Spider Webs

III The District Attorney

It was 10:00 A.M.

The jurors’ notebooks had been distributed, and everyone in the courtroom was in place except the judge. He remained in chambers, talking to his old friend Quentin Woodbridge. Woodbridge was a tall, spare man about sixty with a semicircular fringe of white hair surrounding his bald pate like a broken halo.

The two men played bridge together twice a week at the University Club. These games were intensely serious. Shoptalk was forbidden. Any conversation was limited to the barest essentials, opening and closing amenities and a rehashing of the game at the bar afterward.

District Attorney Oliver Owen belonged to the same club, but the two men avoided him. Owen was chatty. Silence seemed a challenge to him, a hole to be filled. And he filled it, with trivia, jokes, gossip, political comments and anecdotes about his family. If the jokes had been funny, the trivia interesting, the comments astute and the family stories less boring, he might have been excused on the grounds of his youth (he was forty) and inexperience (he was a latecomer to bridge and refused to believe anyone could take it seriously).

Woodbridge sat on the judge’s desk, keeping his hands in his pockets the way he often did, as if he were cold. The judge knew this wasn’t the reason.

He said, “Well?”

“It’s time to go in.”

“I didn’t ask you what time it was, Woody. I asked you how you were feeling.”

“Me? Fine.”

“How fine?”

“Fine enough.”

The judge was quiet for a few seconds. “Does Owen know?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“He has a way of finding things out.”

“If he knew, he would have said something to me, also to everyone else in town. So the assumption is he doesn’t.” Woodbridge got off the desk. “The bailiff’s waiting for me in the hall. I’d better be going.”

“Take it easy.”

Eva Foster noted the time, 10:09, and the bailiff made the announcement: “All rise. Superior Court in and for the county of Santa Felicia is now in session, Judge George Hazeltine presiding.”

Quentin Woodbridge was duly sworn and took his place on the witness stand, carrying several pages of notes to refresh his memory. He consulted these notes frequently as he listed his credentials in a slow, halting voice.

Owen didn’t hurry him. He liked the sound of all those university degrees and titles and honors, as if he somehow had a share in them because the doctor was his witness.

“You are a forensic pathologist, Dr. Woodbridge?”

“Yes.”

“Would you kindly explain to the jury exactly what a forensic pathologist is, as opposed to an ordinary pathologist?”

“A forensic pathologist has degrees in both law and medicine.”

“Where did you obtain such degrees, Dr. Woodbridge?”

“My law degree is from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. My medical degree is from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.”

“Before either of those you had a Bachelor of Science degree, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you obtain that?”

“The University of Michigan.”

“The University of Michigan,” Owen said.

At her stenotype machine Mildred Noon made a note of the repetition. It was a device called echoing, used by attorneys to allow time for framing the next question. The device aggravated the difficulties of accurate court reporting, and before the trial began, Mildred had sent a friendly note to Owen and Donnelly urging them to avoid it and other annoyances like overlapping, speaking when someone else was already speaking, thus preventing the verbatim reporting required by law. Donnelly had ignored the note. Owen acknowledged it with a note of his own: “Mrs. Noon, for your information, I never echo. And if overlapping is caused by opposing counsel, it is not my responsibility.”

Owen continued. “While at the University did you receive any scholastic honors?”

“I graduated magna cum laude.”

“And were you elected to any scholastic society or fraternity?”

“I have a Phi Beta Kappa key.”

“And later at medical school did you receive any similar honor?”

“Yes.”

“And what is that called?”

“Alpha Omega Alpha. It is given only to the top graduates in medicine.”

“Are you a member of any professional organizations?”

“Yes.”

“And what are they?”

“The American Medical Association and the American Bar Association.”

“Did you ever serve in the armed forces, Dr. Woodbridge?”

“Yes.”

“What branch?”

“The United States Navy.”

“In what capacity?”

“I was an internist at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.”

“Was it during your service as an internist that you decided to specialize in pathology?”

“Yes.”

“How did this come about?”

“There was an opening in the homicide investigation department, and I was given the opportunity to fill it.”

“Have you subsequently had other positions in this line of work?”

“Yes.”

Donnelly said, without rising, “In the interest of saving time and getting on with the evidence, defense stipulates that Dr. Woodbridge is well qualified.”

