The Jury

chapter twelve

This morning I am sleep deprived, the result of a recurring nightmare, three nights running. It always starts the same way. I am in the courtroom, but instead of wearing my coat and tie I am dressed in a baseball uniform. I can feel the bat in my hand, preparing for the pitch. Bases loaded. A jury of scowling and angry umpires is in the box. Each night I draw closer to a verdict, but never quite get there, hanging on the edge just as I wake. So vivid is this that I have no difficulty remembering the details even as Harry and I make our way to the courthouse down the side street from the parking lot this morning.

We edge toward the front steps of the courthouse as we see the trucks with their video satellite dishes parked just around the corner. Another day, another dollar, we run the gauntlet.

By the time we reach the steps they’ve engulfed us, soundmen with their boom mikes jousting while the cameramen wield their lenses like bazookas. It is the latest rage in entertainment, anything salacious from the courthouse. Crone’s trial is now hot news. In this case, there is the added undercurrent of race; unstated in the press or on the tube, it is conveyed by constant photographs of Crone and the victim, profile shots facing off on the same page. Two of the local network affiliates have crafted these into their nightly logo for the so-called “Jigsaw Jane murder case of Dr. David Crone.” Harry is thinking of having them printed on his business cards.

The cry for racial justice, while not heard in the courtroom, is openly discussed on the talk shows at night and in sidebars in the newspapers. Assurances from Judge Coats to the contrary, Harry and I can only wonder whether the jury is properly insulated from this. We could demand that they be sequestered, locked away in some hotel under lock and key with bailiffs to watch over them for the duration. This would definitely cut against us. It is a fact that jurors incarcerated for trial will invariably hold it against the defendant.

Harry and I fight our way up the steps past the cameras, push and shove.

“Who’s today’s witness?” One of them sticks a boom mike in my face. I shove it aside with a shoulder and walk by.

“Why is the session closed to the press?”

“You’d have to talk to the judge,” says Harry.

“Is it true that there’s a witness to the murder?”

This last stops Harry in his tracks.

“That’s news to me,” he tells them.

“Then it’s not true? Are you telling us it’s not true?”

“I’m not telling you anything.” Under a gag order, Harry has said all he can. The rumor has been floating for days.

“Then you’re not denying it?”

I say nothing. Harry is mum, responding only with looks to kill.

There are a thousand ways your client can be tried in the press. One of the least enviable is to be gagged by the court as false stories begin to spread on the airwaves. We can’t be certain that jurors won’t hear these and begin to engage in their own speculation.

We push our way through the throng. As in medieval combat, two of the soundmen employ their boom mikes like pikes, dangling them in our faces as we surge forward up the steps. Harry uses his briefcase like a shield to ward them off.

“Can you tell us who the witness is?”

“Can’t tell you anything,” says Harry. “And if you don’t get that damn thing outta my face, you’re gonna be wearing it where the sun don’t shine.” Tonight’s sound bite if they don’t find anything more interesting.

“Would we be wrong to report that there is a witness to the killing?”

“Has being wrong ever bothered you before?” Harry is starting to get hot.

“Are you saying we’d be wrong?”

One of the bailiffs just inside the courthouse lobby sees our plight. A burly guy, he opens the door and uses an arm, cutting a swath through the working press like Moses parting the Red Sea. Inside is the metal detector, a line with guards checking briefcases, sanctuary and some sanity.

I am fighting off a headache, and the day hasn’t started. I was up most of the night prepping for the unknown, periodically watching the dark van parked across the street from the house. It left a little after three, pulling away from the curb and rolling almost to the end of the block with its lights out, then rounded the corner and disappeared.

It was too dark to see any occupants inside. Maybe I’m getting paranoid. It was probably somebody visiting in the neighborhood. This morning I say nothing to Harry about it.

We make it through the line and take the elevator. By the time we reach the courtroom we are down to the usual suspects, lawyers with their clients engaged in last-minute deals out in the hall, forlorn witnesses and family members lost in the sea of department numbers. There are two local reporters outside of Department 22, newspaper regulars with space in the pressroom. Here the action is less frenzied. There is no need for frenetic film at five.

