“Your client is entitled to a reasonable and proper defense under the law, Mr. Mack. Nothing more and nothing less. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir, perfectly clear. And we believe that a defense based on reincarnation is entirely reasonable and proper under the circumstances.”
“Have you done any research?” growled Langley. “Can you site sources, give me any legal precedents for such a defense?”
“No, Your Honor,” said Mack in his most disarming little-boy voice. “We have found no legal precedents to support this defense.”
Judge Langley appeared stunned. “And you expect me to instruct the jury that if they find your client took the child in the belief she was his reincarnated daughter, they must find him not guilty?”
He gazed at Scott Velie with a twinkle of a smile and shook his head. Velie, sunken deeply in his chair, grinned back. Brice Mack waited until their exchange of looks was completed before continuing.
“It is not my client’s belief in reincarnation that’s important, Your Honor. What’s important is whether reincarnation is a fact. I believe, in order for my client to be found guilty, the jury must make a finding that there is no such thing as reincarnation and that it is impossible for Ivy Templeton to be Elliot Hoover’s child. We have experts who will testify to the contrary, and regardless of Your Honor’s predilection or predisposition to believe or not to believe this, we believe the court owes the defense the opportunity of presenting this evidence. We believe it is material and relevant and competent, and we should be permitted to convince the jury that this is so; because if we are able to do this, then the kidnapping charge is not a viable charge.”
During the soft-spoken, slowly articulated statement, Judge Langley felt himself retreat into the soft burnished leather of his ancient chair as a sick, oppressive weight bore down on his chest. He had had a prescience when he awakened that morning, after having passed a restless and mainly sleepless night, that it would be one of those days. Looking across at the unlined, eagerly bright, and rapacious face of the young attorney, Judge Langley suddenly felt very, very old.
Scott Velie was quick to catch the momentary flagging of attention, the diminution of intensity in the judge’s eyes, and knew it was his cue to step in. The old hyprocrite’s intellectual range and judicial acumen were obviously being sorely tested.
“Your Honor,” he said, removing a document from his inner pocket and passing it across the desk to the judge, “this is a Xeroxed copy of Ivy Templeton’s birth certificate; physical evidence that Ivy was born to William and Janice Templeton and was the issue of Mrs. Templeton’s womb. So, unless Mr. Hoover fathered the child through sexual intercourse with Mrs. Templeton, which he does not claim to have done, there is no way in my mind that he can prove the child is his. Even if, and I submit the ‘if’ is a mighty big one, even if reincarnation could be proved to be a viable theory, all it would show is that she may have formerly been Hoover’s child, but is not presently. This document is the only certified legal instrument attesting to the child’s parentage, and nothing Elliot Hoover claims or believes can ever change that.”
A certain strength returned to the judge’s face as he eagerly perused the birth certificate. This was something he could grapple with, something tangible, of legal import.
Holding it before Brice Mack like a cudgel, he asked, “What about it, counselor, can the defendant render a like document to the court proving his legal right to claim the child as being his?”
Brice Mack’s eyes sought the floor as a small, tolerant smile formed on his lips. It was a smile that Judge Langley could not abide. It smacked of arrogance, smart, slick Jewboy arrogance, born of assurance, know-how, and the need to make it.
“Your Honor”—the smile spoke—“there is no doubt, nor is the defense contending to the contrary, that the child was produced at the time and place and to the person that the birth certificate attests to. But just because there is the physical act of a baby coming out of a womb, it can’t be assumed ipso facto that the baby necessarily belongs to that person.”
About to answer, Judge Langley was cut short as Brice Mack stood up and slammed a half dollar down on his desk with a ringing clatter.
“If you were to swallow my half dollar, Your Honor, and it passed through your system and was finally ejected by you, would you say that that half dollar was then necessarily your property?”
Again Judge Langley, about to speak, was overridden by Mack. “I say to you that Janice Templeton’s body may only have been a conduit to pass Elliot Hoover’s child on from a past life into a present life.”
Both Velie and Judge Langley waited for Brice Mack to continue, as it seemed he would since he remained standing, but it gradually became evident that he had finished what he had to say and was awaiting the judge’s response.
“Sit down, Mr. Mack,” Judge Langley said icily. “I’m not used to looking up to people in my own office.”
The little smile never left Brice Mack’s face as he slowly resumed his seat and hunched forward in an attitude of rapt attention.
“To begin with, young man,” the judge continued, “if I were made to straddle a commode and strain out a fifty-cent piece, it damn well would be my property.”
Brice Mack joined Scott Velie in a small chuckle, a salute to the judge’s nimble sense of humor.
“Secondly,” the old man went on, “the defense you are proposing, that of establishing the truth of reincarnation as a means of substantiating your client’s innocence, even if successful, will not let your client off the hook unless you are also able to prove the kidnapped girl was in fact the defendant’s reincarnated daughter. Your witnesses, as I now understand it, have no relationship to the defendant or to the crime he is accused of committing—they are to appear in court merely for the purpose of arguing and expounding on concepts of a philosophical and religious character, which arguments, may I say, would seem to me to be more fittingly heard in a seminary and not in a court of law. In short, Mr. Mack, you are proposing a defense that is highly irregular, highly unorthodox, and one which fills me with grave misgivings.”
“Precisely, sir.” The warm, knowing smile again. “As well it should, for the very nature of this case is highly irregular and highly unorthodox. As I explained to the jury, it is a case that is unique in the annals of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and one that will be studied, discussed, written about, and forever chronicled in the histories and record books detailing man’s advent on earth.”
He was courting him. Judge Langley knew the bastard was courting him—dangling the carrot fame in front of his nose, appealing to his baser instincts in order to jockey him into position. There were no ends these Hebes wouldn’t go to in order to get what they wanted, he thought sourly. And yet the point was well made; there was no denying that. There’d be a hell of a press on this baby. For a change, Part Seven would find itself bustling and glittering under the glare of lights, cameras, boob-tube lenses, hallway press conferences, the whole ball of wax. They had never thrown the big ones his way. Fuller, Kararian, Pletchkow, Tanner, they got the cream of the cases. And left the dregs for him. The family squabbles. The junkie busts. The crap. Well, maybe the time had come to drag his ass out of the sewer they had consigned him to and step up into the light of day. It would mean letting his guard down, leaving himself open to possible criticism and ridicule. But what the hell? So what? How much longer did he have left anyway? Damn heart rumbling around inside his chest like an old motorboat. Be nice being followed around for a change. Asked questions. Made a fuss over. Yeah, it’d be nice for a change.