, a leading question, not usually permitted on direct examination but harmless under the circumstances.

"Yes," says Greer.

"And were police photographers at the scene?"

"They were."

"What, if anything, did they do?"

"I asked them to take a number of photos of the scene. And they did that."

"In your presence?"

From the evidence cart the prosecutors wheeled into court this morning, Molto takes the collection of photos I looked at four months ago in my office. He shows each to Sandy before he presents them to Greer. Molto has set his examination up cleverly. Usually a judge will limit the prosecution's use of photos in a murder case. It is grisly and prejudicial. But by emphasizing the appearances, which the prosecution of course will argue were staged, Tommy has deprived us of the usual grounds for objections. We sit, attempting to appear implacable, while Greer describes each of the gruesome photos and identifies them as having accurately reflected the scene. When Molto offers them, Sandy approaches the bench and asks the judge to look them over himself.

"We can do with just two of the body," Larren says. He removes another two, but he allows Molto to pass the ones admitted among the jurors at the end of Greer's examination. I do not dare to look up often, but I can sense from the stillness in the box that the blood and Carolyn's contorted corpse have had the effect the prosecutors hoped. The schoolteacher will not be smiling at me again for quite a while.

"Cross-examination," says the judge.

"Just a few matters," says Sandy. He smiles a bit at Greer. We will not be challenging this witness. "You mentioned a glass, Detective. Where is that?" Stern starts to look among the exhibits Greer identified.

"It's not here."

"I am sorry. I thought you testified about it."

"I did."

"Oh." Sandy appears flustered. "But you do not have it?"

"No, Sir."

"When was the last time you saw it?"

"At the scene."

"You have not seen it since?"

"No, Sir."

"Have you tried to find it?"

Greer smiles, probably the first time since he took the stand. "Yes, Sir."

"I see from your expression you have put some effort into this?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And the glass still cannot be found?"

"No, sir."

"And who would have handled it last?"

"I don't know. Mr. Molto over there has got the evidence receipts."

"Oh." Sandy turns in Tommy's direction. Molto appears faintly amused. It is Sandy's playacting that he finds humorous, but the jury of course does not realize that is the source of this slight grin. To them Tommy must appear somewhat arrogant. "Mr. Molto has them?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Ordinarily we would have the evidence, too?"

"Yes, sir. The prosecutor gets the evidence and the original tags."

"So Mr. Molto has the tag but not the glass?"

"That's right."

Sandy turns again to Molto. While looking at him, Stern says, "Thank you, Detective." He appears to ruminate before he again faces the witness. Stern spends a few minutes on the details of the collection of various pieces of evidence. When he reaches the diaphragm he pauses with some apparent emphasis.

"A contraceptive device was not the only item you failed to find, is that right, Detective?"

Greer's face narrows. He did not find the Hope Diamond or Aunt Tillie's missing lace hankie. The question can't be answered.

"Well, Detective, you and the officers under your command made a very thorough search of the apartment, did you not?"

"We certainly did."

"And yet, sir, you failed to find not merely a diaphragm but also any cream or jelly or other substance that could be expected to be utilized with it-is that not correct?"

Greer hesitates. He had not thought of this before.

"That's correct," he says at last.

Nico turns immediately to Tommy. They are seated fifteen feet in front of me, facing the jury. I've never had the chance before to watch my opponents. From the prosecutor's table you focus on the jurors. Nico, is whispering.

It seems to be something like, Where the hell is the stuff? A couple of the jury members respond alertly to this part of the examination.

Stern is about to sit down when I ask him to bring the photos over. Sandy casts me a black look. This is proof that Stern would just as soon be forgotten. I motion to him again, however, and he hands me the stack. I finally find the picture of the bar and make my point to Stern. He bows briefly to me before returning to the witness.

"You identified this photograph, Detective Greer, State Exhibit 6-G?"

"Yes, sir."

"It reflects the bar where you found this glass?"

"It does."

"Tell me, sir-this would be easier if we had the glass, but is your recollection of it good?"

"I think so. It's like the ones in the picture."

"Just so. The glass you seized was one of this set of barware laid out here on this towel?" Sandy has turned the photograph around so both Greer and the jurors can see the portion of the picture Stern means to indicate.

"Right."

"Count the glasses, would you?"

Greer lays his finger on the photo and does it slowly.

