Austin and Alma moved off together into the conference room. Kirsten stood in the doorway, knowing she should not follow, yet uncertain what she should do. Marcus watched the Halls huddle in the far corner for strength, and understood. The morning had stripped away their last vestige of hope. There was no winning here. No triumph, no miracle of reprieve. At this moment the court’s verdict mattered as little as snow falling upon an overwarm earth, a blanketing solution lost before it ever formed. Beyond the windows rose the pandemonium of conquest, a noise that mocked the tragedy within these bare walls.
A deep voice said through the open doorway, “Can I help with anything?”
“Deacon,” Marcus cried, feeling that he could finally release his own burden of fatigue. Let it show in his voice and his shoulders. “How long have you been here?”
“Off and on for most of last week and the one before.” He offered Marcus no smile, no false words of hope. “You did good in there, brother.”
Marcus pointed to the conference room. “They need you.”
“Thought they might.” He nodded to Kirsten, patted her arm, entered the conference room, and shut the door behind him.
The room was so still that Marcus could sense what he did not hear, which was the burden Kirsten now carried. It was the most natural thing in the world to reach for her shoulder and say, “I’ve given it a lot of thought.”
She turned to him with a look utterly devoid of either hope or a sense of tomorrow.
He studied the violet eyes. “I am certain,” he said softly, “that you did exactly the right thing. Every single step of the way.”
She balled her fists and held them out to him, clenched around the agony his words had released. He reached up and took hold of those two hands, and said, “Gloria would be so proud of you.”
He pulled her toward him and held her as tightly as his weary arms could manage. She clutched him with hands that could not draw him as near as she liked. Her blond head raked back and forth across his chest, the sobs and the words muffled and torn. All Marcus caught for certain was one word: Gary. It was enough.
“Gloria could not let anyone know about Gary’s death. Perhaps she just sensed this in the beginning. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe early on all she wanted was not to have the world try and fit her sorrow into some little box they found comfortable.” Marcus could not be certain how much of this Kirsten was catching. It hardly mattered, for her tears and her trembling were lessening, as though the sound of his voice was fortifying enough. He said, as much for himself as for her, “The defense would have crushed us immediately if they knew Gloria had done this for any reason tied to love and loss. They would have shouted it from the rooftops, and the case would have been dismissed out of hand.”
She looked at him then. As Marcus held her and gazed at her tearstained face, he felt as if he were able to see her truly for the very first time. He used two fingers to wipe cheeks soft as the clouds of childhood dreams. She did not move, did not protest, did not draw away. One of her hands clenched the back of his jacket even tighter. So he lay an entire hand along the length of her face, and felt the nerves beneath his skin etch her form into a memory deeper than his mind.
He said, “I don’t want you to go back to Washington.”
“All right.” The words were a whisper, nothing more. But the hand still clutched his jacket, and when she blinked, she pushed out another tear. One Marcus felt might just be for some reason other than mere sorrow.
“Mr. Glenwood, you may now conclude your closing remarks.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Marcus walked over in front of the jury box, picked up the podium, and moved it to one side. He now stood open and defenseless before the gathering of twelve. Behind and to his right stood two easels, one holding the photograph of Gloria Hall laughing in her evening dress, the other displaying the blowup made from the video, of the same woman tied and beaten and drained of life and hope.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will not take long. This is not the time for histrionics. Nor is it the time for mourning. Not yet. The memorial service for Gloria Hall cannot begin until her body is recovered.”
“Objection! Those comments are the worst sort of inflammatory-”
“Overruled.”
Marcus continued, “The judge in her instructions will charge you with regard to the specific legal issues. You will also have certain factual questions called interrogatories spelled out. These you will answer yes or no. We believe there is substantial evidence justifying a yes vote on each and every one of these questions. After you have answered these questions, you will be asked to assess damages.
“We shouldn’t be swayed by glib apologies. The defense’s claims of ignorance have come only after their earlier strategy of denial did not work. The judge will instruct you that ignorance is not an acceptable defense, not if they had the means to know. Which New Horizons most certainly did. They could have made a difference. They could have stopped this series of actions long before Gloria Hall ever traveled to China. They chose not to. Instead, they empowered their partners.”
“Objection!”
“Overruled.”
“They empowered General Zhao with their willful ignorance.”
“Objection!”
“Overruled.”
“We therefore ask that you find all these defendants liable. All of them.” Marcus looked toward the defense table for the first time since beginning his arguments. “Those present and those not present.”
“Your Honor, I protest.”
Judge Nicols showed a genuine reluctance to even turn his way. “Mr. Kendall, do not even begin to go down this road.”
“What road might that be, Your Honor?”
Her voice grated with irritation. “The road,” she replied, “of thinking you can disrupt the plaintiff’s arguments with unnecessary objections. Try it and I will find you in contempt.” She did not even wait to see if he took his seat again. “Proceed.”
Marcus had stood inspecting his shoes throughout the exchange. When he glanced up, he could see by the look in their eyes that the jury agreed with him on some very deep level. This time he sensed that these were not people who needed further convincing. So he dropped everything he had planned to say except, “We must address the issue of damages. That’s really all I feel I should do at this point. Anything more would only detract from what you already know.”
To his left stood a third easel, this one holding a white drawing board. As he turned toward it, he caught sight of Judge Nicols glaring down at Logan, holding him in his seat. He picked up the grease pencil and wrote the single word actual. “We are just going to assign a number here because we have to. How anyone could set a dollar value on the life of a young woman so full of joy and intelligence and promise is beyond me, so I’m not even going to try.” He wrote out the number, and said as he did, “So we’ll just say one hundred thousand dollars.”
Below that he wrote a second word, punitive. “Punitive damages are damages in addition to the actual damages. Here there can be some differences in culpability. You can ask yourselves: Who acted in a malicious manner? Who was more directly responsible for Gloria’s kidnapping and imprisonment and torture, and is therefore subject to the more substantial punitive damages?
“You may decide that the U.S. company merely colluded in making this happen. I suggest to you that the evidence has shown otherwise. I propose that their attitude has been very consistent. Whenever anything appeared to threaten their market share or profits, their response was whatever it takes. They have never objected in any way to the actions of their partners. They are and always have been concerned with one thing only-their bottom line. No concern was given to the people who suffered at their hands, directly or indirectly.”