Try Fear (34 page)

Radavich paused. I couldn’t see his face because he was at the podium and his back was to me. But if you can read the back
of a guy’s head, his spelled out total contempt.

“What kind of a witness? A prostitute. A call girl. Yet one who desperately wanted you to think of her as something else.
Some noble woman of great purpose. Yet she lives a life making up illusions for others, and she wants you to believe an illusion
now.”

The way he said it didn’t sound hateful. He wasn’t spitting the words. But the impression was unmistakable.

When he sat down, the courtroom was dead silent.

Except for the sound of Kate Richess issuing a single, pathetic sob.

Judge Hughes said, “You may begin, Mr. Buchanan.”

I stood up and buttoned my coat, and started the way I usually do, with “Ladies and gentlemen…”

… THANK YOU FOR
your attention during the course of this trial. Sometimes trials are complicated. You have hours and days and weeks of expert
testimony and exhibits and recollections from the witness stand. And you have to try to piece all that together as you go
back to the jury room and deliberate. But this case is not complicated. The prosecution tried to make it seem that way, by
introducing experts and going through all sorts of scientific rigmarole to try to make a case where there was no case. To
try to prove that something happened that nobody witnessed. And on the flimsiest of evidence they try to convince you, beyond
a reasonable doubt, that Eric Richess killed his own brother.

The judge is going to give you the law to apply to the facts. He will instruct you on the rules. And he will tell you that
the fact that a criminal charge has been filed against Eric Richess is not, I repeat, not evidence that the charge is true.
And you must not be biased against the defendant just because he’s been arrested, charged, and brought into this courtroom
for trial.

Must not.
That’s the law.

A defendant in a criminal case is always presumed to be innocent. This means the prosecution must prove any defendant guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt. You’ve all heard that phrase. But what does it mean?

The judge will tell you what it means, and what the judge says you have to abide by. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt means
proof that leaves you with an abiding conviction that the charge is true.

Not just a conviction, or certainty, that the charge is true. But an
abiding
conviction. I looked up
abide
in the dictionary, just to make sure. And that’s what it means. To make sure. Something that will endure.

You can’t wake up a week after your verdict and think, You know, I still have this part of me that doesn’t believe he’s guilty.
If you have part of you that thinks that, you don’t have an abiding conviction.

The judge will tell you that unless the evidence proves Mr. Richess guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, he is entitled to an
acquittal, and you must—must—find him not guilty.

Do you remember that boulder I told you about? The one that sits on the prosecutor’s desk? The one called the burden of proof?
The prosecutor has failed to remove that boulder. It’s not enough for him to chip away at it. He has to obliterate it, get
the whole thing off. But he hasn’t, and there’s a simple reason why. You can take all of the evidence that was presented,
all the speculation about the science, and you can put that aside and ask yourself only one question. Do I believe Leilana
Salgado?

That’s it.

Remember all that DNA testimony? You can forget it. The prosecutor never established when Eric’s small blood trace actually
got on the gun. We presented a witness, Christa Cody, who established that it could have been days before Carl’s death. In
any event, we don’t have the burden of proving anything. Despite all the expert testimony, Mr. Radavich offered no proof that
the blood got on the gun when the fatal shot was fired.

But even though we don’t have to prove anything, we have. We have proved that Eric Richess could not have fired that shot,
because he was in Long Beach at the time.

You twelve jurors, the law says, are the sole judges of the facts in this case. And you are the sole judges of the credibility
of witnesses. And, therefore, you all sat here and looked Leilana Salgado in the face as she testified, and in your hearts
you know this woman was telling the truth. That’s all you have to decide, that if you believe in your heart she was telling
the absolute truth, backed up by printed evidence, that this case is over. And it should be over.

There is nothing worse in our system of justice than that an innocent man should be convicted of a crime he did not commit.
That’s why the system is set up the way it is, that’s why the system gives the prosecution such a large burden of proof.

