A fool for a client, p.22
A Fool for a Client, page 22
There was a strong Irish contingent, not all of them hostile to Justine, and many Jews. There were girls too. To some Justine was a role model to be glimpsed at, if only for a moment in the hope that some of the radiance would shine into their drab lives as receptionists and waitresses. To others she was a cold-blooded, scheming, heartless she-devil, a new incarnation of Lilith, one of those rare specimens of evil female who is deadlier than the male. This was the old polarized perception of women in the public eye. Whereas men who are accused of crime are “permitted” by the public at large to belong almost anywhere on a wide moral spectrum, alleged murderesses, and often women in general, are neatly slotted into one of two categories: the virtuous victims and the most evil creatures who ever lived.
It was against the backdrop of this was the polarized state of public opinion that Justine Levy faced the judge as he addressed her.
“Miss Levy, are you ready to proceed with your defence?”
“Yes Your Honour,” said Justine rising to her feet.
“Proceed,” said the judge perfunctorily, nodding in her direction.
“My first and only witness is myself,” said Justine, sending a shockwave through the courtroom.
It was as if the entire press section sucked in its collective breath. Justine's unusual qualities had already stood out, but most people were surprised at this development. Many defendants conduct their own defence for the an unstated purpose to which they dare not admit: that of being able to influence the jury by their demeanour and questions to prosecution witnesses without risking taking the witness stand and giving a particular account of events, thereby being exposed to the perils of cross-examination and a direct challenge to a specific version of events that they offer (as opposed to the many possibilities that the jury can be invited to consider).
Yet Justine was now submitting to this very risk, inviting the prosecution to challenge her testimony or find fault with her account events. And now, for the first time, the public were about to hear that account. As far as the press and public were concerned, the drama had climbed a few notches on the ladder of excitement.
Justine was led by a bailiff to the witness stand. When asked her religion by the clerk of the court she stated not “Jewish” but “atheist”. Thus it was not the oath but the affirmation that the clerk of the court recited to her and asked to which he asked for her response.
“Do you solemnly affirm that the evidence you shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”
“I do," replied Justine, with the quiet firmness that had been her hall mark throughout this trial.
The clerk withdrew as Justine took the witness stand.
“State your name for the record,” said the judge.
“I am Justine Deborah Levy.”
The Judge nodded gently to Justine and added quietly, “go ahead.”
“Members of the jury. I won't bore you by repeating the facts of the case. You all know by now that Sean Murphy died of the atropine that they gave him in the hospital as the antidote to pyrethrum poisoning, and not from pyrethrum itself. Just to clarify the issue, let me add that I hadn't given Murphy any pyrethrum. There was no pyrethrum in the tequila that he drank.”
A gasp went through the courtroom. Declan leaned forward angrily. On the other side of the same row of spectator's seats, Thomas leaned forward too, as if poised to restrain him. In practice it would be very hard for him to do so. There were several other spectators in between them, and even if Declan rose, Thomas couldn't be sure of getting a clear shot. He doubted that Declan was going to make his move now, or even that he was able to make it. He couldn't possibly have got his gun into the courtroom or even into the building. The security was far too good. of course Tom himself had been the security with his polymer composite pistol.
But the IRA had a large sophisticated terrorist network belonging to the larger network of brotherhood among such diverse groups as Hamas, the German Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades and the French Direct Action, as well as neo-Nazi groups who were only too happy to work with the left on the grounds that National Socialism and International Socialism were not really so different as to require a complete separation of interests, when all too often their anti-individual causes overlapped.
It was unlikely, thought Tom, that Declan or any of his INLA conspirators would have access to such sophisticated weapons as polymer pistols which could not be detected by metal detectors. The question was when and where was Declan planning to make his move? If Justine was acquitted, it would be no problem. He could shoot her in the street or even go to her home and shoot her there. But all the evidence suggested that she would be convicted, especially now that she had effectively admitted to the crime. If she was convicted, bail would be revoked and she would be taken into immediate custody. How could he hope to get her when she was in custody? He had to have a contingency plan and it must involve making his move in court.
Tom couldn't figure out what Declan was planning, but he resolved to sit closer to him from now on, and preferably in the row behind him, even if it meant paying some money to the person who occupied that seat now. In fact both Declan and Tom had paid more than a thousand dollars to buy their tickets on the black market from ticket touts. The touts had effectively offered people who weren't interested in the trial money to enter the lottery for the tickets with the promise that those who won tickets would be offered even more money to part with them. It was ironic that a criminal trial should have given rise to such corruption of the very doorstep of the Hall of Justice, and typical of New York city that nothing was done about it.
