The Laws of our Fathers

DECEMBER 4, 1995

Sonny

My mother was a revolutionary. At least that's what she called herself, although 'visionary' was probably a better word. Guns and bombs and political maneuvering, the cruel mechanics of the war for power, had little hold on her imagination. It was the Utopia beyond that inspired her, the promised land where humankind was free of the maiming effects of a hard, material fate. I stood in awe of her whirlwind energies and, in an act of faith of my own, have always kept her soaring hopes at heart. But she and I were never wholly at peace with one another. She was impulsive, a little bit off-kilter – beyond me, in all senses.

With Zora and our differences in mind, I have arrived at the courthouse late. It has been one of those mornings. Nikki would not dress. She lay down when I said stand up, took off her blouse as soon as I had it buttoned, demanded, for no reason detectable to rational inquiry, to wear blue. And when I finally resorted to scolding, she wept, naturally, clutched my hem, and delivered her familiar entreaty: She does not want to go to school. Not today. She wants to stay home. With me. Oh, the agony of Mondays, of parting, of asking Nikki to believe, against the evidence, that she remains for me the center of the world. Someday, I always promise, it will be as she asks. I'll call Marietta with orders to continue every case. But not, of course, today. Today there is duty and compulsion. Nile Eddgar's trial starts. I must go off to my other world, play dress-up and make-believe. And so I begin the week in familiar torment, telling myself I am not my mother, that I am somehow on the road to conquering what remains of her in me.

For both our sakes, I allowed Nikki to skip the car pool and dropped her at school myself. That left me twenty minutes behind our frantic morning schedule. 'Great thing about this job,' one of the old-timers told me when I was sworn in. 'They can't start without you.' Yet I have always regarded a full courtroom waiting for a missing judge as a token of arrogance. I rush through the back door of the courtroom onto the bench, not quite prepared for the scene that greets me. It feels as if both the lights and the heat have been turned up. Beyond the bulletproof divider, the gallery is thick with court buffs and other citizen-onlookers: sickos, retirees, court watchers, and the thoughtfully curious drawn in primal wonder to the act of murder. Within the well of the room, extra deputies in uniform mill idly at the periphery, while the many reporters crowd the limited space available. The jury box must remain empty, awaiting the prospective venire, which will be summoned shortly. Instead, Annie has created a makeshift press gallery, positioning folding chairs on the near side of the yellowish oak panels of the jury box. The best seats, in the front row, have been occupied by three sketch artists, who have laid their pastels at their feet.

As soon as she catches sight of me, Marietta cries out her 'Hear ye's,' bringing court to order. The room is caught up in the commotion of hundreds of persons shifting to their feet, papers rattling, conversations adjourned in a final buzz. 'People versus Nile Eddgar,,' Marietta cries out, when we all are seated. 'For trial.' To my surprise, my stomach rebounds with the words. Two of the artists begin work immediately, eyes revolving between their pads and me. On the one earlier occasion I saw a rendering of Judge Sonny on T V – during a heated divorce case – I was disturbed by the severe look the artist gave me, my even-featured face grave with shadow. Surely I'm better-looking and lighter-hearted than that?

Meanwhile, the participants stalk slowly toward the oak podium at the focus of the room: Gina Devore from the State Defender's Office, a sprite in Ann Taylor, accompanied by a burly black man who must be the lawyer from D C she said would appear for trial. From the other table advances Tommy Molto, the Homicide supervisor, who has elected to try this case, a rarity for him these days. He too has a companion, Rudy Singh, a slender, inexpressibly beautiful young man with a delicate way and a musical Indian accent, who was assigned to this courtroom only last week to handle more routine matters. Finally, behind all of them, somewhat shyly, stands Nile Eddgar. He is more than six feet, far taller than I remember his father, and looms over both Molto and Gina. When he was last here, for arraignment, his hair was pony-tailed and not especially clean. Since then, he's shaved and had a dramatic haircut too, albeit not a particularly becoming one. He looks as if he simply bargained to let the barber cut off half. Charged up by winter static, his brownish hair Christmas-trees about his ears, resembling some hapless Dutch boy's. Nonetheless, as the resident emblem of authority, I'm pleased Nile has made these concessions to respectability, even if off the bench I'd regard the same gestures as silly or conventional.

Back in the lockup, keys are jangling and voices are raised. The transport deputies have been searching desperately for the prisoner, and a peal of relieved laughter sails into the courtroom when they realize he is not in custody but on bail. The lawyers state their name for the record.

'Your Honor,' says Gina, 'may I introduce Mr Turtle from

Washington, DC Her motion to substitute counsel and Turtle's appearance form ascend, handed up from Gina to Marietta to me: H. Tariq Turtle. At arraignment, I allowed the State Defender to stay on the case while Nile attempted to find his own attorney. An out-of-towner is welcome, since that will avoid the sticky conflict issues that might arise if Nile was the probation officer for other clients of his lawyer. I note aloud that Turtle has a local attorney number, meaning he's admitted to practice in this state.

'Took the bar here, Your Honor, before I moved out to DC.'

'Welcome back, then.' I allow the motion, and Gina, tiny and energetic, disembarks at once for the half a dozen other courtrooms where she has cases up. 'Mr Turtle,' I say, 'help me with your first name, so I don't mangle it when I introduce you to the jury. Tariq?'

The question startles him. He stares up briefly, then pronounces the name. 'It's just on the license, Judge, I don't go by that much anymore. The second syllable's like "reek." As in odor.'

He smiles at himself. The message is unmistakable: Don't worry, I'm not that way. He's magnificently groomed, a large man of substantial weight, his bulk gracefully draped in a splendid suit of a greenish Italian wool. He is all soft contours, a half-head of Afro hair, roundly sculpted, and a beard trimmed close to a broad cheeky face. He shows the slick courtroom poise of a big-city criminal defense lawyer. This is a man who has stood at many podia, making jokes at his own expense. For the moment, ingratiating himself, he is radiant as the sun. But the worm will surely turn. Between a judge, laboring to rule properly, and the defense lawyer, always criticizing her for the sake of appeal, there is a natural rivalry. The process starts at once.

'If the court please, I have a motion.' From beneath his arm, Turtle slowly removes a newspaper, as if revealing a concealed weapon.