They pose the expected questions: “What’s going on?” “Can you tell us who the surprise witness is?”

One of them, Max Sheen, has worked here for two decades. He has carved out a beat so that he knows every lawyer in town. He’s on a first-name basis with every judge, at least those who want to get reelected. It is rumored that Sheen has his own key to the courthouse, with access to the clerks’ filing room downstairs.

I tell them no comment, that we’re under a gag order, and Sheen takes his appeal to Harry. “Can you at least tell me how long she’s likely to be on the stand? Something for the one-o’clock deadline,” he says.

Sheen may already know more than we do about today’s activities.

Harry knows him, the kind of person my partner would cultivate if he wanted to drop his own news bomb in the middle of a trial and not have his fingerprints all over it. They step to one side, Harry and the two reporters, a conversation out of earshot.

Harry has always entertained such types, with private phone numbers in his Rolodex in Capital City. He has been busy making new friends here. It’s all very cordial in the corner between them, intent looks and a lot of scribbling off by one of the benches. I don’t want to hear what Harry may be telling them. Ignorance is bliss. When they’re finished, Sheen flips his notepads closed and casts an eye at the courtroom door. It is locked, with heavy brown paper taped over the long slit windows from the inside. We have to knock to be admitted.

“I hope you didn’t step in it,” I tell Harry.

“What? With Mr. Sheen? Never! At least not so’s Coats could track my shoe size.”

This is not much comfort. If Harry gets caught violating the gag order, it is not likely that the judge will make fine distinctions between Harry and me when he starts handing out fines or jail time.

Finally the lock turns on the other side of the door, and we are admitted to the courtroom by the bailiff inside.

Evan Tannery is already at his counsel table, seated next to one of the investigating detectives. I have seen this cop scurrying with notes into the courtroom, whispering with Tannery during breaks. If he is here today, as a representative of the people, my guess is that he is the one who finally nailed down Tanya Jordan’s testimony. Tannery would want him front and center so that she is less likely to recant or change any of the details of her story.

“Counsel, you have a second?” Tannery wants to huddle.

“Sure.”

He comes over to our counsel table as we unload our briefcases and Harry starts to pore through one of the boxes delivered earlier by his delivery boy.

“Our witness is a little traumatized,” he tells us. “You can understand. She’s lost her daughter.”

“I understand perfectly.” He wants a stipulation. I can smell it. Some area of inquiry he wants to put off-limits on cross.

“We should go easy on her.”

“We have no interest in beating her up,” I tell him.

“I didn’t think you would. Would you be willing to shorten her testimony a little?”

“In what way?”

“Accept declarations in lieu of certain portions of her testimony?”

Harry wants to know how we can stipulate to anything until we know what she is going to say.

Tannery insists these are not contentious areas, but merely intended to reduce the stress on the witness.

“Certainly you’d be willing to accept that she is the mother of the victim, that they had a close familial relationship? These are painful areas. No need to drag the witness through the details.”

“If she testifies at trial, are you willing to forgo testimony in this area?” I ask.

Tannery has to huddle with his friend the cop. They debate the issue. I can tell the detective isn’t happy. Finally Tannery turns back to us.

“Agreed.”

I look at Harry. He shrugs his shoulders. This sounds good. The details of a close family relationship would highlight emotional issues that could inflame the jury. If we can temper them with a stipulation, so much the better.

“And one more,” says Tannery. “It would be pointless to drag the poor woman through her personal background. Her political affiliations, social acquaintances-ancient history,” he says.

“What are we talking about?” asks Harry. “How ancient?”

“We’re talking about the period of time when she was a student in Michigan. We’ll stipulate that she was involved in demonstrations, what some might have called, at least at that time, a radical movement.”

Harry looks at him askance. “Are we talking a conviction here?”

“No felonies,” says Tannery.

“But she was arrested?”