“The prosecution is entitled to submit a full account of Dr. Woodbridge’s education, experience and expertise,” the judge said. “Opposing counsel will be afforded similar opportunities when the time comes. Please continue, Mr. Owen.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Woodbridge, how long did you remain at Bethesda Naval Hospital?”

“Five years.”

“During these five years did you publish any medico-legal articles?”

“I coauthored one paper and was a contributor on three others.”

“Where were these published and in what year?”

Woodbridge shuffled through his notes. He had used the same ones during a dozen trials, and he should have been able to read them off quickly and easily. But his hands trembled, and everything seemed so long ago and irrelevant. Why was he here in this somber poorly lit room trying to find the names of obscure journals containing outdated information?

After three or four minutes his lower lip began to quiver like that of a child about to cry.

The judge, watching him from the bench, saw the signs of weariness in his old friend and declared a morning recess before the usual time of eleven o’clock. As the courtroom began to clear, he leaned down and asked Woodbridge to come to his chambers.

On his way to the judge’s chambers Woodbridge’s gait was unsteady, and he had a curious sensation of watching himself, an old man shuffling back through the years, trying to find things and people that didn’t matter. Had they ever mattered, these endless rows of dead bodies? Had they ever mattered, these unread reports on unmourned, unremembered people?

In chambers Woodbridge lay down on the leather couch without waiting to be asked.

“You said you felt fine,” the judge said.

“I said fine enough.”

“How much is enough?”

“Enough to get through another day. Look, George, I’m just tired. I’m tired of courtrooms and trials, I’m tired of attorneys. God knows I’m tired of dead bodies.”

“I have to say this, Woody, so listen to me. I think you should stop working.”

“And do what?”

“Do what? You don’t have to do anything.”

“There are sixteen waking hours in a day. How do I spend them?”

“You might try improving your bridge game.”

“My bridge game wouldn’t need improving if my partner would read my signals correctly.”

“I do not consider a kick under the table a legitimate signal.”

“Nor do I. The kick was involuntary.”

“Oh. Sorry.” The judge hesitated. “Do you get spasms like that often?”

“You stick to legal questions, George. Leave the medical stuff to me.”

“It wasn’t intended to be a medical question but a personal one, a friend showing interest in a friend.”

“Nonsense. You were prying.” Woodbridge sat up. “Actually quite a few people have occasional spasms, even dead ones. I knew in advance, of course, that bodies will sometimes move when a muscle contracts. But the first time it happened it damn near scared the pants off me.”

Both men laughed, more as a release from tension than from amusement.

Woodbridge said, “Crazy, isn’t it? A couple of old codgers on their last legs like you and me being asked to decide whether a healthy young man like Cully King will live or die.”

“You’re wrong, friend. We’re not deciding the life or death of Cully King. You’re only a witness; I’m only the judge.”

“Oh, come on, George, everyone knows the judge is the thirteenth juror.”

“Only twelve ballots are cast.”

“Right. But you can slant a case one way or another.”

“Only at the risk of being overturned on appeal. I might take such a risk if I were completely convinced of the guilt or innocence of a defendant. In this case I have no such conviction. I’m staying out of it. I’m an observer.” He rose from his chair, looking down at his legs. They were without doubt his last legs, but they were also his first ones, and he had a certain respect, even affection for them, especially when they were well concealed beneath his trousers and he could imagine the strong muscles and tanned skin of his youth.

“What the hell,” he said. “Let’s lighten up. How about a drink? Are you supposed to drink?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

“So let’s have at it. Will scotch do?”

“Scotch,” the doctor said, “will do wonders.”

Oliver Owen called his wife, Virginia, from one of the two telephones in the attorney’s room.

“Is that you, Vee?”

“I don’t see who else it could be, Oliver.”

“A maid, cleaning woman, your sister. One can’t be too careful.”

“I don’t have a maid or cleaning woman, and my sister lives in Stuttgart. So yes, I guess it’s me.”

“I won’t be home for lunch. Judge Portelli has asked me to eat with him. We’ll probably go someplace where they serve wop slop.”

“Don’t talk like that. You love Italian food. By the way, the school just called. They’re having an emergency teachers’ meeting this afternoon — something about vandalism — and they’re sending all the kids home at noon. It’s ruined my schedule. I’m supposed to do my stint as a pink lady at the hospital.”

“The boys are old enough to be left at home by themselves.”

“Not if you want a home to come back to.”

