stare a silent reprimand at Prosecutor Trell. “… but I've just heard a report that another man has confessed to the crime my client is being tried for. The media has the story. He is under arrest and is being held at this very moment.”
There is an uproar in the courtroom, or at least as much uproar as this scraggly group can manage. My eyes are on the jury, now fully awake and talking excitedly among themselves. “Can this be true?” they're thinking. “Does this mean we can go home?”
Carmen shakes hands and hugs everyone in sight; for a moment I think he's going to accidentally strangle the bailiff. My eyes are on the prosecution table, where one of Trell's assistants gets up and rushes out of the room, already drawing his cell phone out of his pocket as he goes. I watch him until I turn to the sound of an increasingly annoying noise. It's Kasten's gavel, and he's pounding it as hard as he can.
Eventually, order is restored, if for no other reason than to quiet that stupid gavel. Kasten turns to Trell, who is still looking befuddled.
“Mr. Trell, what is your information on this?”
Trell doesn't know what attitude to take, since he doesn't know if it's true. He plays it down the middle. “I'm having it checked right now, Your Honor.” He turns toward the doors in the back of the court as if to show Kasten where the answer will come from.
On cue, the assistant opens those doors and comes back in the room, holstering his cell phone as he does. He quickly goes to Trell and whispers in his ear. The jig, I am aware, is about to be up.
Trell nods vigorously, then turns back to Kasten. I think he so relishes what he's about to say that he's actually salivating. He uses his deepest voice. “Your Honor, I am told there is no truth whatsoever to this report.” Roosevelt spoke with less drama when he announced the attack on Pearl Harbor.
No sooner does Trell finish speaking than Kasten's head, as well as every other head in the courtroom, swivels toward me.
I shrug, as if I'm an innocent bystander. “I'm as surprised as you, Judge. The media in this town is getting out of hand.”
He, of course, is not buying it. “This is bizarre behavior even by your standards.”
Obviously he doesn't know my standards, but now is not the time to educate him. I shrug so hard my shoulders hurt. “Your Honor, surely you don't think—”
He interrupts me, which is just as well, since I wasn't quite sure how to finish the sentence. “Finish your summation, and then I'll want to see both counsel in chambers. The jury will disregard this entire incident.”
I walk toward the jury, shaking my head in amazement at this turn of events. Let's see if they disregard this …
“The second thing I wanted to talk to you about is reasonable doubt. If any of you believed, even for a few moments, that someone else had confessed to the crime my client stands charged with, then you must have a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.”
A cannon goes off in Trell's chair, sending him soaring to his feet. “Objection! Objection!”
He yells so loud that I have to yell over him to the jury, while I'm pointing to Carmen. “You cannot be absolutely positive about this man's guilt and at the same time be ready to believe that someone else did it!”
“Objection! Objection!” That Trell is quite a conversationalist. Meanwhile, Jean Valjean never pounded rocks as hard as Kasten is pounding the gavel.
“Bailiff, remove the jury.”
As I watch the jury file out, I know that Kasten is going to come down on me, even contempt is a possibility. I also know that I'm my father's son, and Kasten has too much respect and friendship for Nelson Carpenter to destroy his first and only born.
Besides, Carmen Herndez is going to be a free man within the hour, which makes this a very good day.
MY CHILDHOODIS FILLED WITH GREAT MEMO-ries, in fact, great ones are the only memories I have. I talked to a shrink about it, and we pretty much agreed that unpleasant things must have happened when I was growing up, but that I had just repressed them. I asked him how long I could go on repressing them, and he said maybe forever. That worked for me, so I left therapy before I could blow it and get in touch with