Several yards away, Abrams was smiling to himself. He had been right. He knew it for sure now. His belated theory was about to be vindicated. He had figured out her motive yesterday, after his talk with Jerry. Now, in a few minutes at most, the jury was about to hear what he already knew. The realization that he had solved this part of the mystery filled him with pride. Parker noticed the prosecutor's reaction, and looked tense.
“I put the pyrethrum into the bottle after Murphy had drunk from it, in order to make him think that he had been poisoned, knowing that when the contents were analysed the doctors would also assume that he'd been poisoned with pyrethrum and give him atropine which would kill him.”
She paused to let the full meaning of her words sink in. She had now told them that she had set out to cause Murphy to die and had effectively done so. Many legal scholars would have said that in the formal sense of the law, the prosecution's case had now been made and that any defence other than diminished capacity or insanity was no longer possible. But Justine hadn't finished yet.
“The question you're probably asking yourselves is why. Some of you may know that Murphy was wanted by the British police for planting a bomb in a shopping centre in Britain. He killed two people: a three-year-old child and a professor of radiology.
“The British police arrested one of Murphy's accomplices shortly after the incident. But Murphy got away and slipped out of Britain to the United States.
“The British government applied for his extradition pursuant to the same extradition treaty under which two British women were recently extradited to this country to face trial for murder, based almost entirely on the testimony of alleged co-conspirators. In spite of the weak evidence against them to begin with and the unlikelihood of a fair trial, they were sent here by the British and convicted. The British government made no effort to hide behind technical formalities, but simply handed them over to trial before a judicial system that is no better than theirs, and in some cases worse.
“But when the British applied for Sean Murphy's extradition, expecting reciprocity and the same measure of co-operation that they had given us, and with a much stronger case to begin with, a judge here refused to extradite him, ruling that because Murphy had acted in the pursuit of a political cause, he was wanted, in effect, for a political offence. That wasn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. In other cases, IRA terrorists have not been extradited from the US for killing British soldiers. This, in a country in which Lynette Fromme and Sarah Jane More were imprisoned for trying to kill president Gerald Ford for political reasons! Apparently, murdering a private in the British army is a political crime for which one can't be extradited from the US or prosecuted within it. But trying to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces is a conventional crime for which one can be prosecuted in the normal way.
“But with the refusal to extradite a man who murdered a doctor and a toddler, American justice sank to an all time low. I wonder if that judge would apply the same logic to the Weathermen of the sixties or the Symbionese Liberation Army of the seventies. I wonder what that judge would think if some one were to kill an American judge in the pursuit of a political cause.”
Her anger was showing now. She had wanted to keep it hidden and present nothing but the raw facts. However, it wasn't easy. The same rage against the injustice and hypocrisy that had prompted her to act as she did in the first place, was now erupting to the surface like a volcano and pouring down on all around her like a torrent of molten lava. They could either be swept away, or end up immersed in it. But there was no way they were going to get away from it, just as there was no way for Justine to contain it.
“Whatever that corrupt judge's morally depraved position may have been,” Justine continued, “Murphy's was equally perverted. He believed that he had the right to take the life of a fellow human being who had done no wrong, in the pursuit of his cause. As if a political cause is an all-embracing excuse for any human action. Well if there's one thing worse than a thug it's a sanctimonious thug. They think that they are the only people with causes.
“But you see Professor Shankar also had a cause. His cause was saving lives. Like so many other unknown and forgotten people, he was one of the unsung heroes, one of the victims of terrorism. Whenever a terrorist commits a crime the press dig up every trivial fact they can find about the terrorist. But they forget the victims. They never take the trouble to find out who they were or what they did or stood for, and they soon fade from human memory. It was these unsung heroes who had to be avenged.
“But the question you're probably asking is why did I pick Murphy?”
She paused and took a deep breath.
“Shortly before I killed Murphy, my mother died of breast cancer that metastasized before it was detected. As I watched her wasting away, knowing what fate had in store for her, it occurred to me that Professor Shankar could perhaps have saved her – her and hundreds of others. These were the invisible victims of Sean Murphy's terrorism.
Tears were now streaming down her cheeks. But her voice didn't break or falter.
“And if you think that vigilante justice usurps the role of the courts, then ask yourselves which is worse, for a citizen to appropriate the function of the courts or for the courts to abandon the responsibility which was theirs? And if you think that what I did was a threat to law and order, then consider the fact that a judge, who was sworn to uphold the law, refused to extradite a man against whom there was a prima facie case of murder... and ask yourselves if there was any law left to uphold.”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks. A stunned silence settled over the courtroom. Abrams nodded slowly, his suspicions confirmed.