'Before you start, Mr Turtle, let me spread one matter of record again.' I begin an oration about my past relations with the Eddgar family, but Turtle shakes his head amiably.

'We're grateful for your sensitivity, Your Honor, but there's no problem. Mr Eddgar acknowledges his past acquaintance with the court, without objection. As, of course, do I.'

'You do?' I ask. I have never been good at hiding my emotions. Instead, since taking this job, I have practiced letting them emerge with a certain confidence, as if I figure it was worth getting to forty-seven to know what I do about myself. Even so, I often find myself undone, as I am now, by the dumb impulsive things that escape me. I am still ruing my lack of control when, unexpectedly, I see what I have missed. Despite my resolve to show presence of mind, I find my mouth has actually fallen open.

It's Hobie. Ho-bie!

'Forgive me, Mr Turtle. It's been some time.'

'Contact lenses, Judge,' he says. 'The name. The beard.'

'The belly,' I hear from near the jury box, a lowered voice that nonetheless carries distinctly in the angled contours of the room. A few of the reporters join in collegial laughter, but it is brought to an immediate conclusion by a single astonishing clack of Annie's gavel on the block she stations on the lower tiers of the bench. You could probably do case studies about what happens when you give a person subjected to a lifetime of ethnic suppression a gavel and a uniform. Annie maintains relentless decorum. She does not permit reading, talking, chewing gum. Even the young gangbangers who come to catch a glimpse of their homies are forced to remove their hats. Now she scalds the offending reporter with a look so furious that he's dropped his face into his hands in shame. Hobie, too, has turned, arms raised imploringly, shaking his head until the man dares to look up again and I recognize Seth Weissman. He scoots himself half upright on the chair arms, faces me, and mouths, 'I'm sorry.' I find my jaw slackened again.

It isn't really seeing Seth that's shocking. He's come to mind often enough with thoughts about the case that I'm vaguely prepared for his presence. It's his appearance that stuns me. My first impulse is that he's been sick. But that, I recognize, is my dismal inner urge to pull everyone down to my level. His injury is benign: he's gone bald, a smooth pink dome that nevertheless strikes a note of bathos on a man who used to wear his dishwater hair behind the shoulder. Otherwise, he appears only incrementally reduced by time, thicker in the middle, and still a little too tall for his slender limbs. He has a long, male face, nose-dominated, now more fleshy at the jaw. Gravity has done its work. He has lost color. The same things I would say about myself.

'Mr Molto,' I ask, when I regain myself, 'does the court's prior acquaintance with defense counsel have any impact on your position regarding my presiding?'

Molto stands with small nail-bitten hands folded before him, exhibiting his customary impatience. We have been over the issue now half a dozen times.

'None,' he says distinctly.

In the meantime, my eyes cheat back to Seth in the jury box. What's he doing here? I've finally wondered. But the answer seems obvious. A column. About coincidence. And serendipity. He will write about the strange whims of fate, how the figures from his past have reappeared with everyone written into odd new roles, as bizarrely misplaced as the characters in a dream.

'Your Honor,' says Turtle. 'My motion? I take it Your Honor saw this morning's Tribune?' The news I get generally comes to me on NPR on the three mornings I drive the kindergarten car pool. Sometimes late at night, in moments of supreme indulgence, after Nikki is bedded down, I'll take a glass of wine in the bathtub and turn the pages of the Tribune or the national edition of The New York Times. Most evenings, though, I am too burned out for more than rattled reflections on the day that's passed and the hundreds of tasks undone at home and in court, counted, instead of sheep, as I drift off.

Now as I open the paper that's been handed up, I confront a headline stretching across the top ofthe front page, state: pol's son meant to kill him, not mom. Trial Starts Today, the kicker reads. The byline is Stew Dubinsky's. Exclusive to the Trib. I scan: 'Sources close to the investigation… murder conspiracy trial of Nile Eddgar starting today… Prosecuting Attorney's Office plans to offer evidence that the intended victim of the plot was not the Kindle County Superior Court probation officer's mother, June Eddgar, who was gunned down by gang members on September 7, but his father, State Senator Loyell Eddgar… mistake in identity is believed to have occurred when Mrs Eddgar borrowed her former husband's car that morning.'

By now, I've piled a hand on my forehead. God, the calculations that accumulate. Eddgar! I find this news unsettling, most of all perhaps, because in a single stroke it feels far more likely that the strange young man before me may actually be guilty. At last, I nod to Hobie to proceed.

'Your Honor,' he begins in a resonant courtroom bass; he grips the podium with both hands. The impression is of some opera star about to hit a booming note. 'Your Honor, I have been trying cases for twenty-some years now. And I have seen devilish conduct by prosecutors in that time. I have been sandbagged and back-doored and tricked. But to have leaked this kind of incendiary detail to the press on the day we are trying to pick a jury, knowing that this news concerning a prominent citizen is bound to become a page 1 headline and irreparably prejudice the venire against my client -' Hobie does not finish. He smacks his hand against an extra copy of the paper, which he has held up for illustration, and tosses his large head about in embittered disbelief. He goes on to paint a vivid tableau of dozens of citizens in the jury room in the main building, forming firm impressions of the case even as we speak. Most of them, he predicts, with time on their hands and a peculiar interest in what's occurring in the courthouse today, will have read this one-sided account of the state's evidence in the very papers which, ironically, are provided to them free. His rhetoric is overheated, but I have little doubt he's correct and that most of the potential jurors will have seen this story.

'Your Honor, really,' he concludes, 'how can this man get a fair trial? I must, I have to, I have no choice but to move to dismiss this indictment.' He punctuates his request with a grunt of continuing outrage.

Molto, chubby in his inexpensive charcoal suit, his wiry, thinning hair barely combed, appears somewhat dumbfounded when I call on him for a response.

'Judge Klonsky,' he says, ‘I received no notice of this motion. I came here to pick a jury. I have witnesses subpoenaed. This is the kind of last-minute -'

I decide to save Tommy from himself. 'Mr Molto, let's start from scratch. Is this report fundamentally accurate? Is the state going to contend that it was Nile Eddgar's father who was the actual, intended victim of this crime?'

