The Wrong Man

90

I arrived at the criminal courts building early the next morning. I walked through the lobby, flashed my bar card to the deputy, took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor, walked into the courtroom, and sat down. Shauna showed up a half-hour before court. Wendy Kotowski and the prosecution team weren’t far behind. “Got your brief,” she said to me, holding it up. “Half an hour ago,” she added, an octave lower. “Not exactly advance notice, Counselor.”

I nodded at her. “You gonna do the right thing today, Wen?”

“I always do the right thing,” she said without looking up from her document.

Aunt Deidre came in just then. I conferred with her briefly, giving her little but platitudes, a pep talk. The truth, that I hated to confront, was that the judge would have a reasonable basis to deny everything I was trying to do here.

They brought in Tom at a quarter to nine. He looked a bit disheveled this morning, which seemed appropriate to his state of mind. I leaned into him and asked, “How were the eggs this morning, Tom?”

He actually smiled for a moment, which I took as a good omen.

“Terrible,” he answered.

At five minutes to nine, the court bailiff, an old guy named Warren Olive, stuck his head into the courtroom and looked around. “You all here on Stoller?”

“We are,” I said for everyone.

“Judge wants to hear this in chambers,” Warren said.

That wasn’t surprising. We all trudged back to the judge’s chambers. Judge Nash, having outlived every other human being on the planet, had photographs and memorabilia dating back more than seventy years. The walls of his chambers were lined with framed photos with every mayor going back as far as I can remember, a few presidential candidates on the Democratic side-I remember him mentioning he was a delegate to one of the conventions, maybe the one where they nominated Lincoln? — and all kinds of other politicos and celebrities. He received honors from all sorts of bar associations and civic groups and we got to read all about it. It looked like the inside of an old Italian restaurant in here.

Judge Nash resumed his seat in a high-backed leather chair, behind a walnut desk. Directly over his head on the wall was a flag of the United States and his certificate of honorable discharge from the U. S. Marine Corps in the 1950s after he fought in the Korean War.

Judge Nash waited for the court reporter to ready herself. When she gave him the high sign, he turned on me.

“Mr. Kolarich, I’ve had a chance to read your lengthy submission this morning, having just received it this morning. You’ve apparently raised issues that go beyond even what you discussed with the court last Friday.”

“That’s correct, Judge. We continue to learn new information. It proves more than anything that we need time to develop this evidence. When you consider-”

“Counsel, if this evidence were even remotely related to your theory of the case, I might be more sympathetic. But none of this has anything to do with your case. You’re off on a story about terrorists and cover-ups. The prosecution can rightly assert that this is coming out of the blue.”

“It’s newly discovered evidence,” I replied. “As soon as we learned it, we told the prosecution.”

The judge removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. “If I let every litigant create a brand-new case on the eve of trial-”

“This isn’t every litigant,” I said, interrupting the judge. “This isn’t every case.”

He let my interruption go without comment, which was an even worse sign, because it meant he was definitely planning to rule against me and was cutting me some slack.

“Judge, I realize that the lawyer before me pleaded insanity and I was planning to do the same. But we’ve come up with evidence that goes well beyond a wild-goose chase. If you give me a week, I’ll probably be able to prove everything I’m alleging. Just give me a week.”

“No, Counsel. If you come up with something in a week or a month or a year, you can bring a post-trial petition. But we’re not stopping this trial.”

“Judge-”

“We’re done. I’ll give you until tomorrow, Mr. Kolarich, to call a witness or we’ll just go to summations. All right, everyone? December seventh, nine A. M., Ms. Kotowski, I’ll expect you to be prepared to close first thing in the morning if the defense rests.”

I shook my head and looked at Shauna. We both knew this was a possible outcome. The judge was wrong, but he wasn’t going to change his mind. I stood up and stared at Judge Nash, who was already reviewing other papers on another case. I looked over his head again at the certificate of honorable discharge from the Marines. Next to that certificate was a photo of the judge in military attire, shaking hands with our city’s mayor, Mayor Champion, himself a former Marine who never missed a chance to honor the military, who even held parades and memorials on anniversaries that other cities and states had long ago stopped celebrating, like D-day and Oh my God.

And Pearl Harbor Day.

“Judge,” I said, “I understand your ruling, but could I ask for an additional twenty-four hours? If I could just have until Wednesday.”

The judge’s face scrunched up the way it always did when he was annoyed by something.

“Counsel-”

“Just one more day, Your Honor. That’s all I ask. I won’t request any additional time.”

The judge looked at Wendy, but he wasn’t seeking her guidance. He was probably thinking, after the different ways he’d screwed me, it would look good to the appellate court that he gave me that extra day when I asked.

“Good enough,” he said. “Wednesday, December eighth, at nine A. M. We will reconvene at that time, and there will be no further continuances.”

With that, the judge ordered us out of chambers. It had been a bad appearance for our case but adrenaline was surging through me regardless. I had tomorrow open. And something told me I’d need it.

Because tomorrow was December 7. Tomorrow was Pearl Harbor Day.