Again Declan leaned forward. But this time Tom remained stationary. He knew that it was just plain interest, no more than that which prompted Declan's movement. He clearly wasn't ready to act just yet.
“Cross examine, Mr. Abrams?” asked the judge.
Abrams rose looking confident but unsmiling.
“Miss Levy there's just one point I'd like to clear up. Why did you kill Murphy in the way that you did?”
“The way that I did?” repeated Justine, confused.
“Yes. Was it because you thought that by not touching him physically you could beat the rap?”
“Not at all. I admit that I acted with malice aforethought ‑ if you consider a desire for justice to be malicious.”
“And with prior intent?”
“Yes.”
“Then I return to my original question. Why did you kill him in that way? Why not simply poison him? Or shoot him?”
She paused for a moment, looking puzzled.
“Murphy was a man of muscle. He lived by the code of brute force. His was the philosophy of the thug. That was the that code I wanted to refute. My code is the code of the mind, the philosophy of reason and logic. When I was growing up, my heroes weren't cowboys or detectives or soldiers or singers or actors or athletes. My heroes were scientists and businessmen.
“Murphy believed, like Mao Tse‑Tung before him, that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. I believe that political revolution is the end result of a long process starting in the ivory tower of the philosophy departments of the academies working its way down through the print media and then the broadcast media until it reaches the minds of the masses.
“Murphy believed that whatever your philosophy the gun is the final argument. That was what I had to disprove. I had to show him that the mind alone was supreme ¾ him and all of the men of violence. I had to show them that the human mind, the distilled, undiluted essence of human intellect is invincible. That's why I had to kill him without a gun, without poison, without a weapon of any kind. I had to kill him with my mind.”
Abrams nodded his head slowly and wearily, as if complete understanding had finally dawned on him for the first time. After a few seconds he slumped into his seat.
“You may step down,” the judge told Justine.
She stepped down and returned to her place, but remained standing.
“The defence rests.”
Pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. The judge rapped with his gavel to restore order. After almost half a minute some semblance of quiet returned to the courtroom.
“Mr. Abrams will you be ready to begin your closing argument by Monday morning.
“Yes Your Honour.”
“Court is adjourned until Ten O'clock Monday morning.”
There was a stampede of journalists towards the exits.
Chapter 37
Parker was sitting alone at the same corner table at the same deli where he and Justine had had their first real conversation. He sat facing the wall with his back to the other patrons, as if he were trying to shut out the world and not share his standards or values with the rest of humanity. He knew that there was a bitter look on his face, and he didn't want to share his bitterness with others, nor accept the casual abandon with which they continued their lives oblivious to the suffering of some one who had suffered too much already and was now destined to be penalized for fighting back.
He was finishing off his cheeseburger when a shadow cut across the table, disturbing his fragile peace and denying him the escape from the world that he had sought. At first he thought that it was just another customer, looking for a free table. But he could tell from the stationary image, from the shape of the shadow, from its implacable lack of motion that it could only belong to one person: the only person who had the right to be there, or perhaps the person who had the least right.
He looked round to see Justine standing there looking both implacable and sympathetic, as only she could.
“Is this place taken?” she asked.
He didn't reply. She sat down.
All through the trial it had been possible, as far as he knew, that she was innocent. Now he knew that she was guilty. She had let him down by being guilty, and betraying his trust in her innocence. She had let him down, by confessing and by not giving him a chance to convince the jury of her innocence. She had let him down by embarking upon a suicidal course that would put her behind bars for many years to come and destroy any prospect of the two of them spending their lives together.
She had let him down.
And yet he couldn't escape the feeling that he should have seem it coming all the way, should have seen it looming on the horizon, both the truth and the way it would play out in court. In retrospect it all seemed obvious. All the facts were there. He just hadn't seen them. Just as Abrams hadn't. Just as the press hadn't.
Perhaps that was why Justine had to tell them. Perhaps therefore she was right all along to conduct her own defence and he had been wrong. As she alone had known the truth, it followed that only she could have revealed it to others. Just as she had revealed to others the deficiencies in the legal system and the erosion of the integrity of judges, by her brazen act of taking the law into her own hands.
“You look glum,” she said, picking up a French fry from his plate. There were plenty of French fries left with Parker. He always left them until last, telling himself that he wasn't going to eat all of them. It was all part of his diet, which was always due to start tomorrow.
