Invisible Boy (46 page)

She shook her head.

“My colleague Mr. Hetzler urged you to consider the facts of the case, but
are
there any facts in this case?” she asked. “Only one: Teddy Underhill is dead.”

Galloway stepped closer to the jury box. “But we
cannot
know who killed him. We have no hard evidence—no
facts
—to consider, just the word of three women whose testimony is tainted by self-interest, by the ravages of disease, and by
the unbearable burden of misplaced familial loyalty. The homicide investigation offers nothing else, the pathologist’s report
offers nothing else—and yet Mr. Hetzler and Ms. Bost just stood up right here in this courtroom and told you to drop a noose
of circumstantial evidence—of bushwah and
hearsay
—around the neck of Albert Williams, and they want you to pull that noose tight.

“They want you to convict Albert Williams on the basis of a
drug
addict’s testimony. A woman so amoral, so inhuman, she was willing to
sell
her own child for crack money. A woman who lied and lied and lied, whenever it suited her purpose.”

Galloway paused, chin high. “Don’t you let them get
away
with it.”

W
hen Galloway returned to her seat at the defense table, the judge began his instructions to the jury.

I didn’t catch his opening words because Cate leaned over and whispered, “Was Galloway actually trying to imply that this
is some kind of
lynching
?” into my ear.

I shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

“To find the defendants guilty of murder in the second degree,” said the judge, “you must—”

Cate interrupted with a whispered “What happened to
first
?”

The bailiff glared in our general direction, but we weren’t the only source of noise competing for His Honor’s airtime. The
crowd fairly brimmed with hisses and grumbles.

“Order!” The judge smashed his gavel down.

“I
will
clear this courtroom,” he said, “if those of you in the gallery do not immediately contain yourselves.”

Chastened, we all shut right the hell up.

His Honor started up again where he’d left off.

Cate reached into her purse and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper.

“With malice aforethought,” continued the judge, “which means that you
must
find—”

Cate poked me in the knee and I looked down.

She’d scrawled
I still don’t get why they can’t charge them with murder in the first degree
across the back of a crumpled receipt.

I took the pen from her, writing
First’s only for special circumstances. Like if you killed a cop, or more than one person.

“To find either or both defendants guilty of manslaughter,” said the judge, “you must—”

Cate grabbed the pen back out of my hand, scrawling
How can the death of
a child
not be considered a special circumstance?

I wrote
I know!!!
beneath that, as the judge started explaining that only Angela Underhill faced a charge of filing a false report with the
police.

The judge’s charge to the jury was over far more quickly than I thought it should have been, given the eight counts each against
Albert and Angela. How could anyone drive the enormity of all that evil home in under ten minutes?

The bailiff said, “All rise,” and Cate dropped her pen and receipt back into her purse before we got to our feet.

I watched the judge leave, then the jury.

The room filled with pent-up commentary in their absence.

I looked at Cate. “What happens now?”

“I guess we wait.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “Let’s go pester Bost.”

The prosecutor very kindly allowed us to tag along behind when she returned to her office.

“I just want to dump my papers on my desk and make a phone call or two,” she said. “Then I’m taking off these damn heels and
putting my feet up.”

Bost waited while Cate and I signed the guest register and stuck name-badge stickers onto our lapels.

“Is Kyle here?” I asked.

Bost turned to the receptionist. “Have you seen him, Therese?”

“Five minutes ago,” the woman replied. “Stick your head in his office on the way by.”

Kyle looked up and nodded when we reached his doorway, pointing at the phone held to his ear before holding up a pinched thumb
and forefinger to let us know he’d join us shortly.

Bost nodded and continued down the hallway, Cate and I trailing in her wake.

“So now we just wait for the jury?” asked Cate when we’d all kicked off our shoes in Bost’s office.

“This is the tough part,” she replied. “Never gets any easier.”

“Do you have any sense of what they’re going to decide?” I asked.

Bost leaned back in her chair. “You never
really
know what a jury will do. That’s what makes it so tough.”

“They can’t believe Galloway’s whole lynching speech, though,” said Cate, “can they? I mean, that was absolutely
appalling
.”

“I have no idea whether she swayed anyone with that specific part of her closing,” answered Bost. “But she did a good job
of pointing out the weaknesses in the state’s case against Williams.”

“Was her implication that this is a lynching supposed to convince the African American jurors?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Bost. “Or any of the jurors.”

I felt awkward about my next question. “Okay, but, um… does it not occur to Galloway that she’s, like, white and you’re—”

Bost laughed. “Not?” she said. “Galloway’s willing to pull anything out of her ass she can when it comes to slamming the honesty
of the prosecution.”

Kyle rapped the doorway with his knuckles. “Is someone calling Louise racist again?”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Honey,” said Kyle, “you should have heard all the church ladies rank on this poor woman during her
last
case.”

“I was going after a young guy who’d shot a Korean storekeeper and his wife to death during a robbery,” said Bost.

“Every time she walked down the hallway, outside the courtroom,” continued Kyle, “some righteously indignant bunch of grandmas
would start the chorus up again.”

