Hardy had been worried sick about Alison Li’s testimony. But Freeman had noticed a crucial failing in everybody’s reading of Alison’s transcripts. And they had the videotapes anyway.
But the jury wouldn’t get to Freeman’s argument, or to the tapes, for several days, and right now Soma’s monologue was casting its spell.
Graham shifted in his chair. Subtly, Hardy moved his hand over Graham’s sleeve, giving a little squeeze – a message that this was okay, they had known it was going to sound bad at first. Graham was going to have to keep himself under control.
Soma was smoothly proceeding. ‘Sal Russo had his own safe, underneath his bed in his apartment. We will show you a letter from Sal to defendant, on the bottom of which is written, in defendant’s own handwriting, the combination to that safe.’
Several of the jurors made eye contact with one another. Soma’s rendering made an impressive litany of connection, Hardy had to admit. ‘We will show you that defendant was in desperate need of money. He had quit one job and lost another in the space of a couple of months. His work as a paramedic did not begin to cover his monthly costs. He drove a BMW sports car…’
The young attorney was laying out the case in textbook fashion to the jury, who gave every indication of believing him.
Soma paused. ‘Finally, I’m going to ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to listen to police inspectors as they will recount for you the many, many times where they gave the defendant the opportunity to explain his actions, his motives, his behavior. And time and again you will be struck, as I was, by the defendant’s absolute disregard for the truth. He has lied, and lied, and lied again. I will ask for your patience as I walk these inspectors through their interviews with the defendant, before he had even been charged with any crime, and you will hear lie upon lie upon lie.
‘We will prove his lies. We will prove his actions. We will prove his motive. We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Graham Russo, killed his own father out of simple greed – for the money and baseball cards in his safe.’ Soma pointed to Graham one last time, his voice flat and uninflected, relating pure, rational, passionless fact: ‘There sits a murderer.’
At the bench, in the hush that followed, Salter made a few notes, then looked up. ‘Mr Hardy?’
Freeman leaned over around Graham at their table and whispered that they should ask for a short recess. Indeed, that’s what Hardy felt like. Actually, he wanted a long recess – say two to three weeks to rethink everything he thought he’d had clear before.
Naturally, he and Freeman had rehearsed all the probable scenarios they could devise about Soma’s opening statement. They had, in fact, nailed down a close approximation of what they’d just heard; after all, they knew the evidence, and that was all the prosecution was allowed to talk about.
Somehow, though, on this day, with Soma’s low-key delivery (which they hadn’t predicted), the case felt different. Suddenly the jitters gripped Hardy terribly – his stomach roiled with tension. The worst thing he could do, he realized, would be to delay. If he hesitated at all, his nerves would begin to throw off sparks, visible to the jury and his opponents. His doubts about his client and strategy would choke off his words, his throat, his breathing. Worst of all, the jury could use these precious moments to savor and digest the rich nourishment that Soma had just provided them.
In California the defense has the option of delivering its opening statement immediately following that of the prosecution, as a form of instant rebuttal, or waiting until later, at the beginning of the introduction of its own case-in-chief. Hardy had planned all along to deliver his opening right after Soma’s, but suddenly it seemed even more crucial. He had to get up – now! To start.
Brusquely, he shook off Freeman’s hand, not even seeing him really. He was on his feet, aware of a jelliness in his knees, a low-pitched roar in his ears.
At the same time he mustn’t forget that this was performance. He had to appear loose, especially in front of all of these men. If they were like Hardy, and at least a few of them had to be, that’s what they would relate to and respect.
He felt trapped in the endless psychic toll of maleness: weakness kills.
Anger, though, was all right, and was the closest Hardy could get to anything positive. Grim lipped, he got to the jury box and turned all the way around to face Soma. The message was controlled anger mixed with derision. A shake of the head. Hardy was disgusted by the untruth of what he’d just heard.
He was back facing the panel. He tore a page out of Soma’s book, subtly mocking his opponent’s only bit of flamboyance, pointing his own hand at his client. ‘Graham Russo,’ he began, ‘cared for his father, protected his father, and loved his father. These are the primary facts in this case. It is an obscenity that he has been charged with murder at all. Here is the true version of what happened on May eighth and ninth of this year.’
In the course of the trial Hardy would call his client by his first name, much as Soma had referred to him only as the defendant. ‘It’s true that Graham was a regular visitor to his father’s apartment. He went there to administer shots for Sal’s pain, but he also went there to visit, to take his father to dinner, to organize and clean and help with the laundry. He did this regularly for nearly two years, and much more frequently in the last six months of Sal’s life, as the Alzheimer’s progressed and the cancer in Sal’s brain became more debilitating.
‘Over the last few weeks Sal had suffered some rather more serious bouts of forgetfulness. Sal was terrified of being placed in a nursing home. He didn’t much trust the system. Incidentally, he passed that trait along to his son.’
Here Hardy risked an insider’s smile, confident that at least some of these jurors would share the feeling that bureaucrats were perhaps not the earth’s most exalted life form.
‘So what have we got here? We’ve got a simple Italian fisherman who didn’t want to end his life in lonely destitution. On May eighth he was lucid and spoke to his son. He had some money in the safe under his bed, money he’d saved for a long time. His son should take it and put it in a safe place so he could use it for pain medication, for Sal’s rent, for private nursing care in his apartment if it came to that before the cancer killed him. Anything, Sal said, just don’t leave him alone in a home to die.’
Freeman, Graham and himself had argued for hours over the entire Singleterry question, and finally had decided that Hardy’s instincts were right. Twenty-two hundred dollars in ads all over the country had resulted in a whole lot of responses, but no Joan. Sal’s request to Graham might have been genuine – certainly Graham seemed to believe it – but it wouldn’t play here before the jury. So the defense team had reached a consensus: Joan Singleterry must have been someone in Sal’s past, dredged up by the Alzheimer’s, by now quite possibly dead. She wasn’t going to get mentioned at the trial.
Hardy took a beat, realizing as he did that his legs were now firm under him. It was a relief. He looked up and down the panel, making some eye contact where it seemed natural.
‘So, yes, Graham had his father’s money. We will show you that it was on that day, May eighth, that Graham took this money and the baseball cards to his safety deposit box.
‘On May ninth his father called him again. Twice. The pain was terrible. Could Graham come right over when he got the message? The dutiful and caring son, he did go to his father’s apartment one last time.’
And, Hardy thought, here is where it gets tricky.
He took a deep breath. ‘You’re going to learn that Sal Russo died of an intravenous morphine injection. He had had a few drinks. Dr Strout, our city and county coroner, is going to tell you that his death was quick and relatively, if not completely, painless. Sal’s doctor had earlier prescribed for him a form called a “DNR.” It stands for “do not resuscitate.” It’s kind of like a “Medic Alert” bracelet that instructs paramedics to let a person die if that is nature’s course. Sal had his DNR sticker out when he was found. He was a very sick man, in great pain every day, terrified that he was losing the last of his mind, afraid of being sent to a home. This was the man who died. The victim. His son Graham loved him.