“That’s absurd. They’re the best-behaved boys in town... I have an idea. Why don’t you drop them off here on your way to the hospital? They can spend some time in court watching their old man in action. They might get inspired.”

“Fine,” Vee said, and hung up, somewhat depressed at the thought of the boys spending the afternoon at a murder trial. They might get bored, they might get ideas, but the last thing in the world they’d get was inspired.

Vee replaced the telephone on the small white desk in a corner of the kitchen. This corner was her own personal space. Sitting in the stenographer’s chair in front of the typewriter she’d used in college, she felt that she was a real person, quite apart and distinct from Oliver and the boys. The corner was as private as a voting booth, and she could mark her ballots any way she chose.

She was a small, pretty woman with lively brown eyes and dark hair that was as tightly curled as a poodle’s and could never be beaten into submission with a brush. During her fifteen-year marriage she and Oliver had three sons. In their father’s presence the boys had beautiful manners even at the table and addressed their elders as ma’am and sir. Away from home they were unmitigated hellions, noted for their provocative mischief at school, at camp and on field trips. Vee often felt that they didn’t belong to her at all, that she had merely been used as a vessel and then put in dry dock.

When the boys’ transgressions were reported to her, she kept them to herself, knowing that if she told Oliver, he would either express disbelief or else manage to blame her in some way.

On Sundays Vee went to church with what she called her four boys. They were a handsome, dignified group, looking as if they might be posing for the cover of a church magazine. During hymns they sang lustily, except for Chadwick, whose voice was changing and who’d been instructed by his father to keep quiet and merely open and close his mouth at the proper times. So Chadwick opened and closed his mouth. A careful observer might have noticed that the openings and closings were somewhat exaggerated like those of a patient in a dental chair. But most of the congregation thought Chadwick, with his light brown curls and angelic blue eyes, was the picture of an ideal son. It would have been difficult for any of them to imagine Chadwick putting epoxy glue in the hair of the girl who sat in front of him in social studies class.

When word of the incident reached Oliver, he went to the principal’s office in righteous indignation.

“My son Chadwick does not even know of the existence of such a thing as epoxy glue.”

“Then he can’t have been paying much attention in chemistry class,” the principal said.

“In the unlikely event that the story turns out to be true, there must be a logical explanation for it.”

“I’d like to hear one.”

“The girl’s hair was probably long and bushy and impaired my son’s view of the blackboard, so he took steps to correct the situation.”

“Most ingenious.”

“Oh, yes, he’s a very clever chap.”

Chap wasn’t the word the principal would have chosen, but he didn’t bother arguing. A lawyer was a lawyer.

Chadwick was warned, the epoxy glue confiscated from his locker and the girl’s parents dropped their damage suit because their daughter’s new short hairdo was very becoming.

When the school janitor found graffiti written in semi Latin all over the walls of the boys’ lavatory, suspicion fell immediately on Jonathan. No detective work was required to bolster this suspicion: Jonathan was one of only three students taking Latin, and the other two were girls.

The accusation was close enough to the principal’s deepest feelings to make him deal harshly with the culprit. Jonathan was forced to scrub the lavatory walls with a toothbrush and to write “mea culpa” 1,000 times on the blackboard. Jonathan wrote the words 999 times, figuring no one would bother to count, and no one did. It was a small victory in a large war, but Jonathan boasted about it to his brother Chadwick, who told his brother Thatcher, who told his teacher, who told the principal. Jonathan returned to the blackboard for 1,001 more mea culpa’s.

On learning about the whole thing in a letter from the principal, Vee confronted Jonathan in his bedroom.

“That was really stupid, Jonathan.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You might just as well have signed your name to the graffiti.”

“I thought of that, but—”

“What am I going to do with you, Jonathan?”

“You could always bat me around the room a little.”

“You know I can’t bat you around the room. You’re bigger than I am.”

“Sorry about that. I guess we’ll have to think of something else. Maybe we should tell my father and make it his problem.”

“God, no.”

“Or we can build a rack in the backyard. You know, one of those devices they made to torture people by stretching them. That way we could kill two birds with one stone. I’ll get tall enough to make the basketball team and you can satisfy your lust for punishment.”

“I don’t have any lust for punishment.”

“Whatever.”

“Promise me you’ll never write any graffiti again.”

“Yes, ma’am. Or should that be no, ma’am?”

