“Good idea. If we stay here, we might be tempted to discuss the case with Butch Karp, and that would be a violation of official policy.”
They got up and walked to the door. “Yes,” added Guma, “poor Butch! He must really be worried about what’s going on with his wife.”
That afternoon Waley finished his direct examination of Dr. Morland, and Karp rose for the cross. A hard thing, cross-examination of a well-prepared, intelligent expert witness, and Karp was not at his peak, hardly even on the upper slopes. He had before him the background investigation of Morland himself, excerpts from Morland’s professional articles, the case notes from Morland’s examination of the child Jonathan, and his most recent examination of the defendant, and the notes he himself had made during Waley’s direct. Out of this material he had to sculpt ex tempore a line of questioning that would convince the jury that however tortured Rohbling’s mind had been back when, and however disturbed he might now be, he had not been legally insane at the time of the crime.
So, begin with the big question. At the time of the crime, in your opinion, Doctor, did defendant have substantial incapacity to conform his behavior to the requirements of the law? Morland had an opinion. Paranoid ideation. Lack of anchoring to reality. Long minutes of psychobabble drifted by. Karp hacked into it. Did the defendant know who he was? Yes. Did he know where he was? Yes. Did he know what he was doing? That depends on what we mean by “know.” A patronizing smile, and more babble, this time of an epistemological nature. Karp was looking at the jury, saw the eyes glazing. In a minute they would be blaming him for making them go through this. So: break and reverse field. Morland had an article differentiating obsessional character defects from psychosis in children. Using that and the therapy notes, Karp got him to admit that he had never diagnosed Rohbling as psychotic back then. Let that line alone. Change field again. Get an admission that obsessional-character defect was not psychosis. Cut off the doctor when he tried to expand the answer. Karp lost his place, repeated a question, got an objection. Sustained. He bore down. It was hard to keep focused on the mental image of the yellow sheet on which he had written his line of questions. He kept slipping away to night, the colored lights, the noise, gunshots, Marlene standing over the bleeding corpse, the sharp stink of burnt gunpowder wafting by, masking briefly the smell of the fair. Okay, recover. Breathe. His sense was that the cross was running out of steam. Fine. Fall back on the standard: are you being paid by the defendant, Doctor? How much? Then, close with a strong note. Karp asked, “Doctor, why, in your opinion, did the defendant refuse to acknowledge the suitcase?”
No sooner were these words out than Karp felt a chill roil through his belly. He couldn’t believe he had asked the question in that form, but there it was, hanging in the air like a thick gas.
Morland smiled, shrugged, answered in so many words that the defendant was so divorced from reality that he really didn’t understand that it was his suitcase. Try to recover-or was it that he knew the suitcase was full of incriminatory evidence? Pathetic! Objection, of course, witness has answered. Sustained, jury will disregard. A no-brainer. Karp attempted to obscure this disaster by picking at details, secondary stuff, but he had heard that deadly murmur, seen the faces in the jury box.
Sitting down, he caught Collins’s eye. The kid looked stunned. Judge Peoples checked the clock, asked Waley if he had redirect. Of course Waley did not, he was quite satisfied to leave the witness with Karp having beat himself to death with the blue suitcase. Would Mr. W. like to call his next witness fresh the next morning? Mr. W. would, thank you, Your Honor.
The crowd of newspeople was thicker than ever outside the courtroom, heading toward the blood Karp had just spilled in the water, yelling and pushing against the court officers trying to keep a lane clear from the courtroom door to the parts of the building restricted to D.A. personnel. How does it feel? How does it feel? Karp wished he could tell them. He was still numb, although this feeling was being replaced by a dull anger, at Marlene, at himself, the two angers inextricably mixed and tangled. A small, neat black man with a cassette machine leaped in front of him.
“Butch! What happened in there today? Could you respond to the rumors in the black community that you’re throwing the case?”
Ordinarily, Karp would have said “excuse me” and edged around the man, but there was no room and the lights were blinding and his adrenaline was pumping, and so his body took over as it had been trained to do. He faked a step, the reporter went with it, Karp gave him the hip and cruised by. But instead of merely staggering, the man caught his foot on a power cable and went flying against a sound man, who tripped too, bringing his boom around to catch a cameraman across the temple. The camera went loose, the cameraman lunged and tripped. The heavy camera went flying and landed on the head of the original reporter. Blood flowed. Strobes popped continuously, catching Karp in dozens of shots, looking over the chaos he had caused, the close of a perfect day.
He thought, but there was more. Back in his office there was an urgent message from the principal of Lucy’s school-come at once. Karp arrived at P.S. 1 in an unmarked police car, lights flashing. He found his daughter slumped in the principal’s office wearing a big shiner and a split lip. She had, it turned out, gone after a good-sized fifth-grade boy after a day of insults related to Marlene’s arrest. Such behavior was not tolerated in P.S. 1, Karp learned, and Lucy and the boy were both suspended for three days.
Lucy was sullen and uncommunicative on the way home. The mob of newspeople in front of their door was much larger than it had been in the morning; the news had spread that Karp had viciously attacked one of their own. They were baying, foaming. Besides the questions they had been asking all along, about the trial, about Marlene, and newer questions about the vicious attack by the racist giant Karp on a small, tiny, harmless black reporter, the sight of Lucy’s injured face prompted others. Hey, Lucy, look over here! Did your mother do that? Did your father? Lucy started crying on the way up the stairs and went straight to her room without saying anything to Marlene.
Marlene was in the living room, watching Jeopardy with the sound off. She was in her bathrobe with her hair done up in a pink towel. She smelled of roses and red wine, a bottle of which was on the coffee table, two-thirds empty.
“So. You’re back. How was jail?” said Karp, feeling inane, not knowing what else to say, resolved to control his anger.
“Jailish. What was with Lucy?”
“She got into a fight. Some kids were ragging her about you.”
Marlene nodded, played with her lip, drank some more wine.
Karp sat down next to her. “Marlene …”
She shook her head violently. “No. I don’t want to hear it.”
“What? What don’t you want to hear?”
“How bad I am. How I’m screwing up your fucking trial of the decade and my daughter’s life, not to mention my own life. Harry too. He laid down the law, you know. To me! My Frankenstein, Dead Harry Bello. He wants to get out of the crazy-boyfriend business. Completely. I got this after he brought in Tamara and saved my ass. He wants to move uptown and expand the celebrity security operation.”
“Maybe that’s a good idea, Marlene,” said Karp carefully.
“It is!” Marlene cried. “It’s a great idea. Fuck ’em all anyway, the stupid bitches! Let ’em all die.” She poured her glass full again and drank half of it. Then she glared at him. “Look at you!” she said, her voice thick. “You think I’m disgusting, don’t you? I can see it on your face.”
“Don’t be an idiot. I love you,” said Karp in an unloving tone.
“Yeah, when I do what you want.”