Tommy takes a deep breath. He looks forlornly to Rudy Singh, who has taken a seat several feet behind Tommy at the prosecution table, where a diminishing circle of light appears on the oak-toned laminate. Eventually, Molto allows his shoulder to drop.

'Basically, that's it,' he says. In the courtroom, there is a stir, particularly among the reporters, contending with the fact Dubinsky got it right.

'So I take it, then, that the senior Mr Eddgar, the defendant's father, Senator Eddgar, will be a witness here?'

Molto grimaces. I'm asking too many questions, as usual.

'We expect him to testify for the People,' says Molto. Now there's a real riffle in the press seats. Hard news: prominent dad to implicate killer son. Nearby I hear a bracelet jingling, Annie or Marietta, readjusting, caught unawares.

'And as the intended victim, he, too – Senator Eddgar – is without objection to this court presiding? In spite of our prior acquaintance? Have you taken that up with him?'

'Judge, it's not a problem.' 'Period,' he seemingly would like to add. Clearly, Tommy has his orders. The mullahs in the PA's Office have met and concluded that Tommy should try the case and I should preside. Slowly, I am beginning to recognize that Molto is not especially content with either prospect. I turn my copy of the Trib in Tommy's direction.

'Now looking at that headline, Mr Molto, I can't pretend to be pleased. You know better, the state knows better, than to try a lawsuit in the newspapers, especially when you're aware that the prospective jurors have not yet been admonished about viewing media accounts of this case. Now -'

'Judge, as an officer to the court: I didn't speak to any reporters and I have no knowledge of anyone on our side speaking to reporters, I promise you that.'

'Mr Molto, I'm pleased to have your representation. And I accept it, of course. But you and I are both grown-ups, and we know that someone intent on leaking is not going to send up a flare or call you for permission first.'

The reporters find this very amusing. There are a dozen ways this could have happened. Some cop on the case wanted to poison the well, or perhaps it was one of Tommy's superiors. Either way, the police reports appeared in Stew's mailbox in a plain envelope. We'll never know from whom. Behind the reporter's shield law, Dubinsky's source will remain fathomless.

'Judge, the defense had this information,' says Tommy. 'They had the statements of the witnesses. Our theory is obvious.'

The book on Tommy is that he cannot stand down when he should not bother firing, and I lose my patience with him now.

'Look, Mr Molto, are you suggesting that the defendant would find it helpful to try to pick a jury on the same day the state's theory of the case is detailed on the front page of the Tribune!' Molto is mocked by another rollicking burst of spectator laughter, ringing loudest from the press section. 'Res ipsa loquitur, Mr Molto. Remember that phrase from law school? The thing speaks for itself. Doesn't it? Again, I'm sure it wasn't you. But you should remind everyone on your side what their obligations are and let them know that if there's a repetition, there will be a hearing.' Sallow, still, Molto frowns unconsciously at my rebuke. 'For today, I suggest we deal with the situation that confronts us. Do you agree with Mr Turtle that I should dismiss the indictment?'

Rudy Singh has come back to stand by Tommy. He whispers urgently, telling him, no doubt, to give up. Fight a different fight.

'No,' Tommy says lamely.

'Then what's my alternative, Mr Molto?'

'Judge, I don't know. We came here this morning prepared to try this case. I think you should do what we always do. Bring the prospective jurors up. Voir dire them. Ask them if they've read the paper, and the ones who have, ask if they can put it out of their minds.'

Hobie, of course, will have none of this. The problem, he points out, is that it forces the defendant to accept all the risks of juror prejudice created by the state's misconduct in leaking. Instead, Hobie insists again that the indictment must be dismissed. As a young man, he was grandiose and that part of his character clearly has not changed. No defendant subjected to pre-trial publicity -not O. J. Simpson or John Hinckley, who shot the President of the United States on national TV – has ever gotten such relief.

'What if we continue the case?' I finally ask. This is what I have been waiting for Molto to suggest. 'In a couple of weeks this story will be forgotten and whatever benefit the state has gotten by virtue of the leak will be dissipated.'

'Your Honor,' says Turtle, 'leaving aside the personal inconvenience – I've come from DC, gotten myself settled here – but leaving that aside, Judge, my client has a right to a speedy trial. He wants that speedy trial, and it shouldn't be delayed because of the prosecutors' misconduct.'

Smooth, clever, Hobie knows he has the advantage and presses it. Molto, true to courthouse legend, seems determined not to give me – or himself – any help. He again urges questioning the jury pool right now. Singh, with his sleek black hair, stands behind Tommy, with one hand on Molto's jacket sleeve, not completely certain about whether he wants to stand ground with Molto or retreat.

'Gentlemen,' I say eventually, 'something's got to give. I'm not going to continue the case over the objections of both parties. I'm not going to dismiss the indictment. And I'm not going to allow the prosecution to make an uncombated opening statement in the newspapers and force the defendant to pick a jury out of a pool exposed to that.' I stare them down, all three men – Tommy, Hobie, Singh with his large doe eyes – all looking up to me with evident bemusement. Silence, the spectacular silence of two hundred persons rendered mute, veils the courtroom.

Finally, Hobie asks for a moment and strolls off with his client. As Nile listens, the dark dot left by the earring he has removed for the sake of a good impression appears distinctly when he nervously sweeps back his hair. Returning to the podium, Hobie uses his bulk to move Tommy aside.

'There is one alternative which we can offer that would let us get started,' Hobie announces. 'My client and I are willing to proceed with trial to the court alone.'

A current of something – shock, dismay – lights me up. This time, finally, I catch myself and maintain a collected expression.

'Mr Molto?' I manage. 'What's your position on a bench trial?'

'Your Honor,' Hobie interjects, 'they don't have a right to a position. If you won't do it, the defendant can't make you, we realize that, but this is none of the state's affair.'

'You're certainly correct, Mr Turtle. But given the disclosures the court has made, I really would not exercise my discretion to accept a bench trial if the state for any reason felt that was not a wise course. Mr Molto?'

'Judge, all I know is I got up this morning ready to try this case. I agree with Mr Tuttle. We don't have the right to a position. And if I had a position, and if Your Honor was willing to get on with openings and the witnesses, I'd be very happy.' Listening to Tommy insist again on moving ahead, I finally catch the drift. The prosecutors have a problem with their case. They've gummed things back together for right now, but it's going to go from bad to worse with time. Probably one of their witnesses has had a change of heart. Hardcore, perhaps? Someone important.