“Minor disturbance,” says the prosecutor. “A refusal to disperse. She was arrested with a number of other people. She did no time.”

“Was she a minor at the time?”

Tannery shakes his head. This means that the conviction is not sealed. He would have to disclose it even though we could not impeach her testimony on this basis alone.

“And where did this violation take place?” I ask.

“On the university campus,” says Tannery.

My eyebrows rise a little. “Exactly where on the campus?”

“Near the defendant’s faculty office.”

“She was picketing him?” asks Harry.

“With a number of other people,” he says.

“So she has a prior history with the defendant?”

“No history,” says Tannery. “She didn’t like what he was working on. She made her feeling known just like a lot of other students at the time.”

He has a prepared stipulation, one page. He hands it to me and I read, but before I finish the bailiff is on his feet.

“Please rise. Superior Court in and for the county of San Diego is now in session. Honorable Harvey Coats presiding.”

Coats comes down the corridor leading from chambers in a swirl of black and ascends the bench. He takes his seat, a tufted high-back executive chair. “Be seated.” We all sit down. I am still reading Tannery’s stipulation, with half an eye up on the bench.

Coats shuffles through a thin sheaf of papers he has carried with him, looking for his starting place.

“The record will reflect that the jury has been excused, that the press and public have been excluded from these proceedings. Mr. Tannery, are you prepared to make an offer of proof?”

“I am, Your Honor. If we could have a moment. Mr. Madriani is reviewing a document. It may save the court some time.”

Tannery is getting his ducks lined up, his own yellow legal lined notes in order, waiting for me to finish reading.

“Mr. Madriani, am I to understand that your client has opted not to be present today?”

“That’s correct, Your Honor.”

Coats makes a note. Because today’s proceedings are in the nature of a motion to admit evidence, Crone is not required to be present. He will have an opportunity to hear what Tanya Jordan says if she is allowed to testify in front of the jury. For a man who has kept a virtual diary of the trial up to this point, he has a curious reluctance to confront the victim’s mother. Harry thinks it is the doctor’s guilty conscience, though he says he is not certain Crone possesses one, guilty or otherwise.

“The people call Tanya Jordan,” says Tannery.

The bailiff does not call her name but instead heads toward a side door, the one that leads to the holding cell. They have brought Tanya Jordan in this way so that she wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of the press out in the hall. A few seconds later, she enters the courtroom.

Tanya Jordan is tall, stately. She wears a gray business suit, skirt and jacket, and a blouse with a plain white collar. Despite Tannery’s depiction of the distraught mother, there is no air of trepidation on her part. If she is intimidated by the formal surroundings of the courtroom or the specter of cross-examination, she doesn’t show it.

Nearly six feet tall, she is slender and carries herself with a grace and assurance that is likely to impress a jury. Her eyes are straight ahead, fixed on the judge up on the bench as she walks toward the counsel tables and the clerk. She raises her right hand and takes the oath, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, then climbs the two short steps into the witness box and takes her seat.

Tannery moves to the lectern that is positioned between the counsel tables.

“Your Honor, if I may. We have a stipulation outstanding.” He turns toward me for an answer.

“Do I have a copy?” says the judge.

Tannery has forgotten to give him one. The detective forages at the counsel table and finally gives up his own copy so that the bailiff can hand it up to the judge.

“What is this?” Coats looks at it as he asks the question.

“It deals with the witness’s background, Your Honor. I think we can shorten her testimony if we agree to certain facts.”

“Your Honor, given the limited information we have concerning this witness, I don’t think we can accept this portion of the stipulation.” Harry and I are conferring at the table as I address the issue.

“I don’t see why not, Your Honor. The information is probably irrelevant,” says Tannery. “These activities involving the witness took place over two decades ago.”

“If the defense isn’t comfortable with the stipulation, you know the drill, Mr. Tannery. You can object, and we’ll deal with it then.”

“Your Honor, this was part of a package. Two stipulations.” Tannery isn’t happy. “If we’re not going to agree as to the one, then the previous stipulation offered by the people must be withdrawn.”

