“That’s when she died. A virus, just took her over. Antibiotics did nothing. Some swamp thing. Like a horror movie.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thing was, I thought there was a time there, when she was in the hospital, all tubed up, that if I tried hard enough I could get her out of there. But I couldn’t think what to do, and it was almost like I got paralyzed. Right there in her room. I wanted to will her better because…”
We were silent for a long moment. I could hear my own breathing. It sounded like a guy on life support. I wanted to clam up. Couldn’t.
“I wasn’t exactly a model son around then,” I said. “I wanted her to live so I could make up for it. So I could make her proud of me. In the hospital, she reached out her hand to me.” I saw it now, clearly, as if a fog had suddenly blown away. “She reached for me and I was afraid. I took her hand, but I was afraid. Like I was the reason she was there. And I was the only one who could pull her back. But she didn’t come back. That night she died.…”
That was it. I couldn’t go on. I put my face in my hands and tried not to lose it. I was aware of movement, and then Kate was at my chair. Her arms went around me, pulled me close, as if I were her own child.
160
I COULDN’T SLEEP that night. The adrenaline during a closing argument is like liquid electricity, running through pipes of flesh, leaving every nerve with the feeling it’s on fire.
The next morning, I shot hoop for a while, alone, testing my sore patoot. It was nothing compared to what had happened to Sister Mary. I hoped her wound wouldn’t hold her back, from ball or anything else she wanted to do.
In fact, I hoped I wasn’t holding her back from what she wanted to do.
At two in the afternoon I was sitting—tenderly—at the Ultimate Sip, reading the Daily News, when I got a call from Hughes’s clerk. The jury was ready with a verdict.
I didn’t like that it was so soon.
I made my own calls. To Kate, then the hospital. But Sister Mary, they said, had been discharged. I called her cell and got voice mail. I called Father Bob. Told him what was up, and where was Sister Mary? He said he’d make sure she got the message.
But not in time, apparently. Because it was just me and Eric at the counsel table when the jury came back in.
I watched their faces. Several made eye contact with me. A good sign. If they’re sending your client away, they usually don’t look at you.
But I’ve been fooled before.
161
THE CLERK, Ms. Mavis Elliott, read the verdict in her official-sounding monotone. “We, the jury in the above-titled action, find the defendant, Eric Mark Richess, not guilty of the crime of murder.”
Kate cried out behind me. Eric turned to me and gave me a giant bear hug.
And I was transported to another dimension. Not the Twilight Zone variety, but the trial lawyers’ magic carpet ride above the clouds. There is no feeling like a verdict in your favor, and no higher high than not guilty if you’re a criminal defense lawyer.
Radavich was not ready to give in. He requested that the judge poll the jury, and Hughes did exactly that. He asked each individual juror if not guilty was their true verdict, both in the jury room and now, sitting in court.
Each one answered, “Yes.”
And that was that.
Eric turned and embraced his mother at the rail.
Kate had her son back. That’s the thing that mattered. Watching her hold her son was like watching a drowning woman grab onto the rescue boat.
It was as perfect a day as a lawyer could have.
It’s the crash after the high that you have to watch out for, especially when it comes at you like a fifteen-foot wave.
162
RADAVICH LEFT THE courtroom without saying a word to me.
Outside, Kate told me she wanted to have me and Sister Mary over to the house, so we could all celebrate together. She promised to make her secret-family-recipe cheesecake. I told her that sounded fine.
Some reporters wanted a statement from me, and news about Sister Mary. I wasn’t ready to give either. I went around to my car and sat in it for a few minutes. The sky was clear. City Hall loomed.