But does that mean I have to say yes to a bench trial? The older judges always tell you not to rush. They have a dozen sayings:

'There's no stopwatch on the court reporter's transcript.' 'The court of appeals won't reverse for delay of game.' I find myself staring down into the open pages of my bench book. It's an oversized volume, with a red clothbound spine, heavy stock pages lined in green, feathered edges, and a cover clad in rough black Moroccan leather. On the spine, my name has been impressed in gold. In the quaintest of courthouse customs, the book was presented to me when I took the bench, a judge's diary, the place for private notes about each trial. The pages before me are blank, as undetermined as I am.

Decide, I tell myself, as I so often do. In this job, deliberation is respected. Indecision is not. My work, in the end, is simply that, deciding, saying yes or no. But it's hard labor for the natively ambivalent. There's no other job I know of that more reliably reveals the shortcomings of a personality than being a judge. The pettish grow even more short-tempered; the silently injured can become power-mad or abusive. For someone who can spend a tortured moment before the closet, picking a dress, this work can be maddening. I'm supposed to let the conclusions roll forth as if they were natural and predetermined, as if it were as easy as naming my favorite color (blue). But I wait now, as I often do, silently hoping that some alternative, some forceful thought or feeling, will expose itself. The years roll on and life seems like this more and more, that choices don't really exist in the way I thought they would when I was a child and expected the regal power of adulthood to provide clarity and insight. Instead, choice and need seem indistinguishable. In the end, I find myself clutched by the resentment, which I still think of as peculiarly female, of being so often the victim of circumstance and time.

'Mr Eddgar,' I say and call him forward. I explain to Nile what it means to have a bench trial, that I alone will decide whether or not he is guilty, and ask if he's willing to give up his right to a jury-

'That's what we want,' he replies. Perhaps because it's the first sound of Nile's voice since the start of these proceedings, the remark takes me aback. What does that mean? 'What we want'? He's going to get it, notwithstanding.

'Trial shall be to the court. What are your thoughts on scheduling, gentlemen?' After discussion, Hobie and Molto decide they're better off spending the balance of the morning on stipulations, hoping to agree about certain facts now that there's no need to educate – or fool – a jury. 'If you care to make opening statements, I will hear them immediately after my bond call at 2 p.m.' I point to Marietta, seated below me on the first tier of the bench, and tell her to call a recess.

The courtroom springs to life with an urgent buzz. A bench trial! The court buffs and cops and reporters mingle, exchanging speculations as they head into the corridor. I converse with Marietta about discharging the seventy-five citizens who've been summoned as prospective jurors. Then I gather the bench book and the court file. A day at a time, I tell myself. Weary already, I sink down the stairs.

'Judge? Can I talk to you?'

When I look back it's Seth Weissman, hunched somewhat timorously beside the front corner of the bench. A little squeeze of something tightens my heart, but I'm struck principally by the way he's addressed me. It must have been less peculiar to be a judge back in the Age of Manners, or even thirty years ago, when the lines of authority were more absolute. These days the attendant reverence can seem downright inane. People who were grown-ups when I was a child stand a few feet below me and, at their most casual, address me as 'Judge.' To hear it from the first man outside my family who ever said 'I love you' raises the implausibility of these customs to dizzying heights.

'Seth,' I say. 'How are you?'

Something – a sense of the momentousness of time – swims through his expression.

'Bald,' he answers, summoning in one word the boy I knew: funny, vulnerable, always willing to accept a helping hand.

I try a straight face that doesn't last. 'Is my line "I hadn't noticed"?'

'I'd settle for "It's nice to see you." ' 'It is, Seth.'

'Good,' he says, then hangs midair. ‘I just wanted to apologize,' he says. 'You know, the acoustics were kind of startling.'

I dispense a forgiving backhand wave. He asks how I am.

'Busy. Crazy with my life like everybody else. But okay. And you, Seth? I can only imagine how proud you are of your success.'

He worms around, an aw-shucks routine meant to suggest it's all beyond him. More than ten years ago I first saw a column by Michael Frain. I was sure the name was a coincidence. The Michael I knew could never have become a master of the quick shot or the snappy bon mot. Then a year later I saw a picture, which was unmistakably Seth's. What in the world? I thought. How did this happen? Questions whose answers I still want to know.

At times since, I've looked at the somewhat whimsical photo (conveniently cropped just above the brow) and the accompanying columns, wondering about this man with whom I parted company with the usual tangled feelings, but no deepening regrets. I liked Seth. I lost him. There were half a dozen others about whom the same might be said, even, if I'm feeling mellow, Charlie. Sometimes – especially when something he writes has struck me funny – I have recalled distinctly the droll delivery of Seth's somewhat monotonous Midwestern voice, in which the glottal Fs rasp in a minor speech impediment. At other moments, he can disappoint me. Always the sucker for easy laughs, he is sometimes too quick to flay targets already tattered by public scorn, and he occasionally displays certain ungenerous retrograde political opinions, a former leftist too eager to show he's wised up. At his best, though, he can be quick and penetrating, putting down a line or two that seems to sum up all the world's sadness. Even so, these commonplaces often perplex me. What could have brought that on? I'll wonder. Or even worse, I'll imagine all of it was there in the sweet, funny boy who whirled through my life, and that I overlooked it because I was so busy seeking within myself. Was it? How did I miss it? Where was it hidden? Those questions also linger.

'You were always funny,' I tell him. 'I didn't realize you were wise.'

'You can create a lot of illusions in eight hundred words.' 'Oh, you're very good, Seth. Everybody likes what you write. My minute clerk acts as if I used to hang out with Mick Jagger.' 'Wait till she hears me sing.'

I actually laugh. 'Still a smart guy,' I say and he seems pleased to find his character so well remembered.

'I've always told Lucy, that's what I want on my gravestone: "Now what, smartass?"'

With that, the rear door bangs open and Marietta bulls a few steps into the courtroom. She's headed for the bench with a sheaf of draft orders when she catches sight of us and goes completely still. She turns heel abruptly, leaving the courtroom as it was, empty and hushed.

'So I take it I can look forward to a column about all of this?' I ask. My index finger circles toward the courtroom.