“Just say you promise never to write any graffiti again.”

“I promise never to write any graffiti again,” Jonathan said, adding silently, in Latin.

The youngest boy, Thatcher, was Oliver’s favorite. Since Thatcher showed no literary, artistic, athletic or musical ability, it was decided he should become a lawyer. After graduating from law school, he would spend a year or two in some prestigious law firm, then run for Congress, distinguish himself in the House or Senate, and ultimately, if the political climate were right, make a bid for the presidency.

Thatcher already had what Oliver considered a promising start. He could recite the names of all the Presidents in order, and frequently did, with oratorical flourishes that could make the halls ring, the audience cringe and former Presidents toss in their graves. Repeat performances were given at his parents’ dinner parties, school and church socials, Kiwanis picnics and Republican fund-raisers. It was, perhaps, not much of a talent, but some Presidents had started with less.

One morning, after the boys had left for school, Vee suggested to her husband that it was time for a change.

“Oliver, don’t you think Thatcher should break in a new act?”

“A new act? It’s not an act, my dear woman.”

“Well, whatever it is, people are probably getting sick of it.”

“People getting sick of hearing the names of their own Presidents recited by a boy whose name might well be added to that list someday?”

“Do try to be objective, Oliver. How would you like it if you had to listen over and over to little Wendy Morris recite all the constitutional amendments?”

Oliver’s coffee cup, on its way to his mouth, stopped in midair. “The constitutional amendments, constitutional amendments. Why, Vee, that’s a marvelous idea, splendid. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself. A list of the constitutional amendments is the next logical step. Let’s see, how many do we have now?”

“Too many,” Vee said. “Many too many. I mean, Thatcher is only ten years old.”

“When I was ten, I could recite whole pages of the Bible. Yes, I can see Thatcher now, standing in front of an audience, his small voice pronouncing the great truths of our Constitution. Can’t you picture it, Vee?”

“Yes. Oh, yes, I can picture it.” Vee slapped some jam on an English muffin and hoped she. would be forgiven, not only by Thatcher but by God and future audiences.

“And dates should be included, of course,” Oliver said. “It’s too bad Thatcher has trouble with numbers, but we’ll manage. Vee, my dear, I sometimes underestimate you. You are as smart as you are pretty.”

Coming from Oliver, this was the equivalent of a passionate declaration of love, but Vee was not moved to respond in kind. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Poor Thatcher, it will take him weeks to learn the amendments, and he’ll never get the dates straight. He has a rotten memory. I wonder if any of our Presidents had rotten memories.

Oliver’s dream flowed on, unimpeded by flotsam or jetsam or common sense. “By the time Thatcher applies for admission to law school he’ll have an edge. And he’ll need it, what with all the minorities the schools of higher education are being forced to accept nowadays.”

“Oliver, don’t you think Thatcher is getting a little old to be shown off in public like this?”

“Shown off? Encouraging my son to remind people of their great American past cannot be construed as showing him off. And don’t forget, my dear, it was you who suggested the constitutional amendments. Doesn’t that fill you with pride?”

“Not really.” She was filled instead with guilt and the disturbing prospect of going through life branded as the woman responsible for Thatcher’s memorizing the constitutional amendments and passing them along to countless captive audiences throughout the city.

During the recess Donnelly also made a telephone call. Since he intended it to be kept private, he passed up the phones in the attorneys’ room and used one of the public booths in the hall.

“Ellie? This is Charles Donnelly. I’ll be brief. I want you to get your boss to come down to courtroom number five between now and noon or this afternoon between two and four. Yes, I know he’s busy. But this is literally a matter of life and death. Remind him he owes me one, a big one. All I ask is that he sit in the courtroom and observe. Then I’ll get back to him later. I repeat, it’s a matter of life and death.”

Dr. Woodbridge returned to the stand and continued listing his credentials. The jurors, who had come back from their coffee break fairly alert, now lapsed into a kind of stupor. They didn’t know what terms like “board accreditation” meant, and when it was explained, they didn’t much care and were inclined to side with Donnelly’s request for cutting out this kind of time wasting. Juror No. 3, the cement finisher Paloverde, accustomed to hard work in the open air, fell asleep in the close atmosphere of the courtroom and woke up only at the sound of a commotion in the hall. Even the heavy carved oak door, three inches thick, failed to smother the noise of a woman screaming.

