Eyes of a Child (42 page)

Marian Celler had been Caroline's finest moment. She had used fourteen peremptories, with only six left; had Jared Lerner not stricken two propolice jurors for cause, matters would have been even worse. Among the eight jurors passed, Caroline had been forced to accept the first two Asians, a Chinese medical technician whose parents came from Hong Kong and a twenty-year-old Vietnamese immigrant. Most of her peremptories had been used on Latins: Caroline did not like the message this might send, and tomorrow's panel was even heavier on Asians, Latins, and the less well educated than today's had been. When Paget had suggested that they spend the evening reviewing their approach to the jury pool, Caroline had readily agreed.

They drove from the underground garage in Caroline's black Mercedes-Benz. Paget was surprised to see that the sky was dark; the onset of the trial had broken his connection to the outside world. Tonight, he knew, they would sit in an interior conference room, sandwiches and jury questionnaires spread out on the table; he would briefly call Carlo, then Terri, and then spend the next several hours trying to enter the minds of strangers who lived only on paper.

Caroline turned down Mission Street, the towers of the financial district looming to the left, dark forms with squares of light. ‘Mind if I open the sunroof?' Paget asked. ‘I'm feeling stale, like we've spent all day on an airplane.'

Caroline smiled. ‘Whatever helps.'

Paget pushed the button and leaned back, trying to pick a star or two out of the city sky, which was dulled by the reflection of artificial light. Lately, he had tried to experience life as a series of moments, small and still and as perfect as he could make them. With the breeze on his face, Paget, finding what he thought was a star, remembered the night sky the last time he and Terri had gone sailing.

It was perhaps five weeks before. Paget could not stand being inside, and there was no place they could go where heads would not turn. When he had proposed to sail at night, Terri had not questioned him.

The sail had been quiet and cool. Terri sat in the stern of Paget's boat, wearing an oversize leather jacket Paget had bought in Venice. After a time, the wind almost died, and they drifted in the middle of San Francisco Bay. The water was black; the lights of the city climbed the hills; the beams of cars crept like soldier ants across the Golden Gate Bridge. Above them, the sky seemed to break away from the lights of the city, becoming deeper and darker as it moved north toward Marin County, filling with stars. Paget gazed at the sky and then at Terri; her hair was black and glossy in the moonlight, and her face seemed more beautiful than Paget could remember. All he wanted was to look at her.

Her eyes were still and serious. After a time, she asked, ‘Why won't you testify?'

‘I was hoping to get away from all that, Terri,' he answered. ‘At least for tonight.'

He felt her gaze. ‘Do you and Carlo go through this too?'

‘All the time. There's nothing I can say to him that Salinas couldn't ask about.'

Terri shook her head. ‘But not to testify . . .' She let the sentence drop there; she did not need to finish it.

Paget did not answer. In the silence, Terri shook her head again; this time, the gesture had an absent quality, a sense of numb amazement. ‘Warner Books called me this morning. They want to do a book and then package it as a miniseries.'

Paget gave a short laugh. ‘Who plays you?'

Terri did not smile. ‘Rosie Perez is hot, the guy told me. I guess all Latinas must look alike.'

Paget gazed up at the sky. ‘In
this
version,' he asked finally, ‘am I innocent or guilty?'

Terri folded her arms. ‘We never got that far.'

Her voice was cool with remembered anger. Paget turned to her; in that moment, her profile reminded him of the cover of a glossy magazine, perhaps two weeks ago, with Terri taking Elena from school beneath the caption: ‘Did Christopher Paget Kill for Her?' Inside, there was an account of Paget's life and Richie's charges; beside the part that discussed the claim of child molestation was a picture of Carlo and yet another of Elena. Near the end of the article was a quote from Sonia Arias, saying that Terri's role in her late son's ‘murder' had not been probed to Sonia's satisfaction.

‘How
is
Elena?' Paget finally asked.

‘About the same, as far as I or Denise Harris can tell. Although I like her new school better.' Terri's voice grew tired. ‘She started to make her first real friend, and then the girl told her that her mommy's boyfriend killed her father.'

The weight of things felt so oppressive that to express regret, Paget realized, would sound banal. ‘And Rosa?' he asked finally.