Tannery looks over at me, dangling this. He knows that the family history, the relationship between mother and daughter, is a measure of damages he can draw out in front of the jury for emotional impact. That he is willing to offer this up makes me wonder why he is so anxious to avoid the witness’s history as an undergraduate at Michigan. Harry has the same thought. He is making a note to himself on a legal pad.

“We’re willing to accept the one,” I tell the court.

“We’re not,” says Tannery.

“Very well,” says the judge. “There are no stipulations. Proceed.”

“Would you state your name for the record?” Tannery finally turns to the witness.

“Tanya Elizabeth Jordan.” She spells her first and last names for the court reporter. There is no nervous hesitation. She is cool-almost businesslike.

“I know this is difficult for you,” says Tannery. Though you wouldn’t know it from her demeanor. “We will take it slow. If you need time to collect your thoughts, just tell us. You are the mother of the victim in this case, Kalista Jordan?”

She nods. “I am.”

“When was the last time you spoke with your daughter?”

She doesn’t have to think long. She remembers the precise date. “It was March thirtieth, last year.”

“Can you tell the court, did you have a close relationship with your daughter?”

“Very close. I was a single parent. Kalista and I were the only family either of us had. She was my only child.”

“Is her father alive?”

“No. He died when she was an infant. Kalista never knew her father.”

“So you raised her alone?”

“Pretty much. My mother was with us for a time, when I was in college. She would watch my daughter when I attended classes, or had to go to work.”

“But you would characterize your relationship with your daughter as close?”

“Very.”

“And it remained close even as she became an adult? Your daughter, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“How often did you see her?”

“Objection, lack of specificity as to time.”

Tannery looks over at me, and before the judge can rule he reframes the question.

“Within the last year before her death, how often on average would you see your daughter?”

“At least four times a year, perhaps five. We would spend vacation time together, Christmas and Thanksgiving. Given the distance sometimes I would travel out, sometimes she would come home.”

“And on the phone, how often would you talk? During this same time frame?”

“At least twice a week. Sometimes more.”

“Did she confide in you?”

“We didn’t have any secrets, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did she come to you for advice?”

“Usually. Children don’t always ask, but Kalista is. .” For the first time Tanya Jordan breaks her concentration, looks up at the ceiling and amends her answer. “She was a good child.” Her voice catches a little as she places her daughter in the past tense.

“Yes.” Tannery glances over at Harry and me as if to say there will be much more of this if we don’t take the stipulation.

“When she was young, I take it she would talk with you about boys, her friends, what she was doing at school?”

“Oh, yes. We discussed almost everything. She never kept any secrets from me.”

“And I assume you shared things with her?”

“I did.”

Tannery shuffles a page to the top of the stack from the papers in front of him on the lectern.

“Did you ever discuss with her your experiences in college, at the University of Michigan?”

“I did. We talked about the fact that I’d done some things, made some mistakes, but that she was not one of them.”

“What do you mean she was not one of them?”

“I mean having my daughter was not something I had planned. But I would never have changed it for the world.”

“You weren’t married to Kalista’s father?”

“No.”

“Was she troubled by this?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I’m sure there were times in her life when growing up without a father was difficult. But she didn’t dwell on it. And, as I said, he died long ago.”

“So she would have been without a father whether you had been married to him or not?”

“Objection.”

“Yes.”

“Sustained. You’re not supposed to answer the question if there’s an objection,” says the judge.

“Sorry.” She looks up at him, only a few inches shorter than Coats even though he’s on the bench.

“Let’s concentrate on your days at Michigan.” Tannery now starts to lead her into ancient history. Harry and I are looking at each other wondering why, unless Tannery is just trying to take the sting out of an old arrest, something we are not likely to raise in any event.

“Did you talk to your daughter much about your undergraduate days?”

“We talked about it. She was interested in the period. Student activism. I think it held a certain nostalgia for her. Kids today have it much easier, but they think they missed a lot, in the sixties and seventies.”

“Civil rights?” says Tannery.