“—where I was consultant to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sawtelle.”

“That’s in California?”

“Yes.”

“Please speak up, Dr. Woodbridge,” Owen said, but the judge interrupted.

“Hold everything, please.” He nodded to Di Santo, his bailiff, and Di Santo went out into the corridor. Three or four minutes later he returned, his face red and moist. Semicircles of sweat were staining the underarms of his shirt. He approached the bench, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

“There’s a deranged woman in the hall,” he told the judge in a whisper.

“Get rid of her.”

“She won’t go. She wants to come in here.”

“Why?”

“She claims someone here robbed her and she wants to make a citizen’s arrest.”

“Did you tell her there’s a trial going on?”

“That’s what I was trying to do when she... when she... when she—” He leaned closer to the bench. “She spit in my eye. I’ve never been spit in the eye before. It’s humiliating. How do you defend yourself against a thing like spit in the eye?”

“Go out there and get rid of her.”

The bailiff turned to obey, but before he was halfway to the door, a woman staggered into the courtroom. Two men, a deputy and a man in work clothes, had been attempting to restrain her by hanging on to her arms. But she slipped out of their grasp and left them holding an empty coat. She came screaming past the first row of spectators right into the well.

“There he is!” She shook her fist at the counsel’s table. “He robbed me. He took my pills. Arrest him! Arrest him!”

Donnelly didn’t move or even blink. He sat like a marble man while a bailiff and a deputy grabbed his wife from behind. She hadn’t stopped to dress, only to put on slippers and a coat over her pajamas. The coat lay on the floor near the doorway like the cast-off skin of a snake.

“I want him arrested. He’s trying to kill me. He took away the pills that are keeping me alive.”

“Have a deputy drive her home,” the judge said to Di Santo.

One of the spectators opened the door, and Zan was half dragged, half carried out into the hall. As the door closed, there was an eerie silence, as if she had fainted or been knocked unconscious.

For the first time since the trial began the jurors started to talk among themselves in court. The touch of madness seemed to have drawn them together in a closed circle like pioneers attacked by Indians.

The judge pounded his gavel for attention.

“We will have a ten-minute recess.” After the jurors and most of the spectators had filed out, he spoke quietly to Donnelly, “I’ll see you in chambers, Mr. Donnelly... Mr. Donnelly?”

“Yes,” Donnelly said. “I’ll be there.”

“You can use my door.”

“Thanks.”

The two men went out the door behind the bench, past the evidence room into the judge’s chambers. Donnelly crossed the floor carefully as if it had been mined.

“Your wife seems pretty upset,” the judge said.

“Yes.”

“I haven’t seen her for two or three years. Has she been ill?”

“Yes.”

“She looks as though she should be in a hospital.”

“Yes.”

“I gather you don’t want to discuss the situation... Well, I have to. An incident like this must not occur in my courtroom again.”

“I am not responsible for my wife’s actions.”

“If what she said is true, you’re responsible for this particular action, aren’t you?” When Donnelly didn’t reply, the judge added. “Did you confiscate her pills?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“So she couldn’t get at them.”

“That sounds as if more than one kind of pill was involved. What’s she been taking?”

“Uppers in the morning, downers at night, sometimes both at the same time, anytime.”

“She ought to be getting help. Confiscating her pills won’t do it. You’d better call her doctor and have him go over and see her.”

“I did. He’s probably there now wondering where she is. Thanks, by the way, for having her driven home. I’ll pick up her car if I can find it.”

“What are you going to do about her condition?”

“Whatever is possible,” Donnelly said. “Which isn’t much. She doesn’t qualify for legal commitment. Putting her in a drug abuse prevention center requires her consent. So does entering her in a convalescent home. Are there any other options?”

“Give her back the pills and hire round-the-clock nurses to dole them out and keep an eye on her. I’m not speaking now as a judge but as a concerned observer.”

“Thank you.”

“About the only action I can take legally is declare a recess until this afternoon, giving you a chance to go home and straighten things out. It’s too early to go back into court. I said ten minutes, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“We have half of it left. Sit down.”

Donnelly sat in the chair on the other side of the judge’s desk. The judge was staring at him over the top of his spectacles.

“Tell me, Donnelly. Do you believe in genetic programming?”

“To some extent.”

