“Little Cletis was not that popular with the neighbors, it seems,” said Karp. “This is good stuff on his juvenile sheet, by the way.” Juvenile records were sealed, but there were ways to find out what witnesses had done as kids that did not involve searching criminal records.
“Stole stuff from the Rohblings, and from Jonathan,” Karp continued, reading. “Hm, set a fire too. One adult stretch for armed robbery, went with the Muslims in the joint, Elmira, been a good citizen since. I doubt we’ll use any of this, but it’s nice to know. You look like you have a question.”
“Yeah,” said Collins, “what’s Waley doing with this guy, and why now?”
Karp leaned back in his chair and checked his watch for perhaps the fifth time in the past half hour. “The arc of the case. Waley’s telling a story, same as us. The book says go from the general to the particular, the broad brush first and then plug in the holes. But there’s also the performance aspects to it. He’s just had two shrinks up there. The first one’s an expert on what’s crazy-he literally wrote the book on it, and he says Rohbling is. The next is the child psychiatrist. Rohbling was crazy then, he’s crazy now: he wants them to draw the inference. But these guys are not exactly the Rolling Stones, the audience is a little snoozy, so Waley wants to wake them up. Therefore, next witness, a boyhood companion who understands the relationship that the shrinks will say forms the focus of the exculpatory insanity and explains the rage against elderly black women. It’s meat. It’s sex and child abuse. It’ll wake them up for the clean-up hitter, who’s Bannock, the current shrink. Also, to be frank, the guy’s black, and not only that, but a race man too. Waley’s got a race card here, and there’s no reason for him not to play it, in his typical elegant fashion, of course.”
“How do you figure he has a race card? I thought we had the race card. The victims-”
“Yeah, we do,” said Karp, “but like all race cards it’s doublesided. We want the jury to think, rich white boy racist killing poor black ladies for thrills and crying insanity when we catch him. The blacks vote race and the whites vote guilt to convict. Waley wants them to think, poor little white boy brutalized by a black woman, driven crazy, hence this tragedy. The whites vote race, the blacks vote guilt to acquit.”
“You really believe it works that way?” asked Collins. There was disappointment on his face.
Karp grinned. “No, I don’t. I’ve tried dozens and dozens of cases with black D.’s and white vics, where black jurors stood up and played straight and convicted. Of course, I’ve never been a racist myself before, so that could make a difference.” He put this one out lightly, watching the other man.
Collins didn’t react. Instead he asked, “So what do you think his line with al-Barka is going to be?”
“Wait a second. Do you think I’m a racist?”
“Sure, Butch. Everybody’s a racist. I am. You are. This is America. It’s our national religion. The question you want to ask is, do I think your racism affects how you’re handling the trial, or how you behave toward me, and the answer to that is no, not so far.” He was looking Karp directly in the eye as he said this, his gaze calm and implacable. He held it for a moment and then repeated, “So, what do you think his line’ll be with al-Barka?”
Thxvock. Thwock. Thwock-thwock-thwock-thwock. Ahhhh! Clap-clap-clap-clap. Tennis was not Marlene’s favorite game, not to play and not to watch. The matches seemed much of a muchness to her, although from the behavior and conversation of the people sitting near her in the back of the stands, Trude Speyr was having a terrific day. Marlene was at the center rear row of the portable grandstand, positioned so she could sweep the crowd with the Leica mini-binoculars she carried. She had a button earphone in her ear and a lapel mike, both connected to the portable radio hung at her belt. Harry had splurged for the best stuff; when they elected a woman president, Bello amp; Ciampi could take over from the Secret Service.
Under her pale blue blazer she was wearing an ill-fitting, uncomfortable shoulder rig in which sat a Colt Lightweight Commander.45 pistol she had borrowed from Marlon Dane, since her own gun now resided in some NYPD evidence locker. She had a pair of handcuffs in a side pocket.
Although she was not where she wanted to be, or doing what she wanted to be doing, she was a good soldier. This job was important to Harry, and to the firm that supplied the cash that enabled her to pursue her real interests, and so she stood in the mild sunshine and scanned the crowd, looking for Manfred Stolz’s red hair and bumpy neck.
“Marlene. Wolfe Post Two, come in,” said a crackling voice in her ear button.
“Marlene here. What’s up, Wolfe?”
“I think I spotted him.”
“Where?”
“Section B. Four rows up from the court. Yellow shirt, white floppy hat.”
Marlene trained the binoculars. It was hard to see the man’s face under his hat, but as he moved to watch the action (Speyr was about to win her third straight set), she was able to see his neck and the fringe of pale hair over his ear.
Into her mike she said, “Okay, Wolfe, move into the aisle behind him. Bring up Dane and the others and place them on the cross aisles above and below. Don’t do anything until I get there.”
“Copy,” said Wolfe. Marlene started to move down the aisle.
Jamal al-Barka was a tight-faced beige man, dressed in the characteristic bow tie and dark suit of his organization. He had a lot to say, and Waley gave him ample scope to say it. Karp threw a number of sidelong looks at Collins, to which he received eyebrow raises and shrugs. With only occasional direction by counsel, Mr. al-Barka spoke on and on. The jury learned about the long history of oppression of the black nation at the hands of whites. They learned about the child-rearing customs of slavery days, and how the slave children learned the differences between white and black people, and the traditions that underlay the use of black servants to raise white children. There was little that Karp could do about this, other than occasionally object to the relevance of the question asked, but since it had been established by experts that Rohbling’s disorder, if any, was rooted in his childhood experiences with Clarice Brown, an exposition of the facts thereof was clearly allowable. There was no limit, other than the judge’s patience, to how long and in what detail a witness was allowed to speak. And Peoples was a patient man.
From Waley’s point of view, Karp thought, it was something of a bravura performance, bringing a black nationalist up as a defense witness for a white man accused of cross-racial murder. Once again he had to remind himself that Waley was trying to demonstrate insanity. The rules were different now. Karp began to work out a counter strategy for his cross.
As the day wore on, the witness’s theme moved slowly from the old plantation to the Rohblings’ house on Long Island some fifteen years ago. The questions became sharper now. Did your mother hate the Rohblings? Yes. Did you? Yes. Did she hate Jonathan? Yes. How do you know this? Descriptions of abuse, the pinchings, the twistings of arms, the famous enemas. Did Jonathan report these abuses to his parents? Never. Why not? They didn’t care about him. They just wanted him out of sight. Was that the only reason? No. He loved her. She was the only one in the world who paid attention to him. That’s what they were buying for their fifty dollars a week, a black woman’s brutal love.
The jury was entranced, as they always were when soap opera played on the witness stand. Waley tried, in the form of a question, to slip in a little summation of what the witness’s testimony meant in relation to the other testimony, but Karp objected and was sustained. An icy smile from Waley, a tiny nod. Your witness. It was four-twenty.