“That was a big part of it. Yes.”

“And you were involved back then when you were in college.”

“I was.”

“You were active in civil rights activities?”

“Yes.”

“You engaged in demonstrations? So-called sit-ins?”

“I did.”

“And Kalista was interested in this?”

“Yes. She always wanted to know what it was like. I think to her it was”-she thinks for a second- “like history. Curiosity driven by nostalgia. Kalista was born when I was in college, but she was only an infant when I graduated. She had no recollection of that time. It was very difficult. The only reason I was able to attend the university was that I had a scholarship, and my mother provided child care so I could attend classes. We lived in a small apartment off campus. Kalista wanted to know about it. She was very curious.”

“And you would talk about this with her?”

“We would discuss it.”

“Your mother, is she alive?”

“She died four years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Tannery is laying it all out, life leveraged from the bootstraps. He takes her through her studies in college, her jobs on the side to support the family while she went to school, a time punctuated with bouts of social activism. What Tanya Jordan calls her “period of commitment.” She says it with a somewhat cynical grin as if she has grown up since then and come to realize there is no such thing as justice.

“And you say you participated in demonstrations when you were at the university?”

“I did.”

“Did you consider yourself highly active in this way?”

She thinks for a moment. “I considered myself committed.”

“To social justice? Civil rights?”

“Right.”

“Do you believe you are still committed in this way? To these goals?”

“Yes.” She says it, but the conviction is gone from her voice. What kind of social justice can exist in a world in which her child has been savagely murdered and dismembered?

“And can you tell the court, did your daughter share this same interest? This commitment?”

“Yes, she did.”

Tannery pauses, looks through his sheaf of papers, finds the one he is looking for and studies it for a moment. “I’m going to hand you a document. Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”

The judge motions him on.

“I want you to look at this document and tell the court what it is.” Tannery hands her what looks like three stapled pages. The witness looks at it briefly, then looks up.

“It’s a police report. A record of my arrest on May second, nineteen seventy-one.”

“And what were you arrested for?”

“I’m not sure what the exact charge was. Disturbing the peace, or unlawful assembly.”

“What were you doing when you were arrested?”

“We were picketing. It was a sit-in at the university. In the faculty offices.”

“Why were you picketing?”

“Because of research being done at the university.”

“What kind of research?”

“It was a kind of racial profiling. Intelligence quotients, based on so-called genetic research.”

Tannery, who is still at the witness box, now turns to look at Harry and me.

“And who was performing this research? The head of the project at that time?”

“Doctor David Crone.”

“The defendant in this trial?”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

“Had you ever met the defendant at that time?”

“Yes.”

“And when was that?”

“I took a class from him.”

“He was a faculty member and you were one of his undergraduate students?”

“That’s correct.”

“This was a science class in genetics?”

“Right.”

“And why did you take this class? I mean, I assume it wasn’t a required course?”

“I took it to get information.”

“What kind of information?”

“At that time, it was suspected that he. .”

“Doctor Crone?”

“Yes. It was believed that he was gathering information to show that blacks, African-Americans, lacked certain cognitive abilities based on their genetic makeup.”

“The ability to reason, to form judgments.” Tannery is leading her shamelessly, but Harry and I don’t object. We want to see what the witness has to say. It will be another thing if she gets in front of the jury.

“That’s correct.”

“And I take it this was controversial?”

“Dynamite,” says the witness. “It was not something they wanted out in the public, at least not until they were finished, until he had his studies done. Then it would take time to refute the findings. While that was being done, Dr. Crone would have been all over the airwaves promoting his study, giving it wide publicity.”

“Which takes us back to the question of why you took the course from the defendant in the first place.”

“Because I was asked to.”

“By whom?”

She takes a deep breath. “We were activists. We called ourselves Students for Racial Justice. Some were grad students. Others undergraduates.”

“And you were a member of this group?”

“I was.”

“Why did they pick you? I mean, why not some graduate student who was doing research with Dr. Crone?”