‘Is being very quiet. As she should.' Terri's voice softened. ‘I keep thinking about Carlo. When we first knew how we felt, it seemed like it could be so good for both our kids.'

‘It
would
have been, except for Richie.' Paget leaned back, gazing at the outline of the Golden Gate Bridge, dark towers rising from the glow of car lights moving. ‘As for Carlo, his friends are standing by him. But he seems tougher somehow, less trusting. Which I suppose makes sense if the person you've depended on may disappear.'

Terri looked away; Paget felt her exhale. ‘You're really afraid they'll find you guilty, aren't you?'

Paget made himself look into her face. In the dim light, he thought – or perhaps imagined – that there were tears in her eyes. ‘I know this has been terrible,' he said. ‘Not only for Elena but for
you
.' He took both her hands in his. ‘Six years ago you married Richie, thinking in the back of your mind that there was something wrong but telling yourself to believe in him, if only for the sake of the child you would have. Now it's happening to you all over again, isn't it?'

Terri seemed startled. The tears, Paget saw, were real. ‘I'm afraid of losing you, Chris.'

Slowly, Paget shook his head. ‘No,' he said softly. ‘You're afraid I'm
not
me.'

Chapter
2

The second morning of jury selection, Christopher Paget went to court with the wired alertness that came from rigorous exercise and too little sleep. Since his arrest, his workout regime had gone from strenuous to harsh; he drank only wine; he went to bed at ten o'clock. The result was a rush of energy; he felt keen, alive, more fit than he had in years. But there was nothing he could do about broken sleep: the times that he awoke suddenly, wondering what else he could have done, and could not rest his mind any more than he could change the past.

Now Paget studied the faces in the jury box, searching each stranger for some spark of shared humanity or, perhaps, charity. At Caroline's request, Judge Lerner had just stricken for cause a fortyish graduate student whose demographic profile was good but who, Caroline's questions uncovered, was amid bitter divorcee proceedings in which she had accused her estranged husband of child abuse, and who ultimately was forced to concede that she might not be fair. The current panelist, a Korean engineer named James Rhee, had seemed to please Salinas; as Caroline Masters rose to question him, he watched her with wary politeness. Moore had rated Rhee a prosecution juror: his notes included ‘inclined to defer to authority' and ‘engineer – may not like loose ends.'

Caroline herself was down to four peremptory challenges, and it appeared that four jurors still remained to be picked. ‘Prior to these proceedings,' she aked, ‘were you aware of who Mr Paget was?'

Rhee gave a cautious nod. ‘Sure. There was so many articles about this case – I especially remember the one in
Newsweek
with Mr Paget on the cover. And there was a program on
20/20
.'

Caroline raised an eyebrow. From tabloids to
The New York Times,
the publicity had been massive and unrelenting. It was time, she had told Paget this morning, to remind the jurors that he had done things much more favorable than to be charged with killing Ricardo Arias. ‘Was that the
first
time you'd ever heard of Mr Paget?'

Rhee removed his wire-rimmed glasses, wiping them carefully. ‘Oh, no. I remember Mr Paget from when he was planning to run for the Senate.'

His tone was decidedly neutral. ‘Did you have an impression of Mr Paget
then?
' Caroline asked.

For the first time, Rhee smiled. ‘Yes. That he was not of my political party.'

With that, Paget was ready to strike him. But Caroline was not sitting down. Wryly, she said, ‘I take it you're not a Democrat.'

Watching Salinas, Paget saw him frown. Seventy-five percent of San Franciscans, and at least that much of the jury pool, were Democrats with a decidedly liberal bias; Paget recognized this as Caroline's first chance to make that connection between Paget and the jury panel. Ruefully, Rhee shook his head. ‘No,' he said. ‘In San Francisco, it gets kind of lonely. Even my kids think Michael Dukakis got eleced President.'

There was a wave of laughter from the jury pool and, in particular, the press. Even Judge Lerner smiled a bit. ‘Don't worry Mr Rhee,' he said. ‘In this courtroom, Republicans are cherished, and preserved. Rather like the spotted owl.'