“Just
loudly enough for my ears,” said Bost. “ ‘Call herself a
black
woman, cutting down that flower of young African manhood the way she do.’ ”

Cate’s eyes went wide. “That’s absolutely—”

“
Fucked
,” I finished for her.

“Yeah,” said Bost. “Tell me about it.”

“So who was it this time, Marty or Galloway?”

“You have to ask?” said Bost.

“Galloway. What a peach.” Kyle rolled his eyes.

“ ‘Peach’ is not the first word that springs to mind,” I said.

“I’m pretending to be professionally objective,” said Kyle. “Give me a break, here, Maddie.”

“Break given,” I said.

He looked at Bost. “How’d your closing go?”

“Fingers crossed,” said Bost.

“Knock wood,” added Cate, reaching toward Bost’s desk to do just that, “but
I
think Louise was magnificent.”

“How long will this all take?” I asked. “The jury and everything?”

“Nothing’s going to happen today,” said Kyle. “But I’m betting this one will take them a good long while.”

“And how long is ‘a good long while,’ usually?” asked Cate.

“I doubt they’ll come back before the weekend,” said Bost.

Kyle consulted the ceiling, lips pursed. “My money’s on Wednesday morning.”

“From your lips…” said Bost.

“Longer is better?” asked Cate.

“Longer means they’re really trying to do the right thing,” said Bost.

“
Next
Wednesday morning?” I asked.

“You’ve got someplace better to be?” asked Kyle.

“I just have this wedding coming up.”

“Anyone I know?” asked Kyle.

“My mother.”

“
Mazel tov
,” he said.

I
was back at the Catalog the next morning. I didn’t know what else to do. The idea of waiting for the jury to come in at home
in the apartment drove me crazy. All I could think about was the dead guy, and how much my arm itched inside the filthy cast.

Yumiko picked up the phone around ten o’clock.

“Some guy for you,” she said, punching the Hold button. “Kyle. Line Two.”

I thought about what Bost had said yesterday, how the jury taking a long time meant they were serious.

Not good.

I picked up the receiver and pressed the blinking cube beneath it.

“This can’t be good,” I said. “You told me Wednesday.”

“It’s not the jury,” said Kyle.

“You just called to say ‘I love you’?”

“I just called to say Teddy’s mother went into labor last night.”

I sucked in my breath.

“A little girl, Maddie,” he said. “Six pounds.”

I burst into tears.

“Maddie?” he said. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Honey… I’m so sorry.”

I sniffed. “I can’t stand it.”

“I know.”

“What happens now?”

“With the jury?”

“With everything,” I said.

“I don’t know. They probably won’t wait for her.”

“To recover?”

“It was a C-section. I don’t know how long that takes.”

“Me either,” I said.

“They’ll give the verdict when they’re ready.”

“What happens if she’s not there?”

“Depends on what they decide. If they don’t convict her, it doesn’t matter.”

“And if they
do
convict her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had this happen during a trial.”

We were quiet for a minute.

“A girl,” I said. “That’s just so horrible.”

“I have to go. Louise will call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“I’m alive,” I said. “It doesn’t get better than that, right?”

“Sweetie. Just know I’m thinking about you, okay? Go home early. Call me if you need anything?”

“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”

I put down the phone, then looked out the window into the air shaft.

It was snowing. Again.

I turned in my chair to face Yumiko. “It’s just that trial thing.”

“Out in Queens?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened? They let those fuckers go?”

“Worse,” I said.

“What’s worse than that?”

“The mother had another baby. Last night.”

“Wow,” she said. “That
sucks
.”

“Yeah. It does.”

Pagan walked in. “You have plans for lunch?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Hey,” she said, “are you crying?”

“I think I’m done now. Maybe.”

“What the hell happened?”

“The woman in that trial, she had a baby,” said Yumiko.

Pagan gave me a pained smile of commiseration. “And I’ve just come to ruin your day even further.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” I said.

“We need to pick up our bridesmaid dresses from Laura Ashley,” said my sister, wincing.

“Wow,” I said. “You were right.”

“Who the fuck is Laura Ashley?” asked Yumiko.

“Trust me,” Pagan told her, “you so do
not
want to know.”

“Some white chick,” said Yumiko.

“Pretty much the whitest chick who ever
lived
,” said Pagan.

“And then some,” I said.

“Better you than me, then.” Yumiko shivered.

“Laura fucking
Ashley
,” said Pagan. “You believe this shit?”

We were standing just inside the entrance of the aforementioned store’s Upper East Side location.

Looking around the frothy, luxuriously fitted boutique, none of it quite seemed real. Even the sound of footsteps here was
silenced by the thick, expensive carpeting.

Are these my people? Do I even
have
a people?

“I’m still struggling with the concept that we’ve been conscripted as bridesmaids for our own mother’s wedding,” Pagan said.

“
Fourth
wedding—”

“And that the new stepsisters we have not yet
met
had the unmitigated chutzpah to pick out our fucking dresses.”