“There weren’t any minority graduate students involved in his project. He wouldn’t have them. At least that was the rumor.”

“Objection. Move to strike.”

“Sustained.”

“Were there any black graduate students working on Dr. Crone’s project?”

“No.”

“Were there any minorities of any color?”

“He had one Asian graduate student, and the rest were all white.”

“So the only opportunity to get close to the project was as undergraduate?”

“That’s correct.”

“Now, with reference to the undergraduate class that you took from Dr. Crone, were there any other African-American students in that class, besides yourself?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The word was out on campus that this was not a class that African-Americans would want to take.”

“Why was that?”

“It was believed that Dr. Crone had a racial bias.”

“Objection. No foundation. Speculation on the part of the witness.”

“Let me rephrase the question,” says Tannery.

“Did you have occasion to talk to other black and minority students at the time about this class?”

“I did.”

“And based on those conversations, did you form any conclusions as to why minority students might not want to take this class being taught by Dr. Crone?”

“Yes. I concluded that there was a general feeling that Dr. Crone was racially biased.”

“And what was this based upon?”

“Stories regarding his work.”

What the witness means is rumors, since none of the students were close enough to know the nature of his work.

“How many students were there in the class?”

“Roughly a hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty.”

“And you were the only African-American?”

“That’s right.”

“Now you say you were selected by this group. This Students for Racial Justice. Why were you selected to do this?”

“I majored in education, minored in science. I had good grades. Also, I worked at the university part-time, which gave me access to certain information and to some offices.”

Harry looks at me as if the shoe has just dropped.

“This access, did it involve faculty offices?”

“It did.”

“Including the office of Dr. Crone, the defendant?”

“Yes.” She looks at me and smiles as she says it.

“Except for your daughter, have you ever told anyone else about this?”

“Only the people involved in our group.”

“You’re talking about this organization you belonged to, Students for Racial Justice?”

“That’s right.”

“And during this period, did you actually enter Dr. Crone’s office?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“I can’t remember the exact date, but it was in the spring, near the end of the academic term.”

“And did you take anything from that office?”

She looks directly at me, Crone’s alter ego, before she answers. “I did.” She says it with purpose, as if this was the culmination of some mission.

“And what was it that you took?”

“I copied some research papers. Handwritten notes in a binder. There were also printed forms with raw data and some conclusions, written by him in his own hand, based on that data. I copied all of it.”

“By ‘him,’ I assume you mean the defendant, David Crone.”

She nods.

“For the record,” says Tannery.

“That’s correct.”

“Why did you copy these papers?”

She hesitates an instant before responding. “They were evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Of what he was working on.”

“And what was that?”

“Racist studies,” she says.

“Objection.” I’m on my feet. “Your Honor, this is irrelevant, prejudicial. It is hearsay. It’s beyond the scope of any evidence before this court. The worst kind of speculation by this witness.”

“We’re not offering it to prove the truth of the matter,” says Tannery, “that these documents or that Dr. Crone’s work was racist, but only to show the state of mind of this witness. As a motivating factor.”

“Motivation for what?” I ask.

“We’re getting to that,” says Tannery.

“I assume there is some relevance?” says the judge.

“Absolutely,” says Tannery. “If you’ll just allow me a few more questions. .”

With the jury out of the box, on an offer of proof, there is little harm to be done, so Coats permits Tannery to go on an evidential safari. It is little wonder the prosecution gave up so easily on the theory of a love tryst. Intimation of racial bias would be far more damaging. From a tactical point, it is also better because it doesn’t sully the reputation of the victim.

“These documents, these copies, what did you do with them?”

“I turned them over to some people.”

“The people from your organization?”

She nods, then remembers about the court reporter and gives an audible “Yes.”

“And what did they do with them?”

“They turned them over to the newspapers. The campus newspaper was the first, but then there were demonstrations, and the major press got involved. I believe the Trib picked it up, and then it went national. The wires got the story. The Associated Press.” She says this with a smile.

“And what happened?”