“You know what? I’m beginning to go for it hook, line and sinker. I mean, I’m strongly tempted to believe that you and I were genetically programmed to be here together in this room at this minute discussing this subject. Does that strike you as crazy?”

“Debatable, certainly.”

“It has nothing to do with religion or anything like that, just genes, DNA, some mechanism we haven’t yet discovered and probably never will. There isn’t time.” He removed his spectacles and put them on the desk. “Do you suppose you and I were programmed to have a drink at this point?”

“I could suppose that, yes.”

“Well, I’m not one to fly in the face of fate or kismet or DNA.” The judge for the second time that morning brought out the bottle of scotch and two glasses. “I wonder if I’m programmed to become an alcoholic.”

“It seems unlikely at your age.”

“I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Zan’s Jaguar was not in either of the parking lots across from the courthouse, so Donnelly began walking around the block. He found the car near the front entrance parked on a yellow curb. The doors were unlocked, the key was in the ignition and Zan’s purse lay on the front seat. The sight of the abandoned car affected him more than her appearance in court or even the scene with her the previous night. It was strangely symbolic. The key in the ignition seemed to be waiting for someone to take charge, and the purse on the seat an invitation to someone to assume ownership. Zan couldn’t take charge or own anything, not even herself. She had been exchanged for some plastic bottles and two dirty envelopes.

Without even touching the car he went back into the courthouse, called his office and told his receptionist to meet him at the front entrance immediately. Then he went outside again to wait.

He sat on the concrete and metal bench at a bus stop. He had never before sat at a bus stop or given one more than a passing glance or wondered about the people waiting there. A teenaged Mexican boy was reading a book on computers while a pensioner dozed under a straw hat.

At the other end of the bench was a young black woman with two small children. She had a paper bag on her lap with flowers sticking out of the top. The children were sharing a box of Cracker Jack. They stared at Donnelly with the frank, friendly curiosity of the very young.

“Hello,” Donnelly said.

The mother’s arm shot out with the speed of a karate expert and pulled both the children toward her.

“Don’t you speak to no strange men, you hear?”

Donnelly’s emotions seemed to be rising closer to the surface with each of the day’s incidents. Normally he would have ignored the woman’s remark, probably would not even have heard it or taken it personally. Now it bothered him. What did she mean by a strange man? Did she mean a stranger? Or did she feel instinctively that he was strange?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t intend—”

“Pertaining to myself, I don’t speak to no strange men neither.”

The paper bag on her lap rattled; the flowers nodded their heads; the children continued eating Cracker Jack.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and there was something in his voice that brought the old man out of the past and the teenager out of the future. They both looked at him disapprovingly as though he were an unwelcome intruder from the present.

The clock in the courthouse tower struck the third quarter of the hour. He sat on the flagstone steps of the entrance and watched a pigeon drink from the fountain. It was a day of firsts. He had never before watched a pigeon drink. It dipped its bill in the water, then threw its head back like a man gargling.

He wondered how long he was genetically programmed to sit on the courthouse steps and watch a pigeon drink.

Shortly before two o’clock District Attorney Owen arrived for the afternoon session with his three sons, Chadwick, Jonathan and Thatcher. They were big, handsome boys who bore a strong resemblance to their father. Bailiff di Santo had been forewarned and set aside three seats in the front row. He solemnly presented each boy with a notebook and a ballpoint pen, the same kind the jurors used.

Thatcher, the youngest, construed his notebook and pen as gifts and thanked the bailiff with a fine, firm handshake. The other two eyed theirs with suspicion.

Chadwick said, “What’s this for?”

“To make notes,” the bailiff told him.

“Notes like about what?”

“The trial. What’s going on, et cetera.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Court hasn’t convened yet. When court convenes, you will see the American judicial system at work.”

“Jeez,” Jonathan said. “This is worse than school. I thought we came here for fun.”

“This is not,” the bailiff said, “a fun place.”

The boys were the center of attention until the jurors returned to their seats. Dr. Woodbridge took his place in the witness box, and the judge reentered through his private door.

Dr. Woodbridge began showing his long list of blown-up pictures of the body of Madeline Pherson. The pictures were shown to the defense counsel, the judge and then the jury. Spectators caught only a glimpse of them, which considerably disappointed the boys.

Chadwick picked up his pen and wrote: “This is not a good example of the American system of justice on account of I can’t even see the pictures. What’s so judicial about that?” At this deprivation the boys began to protest in whispers until their father turned and scowled them into silence.