More laughter, this time with an undertone of warmth; that people seemed so eager for relief reminded Paget that the jury selection had become a grim contest. Belatedly, he reminded himself to smile for the panel's sake.

But Caroline's smile at Rhee seemed genuine. ‘Despite being an endangered species,' she said, ‘do you feel you can judge this case fairly?'

A brisk nod. ‘Sure. That's my job here.'

Caroline appraised him for a moment then nodded. ‘Every jury can use an owl,' she said. ‘Spotted or no. Thank you, Mr Rhee.'

Paget felt a hand on his shoulder. Moore was leaning forward; as Paget turned he whispered, ‘Don't let her take this guy.'

But Caroline was walking toward the defense table with a satisfied expression. ‘Mr Salinas?' Lerner was asking.

Salinas stood. ‘The people pass Mr Rhee.'

As Caroline sat down, Johnny Moore scooted his chair forward. ‘Ding him,' he whispered. ‘He's bad news.'

Caroline turned to him, eyes narrowing. ‘The man has a sense of humor, and the jury likes him. I'm damned near out of peremptories, and I think I can work with him.'

‘Ms Masters?' Lerner was asking.

Caroline looked at Paget. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.

Quickly, she turned toward Judge Lerner. ‘Might we have a moment to confer?'

‘Of course. As long as that's what it is – a moment.'

Caroline leaned forward, looking at Paget. Their faces were inches apart, Moore's to the side. Ignoring Moore, Caroline asked, ‘What is it?'

Tense, Paget felt the courtroom watching. ‘Too risky,' he answered. ‘I agree with Johnny – he's not a natural for us. And if he goes on,
he's
the foreman. Count on it.'

‘Maybe,' Caroline said tersely. ‘But Rhee won't like the Richie we're going to give them. He's much more likely to admire
you
.'

‘Not
Chris,'
Moore interjected. ‘The one he'll admire is Victor Salinas. The hardworking representative of law and order.'

Caroline's eyes remained on Paget. ‘I want him, Chris. What'll it be?'

Paget took a deep breath. ‘Strike him.'

Caroline watched him for a moment; rising, she gave Moore a look of something close to anger. But when she turned to Lerner, her face was calm. ‘With deep regret,' she said. ‘we've decided to excuse Mr Rhee.'

During the mornng recess, Caroline was quiet, studying jury quesionnaires at the defense table. Paget was still troubled by the decision he had made; in the hallway, he could not resist seeking reassurance from Johnny Moore.

Moore looked around them for reporters. ‘I think we were right, of course. But if
you
were trying the case, and Caroline was the client, you'd have taken him,'

‘Why do you think that?'

‘Because like Caroline, you bet your instincts, And because she may think that I've found enough to give Salinas a rude surprise, assuming he's fool enough to try marketing little Richie Pondscum as the poster boy for the American Dream.'

It was, Paget thought, exactly what they had asked Moore to do, the day they first met at Caroline's office.

There had been just the three of them in an oversize conference room lined with Oriental murals. The oakpaneled table was large enough for a directors meeting and so shiny that Paget could make out his reflection. ‘Ample quarters,' Moore observed to Caroline. ‘I can almost hear the meter running. How many lawyers have to work to keep this up?'

‘Nearly five hundred.'

Moore shook his head. ‘And to think,' he said in his soft Irish lilt, ‘that this country can't even make a decent refrigerator.'

The comment was very like the Johnny that Paget had always known, a curious combination of cynic and sentimentalist who for years had lived the risky and duplicitous life of an undercover agent for the FBI and yet still believed – or so Paget suspected – that he wanted the family and children he had never stopped to have. Moore had a particular fondness for Terri, Paget knew, but seemed to have a certain aversion to Caroline Masters – perhaps because Caroline, so steely in her desire for privacy, betrayed no flaws with which Johnny could sympathize. Sitting across from him, Caroline gave Moore an enigmatic smile, somewhere between courtesy and amusement.

‘The reason,' she said, ‘that there are so many of us is that Americans hate every lawyer but their own, and every lawsuit except the one they want to
break
. When a people's social conscience dies, the law thrives; all these lawyer jokes are simply cover for their own complicity.'