And that’s why the system does not trust any one person to decide the facts. No, in its wisdom the system entrusts all twelve
of you to get together and to agree.

And the law makes each one of you a sovereign. That means that if you believe that Leilana Salgado was telling the truth,
and eleven other jurors don’t believe, you are entitled to resist them, and to hold on to your belief as you see it in fact.
If you don’t, then you are violating your oath as a juror.

Ladies and gentlemen, I leave this decision to you, with full confidence in your ability to do what is right. Answer that
one question, and your decision will be the right one.

K
ATE LOOKED SO
weary I thought she might faint. Criminal trials are hard on everyone, especially family. And most especially mothers. Their
maternal desire to protect and comfort is locked up in a cold room, guarded by bailiffs and court personnel. Each day they
suffer a little, uncertainty weighing down their delicate balance.

So I insisted on bringing over a Chinese dinner, back at her house. She’d dropped about thirty pounds, it looked like. And
for most women that would be a godsend. But for a former Roller Derby queen, it looked unhealthy.

I went from court to the hospital and gave Sister Mary the blow by blow. She was like a trucker with the sports page, wanting
the whole story. Maybe I even did her some good. She was starting to look stronger, and said she’d be out in a couple of days.

When she said
out,
it sounded almost like it had a double meaning. But I left it at that.

T
HAT NIGHT
I went to Kate’s with a bag of take-out from Yang Chow. Incomparable slippery shrimp and hot-to-trot Hunan beef. Kate made
tea, and we sat at the dining room table. I was able to sit as long as I did a little leaning.

“I guess waiting is the hardest part, isn’t it?” Kate said.

“It’s pretty grueling, for sure,” I said.

“Could you tell anything? From their faces, I mean?”

“You never really know,” I said. “You can feel one thing from the jurors, and get completely blown away when they come back
in. Jurors you were sure were on your side are not, and those you thought hated your guts end up loving you. It’s one of the
reasons trial lawyers like to have a good, strong belt at the end of the day.”

She took a sip of tea. “And how was Sister Mary today?”

“Wanting out of the hospital, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll go see her tomorrow. Take her some flowers.”

It was the way she said it that got to me. Without pretense. Just an expression of someone whose desire to help others is
woven through them in rich threads of decency. And I felt then how much I wanted her to get her surviving son back. That this
would be the decent thing I could do for her.

And I felt something else. The fear that I might fail her in this. It was a large, black, gaping fear, too. Not the usual,
garden-variety, waiting-forthe-jury kind of anxiety.

“Tell me about your mother, Ty,” Kate said.

I looked down from her eyes. When I did, I saw Kate’s hands around her tea cup. As if to warm them.

Hands. My mother’s hands…

“You would have liked her,” I said. “I think you would have been friends.”

She smiled. “That’s nice. What was she like?”

I swallowed hard. “She was there. That’s the thing I remember most. My dad was a cop and had to be out a lot. My mom was always
around when I needed her. Like when I was thirteen and stole some M&M’s. Well, more than some. One of the big bags. Stuffed
in my pants. I had the whole thing worked out. Crime of the century.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Mom found them in my room, asked me where I got them. I was going to say I got them from the store, with my own money, but
my face wouldn’t cooperate. I couldn’t lie to her. My dad was dead and I knew what that had done to her, to both of us really.
I just couldn’t lie. So I didn’t say anything, and she knew.”

I had not told this story to anyone, ever. Now the memory came flooding back. “She made me go to the store manager. Tell him
exactly what I’d done and tell him I was sorry and pay for the candy. She stood there and I did. I thought I was going to
juvi. Mom let me think that. The manager said nothing like this had happened to him before, but that his mom would have made
him do the same thing. And then he offered me a job.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I bagged groceries all summer. And Mom made sure I was never late. She did what she could to keep me in line without my dad
around. Until I was fifteen.”

“What happened?”