"Twelve," he says.

"Twelve," Stern repeats. "So the missing glass would make thirteen?"

Greer knows this is peculiar. He waggles his head. "I guess so."

"An odd set?"

Molto objects, but Greer answers, "Very," before Larren can rule.

"Really," Sandy says to me when we break for lunch, "I appreciate your thoughts, Rusty, but you must share them with us before the last moment. This detail may be significant."

I look at Stern as we are heading out of court.

"I just noticed," I tell him.

The prosecutors have a dismal afternoon. I never tried a case as a deputy P.A. that did not have a low spot, a trough, a place where my evidence was weak. I used to talk about walking through the Valley of Death. For Nico, as we've long known, the valley is trying to prove what went on between Carolyn and me. His hope, quite clearly, is to get just enough evidence before the jury that they can make a comfortable guess. The overall plan Molto and he seemingly made was to start strong with Greer, stagger through this portion, and then dash for home, with the physical evidence providing a note of rising credibility. A reasonable strategy. But all the lawyers come to court after lunch knowing that these hours will belong to the defense.

The state's next witness is Eugenia Martinez, my former secretary. She clearly sees this as her moment. She comes to the stand in a broad slouch hat and dangling earrings. Nico presents her testimony, which is succinct. Eugenia testifies that she has been employed in the P.A.'s office fifteen years. For two of those fifteen years, ending last April, she worked for me. One day last September or October, in answering the phone, Eugenia picked up the wrong line. She heard just a few words of conversation, but she recognized the voices as those of Ms. Polhemus and me. I was talking about meeting Ms. Polhemus; at her home.

"And how did they sound to you?" asks Nico.

"Object to sound," says Stern. "It calls for a characterization."

"Sustained."

Nico faces Larren. "Judge, she can testify to what she heard."

"What she heard, but no opinions." From the bench, Larren addresses Eugenia. "Ms. Martinez, you cannot tell us what you thought when you heard the conversation. Just the words and the intonation."

"What was the intonation," Nico asks, back close to where he wanted to be. Eugenia, however, is not ready for the question.

"Nice-like," she finally answers.

Stern objects, but the response is too innocuous to merit exclusion. Larren flips a hand and says that the answer may stand.

Nico is having a difficult time with something important. Again, I am struck by how difficult it has been for him to prepare.

"Did they sound intimate?" he asks.

"Objection!" Stern shoots to his feet. The question is leading and unfairly suggestive.

Larren again takes off on Nico before the jury. The question was clearly improper, Larren says. It is stricken and the jurors are ordered to disregard it. But there is method to Nico's breach. He was trying to find some way to signal Eugenia.

He asks, "Could you further describe the tone of the remarks you heard?"

Stern objects again with force. The question has been previously asked and answered.

Larren peers down. "Mr. Delay Guardia, I suggest that you move on."

Suddenly help comes to Nico from an unexpected source. He say 'my angel,'" Eugenia volunteers.

Nico faces her, stunned.

"That's what he say. Okay? He say he be comin at eight o'clock and call her 'my angel.'"

For the first time since the trial began my composure fails before the jury. I let out a sound. My look, I'm certain, is inflamed. Kemp lays a hand on mine.

"My angel!" I whisper. "For Chrissake."

Over his shoulder, Stern looks at me severely.

Suddenly ahead of where he expected to be, Nico sits down.

"Cross-examination."

Sandy advances on Eugenia. He speaks as soon as he reaches his feet, not waiting to arrive at the podium. He has maintained the same scolding expression which only seconds ago he turned on me.

"For whom do you work now in the prosecuting attorney's office, Ms. Martinez?"

"Work?"

"Whose typing do you do? Whose phones do you answer?"

"Mr. Molto."

"This gentleman? The prosecutor at the table?" Eugenia says yes. "When Mr. Sabich was forced to take leave because of this investigation, Mr. Molto advanced to Mr. Sabich's position, is that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And that position is one of considerable authority and influence in the P.A.'s office, is that right?"

"Number-two man," answers Eugenia.

"And Mr. Molto was in charge of the investigation that brought him Mr. Sabich's job?"

"Objection!"

"Your Honor," Sandy says to the judge, "I am entitled to develop bias. The woman is testifying before her employer. Her perception of his motives is important."

Larren smiles. Stern is developing more than that, but his excuse will pass. The objection is overruled.

