The jury came down at 10:08. The judge came out and sat down. Gleason stood up and said: “Good morning, your Honor.”
The judge nodded. “Your decision, Mister Gleason?”
“The Commonwealth has completed its case,” Gleason said.
The judge made a note. “Very good,” he said. Gleason sat down.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury,” the judge said, folding his hands on the desk and facing the box, “the Commonwealth has rested. Given what I have to say next, it may seem to some you rather silly that we brought you all trooping down here for that one piece of information, but it is a significant point in each trial, and I continue to believe that the jury’s role in these proceedings is such that you should be present for all such ceremonies. Our rituals are important. They represent indicia of our civilization, emblems of our liberty, that so many have died for. And it doesn’t do to sell them short.
“Now,” he said, “normally the defense at this point presents motions and arguments for which the jury’s presence is not required. So, having brought you down, we are going to send you up again. There being four defendants, each being entitled to present whatever questions the attorneys may deem significant, I expect those presentations will take the better part of the morning. So, if you wish to dawdle over your second cups of coffee, feel no compunction about so doing.
“Be assured,” he said, “that we will not be dawdling down here. All of us know that some of you — those picked earliest — have now been away from your homes, families and jobs for more than a week. And that you are anxious to return to them and resume your normal lives. So my practice, when the timing works out as it has in this case, is to move the luncheon recess around as necessary on the day when the Commonwealth rests, in order to make the best use possible of the usual court day. Your lunch will therefore be brought to you at noon. When counsel have finished their arguments, and the Court has ruled, and any other problems have been dealt with, the attorneys and the clerk and I will take one half hour for lunch, instead of the usual hour, and whenever that half hour ends, you’ll be brought down again. That way, I hope, we can pick up an extra hour or so of work today, which is one less ahead of us the next time that we meet. Jury is excused.”
After the door had closed behind the last juror, the judge accepted sheafs of paper from each of the four defense lawyers. He heard arguments on motions: to dismiss; to compel disclosure of the names and addresses of informants; to renew motions to suppress; for directed verdicts; and to strike to certain evidence as unduly prejudicial. He denied all of the motions, noting objections and saving exceptions. At 12:10 he said: “Any other necessary formalities, people?” There was no response.
“Very good,” he said. “It must be my turn, then. Have the attorneys for the defense decided among themselves the order of their presentations?”
John Morrissey stood up. “We drew straws, your Honor,” he said. “Mister Tibbetts will go forward, followed by Mister Walker, then Miss Franklin, and finally Miss Fentress.”
The judge made notes. “Each of you will make an opening statement, I presume?” he said. “May I have an estimate of length?”
“I will need about twenty minutes,” Morrissey said.
“I think fifteen will be ample for me,” Bigelow said.
“Waive opening,” Klein said, “if I may be permitted unlimited time for my closing.”
The judge’s right eyebrow went up. “Care to comment, Mister Gleason?”
“Well,” Gleason said, standing up, “it’s the Court’s discretion and all, but I for one have no desire to see this turning into a rerun of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. I’ll object to ‘unlimited.’ If Mister Klein wants to add, say, half an hour to whatever the Court sets as a limit for other counsel, if there’s to be one, then I wouldn’t object to that.”
“Well,” the judge said, “I do like to have some sort of a ceiling. Suppose I offer this, Mister Klein: Each defendant to have a maximum of one hour to sum up, except that in your case, an hour, twenty minutes. And the Commonwealth to have a maximum of one hour and a half. Think that will be sufficient?”
Klein pondered. “I believe so, your Honor.”
“Miss Veale?” the judge said.
Carolyn Veale stood up and tapped on the top of the defense table with the eraser of her pencil. She frowned. She shook her head. She looked up. She cleared her throat. “Your Honor,” she said firmly, “we will waive opening.”
The judge nodded and made notes. “Fentress waives opening. Any other matters?” he said. “Before we break for our abbreviated lunch?”
“One, if I may, your Honor,” Bigelow said. He produced a six-page document which he delivered to the clerk. He gave copies to each of the other lawyers. The judge scanned it. He looked up. “For the record: Mister Bigelow has presented a proposed stipulation of agreed facts, always appreciated in protracted cases. It’s rather detailed. I’m therefore going to suggest that our truncated luncheons be extended for our study of this document over our sandwiches. When we come back, at, say, one P.M., I’ll expect the Commonwealth’s reaction. For your information, Mister Gleason, in case I haven’t made it clear, I like these things. They can save a lot of time, if the parties can find some way to agree.” Gleason said he understood.