“There was a mighty furor,” she says. Her voice rises an octave in indignation. “All hell came down. On the university. On Crone. He was called in by the administration. There were meetings of the academic senate. There was an investigation, a lot of questions. In the end, the research stopped.”

Harry looks at me, trepidation in his eyes, an expression of I told you so from the lips up. Harry is thinking what I am: mother and daughter, history repeating itself, only Mom had the good grace and foresight to copy the papers from Crone’s office instead of taking them.

“Did Doctor Crone ever find out that you were responsible for obtaining these documents and releasing them to the press?”

“Not that I know of. I don’t think he did.”

“So it was never made public? At least not until today?”

“That’s right.”

“And you were never arrested?”

“How do you mean?”

“For taking Dr. Crone’s papers?”

“Oh. No.”

Tannery shifts gears, shuffles papers at the podium. “Now, can you tell the court, did you subsequently, years later, have occasion to tell your daughter about this episode in your life, the fact that you had taken documents from one of your professors while in college?”

“I did.”

“And when did that conversation take place?”

“About two years ago.” There is a certain intent look in her eyes now as she stares at me from the stand. Message to Crone.

“And how did this conversation come about?”

“Kalista had just completed her doctoral thesis. She was looking forward to employment opportunities, some field of research. That’s where her strength lay. She had an excellent academic record. There were a number of offers, and one in particular that caught my eye. It was from the Genetics Center.”

“That’s the research institute directed by the defendant, David Crone?”

“That’s correct.”

“And how did you come to realize that the center had made an offer of employment to your daughter?”

“She showed me the letter. His name was very prominent on the letterhead. He had signed the letter soliciting Kali to apply. She told me that she’d actually met him at the university, when he was recruiting. I thought it couldn’t possibly be the same man. But his curriculum vitae was included in the literature that came to the house. It mentioned his time on the faculty at Michigan. It was him. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, it didn’t say anything about his earlier research into racial genetics. He needed money, and he wasn’t going to get it. .”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. Just answer the question,” says Coats.

“But you told your daughter about the defendant’s history in this area? The fact that he’d been involved in controversial research regarding racial genetics in the past?”

“I did.”

“When you talk about controversy,” says Tannery, “let’s get into some of the specifics. What exactly was Dr. Crone working on back then?”

“Objection, Your Honor. This is irrelevant.”

“Overruled. You can answer the question.”

“He was working on racial graying.”

“And what is that?”

“He was researching racial markers, enzymes that distinguish one racial group from another, with the goal of finding ways to neutralize them, to blur them. He wanted to create a kind of genetic melting pot in which there would ultimately be no racial distinctions, no unique characteristics of race.”

“And you considered this to be unethical?”

“Absolutely. He was playing God, or getting ready to. It was clear that he was leaning toward the elimination of minority characteristics.”

“And you stopped him?”

“Yes, I did. Fortunately for us,” she says, “the science of genetics was not as advanced back then. We were able to find out what he was working on and expose it.”

“And you told this to your daughter?”

“I did.”

“What else did you tell her?”

“I told her about the demonstrations back in the seventies. About Crone’s published studies, and how they were discredited.”

“Did you tell her that you were in large part responsible for uncovering the information that led to this?”

“I did.”

“And what was her reaction?”

“Objection.”

The witness sits upright in the chair and looks at me. There is a long sigh, as if she didn’t hear the objection.

“She was proud of me. She said I did the right thing.”

“Objection. Move to strike.”

“Sustained.” The judge admonishes her that she is not to answer the question when there is an objection.

The witness looks at him but doesn’t indicate one way or the other whether or not she accepts his instruction. Coats presses the issue, and finally Tanya Jordan acknowledges that she understands.

Hearsay is the law’s final insult in a murder trial. The victim’s voice is silenced forever. Now the rules of evidence, with narrow exception, erase every comment she made before death. This is sufficiently broad to include Kalista Jordan’s feelings regarding the incidents related to her by her mother.

