Now I’d gone ahead and done exactly what Keith had accomplished in Brandewaite’s office that morning. I’d brought their gay movement and all its political and media clout into this. But frankly, given the stakes of this case, philosophical debates weren’t likely to have sway in this room.
“You really believe that?” the older gentleman in the corner suddenly asked.
“I absolutely do,” I blurted out. “It’s a damn shame what happened to that Korean kid, but he’s dead and you can’t bring him back to life. You need to seriously consider the damage this will do to the alliance.”
The older man looked thoughtful. “And you believe we will harm our alliance?”
“Believe it? Buddy, I know it. I don’t care what Mr. Brandewaite or Colonel Janson have told you. Their job is to kiss your asses, but it’s not mine. I can tell you like it is. Americans might not be very sympathetic to the gay movement, but they’re extraordinarily sympathetic to the rights of a serviceman serving on foreign soil. A West Point graduate, with eight years of distinguished service and an unblemished record. They’ll make Whitehall sound like Joan of Arc. They’ll make you all sound like Torquemada and his band of merry inquisitors. You’ll have the same CNN legal correspondents who analyzed O.J. Simpson’s trial spending months picking apart the very gaping differences between your legal system and ours. This is America we’re talking about. There’ll be a made-for-TV movie on the air before you can lock his cell door. And no matter how diplomatic we want to be in this room, face facts. Compared to America’s, yours are kangaroo courts.”
Brandewaite’s face was crimson. He stood up and was just about to box my ears when the older man in the corner briskly motioned him to sit down. Then the minister and the older man in the corner exchanged some kind of hidden cue, a slight shifting of the eyes maybe.
The minister said, “Thank you very much for coming to see me. I will inform you of my decision later today.”
That was the diplomatic equivalent of “get lost” and “don’t let the door slam you in the ass” all rolled into one. We got up and hustled out of his office. Brandewaite stomped his feet the whole way, but he waited till we were outside before he attacked.
“Drummond, you stupid ass, do you know who that man was you were talking with?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “And I frankly don’t care. They’re making a terrible blunder and they need to hear the truth.”
Brandewaite stared at me incredulously. “That was Lee Jung Kim, the minister of defense. It was his son who was murdered and sodomized.”
I’d like to tell you I handled this news with my usual debonair aloofness. But I didn’t. I felt my face burn with shame. Somebody should’ve told us he was in the room. Actually, he never should’ve been there in the first place. No parent whose son was murdered should have to hear the lawyers wrangling behind the curtains of justice.
The fact he was there, though, was revealing. In America, the family of the victim would never be invited into the judge’s chambers. How in the hell were we supposed to believe Whitehall was going to get a fair shake if he got turned over?
When we climbed into our sedan, Katherine put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about it. You had no way of knowing.”
“You’re not the one who just stuffed his combat boot down that old man’s throat.”
We stayed silent for a few uncomfortable minutes. Then Katherine forgot all about my embarrassment. “Other than that, how do you think it went?”
“Hard to say,” I told her. “If logic prevails, they’ll leave well enough alone. The problem is, Koreans aren’t known for being logical.”
“What are they known for?”
“You know what the other Asians call them?”
“What?”
“The Irish of the Far East. See, they’re not like the Japanese or the Chinese. For one thing, Koreans aren’t inscrutable. They’re mercurial. Don’t expect them to be hyper-practical like the Japanese, or coolly calculating like the Chinese. Koreans run in deep drafts of hot and cold. They don’t always decide in their own best interests, because their emotions sometimes overcloud their brains.”
It wasn’t funny but she chuckled anyway. “Anyway, Attila, you did real good in there.”
“Yeah, well. You didn’t do so bad yourself.”
This exceptional instance of mutual bonhomie lasted till we got back to the hair parlor and I noticed that some asshole had hung a large sign over the entrance. In big, black, bold letters it said HOMOS. Then in pale, infinitely smaller letters underneath, “Home Office of Moonbeam’s Office Staff.”
Keith had to be behind this, since he was the only one who’d heard me use that nickname. He had a sense of humor, I guess. A perverse, sick one, but in his eyes I guess it seemed pretty funny. I looked every which way to make sure no one was peeking as I passed beneath that sign and entered our headquarters.
Katherine collected the lawyers and Imelda and dragged us into the office Imelda and her girls had set up for the lead counsel.
Imelda and Allie and Maria were cracking jokes with one another and acting real chummy. I needed to have a talk with Imelda. Maybe the poor woman didn’t know they were all gay.
“Okay,” Katherine said, once she had us all quieted down, “here’s how it stands. Sometime in the next few hours, the decision will be made on jurisdiction. We’ve done everything we can. If it goes to the Koreans, you’re all out of here, because none of us knows the first thing about Korean law. I’ll help find a capable Korean attorney and stay behind to supervise his efforts. If it stays in U.S. jurisdiction, then we’ve just lost another day in preparing our defense.”
We all traded glum looks, because this was a pretty disheartening summary. Accurate, but disheartening. The only thing we’d accomplished was to argue about where Whitehall would be tried, and frankly that wasn’t going to help us get him off. Which was a pretty dim ambition anyway, if you asked me, but nobody was asking me.
Then giving us all a solemn look, Katherine said, “The strategy I’ve decided to employ is to prove he’s innocent. We’ll organize our efforts on that task.”
I was sure I hadn’t heard that right. “I, uh… could you repeat that, please?”
“I said we’re going to prove he’s innocent.”
I immediately leaped out of my chair. “Damn it, Carlson, you can’t do that. That’s idiocy. We all know what the evidence says. Unless he was framed, he’s as guilty as a fox in a henhouse with feathers crammed in his teeth.”
“Good point,” Katherine said, rubbing her chin. “That’ll be our defense. He was framed. You’re right. There’s really no other option.”
I couldn’t believe this. No experienced lawyer would ever decide their strategy this way. Not in a murder trial. Not in any trial. No law school advocated the process of elimination.
“Damn it, don’t do this!” I sputtered out. “Focus on the prosecutor’s case. It’s the only viable strategy.”
Katherine shook her head back and forth. “Do I need to remind you I’m the lead counsel here?”
“Look, damn it, you got no idea what you’re getting into. If you claim he was framed, you have to prove that. Nothing’s more dangerous than a frame defense. You shift the burden of proof away from the prosecutor into your own lap. You’ll give the prosecutor the opportunity to knock holes in our defense. Rule one of criminal law: When it looks like your client’s guilty, make it impossible for the prosecutor to prove his case, not poke holes in yours.”
Katherine stood up and placed her tiny hands on her thin waist. Her angelic face turned real unangelic. “Don’t lecture me, Drummond. I went to law school, too. I’ve thought about it. Our client was framed for murder, rape, and necrophilia. That’s our defense.”
By this time, both of us were yelling and our faces were snarled with anger. Everybody else sat rigid and upright in their chairs, staring at us. I glanced at their stricken visages and felt this sudden burst of nauseating nostalgia, like we were back at Georgetown Law, making the other students restless and uncomfortable.