The court reporter rereads the question and Eugenia answers yes. Sandy, in his opening, touched only lightly on the election and the change of administration. This is his first attempt to develop rivalry for power as a theme. It will answer, in part, his question to the jury in his opening statement about why the prosecutors might move ahead on an insufficient case. It had never struck me that he might do that by picking on Molto rather than Della Guardia.

"Now, in the course of investigating Mr. Sabich, did Mr. Molto ask you to speak to a police officer about what you remembered of Mr. Sabich's relationship with Ms. Polhemus?"

"Sir?"

"Didn't you speak in May to Officer Glendenning?" Tom is in and out of court, but right now he is here and Sandy points at him, seated in uniform at the prosecutor's table.

"Yes, sir."

"And you knew that the investigation was a very important one, particularly to your boss, Mr. Molto, did you not?"

"Seemed like."

"And yet, madam, when you were asked about Mr. Sabich's relationship with Ms. Polhemus, you never told officer Glendenning that you heard Mr. Sabich call Ms. Polhemus 'my angel,' did you?" Sandy says it with a special cold emphasis. He appears furious with the perjury. He has Glendenning's report in his hand.

Eugenia suddenly recognizes that she is trapped. She gets a slow, unwilling look and sags a little. She probably had no idea that the defense would know what she said before.

"No, sir," she says.

"You didn't tell Officer Glendenning that you recalled Mr. Sabich using any term of endearment, did you, madam?"

"No, sir." She is brooding; I have seen this look a hundred times. Her eyes closed; her shoulders draw around her. This is when Eugenia is at her meanest. "I never said anythin like that."

"Not to Mr. Glendenning?"

"No time."

Sandy, before I do, recognizes where Eugenia is going. She has thought of a way out. He walks a few steps toward her.

"Didn't you testify five minutes ago, madam, that Mr. Sabich called Ms. Polhemus 'my angel'?"

Eugenia draws herself up in the witness stand, fierce and proud.

"No way," she says loudly. Three or four of the jurors look away. One of them, the man who is learning about hamburgers, laughs out loud, just one little hiccup.

Sandy studies Eugenia. "I see," he finally says. "Well, tell me, Ms. Martinez, when you answer Mr. Molto's phone these days do you listen in on his conversations?"

Her thick eyes go sidelong with contempt. "Nope," she says.

"You would not listen a moment longer than you had to in order to recognize that someone is on the line, is that not correct?"

This, of course, is Eugenia's problem. She probably heard a good deal more pass on the telephone between Carolyn and me than she has disclosed. But even with the P.A. and his chief deputy prosecuting the case, she cannot admit to eavesdropping. The winds of fortune change too quickly, and Eugenia, a bureaucratic animal, knows that such an admission would eventually be the long-awaited dynamite to dislodge her from her sinecure in civil service concrete.

"What you heard, you heard in an instant?"

"That's all."

"No more?"

"No, sir."

"And you tell us it was 'nice-like"? Were those not your words?"

"What I say, yes, sir."

Stern comes and stands beside Eugenia. She weighs about two hundred pounds. She is broad-featured and surly, and even dressed in her finest, as she is today, she still does not look very good. Her dress is much too loud and is stretched tight over her bulk.

"You base this answer," he asks, "on your experience in such things?"

Sandy is poker-faced, but a couple of the jurors get it. They look down as they smile. Eugenia certainly gets it. Killers' eyes do not grow colder.

Stern does not ask for an answer.

"And this conversation about meeting at Ms. Polhemus's apartment took place last September, you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you remember that Mr. Sabich and Ms. Polhemus tried a case together as co-prosecutors last September?"

Eugenia stops. "Uh-uh," she says.

"You do not remember the McGaffen case? A child, a little boy, had been hideously tortured by his mother? His head put in a vise? His anus burned with cigarettes? You do not remember Mr. Sabich securing the conviction of this-" Stern makes it look as if he is searching for a word, before he ends with "woman?"

"Oh, that one," she says. "I recall."

"The McGaffen case, I take it, was not recalled in your discussions with Mr. Molto?"

"Objection."

Larren ponders.

"I will withdraw it," says Stern. He's made his point to the jury.

Prosecutor Molto seems to be taking it in the shorts so far today. He has the tag for the missing glass. He has inspired Eugenia's perjury.

