Even in the privacy of the car, we said next to nothing. Everybody plainly wants some time to recharge and to assess how much damage Molto did. My dad looked out the window the whole time, and I could not keep from thinking of some dude on a prison bus, passing by the streets he will no longer stroll.
Upstairs, the usual apres-court procedure is reversed. My dad goes off with Marta, while Stern takes me into his large office and closes the door. He orders up a soft drink for each of us from one of his assistants and we sit side by side in a couple of tall maroon leather chairs. Sandy's office has the precious feel of a museum, the walls full of pastel sketches of Stern in court, with many of the exhibits from his most famous trials in little plastic boxes on the tables. I am afraid even to put down my glass until he points out a cork-bottomed coaster.
As it turns out, my meeting with Stern is largely diplomatic. My initial interviews on the case, where I learned about the evidence, were with Sandy, who did his best at the time to point out the bright side, namely that Tommy had made no mention of the death penalty and had also agreed to allow my father to have bail. But usually when I'm in the office, I'm doing what I can to help Marta. As a result, Marta and he have decided it would be better if she presented my testimony. Stern wants to be sure that I have no objections.
"I love Marta," I tell him.
"Yes, you seem simpatico. I'm sure you'll make a good impression on the jurors together." He sips a moment. "So, what was the assessment from the spectators' seats? What did you make of today's proceedings?" Among Stern's many strengths, which I have observed in the last month, is utter fearlessness about feedback. I'm sure he also wants to take a seismic reading on the emotional state in which I'll testify.
"I thought Molto did a very good job."
"As did I." The unproductive cough comes then, as it often does, as punctuation.
"Tommy has become a better lawyer with age, with the flame turned down on his jets. But that was as good as I have seen him."
I've wondered why Marta and he decided to put my father on first, and I ask. "Anna says defendants almost always testify last."
"True. But it seemed better here to alter the normal course."
"To screw up Tommy?" That was Anna's guess.
"Admittedly, I was hoping to catch Tommy unaware, but that was not the principal goal." Stern looks off in space for a second, trying to measure how much he can say, given the fact that I will be on the stand again tomorrow. In the light of the table lamp beside us, the rash on the right side of his face seems to have receded just a tad today. "Frankly, Nat, I wanted to make sure we had time to recover if your father's testimony ended up in catastrophe."
There is a lot in that one sentence.
"Does that mean you didn't want him up there?"
In the intervals when Stern used to get time to think with his cigar, he now draws a finger across his lips.
"Generally speaking, a defendant is better off if he testifies. About seventy percent of acquittals, Nat, come in cases in which the defendant takes the stand in his own defense. The jury wants to hear what he has to say about all of this, and that's especially true in a case like this one, where the defendant is a law-trained individual, familiar with the courts and accustomed to speaking in public."
"I hear a 'but' in there."
Sandy smiles. I have the sense both the Sterns really like me. I know they feel for me, which is true of a lot of people these days. Mom dead. Dad on trial. There has been no end to folks telling me I'll remember this period the rest of my life, which offers not the remotest clue how to get through it.
"In a circumstantial case like this one, Nat, where the evidence is so diffuse, you take the risk of allowing the prosecutor to make his closing argument in cross-examination. It's hard for a jury to see how all the pieces fit together, and you'd rather not allow the PAs to demonstrate that twice. It was a very close question, but all in all, I thought your father was better off not testifying. It was certainly not as risky. But your father chose otherwise."
"So are you disappointed now?"
"Hardly. No, no. Tommy was better organized than I might have hoped, and for the most part he didn't allow himself to become distracted, even when your father goaded him a bit. The chemistry between the two of them is a bit mystical, don't you think? They have been antagonists for decades, but they seem to hold attitudes toward one another that are too complex to be called raw hatred. But all in all, everything that occurred today was within the zone of expectations. Your father was an A minus and Tommy was an A plus, but that's tolerable. If I had known in advance it would have turned out with that kind of marginal loss, I would have been in favor of your father's testimony. The jury heard him say he is innocent. And he looked composed at all times."
"So what were you worried about?"
A phone call comes in then, and Stern struggles to his feet. He speaks only a minute but takes the opportunity once he is done to hang his coat behind the door along the way. It is a jarring sight to see him so slender, half the man I remember. He is using suspenders to support his trousers, and the pants gap on him so much that he looks almost like a circus clown. His knee is virtually paralyzed by the arthritis, and he collapses backward when he resumes the chair. But despite his discomforts, he still has my question in mind.
"There is no end of things that can go wrong when a defendant testifies. One of the possibilities that most concerned me was that Molto would make the very motion to Judge Yee he did at the start of cross-examination." Sandy is referring to Molto's attempt to question my dad in front of the jury about his affair. "I was fairly confident Judge Yee would not change his mind now, but the issue was hardly free from doubt. Many judges would have yielded to the prosecutors' arguments that these events were part of the whole story."
I actually grunt considering the prospect. Stern has told me that it's paramount for the jury to see I'm supporting my dad, but it would have been horrible for me to sit through that. When I say that to Stern, he frowns a bit.
"I don't think your father would have allowed that to occur, Nat. I never pressed the point, but I believe he was determined not to answer any questions about that young woman, whoever she is, even if Judge Yee held him in contempt before the jury or struck his testimony. Either of those events, needless to mention, would have been disastrous."
I struggle with this news, as Stern watches.
"You are unsettled," he says.
"I'm pissed that he'd fuck up his chances to go free to protect that girl. He doesn't owe her that."
"Just so," he responds. "Which is why I suspect it was you more than this young woman he was seeking to spare."
This is the advocate as artist. A trial is sometimes like a great play, where the air of the entire theater fills up with the currents of emotion and each line resounds in the present tense from a hundred different angles. And Stern is like one of those amazing actors who seem to be holding the hand of everybody in the place. His unspoken sympathies are magical, but I'm not really buying it now.
"I still don't understand what he was doing up there if he was ready to throw it all away. Did he think he didn't stand a chance without testifying?"
"Your father never shared his reasoning with me. He heard my advice and made his decision. But it did not seem tactical."
"What was it, then?"
Stern assumes one of his complicated expressions, as if to suggest that language cannot fully capture what he feels.