It was Jonathan who seconded his older brother’s opinion: “This is a rotten example of the American judicial system on account of I can’t even see the evidence.”

The idea of communicating by note caught on and there was a flurry of exchanges:

The district attorney turned again toward the spectators and saw his boys diligently writing in their notebooks. He felt pride rising up through his chest like gas.

Jonathan saw the expression on his father’s face and interpreted it correctly.

He wrote:

During the course of the afternoon the boys learned a number of interesting facts.

The body of the woman bore numerous contusions, abrasions and lacerations. (“Hell,” Jonathan said, “my body’s got those all the time.”)

The woman had four broken ribs, three on the left side, one on the right. (“Hey,” Chadwick said, “remember when Thatcher broke two ribs falling out of a tree and cried for a year?”)

The woman’s lungs contained only a small amount of salt water. Lungs are seldom filled with water in drowning victims. (“I bet I swallowed more than a small amount when I was learning to surf,” Chadwick said. “You never did learn to surf,” Jonathan replied.)

The cause of the woman’s death was asphyxsia caused by immersion in water.

Each of the boys wrote their verdicts in their notebooks.

When court adjourned at four-thirty, a deputy in plain clothes drove the boys home in a sheriff’s car.

Thatcher asked the driver, “Are you a real cop?”

“Pinch me and find out.”

“I might get arrested.”

“You bet. For assaulting an officer.”

“I hope,” Jonathan said, “you get life.”

“I don’t want life. I don’t want—”

“Oh, shut up, you little shit. With any luck they’ll give you the gas chamber.”

Thatcher protested. “I’m sick of being a little shit.”

“Cheer up,” the deputy said. “Eventually you’ll grow up to be a big shit.”

It was a bad day for Thatcher. The amendments were sprung on him that night after dinner while the family was still sitting at the table.

“Thatcher and I,” Oliver announced, “will now adjourn to the library.”

Vee sighed audibly, the two older boys exchanged wary glances and even Thatcher, not noted for his acuity of senses, smelled something in the wind.

“Why?” Thatcher said.

“Because we have an important matter to discuss.”

“Why?”

“Stop repeating why like some idiot parrot,” Vee said. “Just go and get it over with.”

As a favor to his brother — who would, of course, be expected to pay it back in full plus extras — Jonathan tried to change the thrust of the conversation. “I wonder if parrots understand what they’re saying when they talk, also other members of the parrot family, cockatoos, macaws, budgerigars, cockatiels, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Be quiet.” Vee’s voice was so sharp that all four males stared at her as if she were a robot who had suddenly acquired the power of speech. Then the two older boys started clearing the dishes from the table without being told, and Thatcher and his father retired to the library, where Oliver explained the object of their meeting.

“What’s an amendment?” Thatcher said.

“An amendment is something added to the original to alter it, usually for the better.”

Thatcher considered this thoughtfully. “You mean like a lady going to a doctor to have her boobs made bigger?”

“No. No, I would not place a constitutional amendment in the same category as the amplification of a lady’s bosom.”

“What’s a bosom?”

“You are beginning to annoy me, Thatcher.”

“I can’t help it. I’m supposed to know these things if I’m going to grow up and be President.”

“Very well. Mathematically speaking a bosom equals two boobs.”

“I heard Mom talking on the phone about a lady called Betty who had her—”

“Thatcher.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, our mission is to memorize the amendments to our Constitution.”

“What’s a constitution?”

“The law of the land. The first ten amendments are generally referred to as the Bill of Rights.”

“The first ten?” Thatcher repeated. “Holy moly, how many tens are there?”

“There are two tens plus six. To wit, twenty-six constitutional amendments. I’ll read you the first one. Listen carefully. Are you listening carefully, Thatcher?”

“Twenty-six. Holy gophers.”

“Amendment One has to do with restrictions on the powers of Congress. It reads as follows: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’ December fifteenth, 1791. Do you understand that, Thatcher?”

“No.”

“Do you understand any of it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Too many big words.”

“They may seem big to you now, son, but as you memorize them, they will shrink.”

“How much will they shrink?”

“Thatcher, I am becoming exasperated.”

“I know. Your face is getting red. Mom says when your face starts to get red, we better get the hell out.”