"Ms. Martinez, do you remember how warm it was in Kindle County last year around Labor Day?"

Her brows close. She has taken enough of a beating that she is trying to cooperate.

"Past 100 two days."

"Correct," Stern says, improperly. "Is the P.A.'s office air-conditioned?"

Eugenia snorts. "Only if you believe what they say."

Laughter throughout the courtroom. The judge, the jury, the spectators. Even Stern finally smiles.

"I take it you try to leave as soon as the day ends when the heat is like that?"

"You got that right."

"But the prosecutors, when they are in the midst of a trial, do not leave at the end of the day, do they?"

She looks at Sandy suspiciously.

"Isn't it commonplace, in your experience, for the deputy P.A.'s to prepare for the next day of trial in the evenings?" Stern asks.

"Oh yes."

"Now, madam, would you not prefer to work in air conditioning rather than the P.A.'s office on a very warm evening?"

"Objection," Nico says. It's largely pointless.

"I'll let it stand."

"Sure would."

"You don't know of your own knowledge that Ms. Polhemus's apartment was air-conditioned, I take it?"

"No, sir."

"But you do know that the riverfront is much closer to the P.A.'s office than Mr. Sabich's home in Nearing?"

"Yes, Sir."

Whatever the jury makes of Eugenia, it is probably favorable compared to their opinions of Mrs. Krapotnik, who is called next. Her few minutes on the witness stand achieve the level of pure burlesque. Mrs. Krapotnik is a widow. She does not say what Mr. Krapotnik died from, but it is hard to believe that Mrs. Krapotnik was not partly the cause. She is heavy-bosomed and garishly made up. Her hair is reddish, teased out so that it stands like a shrub, and her jewelry is thick. A difficult human being. She refuses to answer questions and narrates, free-flow. Mrs. Krapotnik explains as she is going along that the late Mr. Krapotnik was an entrepreneur of sorts. He bought their loft building on the riverfront, when, as Mrs. K. puts it, "the neighborhood was still a mess, with trucks and junk, whatever." She nods to the jury when she says this, confident that they know what she means. Mr. Krapotnik directed the refurbishment of the property himself.

"He was a visionary. Do you know what I'm saying? He saw things. That place-you know what was in there? Tires, I'm not kidding, Mr. Dioguardi. Tires. Really, you could not believe the smell. I am not squeamish and it is embarrassing to say it, but one time he took me in there, I swear to God I thought I would retch."

"Madam," Nico says, not for the first time.

"He was a plumber. Who thought he knew real estate? Yes, Mr. Dioguardi?"

She squints. "Is that your name? Dioguardi?"

"Della Guardia," says Nico, and casts his face despairingly toward Molto, seeking help.

By and by Mrs. Krapotnik reaches Carolyn. She was their tenant originally when she moved in almost a decade ago. During the conversion craze, the building went condo and Carolyn bought. Listening to Mrs. Krapotnik, I write Kemp a note. "Where does a probation officer going to law school at night get the money to rent on the waterfront?" Kemp nods. He has thought of the same thing. For almost a decade, Carolyn lived on the second floor and Mrs. Krapotnik the first. Carolyn sent flowers, not really the right thing, when Mr. Krapotnik died.

Nico is eager to get Mrs. Krapotnik out of there. The lady is beyond control. He does not bother asking about the night Carolyn was murdered. Any identification Mrs. Krapotnik made at this point would be sorely impeached by her prior failures.

Instead, Nico simply asks, "Do you see in the courtroom, Mrs. Krapotnik, anyone you have seen in the vicinity of Ms. Polhemus's apartment?"

"Well, I know I seen that one," she says. She throws both hands and her bangle bracelets in the direction of the judge.

Larren covers his face with both hands. Nico pinches the bridge of his nose. The laughter in the spectator sections is suppressed, but seems after an instant to grow. Mrs. Krapotnik, recognizing that she has blown it, looks about desperately. She points at Tommy Molto, seated at the prosecutor's table.

"Him too," she says.

Molto makes matters worse by turning to see if there is anyone behind him. By now the jurors are laughing.

Nico retreats to the evidence cart and brings Mrs. Krapotnik the photo spread from which she has previously identified a snap of me. She looks at the spread, glances up in my direction, and shrugs. Who knows?