'' 'The Big Chill Meets Perry Mason"?' He laughs at the notion. 'Maybe. It's an amazing curiosity, isn't it? Coincidence. Whatever you'd call it. Everybody together? I had to see it.'

‘I take it from the way you were giving Hobie the business, you're still close with him?'

He laughs about that, too. That's how Seth heard about the case, I suspect, from Hobie, but now that I'm asking questions about the defense lawyer I realize I've probably already let this conversation go further than I should. I offer my hand and tell Seth I'm on my way.

'Is it crazy for me to say let's have a cup of coffee?' he asks.

'Not crazy. But probably inappropriate.'

'We don't have to talk about the case.'

'We can't talk about the case. That's why I'm going to bid you farewell. The case will end. We'll talk then.'

'Is there a rule here or something? I'm just asking.'

'You could call it a rule. My practice is to make sure that nobody has anything to worry about. I have lawyers in front of me all the time who I know well, but generally, while a trial's ongoing, I don't pass the time with them – or their close friends.'

'Sonny, really, I don't have a clue about this case. Honestly. Hobie's got me in an isolation booth.'

We both turn abruptly again. Marietta has walked into the empty courtroom once more, using the front entrance this time and arriving purposefully on the other side of the bench. She's a caution: a lot of busy officiousness, shuffling files and humming to herself. Nonetheless, her full, dark eyes slide over this way with foxy calculation and I meet them with a look that sends her back out like mercury.

'Really, Seth, it's wonderful to see you. You seem well. And I look forward to sitting down with you as soon as this case is over, to hear about everything you've been up to.'

'How about you?'

I thought we covered this ground already, but I answer that I'm fine.

'Married?'

I hum a bit, not sure when I should simply quit. ‘I seem to have passed through that phase.' 'Kids? Do you have kids?' 'A daughter who just turned six.' 'Six!' He's impressed.

'Late start,' I answer. 'What about you, Seth? From the column, I think I've counted what, two children?'

A knotted expression tightens his long face as I continue slipping farther away. He tells me that his older child, his daughter, is a college senior. At Easton, he says, his alma mater, an admission that brings forth the same wondering, self-conscious grin.

'Great school,' he adds. 'Astonishing tuition, but a great education. That's another reason I'm here. I get to see a little more of her.'

I nod again and say something polite. How wonderful. I pull open the door.

'It's just,' he says and stops. He's stepped nearer. 'What?'

'How many people do you get close to in a life?' he asks. ‘I feel really badly I lost track of you.'

'We'll make amends, Seth. Just not now.' 'Sure.'

I offer my hand again. He takes it, with a bewildered, defeated look, and holds on just a bit longer than he should before letting go-

A bench trial is still a trial. When it's over the defendant is just as guilty – or not guilty – his prison sentence can be as long. When I was practicing I always felt the same high anxiety at the moment of decision which I did confronting a jury's verdict. But a bench trial is usually conducted without the same atmosphere of flamboyance or chicanery. Frequently, the bench trial is the refuge of the lawyer with a technical defense, an argument too intricate, or offensive, for lay people to freely accept. With a judge as the decision-maker, instead of rubes off the street, the proceedings are usually more understated, sometimes even more legalistic.

Nonetheless, there's an alert air in the courtroom this afternoon. The spectators' section remains cheek to jowl, but there's more room in the well of the court, since the journalists have repositioned themselves in the jury box. All sixteen seats are occupied by reporters and sketch artists, while a number of latecomers have helped themselves to chairs from the counsel tables, which Annie has discreetly positioned in the corners of the courtroom, against the glass partition to the spectators' gallery. In the front row, Stew Dubinsky is getting it from two colleagues, who are clearly ribbing him. I can imagine what that's about: Stewie gets more leaks than a plumber. Beside Stew, Seth Weissman sits in his rumpled blazer. The man with a national byline, Seth is clearly a center of attention. In spite of the call to order, one of the TV guys has slunk along the jury rail to shake his hand and pass a word which entertains them both.

Marietta cries out the case name and the three lawyers step forward. Nile lingers closer to the defense table, where two square leather document cases and a banker's box are piled.

'All set?' I ask.

Everyone answers ready for trial. Joint motions to exclude witnesses from the courtroom are granted. I take a breath. 'Opening statements?'

'Your Honor,' Hobie says, 'I'd like to reserve my opening until after the prosecution has put on their evidence.' His motion, a matter of right, is allowed. In one of those untutored gestures of power which I was astounded to find came so naturally to me, I lift my hand to Molto.

'May it please the court,' says Tommy, and waits for the courtroom to settle. The other participants now are seated and Tommy has the floor to himself. In the intense light over the podium, his scalp shines amid his sparse hair, held fast by spray.

'Judge, since Mr Tuttle is going to pass up opening for the moment, I can make this brief. I know you'll want to hear the evidence yourself. So let me just outline what the People will be proving.

'The state will show that the defendant, Nile Eddgar' – Nile has looked up at his name and now uncomfortably meets the prosecutor's glance, as Molto turns. It strikes me that Nile's eyes are the same penetrating marine shade as his father's, but his are fear-beset and seldom still – 'we will show that Nile Eddgar was not only a participant in a conspiracy to murder but, in fact, the prime mover. It is a conspiracy that went tragically awry, but a conspiracy to murder nonetheless. What the evidence will show is that Nile Eddgar asked his co-indictee, his co-defendant, Ordell Trent, to murder Nile's father, Dr Loyell Eddgar. Mr Trent is a member of the Black Saints Disciples, Judge. He is a gang member. He is a drug dealer. He is a repeat felon. And he was Nile Eddgar's friend.'

'Objection,' says Hobie. I am pleased to see him take the trouble to rise, a gesture of respect the PAs often overlook when there is no jury present. His yellow pad is open before him on the light oval of the counsel table. Behind him, Nile, making his own notes, has looked up, startled. 'Guilt by association?' Hobie asks.

'Sustained,' I say mildly. A small point. Hobie is merely trying to break Tommy's rhythm. Even Molto recognizes this and accepts the ruling indifferently.