Oliver looked genuinely shocked. “That’s quite impossible. Your mother doesn’t use profanity.”

“Not when you’re around.”

“Perhaps you misunderstood her.”

“No. She used short words. They might have been big to begin with and they shrinked.”

“Shrank. Shrink, shrank, shrunk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, to get back to the amendments, what was the purpose of Amendment One?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it to restrict the powers of Congress?”

“I guess so.”

“There, you’re catching on already. I knew you would. Now repeat after me: Congress shall make no law—”

“Congress shall make no law... I wonder if there’s a law about dogs. I think they should pass a law making everybody buy a dog. I saw a dog on the courthouse lawn that was real cute and fuzzy. Why don’t we buy a dog?”

“I don’t want a dog.”

“What if Congress passes a law forcing you to get one?”

“I would obey such a law, of course, but—”

“Oh, wow. Think of it. All of us with dogs, Mom and you and Chad and Jon and me, me with the biggest because I’m the smallest. Oh, wow. Me and my big dog could beat up on Chad and his littlest one. And all the kids in the neighborhood could take their dogs to school and we could have fights at recess. Oh, wow.”

Oh, wow. Oliver echoed the words silently and stared up beyond the library window toward the heavens. God, as usual, was elsewhere.

Later that night, when Vee and Oliver were about to retire, Vee was brushing her hair, and Oliver his teeth. He was a diligent brusher, ten rotary strokes at the front and back of each tooth, the brush held at a forty-five-degree angle to remove plaque at the gum line.

He came out of the bathroom and stood behind Vee at her dressing table. “Does my face really turn red when I’m mad?”

“Fifty-seven, fifty-eight. Yes.”

“And did you actually tell the boys that when my face turns red, they’d better get the hell out?”

“I might have said something of the sort.”

“Why?”

“It seemed like sensible advice.”

“Couldn’t you have phrased it another way?”

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘Boys, when your father is provoked, kindly remove yourselves from his presence.’ ”

“I could have phrased it like that, but I didn’t. The boys respond better to simple language. ‘Get the hell out,’ is more vivid and compelling than ‘Kindly remove yourselves from his presence.’ Don’t you agree?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

He put his hands on her shoulders while she finished brushing her hair. In the soft pink light of the twin boudoir lamps she looked very pretty and almost as young as when he first met her, the day he graduated from law school.

She had come to the graduation party with someone else, and he’d brought another girl. It was love at first sight. They were married as soon as Oliver took a job with a law firm. Vee worked for the first year, up until the day before Chadwick was born.

Vee enjoyed her children, accepting their various phases and faults as she accepted changes in the weather. She knew perfectly well Thatcher would be lucky if he got into college, let alone law school, Congress and the presidency. She knew, too, that eventually Oliver would come to his senses, and they could have a nice, normal life.

Meanwhile, there were the amendments.

He told her about Thatcher’s idea of a new amendment making it mandatory for each person to own a dog.

“How sweet,” Vee said.

“Not really.”

“Oh, but it is. You know how Thatcher’s always going up to strange dogs and petting them.”

“Oh, yes, I know. I paid for the thirty-six stitches on his hand last year. Besides, the object of Thatcher’s proposed amendment doesn’t involve petting but rather the staging of boy-dog fights on the school grounds.”

She laughed. He didn’t.

“I’m beginning to doubt,” he said somberly, “that Thatcher is presidential timber.”

“He won’t be eligible to run for another twenty-five years so you might as well stop worrying about it for now and come to bed. Whose turn is it to switch off the lamps?”

“Yours.”

“I thought it was yours.”

“All right, mine.”

She got into bed, and he switched off the lamps and joined her.

They lay together in the darkness, their bodies touching but separated by Thatcher and the amendments and the dog, by the trial and the pictures of the dead woman and the smiling brown face of the man who may have killed her, by Vee’s broken vacuum cleaner and the fettucine Oliver had eaten for lunch.

Vee said, “How did the boys behave in court?”

“Very well except for a few whispers. I confess to being disappointed in their notes on the proceedings.”

“Maybe you expect too much.”

“More than that. I sometimes get the feeling I’m out of touch with my sons.”

“Sometimes you are, Oliver. But we all drift in and out of touch with each other throughout our lives.”

She put her head on his shoulder and smiled with her mouth against his skin. He was such a big, beautiful man she often wondered how she’d been lucky enough to land him.