CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

“All rise!” At the sound of the courtroom clerk’s practiced announcement, Superior Court Judge Robert Robinson swept into the room and then stopped at the top of the three stairs up to the bench. He was a tall man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair—pleased he still had all of it as he approached sixty—although he wished his once trim frame didn’t fill a judicial robe quite so much.

“It’s just her,” he said to the clerk, smiling and pointing across the empty courtroom at Aileen Shapiro. “Not sure we need to be that formal. And I’m also not sure why I’m wearing this robe. Habit, I suppose.”

As he dropped into the big leather chair, he added, “Like a nun.” But neither his clerk nor the State’s Attorney appeared to get the joke, so he let it go, just another reminder that courtrooms were where real humor went to die.

“Ms. Shapiro,” the judge said, “I’ve never been part of an investigative grand jury, so you’ll have to excuse me.”

“I haven’t either, Judge,” Aileen replied.

“We’ll figure it out together, then. Honestly, before my happy life up in New Haven was interrupted last week by the Chief Justice, I had actually never even heard of a one-person grand jury. Maybe I saw it while studying for the bar, but that was a long, long time ago.”

“I know how you feel, Your Honor. I am a little more familiar with it, because there was one here in Stamford when I was new. The Skakel case.”

“Yes,” the judge said, “that makes sense—another case involving the one percent and murder. One can’t help wondering how often you prosecutors utilize this particular extra layer of care in cases involving people who are—”

“Judge,” his clerk interrupted. “I just want all participants to know we’ve begun the audio recording.”

“Right, right,” Judge Robinson said quickly. “And of course, the identity of the participants will be irrelevant to this court, uh, grand jury.”

“Of course, Judge,” Aileen said.

Robbie Robinson had been on the bench in New Haven for seventeen years, after the state Judicial Selection Commission ended his career as a criminal defense lawyer—a job he had loved—by recommending him to the governor for appointment to his first eight-year term, which had been renewed ever since. Robbie knew the governor wanted to appoint a Black judge, but beneath the expected headlines about the governor’s embrace of diversity, Robbie also knew there was an important reality: The people of Connecticut needed to have competent judges who were Black, both for the way they had experienced life and the way those in their courtrooms would experience the justice system.

Robbie had grown up poor in New Haven and excelled at the private Hopkins School—a familiar path to Yale—which he attended on a full academic scholarship. But he decided not to apply to Yale, despite the encouragement of a variety of Hopkins faculty members. Instead, he went to Howard University in Washington, DC, and stayed to attend Howard’s law school. As he explained in a speech at Howard long after graduating, “There are many fine schools offering a fine education, but I wanted to know that whatever grade I got, good or bad—whatever they said about me, good or bad—was without regard to the color of my skin.

“And they kept that promise,” he added with a smile. “I got both good and bad, which was what I deserved.”

“So what’s our first step, Ms. Shapiro?” the judge asked.

“Your Honor, I think it makes sense for me to first call a police witness to outline all the evidence gathered so far in the case. And I have a variety of reports and photographs that we can make grand jury exhibits when that witness testifies. Once you have a sense of what we have so far, we can talk about further investigation, what records or people we should subpoena. Does that make sense?”

“Makes sense,” the judge answered. “The floor is yours.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. Let me just step out to make sure my first witness is set to go.”

“Take your time,” he replied. “I think this can be more informal than our normal proceedings.”

Aileen smiled nervously as she walked past the empty jury box and out a side door of the modern dark-wood courtroom. She pushed open the door of the jury room. “Okay, Demi, he’s all set. You ready?”

“Uh, I’m starting to think I’m not the best lead-off witness,” the detective replied, not making eye contact.

“What?” Aileen asked just as a toilet flushed in the juror restroom. She turned to see Captain Dunham emerging from the bathroom, drying his hands on a paper towel.

“Hi, Aileen,” he said. “Don’t know whether Demi had a chance to tell you, but we’ve decided I should be the first witness.”

“What do you mean? That’s not your call.”

“Well, I feel like it is,” he replied. “I’m the supervisor on the case and Demi’s never testified at a grand jury before. I did it a million times in New York. I also discussed it with my chief. We agree it should be me.”

“First,” Aileen replied, “this isn’t like any grand jury you’ve seen. It’s just a judge by himself. Second—”

“Testified to judges a million times too. You just gotta know what they want,” Dunham said.

Aileen ignored the interruption. “Second, I’m working here as the lawyer for the investigative grand jury, so I’ll decide who testifies and when.”

“Isn’t that the judge’s job?” Dunham sneered.

“Technically, yes.”

“Then shouldn’t you ask him if I can be the first witness?”

“I’m not going to involve Judge Robinson in your unprofessional line cutting.”

“Okay, then let’s do it,” Dunham said before running his hands over the front of his uniform. “That’s why I got dressed up.”

The State’s Attorney stood silently for a long moment, then shrugged her shoulders. “Fine, you’re up,” she said as she turned and left the room.

Dunham winked at Demi. “Told you she’d be okay with the switch,” he said and followed the prosecutor through the door.