“I did not even stop at the men’s room to comb my hair and wash my face. I was furious. I don’t think I had ever felt quite so righteous in my life.”
Asa knew exactly what I meant. “Having nothing left to lose is a kind of liberation, isn’t it?”
“You would have thought I was leading a slave rebellion. Three days in that place, and in some ways I had become more demented than any of the poor souls I found there. I could have killed Jeffries and gone to my execution convinced that I was entirely justified for what I had done. I didn’t kill him, of course, but when he took his place on the bench I tried to murder him with a stare. I need not have bothered; he damn near died when he saw what I looked like.
“I was sitting at the counsel table, pretending there was nothing out of the ordinary, one leg crossed over the other, my left arm trailing over the back of my chair. With my thumb and forefinger, I stroked my chin like some elegantly dressed fop, bored to tears with everyone around him. Mrs. Larkin, sitting in the chair next to me, did not know what to make of it. The deputy district attorney, who had been reading his file, lifted his head, like an animal which has just caught a scent. Jurors shifted uneasily in their chairs, nudging each other to make certain they were all seeing the same thing.
” ‘Mr. Antonelli!’ Jeffries shouted, his face red with rage.
“I had already turned to the same juror I had been talking to on Friday. ‘Thank you, your honor,’ I said without looking back.
‘Now tell me,’ I went on as if time had stood still, ‘even if you’re convinced the defendant is probably guilty, will you still vote to return a verdict of not guilty if the state fails to prove that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?’
“I’ll never forget the look on that juror’s face. The poor woman did not know what to do. She was willing to answer my question, but afraid to open her mouth.
” ‘Mr. Antonelli!’ Jeffries was screaming from the bench.
“With a speed that surprised even myself, I shot to my feet.
‘Will you stop interrupting me!’ I shouted back at him. ‘I’ve earned the right to ask that question!’
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone that angry. ‘Do you know who you’re talking to, counselor?’ he asked, clenching his teeth so hard his whole face seemed to tremble.
“I had always had a fondness for the kind of English barrister we used to read about in the old novels, the ones who could stand there, hand on hip, and with only a slight change of in-flection destroy an opponent with a single well-turned phrase. I don’t know where I got it-it must have been something I had read. I certainly did not make it up myself, but all of a sudden I remembered, and before I knew what I was doing, the words just came out.
” ‘Your honor, I’m not sure. Because, you see, I’m like a Bud-dhist in front of his idoclass="underline" I know you are ugly, but I feel you are great.’
“The jury, the bailiff, the clerk-everyone in the courtroom-
froze, and every eye turned to see what Jeffries would do.
“I had called him ugly and I had called him great. He could not contest the one without contesting the other. He stared hard at me, but behind those piercing eyes he was gaining control of himself, quickly calculating what he could safely do. Folding his hands together, he lowered his head and pursed his lips. When he looked up again, he nodded slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face.
” ‘That was very good, Mr. Antonelli,’ he said in a quiet, reassuring voice. There was an almost audible sigh of relief from around the courtroom. ‘Very good, indeed,’ he added before he turned to the jury. ‘Mr. Antonelli,’ he informed them with a solemn smile, ‘has obviously been under a great deal of stress. I’m sure that with a good night’s sleep he’ll be back to his normal self. In the interest of everyone concerned, I think it would be better if we recessed now and started again tomorrow morning.’
“I went straight home, threw my clothes into a pile on the bathroom floor, and took a long hot shower. When I was finished, I crawled into bed, languishing in the pure luxury of clean sheets.
I slept all day and got up only long enough to have something for dinner before I went back to bed. The next morning, wearing a fresh shirt and a new suit, I sat at the counsel table and as if I had never laid eyes on her before began questioning that same juror.
” ‘At the end of this trial, after you have heard all the evidence, if you believe that the defendant is probably guilty, but you also believe that the state has not proven it beyond a reasonable doubt, will you return a verdict of not guilty?’
“Instinctively, her eyes flew toward the bench. Jeffries was hunched over, reading something. ‘Yes,’ she replied, her eyes coming back to me.
“We moved rapidly through voir dire, and by the end of the morning had a jury. That afternoon we made our opening statements and the next day the prosecution called its first witness, Edward Larkin.
“He could have been anyone, the father of the kid down the block, the husband of a woman you work with, a pleasant-looking, well-dressed man, someone you would chat comfortably with while you stood together waiting for a bus. He spoke about the sexual relationship with his daughter as if he were a psychologist describing something that one of his patients had done. That was what you had to understand about him: He had learned to ana-lyze his past behavior with almost clinical detachment. Yes, he had for years been having sexual intercourse with his own daughter. Yes, he understood this was something he should not have done. But now he was in counseling, where he was learning how to deal with his problem. Remarkable how a few words can change the way we think. His problem! Suddenly, it becomes something private, his own possession, something that ultimately does not concern anyone else, except insofar as the people affected by his behavior can help him with his problem. He is no longer the subject who has inflicted an unforgivable wrong that must be punished as an example to others, but an object for the professional attention of those trained to deal with his particular disease. He testified at the trial of his wife as if he had been called as an expert witness on a case that had nothing whatever to do with him.
“He admitted everything; he gave no indication that he was embarrassed, much less ashamed, of anything. In response to the questions put to him, he described the way he had several times each week left the room he shared with his wife and gone down the hall to his daughter’s room. Though he said he always waited until his wife was asleep, he said it in a way that suggested he could not always have been sure.
“The prosecution tried to make certain no one missed the point.
‘Then, it’s quite possible, isn’t it,’ Spencer Goldman asked, ‘that during the years this was going on, your wife became aware of what you were doing with your daughter?’
“It was a call for speculation if there ever was one, and I was on my feet shouting my objection before he was finished with the question. But if I had thought that Jeffries was through with me, I quickly learned just how wrong I could be.
” ‘Overruled!’ he barked, motioning for me to sit down.
” ‘Your honor,’ I insisted, still on my feet, ‘he’s-’
” ‘He’s eliciting testimony that the mother must have known what the father was doing,’ Jeffries interjected. He gave me a sharp look. ‘And he’s doing that to demonstrate that the mother herself must have had something to hide. Isn’t that correct, Mr.
Goldman?’
“I stood there, speechless. There was no precedent for this. The judge had become the prosecutor, and I was the one he was after.
” ‘Isn’t that correct, Mr. Goldman,’ he asked again, his eyes still locked on mine.
“Astonished at what Jeffries had done, Goldman had difficulty getting the words out. ‘Yes, your honor,’ he said finally.