“But he must know of actual cases of reincarnation,” Brice Mack protested. “Specific instances that would help substantiate your position.”
“There’s no doubt he can cite such instances,” Hoover blandly replied, “but it would be demeaning for him to discuss such matters in a public forum. Understand, the maharishi is a holy individual bound to the same oath of confidentiality as a Catholic priest, so you will accord him all the respect due a man of his station.”
Brice Mack groped in his briefcase for Kleenex but found none.
There was no disagreement on the questioning of the second witness, who, like Gupta Pradesh, professed an expertise in Far Eastern religious concepts but, unlike the maharishi, was a pure-blooded American scholar—professor emeritus of religious studies in one of the country’s leading citadels of learning—a man whose name conjured up every folksy image of early American history from the battle green of Lexington to the fog-shrouded perch of a Rocky Mountain rendezvous.
James Beardsley Hancock’s testimony on the specific laws of Karma would, it was reasoned by Mack and his associates, weigh heavily with a jury not only because it came from a white, grass-roots, eminently credentialed American, but because it was also the faith he personally practiced and espoused.
As Hoover put it to Brice Mack, “He’s on the inside looking out, which makes him our man.”
The big wrangle came over the inclusion of the third “expert” witness, Marion Worthman, a latter-day Edgar Cayce, a psychic, self-professed witch, prophet, seer, and devoted proponent and interpreter of the Bible, a woman who could tune in telepathically on a person’s mind and body and relate information regarding that person’s present and past lives.
Although her adherents numbered in the tens of thousands, and her published works topped every bestseller list, Elliot Hoover fought against bringing her into the courtroom to render testimony in his behalf, fearing that she would bring to the proceedings the taint of a medicine show, which was precisely the reason Brice Mack fought for her inclusion.
Still, Hoover remained skeptical, feeling that their greatest source of help would be forthcoming from the Templetons and Carole Federico when Mack put them on the stand.
“They were there,” Hoover stressed. “They were present during the nightmare and saw the child respond to my appeals to Audrey Rose. They know the truth and must be made to tell it.”
“The truth?” Brice Mack said, suddenly weary. “What truth are you talking about? Your truth or theirs?”
“They’re one and the same.”
The attorney sighed pathetically.
“Did you ever hear the one about the three blind men who were each asked to describe an elephant? Each described what he felt as his hands explored the elephant’s body, and each description was totally different. Yet they all told the truth.”
Nonplussed, Hoover gazed at him.
“What I’m saying,” Mack explained, “is that while four people witnessed the same event, in this case a child’s nightmare, it doesn’t necessarily mean they all saw the same thing. In fact, I’m willing to bet we’ll get four different interpretations of what transpired in the bedroom that night.”
“Janice Templeton knows the truth,” Hoover quietly said. “She summoned me because she knew that I was the only one who could help the child.”
“Fine,” the attorney allowed. “And when I get her on the stand, I’ll certainly explore that matter with her. But don’t hold your breath about how much she’s going to remember or admit that she remembers about that night.”
There was a moment of silence during which Elliot Hoover regarded Brice Mack carefully.
“I take it you don’t have much faith in the outcome of this case.”
“Put it another way,” Brice Mack said. “I don’t have much faith in the Templetons coming to your rescue. The case I have spent eight weeks and a good deal of your money preparing relies heavily on the testimony of our expert witnesses. If you’ll permit me to handle them as I had planned to, I think we stand a good chance of selling reincarnation to even the most doubtful juror.”
“Otherwise?”
Brice Mack decided to lay it on the line.
“Otherwise, I don’t think your chances for acquittal are very good.”
Hoover studied the attorney minutely.
“I appreciate your frankness, Mr. Mack,” Hoover said in a voice edged with scorn. “Now let me be frank with you. I still insist, no matter what your opinion of the outcome of the case may be, that you conduct it with all possible taste and decorum. I realize how driven you are by personal ambition to succeed. Still, the determination of my guilt or innocence before man’s bar of justice is not a platform to serve your egotism, nor will I permit it to become a base for your self-aggrandizement. It is my freedom that is at stake here, Mr. Mack, not your reputation. Therefore, I will be the one to decide each step we take in the course of this case. If you do not understand me or feel that you cannot respect my wishes to the letter, please tell me now, and I shall have you replaced.”
“Sure, anything you say.” Brice Mack’s light, off-handed acceptance of Hoover’s contempt was contrived to conceal his profound shock and surprise. The accuracy with which Hoover had hit the mark was devastating. Could it be he was always this transparent?
Leaving the stuffy environs of the Criminal Courts Building and stepping into the frigid, abandoned streets of late Sunday afternoon, Brice Mack sensed the exquisite irony of the bulging briefcase he was toting, filled with hopes, ambitions, and eight weeks of striving and planning which now, shorn of his power to function, represented a briefcase full of nothing.
The temptation to drop it in a litter bin as he searched in vain for a cab while sloughing his way toward the BMT on the corner of Foley Square was dissipated by a crescendo of confused noise rumbling beneath his feet as he approached the subway kiosk.
The trip home in the nearly empty car was made in the company of two frightened women and a vomiting black, which, all things considered, seemed the proper coda to cap off the day’s dispiriting events.
Pressed against the corner of his quaking seat, enveloped by the clatter of wheels and groans and the overpowering stench, the young attorney observed the second hand of his wristwatch sweeping inexorably toward the morrow, producing the disquieting sensation of an unstoppable doom hurtling toward him. It was at this moment that Brice Mack thought of his mother and the night she was sped into the operating theater with less than a ten percent chance of making it back out alive. He smiled, remembering the brave smile on her face as she winked her encouragement at him, both knowing it would be the last physical gesture they would ever share together on this earth.
19
The first inkling of catastrophe greeted Brice Mack’s arrival at the Criminal Courts Building the following morning.
The time was early enough to provide a calming and comforting vista of empty, slushy streets as his cab sluiced up the narrow canyons leading into Foley Square. Four chartered buses parked in front of the court building directly behind a television truck provided the first shiver of anxiety in the young attorney as he paid off the cabdriver and hurried up the freshly sanded steps.
Even in the sealed container of the elevator with its attendant hum, rhythmic sounds could be heard increasing in volume as the car approached the seventh floor, sounds that exploded into joyous chanting, “HARE KRISHNA! HARE KRISHNA! HARE KRISHNA!” as the doors slid open to a corridor packed solid with more than a hundred and fifty Children of Lord Krishna, who, he later learned, had arrived with the dawn from their gurukula in Bronxville to pay tribute to the venerable saint Gupta Pradesh, the first of Brice Mack’s witnesses.