'Nile Eddgar and Mr Trent, whose gang name is Hardcore, first became acquainted,' Molto says, 'because Mr Eddgar – Nile, as I'll call the defendant to distinguish him from his father – Nile was Mr Trent's probation officer. He was – and I'm sure it's not disputed – Nile Eddgar was a probation officer in this very courthouse. And somehow, and you will hear this from Mr Trent, he, Hardcore, and Nile developed a personal relationship, a friendship of kinds. And as a result of this close acquaintance, it eventually came to pass that Hardcore also came to know Nile's father, the state senator from the 39th District, Dr Loyell Eddgar. Dr Eddgar, who is an ordained minister and a college professor, as well as an elected representative, will testify for the state.'

Perhaps he's a Scout leader, too, and also helps old ladies cross the street? I grin privately at Tommy's paean to his witness.

'Dr Eddgar's acquaintance, Senator Eddgar's acquaintance with Hardcore is complicated and it will be described in the testimony. But suffice it to say, Judge, there were political aspects to it. Senator Eddgar will tell you frankly that politics were involved. At any rate, because Mr Trent had also met Senator Eddgar, the senator was a frequent subject of discussion between Nile and Mr Trent, and it came out over time that Nile Eddgar, the defendant, resented his father. He hated his father, Judge.

'Now, the evidence will show, Judge, that one day in September, the week of Labor Day, Nile Eddgar urged Senator Eddgar to meet with Hardcore. Nile told his father Hardcore had something important to discuss with him. And Senator Eddgar agreed to meet. What he did not know was that his son, Nile Eddgar, had promised to pay Hardcore $25,000 if Hardcore would arrange to murder his father. He did not know that Nile Eddgar had made a $10,000 down payment.' Tommy with his notes on yellow sheets looks up at me for the first time. 'The People, Judge, will offer in evidence cash, currency that Ordell Trent received from Nile Eddgar on which Nile Eddgar's fingerprints have been identified.'

News. Movement in the jury box. In the bench book, I make my first note: 'Prints?' The harsh sibilance of whispers continues throughout the courtroom, and is brought to an immediate conclusion by another walloping smack of Annie's gavel. She scans the space with a menacing look. Tommy, in the meantime, has paused, and wiggles his shoulders about, appreciatively absorbing the impact he has made.

'Indeed, Judge, Mr Trent's testimony about this will be corroborated not only by fingerprint evidence but by telephone records showing a long pattern of communication between Nile Eddgar and him, including a page to Mr Trent twenty minutes before this murder took place.

'And you will hear the details of this murder plan, not only from Ordell Trent, from Hardcore, but from a young female gang member, a juvenile named Lovinia Campbell. Ms Campbell, Judge, is fifteen years old, and you, Judge, you will hear evidence that Hardcore told her that at Nile Eddgar's request -'

Hobie has again taken his feet. 'Objection.'

'Grounds?'

'That is most emphatically not what the evidence will show. Mr Molto's engaged in argument.'

'Overruled. I wouldn't know if it's argument or not. Mr Molto, I'm sure you recall your obligation to merely describe the evidence.' I smile, a gesture which Tommy finds momentarily confusing. Hobie resumes his seat, satisfied that he has tagged the issue.

'Ms Campbell will tell you that Hardcore described the plan to her. A plan in which the evidence will show – he turns briefly toward Hobie – 'Nile Eddgar's name was in fact mentioned. The plan, Judge, was for Ms Campbell, a member of Hardcore's narcotics operation, to meet Senator Eddgar. She would be there when Senator Eddgar drove up to the agreed spot. As the car approached, she would make a cell phone call giving a code word. And then she would greet Senator Eddgar. She would tell him she was going to get Hardcore. And she would exit that area. And as Senator Eddgar waited in his white Chevy Nova, a rider on a bicycle would come around the corner and sweep Senator Eddgar's car with gunfire from an automatic weapon. Ms Campbell would then approach the car, ostensibly to aid Senator Eddgar, to see if he was alive, and in reaching over the body, Ms Campbell, according to the plan, would plant a packet of drugs in Senator Eddgar's hand. And the story afterwards would be that Senator Eddgar was a white drug buyer, that his visits to the area were for drug reasons, not political reasons, and that he was killed randomly, in a drive-by shooting by a rival gang.' Tommy waits again to let the details, the horror, the cleverness of these calculations sink in. He knows it sounds right. The bicycle has become the murder wagon of today – maneuverable where cop cars cannot go, easily ditched behind a bush, and not identified by license plates.

'That was the plan, Judge. It did not work out. Senator Eddgar was not able to make it that morning. Other commitments in the state house had come up. And unfortunately, Judge, Mrs Eddgar was here. She lives in Marston, Wisconsin, Judge. Lived. But although Dr Eddgar and she divorced many years ago they remained close and she was here visiting him and her son. She came to the Tri-Cities often to do that, Judge, she was often in the county, and on this morning Senator Eddgar, when he was called away to his other business, he and the decedent, he and Mrs Eddgar agreed that she would drive down to Grace Street. As I said, Judge, Senator Eddgar's acquaintance with Mr Trent had political aspects and he did not want to offend Mr Trent by missing this meeting. He could not reach him by phone and so June Eddgar agreed to go down and apologize in person for the senator.

'And so she went, Judge,' says Tommy, 'and so she died. The evidence will show that when June Eddgar arrived in the area, when they realized that it was her in the car, not her husband, everyone – Lovinia Campbell and Ordell Trent – they tried to get her to leave quickly, but it was too late, Judge, to stop this plan that Nile Eddgar had put in motion. The zip bike came and it arrived too fast for the rider to see Ms Campbell's signals to stop. Ms Campbell was shot herself, Judge. And June Eddgar was killed. And I'm sure, Judge – it really isn't disputed – that Mr Turtle will tell you that Nile Eddgar didn't intend to kill Mrs Eddgar. Indeed, Judge, we'll offer a statement he made to the community service officer who came to inform him of his mother's death, in which Nile Eddgar all but admitted he intended to kill his father instead.'

'Objection!' Hobie booms. Both arms are raised. ' "All but admitted"? Your Honor, that's argument, clearly argument. Defendant did no such thing.'

I strike Molto's comment.

'Sorry, Judge,' he says before I can reprimand him further. Molto's tiny, darting eyes shy away, knowing he was caught. 'The point, Judge, is we acknowledge that the defendant has lost his mother, Judge, which undoubtedly has caused him some anguish and some grief. But that, as you know, is no excuse in the eyes of the law.'