Gleason put Bigelow’s stipulation on the window sill and unwrapped his sandwich. “Fuck’s he want?” Richards said, in the small office on the seventh floor. “We agree that Walker’s innocent?”
Gleason bit into the bulky roll. He shook his head. “Uh uh,” he said. He swallowed Coke. “Take a look at it, you want. It’s reasonable enough. What he did was have the Badgers go back and track down every goddamned job that Jimmy’s had since he got out of school. Must’ve cost ’em a fuckin’ bundle.”
“What good does that do him?” Richards said. “We never said the kid was lazy, we said he killed people.”
“What good does it do?” Gleason said. “Does Walker very little. But does Bigelow a lot. Puts it on the record that Bigelow got something, all the money he laid out. That he was diligent, hardworking, that he really prepared his case. Anybody decides to come around a year from, James’s doing time, and say John Bigelow did no homework, right there in the case file is Bigelow’s retort — ‘An exhaustive defense. Investigation conducted by Investigations, Inc., the best in the whole world No stone left unturned. Blah, blah, blah.’ ”
“He’s cute.” Richards said.
“Got to be cute,” Gleason said, “you’re charging fees like his Course some of the time that he’s being cute, he’s not being cute protecting your ass — his client’s — he’s protecting his own. So you’re paying him your money to protect him against you, not you from somebody else. Which doesn’t seem quite fair.”
“You gonna do it, when you get out, Terry?” Richards said. “On the other side?”
Gleason drank Coke “Uh huh.” he said. “Bet your ass. Have to, Day, the way things are today, from the day your client walks in the office, you’re laying backfires to ignite behind his ass, the day comes that he sues you. You think Consolo’s bad? At least he’s not going to file a complaint against me with the Board of Bar Overseers, and then sue me for two million on a malpractice complaint.”
“You gonna let Bigelow have it?” Richards said. “His stipulation there?”
“Oh, sure,” Gleason said. “I’m even going to add a little something — that none of the employments listed were the kind that would have required James to work on Sunday. May the fourth. Nineteen-seventy-seven. Then I’ll argue. ‘No alibiin’ this stuff Ladies and Gentlemen.
“But I’ve got to let Bigelow have it.” Gleason said. “He’s got about a dozen witnesses there, every one of which he’s got a perfect right to call. He could keep us here another three weeks — well, maybe only one — dragging all these Connecticut Valley tobacco farmers, and major appliance installers, and Pioneer Valley construction foremen, and all those other guys. Parading them up one after another to say James’s worked for them and he’s a good employee, too. I gather the defense is going to be that James never showed any indication to the outside world that he came into a share of a rather large sum of money, and a good-sized stash of cocaine, on the morning of May fourth Which is all all right with us. Grand jury didn’t say that James went out and bought a yacht. He isn’t charged with using drugs, though I would bet be did. I thought when I first read it: ‘Geez, I wonder if these people, if they’ve got attendance records. ’Cause I sure would like to know if he was absent on four specific days between October fourth of Nineteen-seventy and September fourth of Seventy-five. When those armored cars went down. And if he wasn’t on the job, well, we know where he was — he was on the jobs.”
Gleason stretched. “Shit, I’m tired,” he said. “I wish this was over with. And now I got this afternoon, all their ranting and raving instead of mine — which’s nowhere near’s much fun — and I know what Bart’s gonna say, when four P.M. rolls around.”
“What?” Richards said.
“He’s gonna say: ‘Tomorrow,’ ” Gleason said. “ ‘We’ll sit on Saturday.’ Because the jury’s been locked up, and they are getting antsy, and he’ll want to console them, and so that’s what he will do.”
“But you’re getting antsy yourself,” Richards said.
“I am,” Gleason said, “but I am not, antsy, if you take a look at Barbara. Barbara is antsy like George S. Patton got antsy about Panzer divisions surrounding Bastogne. I miss about three more dinners, I’m not there at sun-up about two more mornings, she is going to have the bread knife aimed at my throat the next time I come home.”
“She’d better learn to live with it,” Richards said. “This is how you do your job.”
“She has learned to live with it,” Gleason said. “It’s my life that’s in danger.”