Tannery asks the judge for a moment. He confers with the cop back at the counsel table. The problem here is that they have run into a wall. The witness cannot relate to the jury things told to her by her now-dead daughter. Tanya Jordan can only testify as to her part of any conversation, and the jury, without more, cannot fill in the gaps with guesses. If it comes down to that, it is likely that the judge will not allow her to testify at all.

The prosecutor comes back to the podium. “Let me ask you, did you discuss with your daughter this employment opportunity? The job with the Genetics Center?”

“I did.”

“And can you tell the court what you told your daughter in this regard?”

“I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to take the job.”

“And why not?”

“Because of Dr. Crone’s history.”

“You mean his perceived racial attitudes?”

“Objection. There has been no testimony as to his attitudes, only his work.”

“Sustained. Rephrase the question.”

“Is it fair to say that you didn’t want your daughter to take the job with Dr. Crone because of your knowledge regarding the history of his work in racial genetics?”

“Yes.”

Tannery smiles at my having made the point, one that he is likely to expand upon for the jury.

“But she took the job anyway?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Why? The unasked question lingers in the air like the acrid smell of smoke from a spent fire. Tannery can’t pose it because it would call for hearsay, but the jury will no doubt conjure it in their silent thoughts.

“But so that we’re clear, you didn’t want her to take this job?”

“No.”

“And the reason?”

“Dr. Crone’s history. What I considered, my view, my opinion that he had been involved in what I considered racist genetic studies.”

The witness is a quick study. I object, but this time the judge overrules me.

I can object to a statement of fact, but not to her considered opinions, especially when they relate to the witness’s motives.

“I didn’t think Kalista should get involved with someone who had that kind of a history.” The witness drives the point home.

There are a dozen avenues of attack on cross: What makes Tanya Jordan an expert on racial genetics? How can she be so sure Crone’s research wasn’t legitimate? How is it possible to pursue science if certain topics are taboo? All these are poison. Tannery would watch with glee as I got tangled in each of them. The witness has already characterized Crone’s earlier work as “racist.” There was enough of a sting to these charges at the time to draw controversy, to bring an abrupt end to his research back then. To parse words with the dead victim’s mother, an African-American, over what constitutes racism is not a dispute I am likely to win. One thing is sure: If the issue becomes racism, the verdict will no longer be in doubt.

Tannery moves closer to the question.

“Did you have reason to believe that Dr. Crone was involved in racially related research at the time he was recruiting your daughter?”

“I didn’t know.”

“Is it fair to say that you were concerned about this?”

“I was concerned. Yes.”

“And did you come to learn later that this was in fact the case?”

“I did. I received a message from Kalista that she wanted to turn over documents that she had taken to her people.”

“Objection, your Honor. Hearsay.”

“ ‘Her people.’ Those are the words she used?” says Tannery.

“Sustained,” says Coats.

“She used those words? She wanted to turn these documents over to her people?”

“That’s exactly what she told me.”

The judge is now pounding his gavel. “The question and the answer will be stricken. The witness is instructed not to answer a question when there is an objection pending. Do you understand?” Coats points his gavel at her like a gun, then aims it at Tannery.

“And you, sir. You know better than that. The only reason I am not imposing sanctions is that the jury’s not in the box. Try that when they are, and you’d better bring your toothbrush. You’re gonna be spending the night in the bucket.”

“Sorry, Your Honor. I got carried away.”

“Yes. You’re going be carried away by my bailiff, you keep that up.”

Tannery feigns a little mock humility. Eyes downcast, feet shuffling, body English substituting for an apology. He shuffles through a few papers, then picks up without missing a beat.

“Let me ask you,” he says. “This information concerning the nature of Dr. Crone’s current research, were you able to obtain information regarding this matter from another source? A source other than your daughter?”

Coats is looking at him over the top of his glasses, ready to swat him with his wooden hammer.

“Yes.”

“And what was that source?”

“Another employee at the center.”

Tannery turns to look at me as he poses the final question. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I can feel it coming; lawyer’s coup de grâce.

“And can you tell the court the name of that employee?”

“His name is William Epperson.”