With this, my attention falls again to Nile. I felt a momentary kinship with him this morning as I arrived on the bench, thinking about my mother and a childhood lived in the shadow of political commitments. But I'm struck now by a more distant perspective: Nile is simply odd. For the moment, he is occupied with his notepad. Defense lawyers often try to find a focus point like this for their clients, knowing that they are best off showing no reactions at all to the proceedings. But my sense of Nile is that he's beyond the grasp of any plan or discipline. There is an abiding ungainliness about him. He's potbellied, and when he walks he moves from the balls of his feet, in a loafing, dopey Alley Oop gait. Indeed, for someone who made his living in these courtrooms, he appears remarkably baffled. When he stood before me this morning, his head bobbed about like a barnyard hen's, and he is clearly uncomfortable in his go-to-court clothes. His tie knot is too large and askew, and his shirt collar will not stay in place. Yet Nile is my riddle to solve. What did he do? What did he intend? The most basic tasks in judging, they seem in this case frightening and enormous. Molto is winding up.

'What the evidence will show is that Nile Eddgar planned to murder, took substantial steps in furtherance of that plan, and that a murder resulted. That is the People's evidence, Judge. And once you have heard it, we expect you to find the People have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant Nile Eddgar is guilty as charged of conspiracy to commit murder.' Tommy nods to me politely, convinced he has done a good job, which he has.

Meanwhile, in the jury box, another conspiracy is afoot. Several of the journalists are huddled, trying in hasty whispers to reach their usual consensus about the parts of Molto's presentation which are newsworthy. By striking this accord they ensure that no editor can complain that his reporter was scooped or missed the mark in her story. I can imagine what they're asking one another: What do you think about this stuff about the father and the gang guy having some political deal? What about the fingerprints on the money? I wonder myself. I make a few more notes.

'Again, Mr Turtle, the defendant will reserve?'

Hobie nods from his chair, then stands and nods again. We agree to begin the evidence tomorrow. Molto promises to have a witness to fill a couple of morning hours before my Tuesday motion call commences. With that agreed, Annie smacks the gavel once again. The first day of the trial of Nile Eddgar is over.

*

'See you got to renewing acquaintances,' Marietta says as I pass through her small office outside my chambers. The space here is subsumed by her desk, shiny mahogany and nearly as large as mine, which angles into the room to allow for a small matching filing cabinet. Beside the blotter, pictures of her children and grandkids repose in a Lucite frame, under a brass lamp. A fake philodendron, bedded on woolly hummocks of sphagnum moss, rests on one corner of the desk, next to a tiny plastic Christmas tree, one foot high, mold-formed with icicles and candy canes, which has been added in the last week. On her blotter, Marietta has propped a tiny portable TV, on which the screen, no larger than a compact, moves with color. She listens to the soaps throughout the day when she is here, literally with one ear, a black wire running from the set and disappearing amid the dense dark curls on her left side. We have not spoken since she burst into the courtroom this morning, but the calculating sidewards glance she briefly permits in my direction is enough to establish the subject.

'Really, Marietta,' I say. 'All that running in and out – what was that supposed to be about?'

‘I just needed some files, Judge,' she answers. ‘I meant to tell you I seen him out there, only how you arrived so late, Judge, there wasn'tany chance.' With mention of my tardiness, Marietta's full brown eyes again rise adroitly, retaking the advantage. 'Looks like you got to old times anyway.'

'It wasn't old times, Marietta. It was very brief. He apologized for heckling Turtle and I explained that I can't really talk with him now.'

She's astounded. 'You – all gotta talk,' she says. 'Marietta, he's close to Hobie. They've been best friends since childhood.'

'Lord, Judge. "Knows the defense lawyer." There's no rule like that. Judge, that happens all the time. Everybody in this building knows everybody else. They're all cousins and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends.' Being technical, she's right, of course. But in this case I'm already walking on eggshells. And ethics are hardly what Marietta has in mind. I see how this is. Marietta's constructed the entire drama in her head. It's just like the sudsy fare on her TV. Some Rhett Butler rides back onto the scene explaining he's been a prisoner for the last twenty-five years.

'Marietta, you've got the wrong picture. He's married. He's been married forever. I know his wife, too, by the way. She was also in California.'

Shaking her head emphatically, Marietta insists I'm wrong.

'Marietta, I read the column every day. He talks about his wife all the time. He mentioned Lucy to me this morning.'

'Nn-uh,' says Marietta. 'People or one of them – I think he's getting divorced, I read.'

'I'm sure it was the Star, Marietta. Maybe the Enquirer. Right after the articles about the two-headed baby or George Bush contracting AIDS.'

Stung, Marietta pouches her lips and returns her eyes to the ‘I V. Feeling both provoked and rueful, I creep across the threshold into my chambers.

'You gone end up with a cop,' she says in a low voice behind me.

'What?'

'You heard me. I see it comin. I've been around this courthouse twenty-five years, Judge. I've seen half a dozen gals just like you, can't be bothered no way, and every time it's some cop, just don't take no for an answer.' She begins her list. Jan Fagin, from the State Appellate Defenders, and Marcie Lowe, the PA. I feel like screaming. Some people, many people, manage cordial relationships with their staff that don't include advice to the lovelorn. Whatever happened to boundaries? But I'm far past the point where I can cut this off with Marietta. I have spent too many hours eagerly soaking up the tales of Raymen's latest infidelity to restrict our intimacies now.

Even as I am ready to rebuke Marietta, some image of Lubitsch rears up, one of those dark mountainous men, like Charlie, who

I always thought in former years was my destiny, and I'm paralyzed by fear, the very stuff of superstition, that this will prove to be one of those dumb, chance remarks that in some way, as yet unknown to science, becomes fate. When I discovered boys, or vice versa, when my acne passed and late in high school I found myself suddenly attractive to males, one of the things that shocked me was that I liked so much to be embraced, surrounded. The men I envisioned were all dark and large. Even if they were, in fact, somewhat fair and bony, like Seth, that was how I saw them – one more reason I was doomed by Charlie.

'Marietta, you're pushing my buttons.'

'I'm just sayin, Judge.'