“That’s when she died. A virus, just took her over. Antibiotics did nothing. Some swamp thing. Like a horror movie.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thing was, I thought there was a time there, when she was in the hospital, all tubed up, that if I tried hard enough I could
get her out of there. But I couldn’t think what to do, and it was almost like I got paralyzed. Right there in her room. I
wanted to will her better because…”

We were silent for a long moment. I could hear my own breathing. It sounded like a guy on life support. I wanted to clam up.
Couldn’t.

“I wasn’t exactly a model son around then,” I said. “I wanted her to live so I could make up for it. So I could make her proud
of me. In the hospital, she reached out her hand to me.” I saw it now, clearly, as if a fog had suddenly blown away. “She
reached for me and I was afraid. I took her hand, but I was afraid. Like I was the reason she was there. And I was the only
one who could pull her back. But she didn’t come back. That night she died.…”

That was it. I couldn’t go on. I put my face in my hands and tried not to lose it. I was aware of movement, and then Kate
was at my chair. Her arms went around me, pulled me close, as if I were her own child.

I
COULDN’T SLEEP
that night. The adrenaline during a closing argument is like liquid electricity, running through pipes of flesh, leaving
every nerve with the feeling it’s on fire.

The next morning, I shot hoop for a while, alone, testing my sore patoot. It was nothing compared to what had happened to
Sister Mary. I hoped her wound wouldn’t hold her back, from ball or anything else she wanted to do.

In fact, I hoped I wasn’t holding her back from what she wanted to do.

At two in the afternoon I was sitting—tenderly—at the Ultimate Sip, reading the
Daily News,
when I got a call from Hughes’s clerk. The jury was ready with a verdict.

I didn’t like that it was so soon.

I made my own calls. To Kate, then the hospital. But Sister Mary, they said, had been discharged. I called her cell and got
voice mail. I called Father Bob. Told him what was up, and where was Sister Mary? He said he’d make sure she got the message.

But not in time, apparently. Because it was just me and Eric at the counsel table when the jury came back in.

I watched their faces. Several made eye contact with me. A good sign. If they’re sending your client away, they usually don’t
look at you.

But I’ve been fooled before.

T
HE CLERK
, Ms. Mavis Elliott, read the verdict in her official-sounding monotone. “We, the jury in the above-titled action, find the
defendant, Eric Mark Richess, not guilty of the crime of murder.”

Kate cried out behind me. Eric turned to me and gave me a giant bear hug.

And I was transported to another dimension. Not the
Twilight Zone
variety, but the trial lawyers’ magic carpet ride above the clouds. There is no feeling like a verdict in your favor, and
no higher high than
not guilty
if you’re a criminal defense lawyer.

Radavich was not ready to give in. He requested that the judge poll the jury, and Hughes did exactly that. He asked each individual
juror if
not guilty
was their true verdict, both in the jury room and now, sitting in court.

Each one answered, “Yes.”

And that was that.

Eric turned and embraced his mother at the rail.

Kate had her son back. That’s the thing that mattered. Watching her hold her son was like watching a drowning woman grab onto
the rescue boat.

It was as perfect a day as a lawyer could have.

It’s the crash after the high that you have to watch out for, especially when it comes at you like a fifteen-foot wave.

R
ADAVICH LEFT THE
courtroom without saying a word to me.

Outside, Kate told me she wanted to have me and Sister Mary over to the house, so we could all celebrate together. She promised
to make her secret-family-recipe cheesecake. I told her that sounded fine.

Some reporters wanted a statement from me, and news about Sister Mary. I wasn’t ready to give either. I went around to my
car and sat in it for a few minutes. The sky was clear. City Hall loomed.

Which reminded me there was another thing looming, a question—so who killed Carl?

I knew Kate would be asking me that later. I didn’t know what answer to give. I wondered if any of us would ever know.

I called Sister Mary, got voice mail. “We won,” I said after the beep. “And tonight we’re going to Kate’s house. Can you make
it?”