"Do you recall previously identifying photograph number 4?" Nico asks. This time she says it out loud: "Who knows?" When Nico closes his eyes in frustration, she adds, "Oh, all right. I said it was him."

Nico heads for his seat.

"Cross-examination."

"One question," says Stern. "Mrs. Krapotnik, I take it your building is air-conditioned?"

"Air condition?" She turns to the judge. "What's his business if we got air condition?"

Larren stands to his full height and places his hands on the far side of the bench, so he is canted over Mrs. Krapotnik, five or six feet above her head.

"Mrs. Krapotnik," he says quietly, "that question can be answered yes or no. If you say anything else I will hold you in contempt."

"Yes," says Mrs. Krapotnik.

"Nothing further," says Stern. "Your Honor, the record will reflect that there was no identification of Mr. Sabich?"

"The record will reflect," says Judge Lyttle, shaking his head, "that Mr. Sabich was one of the few persons in the courtroom Mrs. Krapotnik missed."

Larren leaves the bench, with the laughter still ringing.

Afterward the reporters crowd around Stern. They want a comment from him on the first day's testimony, but he will make none.

Kemp is packing back into Sandy's large trial case the document-duplicates of statements and exhibits-that we withdrew during the day and which now litter the table. I am helping, but Stern takes my elbow and steers me toward the corridor.

"No gloating," he says. "We have a long night's work. Tomorrow they will be calling Raymond Horgan."

How familiar it all seems. I come home at night with the same laborer's weariness that has always followed a day in court. My bones feel hollowed out by the high-voltage impulse of the day; my muscles have a neuralgic tenderness from the adrenalized superheating. My pores, it seems, do not close down rapidly, and the low-tone body sweat of high excitement continues through the evening. I return home with my shirt encasing me like a package wrapper.

Sitting in court, I actually forget at certain moments who is on trial. The performance aspect is of course not present, but the premium on close attention is large. And once we get back to the office, I can be a lawyer again, attacking the books, making notes and memos. I was never short on intensity. When the bus pulls into Nearing shortly before 1 a.m. and I walk down the lighted and silent streets of this gentle town, the feelings are all known and, because they are known, safe. I am in a harbor. My anxiety is stanched; I am at peace. As I have for years, I stop by the door, in a rocking chair, and remove my shoes, so that when I go upstairs I will not disturb Barbara, who by now must be asleep. The house is dark. I absorb the silence and, finally alone, reflect on the events of the day. And in this moment, stimulated perhaps by all the talk of her, or simply by the momentary feeling that I have at last receded to the better past, or even by an unconscious recollection of other stealthy re-entries to my home, I am startled as Carolyn rises before me, rises as she rose for me that month or so when I thought I had found Nirvana, naked to the waist, her breasts high and spectacularly round, the nipples red, erect, and thick, her hair full of static from our bedroom romping, her sensuous mouth parted to offer some clever, salacious, stimulating remark. And again I am made. Almost without the power of movement by my own desire, so fierce, so hungry, so wanton. I do not care that it is mad, or hopeless: I whisper her name in the dark. Full of shame and longing, I am like a piece of crystal trembling near the breaking pitch. "Carolyn." Hopeless. Mad. And I cannot believe my own conviction, which is not really an idea but instead that deep embedded thing, that rope of emotion which is a wish that I could do it all again.

Again. Again.

And then the ghost recedes. She folds into the air. I sit still, spine stiffened in my chair. I am breathing quickly. It will be hours now, I know, before I can sleep. I grope in the hall cabinet for something to drink. I should make my mind work over the meaning of this nighttime visitation. But I cannot. I have the sensation, as determined as the longing of only moments before, that it is all past. I sit in the rocking chair in my living room. For some strange reason, I feel better with my briefcase, and I place it in my lap.

But its protection is incomplete. The wake of this intrusion leaves the currents of my emotions roily and disturbed. In the dark I sit, and I can feel the force of the large personages of my life circling about me like the multiple moons of some far planet, each one exerting its own deep tidal impulses upon me. Barbara. Nat. Both my parents. Oh, this cataclysm of love and attachment. And shame. I feel the rocking sway of all of it, and a moving sickness of regret. Desperately, desperately I promise everyone of them myself, the God in whom I do not believe that if I survive this I will do better. Better than I have. An urgent compact, as sincere and grave as any deathbed wish.

I drink my drink. I sit here in the dark and wait for peace.