But she was shaking her head from side to side, snuffling. ‘I just don’t want them to send him to jail. He didn’t kill Sal for any money. I know that.’
‘How do you know it?’
‘I just know him. He wouldn’t have done that.’ She looked pleadingly at Sarah and Marcel. ‘I don’t care about the money either. Not anymore. I don’t even want my share. I don’t care about it. Brendan wanted-’ She stopped.
‘Your husband? What about your husband?’
‘He’s the one who wanted the money, who was on me to get the money.’ She sobbed once. ‘I didn’t mean to get Graham in trouble. I just want our family back again, the way it was. Anything the way it was. Why can’t it be that way anymore?’
The tears were falling freely now, and Sarah finally touched her shoulder, then stood up and motioned to Marcel that they should go.
34
Two days later Hardy rested the defense case without calling Barbara Brandt, or Graham Russo. Gil Soma spent a moment conferring quietly with Art Drysdale at the prosecution table. They were disappointed, but not surprised, that they wouldn’t get a chance to hack at Graham.
They’d spent a full day in chambers arguing jury instructions. Salter had been very uncomfortable about not giving manslaughter instructions – not giving the jury any choice but murder or acquittal. But neither side wanted manslaughter, and that seemed to be a correct reading of the law, so Salter shrugged his shoulders and wished both sides good luck.
Now Hardy flashed a look behind him at the courtroom, which was filled to overflowing. It was reminiscent of day one, with Pratt and Powell and their respective acolytes in attendance, one team on each side. There was Jeff Elliot, the ‘CityTalk’ columnist from the Chronicle. And Barbara Brandt – bravely camouflaging her disappointment at being snubbed – surrounded by her entourage. Helen Taylor was in the first row behind Hardy. Graham’s very pregnant sister, Debra, who’d evidently had an emotional morning, was next to her mother.
But Soma was up now, commanding all of Hardy’s attention, that of all the courtroom. First he would give his closing argument, then it would be Hardy’s turn. Finally, Soma would get the last word and Salter would give the jury their instructions. Then, at last, the jury would go into deliberation.
Hardy leaned over and whispered to Graham, asking him if he was all right, telling him this might get rough, he should stay calm, try not to react.
The young man smiled gamely, grabbed Hardy’s arm, and gave it a squeeze. ‘No fear.’
‘Easy for you to say.’
After a lunch break when he hadn’t been able to force a bite, Hardy was back with David Freeman and Graham Russo at their table in the courtroom. Soma had borrowed the low-key approach he’d used to such good effect in his opening statement and in about an hour had told the by-now familiar story in a straightforward and plausible manner. Reflecting Dean Powell’s decision, he’d made no mention of assisted suicide as a reasonable second interpretation of the evidence for the jury, and this had been a huge relief for the defense.
Hardy and Graham now thought they had a chance. David Freeman was of the opinion that it was locked up; they would get their acquittal. And because Freeman had no sense of superstition and little of decorum, he’d kept repeating it during the recess, making the other guys crazy.
Graham had snapped at Freeman. ‘You ever heard of not mentioning it when you’re in the middle of a no-hitter, David? You don’t tell the pitcher.’
‘Why not?’ Freeman asked.
Saying, ‘Never mind, don’t try,’ to Graham, Hardy had left the holding cell.
Now he stepped out in front of his table, closer to the jury box than he’d been when talking to witnesses. He paused to slow himself down, gave a confident nod to Graham and Freeman, took a deep breath, and began.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I told you at the beginning of this trial that Graham Russo loved his father and I’m telling you that again now.’
He moved a step closer to the jury box. ‘Sal Russo lived in a world that was closing up on him, a world of murky memories and ever-increasing pain. For years and years he’d been estranged from all three of his children, but about two years ago he reached out to one of them, to Graham, his oldest son.
‘At the time Graham was having troubles of his own, troubles that I’m sure many of you have experienced as you’ve tried to get settled in your jobs and your life’s work.’
Hardy had to get this jury, and in particular these men, to recognize the common ground they shared with his client.
‘He had quit the prestigious appointment he got after law school to pursue his dream of playing major-league baseball, but then that dream, too, had fallen apart.’ Hardy humanized it a little more. ‘He just couldn’t hit the curveball. I’m sure many of us know how that feels.’ He got a chuckle or two.
‘When he came back to San Francisco, resigned now finally to being a lawyer, he found that he couldn’t find any work, that the people he’d thought were his friends in the yuppie world of the law had abandoned him.’ These were calculated words, designed to move these mostly working-class men into Graham’s corner.
Hardy continued. ‘This is when he reconnected with Sal. We’ve also heard the members of his family – his mother and brother and sister – testify that it’s also when Graham discovered that his father was having problems with his memory. He was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Occasionally he would forget where he was, what he needed to do. Graham was the only one who would help.
‘But he did more than simply help. He became his father’s companion and friend. They went out to dinners together, to ball games. They drove around the city, talking, laughing together, reconnecting. Until finally, as we learned from Dr Cutler, Sal began getting these terrible, unbearable headaches.’
Hardy paused for a moment. He was going to change his direction now and confront the prosecution. ‘You’ve heard Mr Soma and Mr Drysdale make assertions that Graham resented his father, the time he spent with him, the money he spent for his treatment. Let me remind you that no one in this trial has ever, not once, presented any evidence in support of these assertions. And you know why that is? Because they aren’t true.
‘Graham never got tired of helping his father, of nursing his father. Judge Giotti told you that Graham visited Sal several times a week to make sure he was comfortable, was taking his shots, right up until the end. Blue, Sal’s downstairs neighbor – a witness for the prosecution – told us the same thing. Graham never wavered in his devotion. He loved Sal.’
Another pause. Hardy walked over to his table for a sip of water. He glanced at the yellow pad on his desk, on which were written only three words: Love. Evidence. Close. He’d barely touched on evidence yet, the burden of proof, the usual smorgasbord. He had to give it its due now. Tearing a page from Soma’s book, he came right to the jury rail, talking to them now not in a speech, but human to human.
‘Some of you may have noticed that I’ve spent very little time trying to rebut the evidence that the prosecution has presented. That’s because there is precious little evidence. No one ever saw or even said they saw Graham treat his father other than as a friend and companion. The famous fifty thousand dollars? The baseball cards? Did Mr Soma or Mr Drysdale prove anything to you about them, other than that they once were in Sal’s possession, and later they were in Graham’s?
‘Isn’t it more reasonable to assume that Sal knew he was losing his reason and wanted his son, who was his caretaker and friend anyway, to hold his valuables so that, at the least, they wouldn’t get lost or misplaced? Or so that Graham could use the money and proceeds from the cards to help defray some of the costs of Sal’s treatment? From what you’ve heard about Graham Russo, doesn’t that make a lot more sense than that suddenly, one day, Graham struggled with his father and stole his money? It’s ridiculous. It didn’t happen.