'That's enough saying for the moment. All right?'

Her jaw rotates in discontent, but she nods in a way. We've had this row a hundred times. Contentious by nature, I cut to the quick: Does she think a woman needs a man to have a meaningful life? Arguing this point, we stand across the chasms of social class. The feminist verities I regard as fixed as the rules of physics do not seem to apply on Marietta's side of the divide. As she lectures me, Marietta's round forms – the full circular do, her soft figure – plump up with disdain. 'Oh, I heard all of that, Judge. But are you really sayin you'd mind if some fella just loved every inch of your skin?'

It's more complicated than that, I always answer. I escaped from my marriage with no lasting disdain for men. In fact, before Nikki was born and I became so often soothed by the succor of other mothers – their helping hands, their reassurance – I had secret moments when I suspected I was one of those women who are more comfortable with males, with their badinage and rivalries. Even now, I wonder if it wasn't some of that which carried me into the law and the roughhouse of trial practice.

Yet, in some ways, I haven't begun to think of myself as unmarried. Not that I feel the remotest connection to Charlie. But I cannot willingly take up the striving and the anxiety that sometimes go with being unattached. Riding the bus into the

Center City, I observe with almost scientific distance the younger females who are single and still so focused on the details: the eyeliner and the base just right, the hair combed and piled and sprayed with sculptural precision, the hem, the seams, these women who you know look through the stores for clothes for at least an hour a day and are still in every sense presenting themselves. It's such a relief to be uninvolved with that, not because you've sworn some oath, to which you cling in the unreasoning way of religious faith, that a woman shouldn't let herself be judged on that basis (a credo which, after all, hasn't persuaded these young women), but because you're at another stage, another place, a different plane, where your connections are known, fixed, where you're not, like these girls, some atom waiting to be part of a molecule. Done with Charlie, I'm nonetheless unwilling to go back to that, like some upsetting grudge that has finally been forgotten.

Besides, I've found the idea of being a single mother and dating mutually exclusive. Assuming I had time to meet a man, when would I see him? The evenings and the weekends are all I have with Nikki. My few half-hearted efforts have generally been guilt-racked and uncomfortable. Living without sex, which never seemed an especially inviting or necessary prospect, is frankly far easier than I imagined. I am moved to oldfashioned thoughts – that abstinence must be easier for women than men. Still, at moments, especially on the bus, when I am often at close quarters with strangers, there are instants of longing that have the profound purity of music.

'Let's talk about tomorrow, Marietta. What have you been doing with the call?'

She checks the computer screen. If we start early, at 9 a.m., we'll get a couple of hours of testimony before I have to go on to the mid-week status call. Although I hear bail motions and other emergencies each day, routine matters – sentencings, progress calls, arraignments, guilty pleas – are scheduled on Tuesdays, in the morning or afternoons, so that trials can proceed on other days without constant interruptions.

'I think Molto's got a custody comin’ over,' she adds. 'That little girl – one who was supposed to put the drugs or something.'

'Tommy made a good opening,' I tell her. Marietta makes a face. 'Tommy's not your style?'

'He's one of those trippin-over-his-own-feet-type guys. Like this morning. What good did all that do him?' The leak to the Trib, she means, not just a low stunt, but a stupid one, since I was so unlikely to let him get away with it. Clearly, Marietta does not believe for a second Tommy was not Dubinsky' s source.' Besides,' she adds, then thinks better of whatever she was going to say. Marietta, who intervenes cheerfully in my personal life without invitation, is too much of a pro to express herself on pending cases. I invite her to go on, but even at that, she seems to take a moment to choose her words.

'Judge, he's sayin the boy was tryin to kill his father. Wasn't it the father, Judge, who posted Nile's bail? Wasn't that in the court file? We had a long bail report and then there wasn't any motion filed, cause the father put up his house. Remember?' I hadn't until now. 'What kind of sense does that make, Judge?' asks Marietta. 'Have his son try to kill him, then pay to get him out? Most folks think awhile 'fore they do that. That boy killed his momma and the father had him on bail in twenty-four hours. Why'd he be doing that?'

Because he doesn't think Nile's guilty. That's the logical answer, I suppose, but I keep that to myself and respond, more circumspectly, that perhaps we'll hear about this from the defense.

'What'd you make of Hobie, by the way?' I ask. 'Smooth, huh?'

'Oh, he's hot stuff, that one. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Now, how'd this go, Judge? You know him, too?' 'Him, too.' I shake my head once in bleak wonder. 'Rich boy, idn't he?'

'Hobie? Richer than I was.' That's rich in America: someone who has more money than you. His father, if I recollect, owned a pharmacy.

‘I can tell,' says Marietta, ‘I can tell every damn time. Feet don't even touch the ground. He's marchin round that courtroom. "How you doin, girl?" Like he gave a good goddamn how I ever done. Just hopin nobody notice what kind of good time he's havin when he gets up in court, talkin like he's white.' She nods to cement that judgment. I think what I always think: God, they can be hard on each other. 'And you ain't seen him in years either, Judge?'

'No, you know how that is, Marietta. Once you give up the guy, you tend to lose his friends, too.'

A second passes. 'And why exactly was it you give the guy up, Judge? He do you bad? Must have been somethin like that if you haven't been talkin for twenty-five years.' Her eyes train on the glowing screen, but we both know we have arrived once more at Marietta's favorite subject. Wary of hurting her again, I toss my head vaguely. 'Wasn't the other way, was it?' she asks.

'No, Marietta. Not really.' Was it? For a second I am faint with fear, until the past again returns to focus. 'No, the main thing, Marietta, is that Seth more or less dropped out of sight. And I went into the Peace Corps. The last I heard from him, there was something about being kidnapped.'

'Kidnapped!' This declaration startles Annie, who has just entered the outer office. The keys on her broad black belt clink as she steals a few steps ahead, surveying the situation. 'Yeah, "kidnapped," ' says Marietta, and humpfs to herself. 'Judge, I hear better'n that every Friday night.'

‘It wasn't like that, Marietta. It's a crazy story. And I never knew much of it.' I look somewhat helplessly toward each of them, feeling suddenly vulnerable to the strange arc of my life. The two women, both dependent on my moods, watch me carefully. Time, I think. My God, time.

'We were young,' I say.