I had asked myself the same question many times. The answer has always come back in the form of Gilbert Cheetam, and his utter lack of competence. One of the imponderables I cannot argue before this jury and expect them to understand. It was a masterstroke, I think; Cheetam for his lack of competence, and me for my conflict, my affairs with Talia. The Greek had assembled the perfect defense team. Skarpellos was more perceptive than I had ever imagined.

Nelson hits on this as a major theme, that it defies logic for Skarpellos to have financed the defense, if in fact he had murdered Ben.

He leaves the strand of Talia’s hair alone and instead shores up other elements of his case. He tells them that there is no reason to believe that the money paid to Susan Hawley was anything other than what Tony Skarpellos says it was, a loan. “You may question the source of that payment,” he says, “but its purpose is clear, a loan pure and simple.” He questions why, in our case, if we believed that Susan Hawley was a bought witness, we did not call her to the stand. He says that police, who questioned her extensively, never doubted her story that she was with Tony Skarpellos on the night of the murder.

Here Nelson is proving to be a better defense lawyer than I had expected. By the time he is done, he has leveled the playing field again, and the gargantuan butterflies which soared in my stomach at the start of this trial are back. What the jury will do with this case is, I fear, a crapshoot of immense proportions.

CHAPTER 40

We waited for the worst, a quick verdict, until that at least seemed unlikely. An hour of listening to Harry’s fingers thumping on the counsel table, and Talia and I could stand it no longer. So we left.

Talia doesn’t know what to do with herself so she follows us, Harry and me, back to my office. Tod has come along, for moral support. With the jury retired, there is no longer a purpose to the facade of distance I have imposed between the two of them.

Talia is like a sick and frightened child. To watch her one would think that nothing bad can happen so long as she remains in our presence. I have watched her enough over the past several days to sense that she is now plea-bargaining with the angels for her life. The moment of truth is drawing near, and nerves are raw, on edge. I myself have made resolutions to higher authority, for a better life, for an end to duplicity, if only we can dodge this train bearing down upon us.

Acosta took nearly two hours to charge the jury, using the list of instructions from our conference in chambers. These were read in a slow, methodical manner, framed in English that a grade-schooler could understand.

True to form, he did not embellish on these instructions or seek to explain or interpret them further. These little nuggets of the law have been crafted by legal scholars, most of them tested in the appellate courts, whittled and refined, until they can stand the test of time.

The jury took the little pile of forms from the clerk, the ones for their secret ballots on the verdict, with boxes marked “guilty” and “not guilty” printed on them. What takes place behind closed doors is now shrouded in secrecy, like the college of cardinals before signaling the world with its chimney of white smoke. No one beyond the twelve souls now locked in that room will know with accuracy what happens there.

Back in my office Harry finds the bottle in the bottom drawer of my desk, the good stuff, Seagram’s V.O. He holds it up, offering to clean glasses for us all. Tod and I swear off, but Talia says yes. At this point, she needs it. Harry is off, down the hall, looking for a little ice. One of the tenants has a small refrigerator in his office. To the drinkers on this floor, this machine has become a communal thing, like an oasis in the desert.

There’s a large canvas mailbag in the corner of my office. It has been there since the prelim, and since that time I have been dropping letters into its dark hole each day. These are from people who have been following this case in the news, in their morning papers and on the tube. It is always a mystery to me that people, presumably with busy lives, have time for this. I have shown the best of these letters to Talia-those wishing her well, confident of her innocence. I have saved some of the best for deep moments of depression. The death threats, some filled with obscenities, I have dropped in the dingy bag.

There are stacks of paper on my desk, four of them as thick as telephone books. Most have envelopes stapled to open letters, a sorting of the mail by Dee. These are correspondence, client letters, bills, motions for discovery in cases I have not thought about in weeks, all waiting for attention behind Talia’s trial. Harry has been putting out little fires on my desk, dealing with the urgent stuff since the trial began. I paw through the first stack, trying to clear the easy pieces away, items I can put Post-it stickers on, with notes to Dee for filing.

“What are my chances?” she says. Talia is looking at me across the desk, large oval eyes of emerald. Tod is in one of the client chairs. It is the first time she has asked this since the jury was empaneled.

I want to tell her that it will be all right, that she will walk away from this a free woman. But I know better than to try to predict what any jury will do. It would be easier to call the six numbers of this week’s Lotto mania.

I tell her this, but cloak it in a few rules of thumb, little psychic rafts of security she might cling to. “The longer they stay out the better for us,” I say. “A sign that perhaps one or more of the jurors is holding out.”

“A hung jury?” says Tod.

“Who knows.”

With this her expression sags.

“That’s the best we can hope for, after all of this, a hung jury?” She looks at the two of us. Her confidence in lawyers has just slipped several notches.

“It’s impossible to know,” I tell her.

She nods, like perhaps she accepts this. But I know better.

Harry is back with two glasses and some ice. He pours Talia a stiff drink, mixed with a little water. His own he takes straight.

In the first stack of papers is a letter from Peggie Conrad, the paralegal in Sharon Cooper’s case. There are a number of papers here, things for me to sign in order to finalize this probate that is still hanging fire. They are all paper-clipped together, a thick packet.

Harry does a one-cheeker on the corner of my desk while Talia sits on the sofa against the wall.

“My guess,” says Harry, “is five days.” He’s laying odds on how long the jury will be out. This, I think, is a little moral support for Talia. He’s telling her to calm down, to relax, or she won’t have to worry about the verdict: She will be a mental basket case before they announce it. Though right now, I wonder if she is not in better shape than Harry.

“Damn,” I say.

“What is it?” Harry’s looking at me, like I’ve just dropped a live grenade.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “Just something I forgot to tell Peggie Conrad about in Sharon’s case.”

In the chaos surrounding Eli Walker’s column, the disclosure of my affair with Talia, I’d forgotten to call off Peggie, to tell her that Coop had already taken care of the receipt for the toaster left for repair by Sharon at the hardware store. She has now spun her wheels and duplicated his efforts, for there in this stack of papers is a xeroxed copy of the receipt. This must be the store’s own copy, a lot of writing on the printed form, a heavy scrawl that is difficult to decipher.

The intercom on my phone rings, but I don’t move to get it. My eyes are struggling with the cryptic handwriting of some store clerk, making out only one word on this form. Instead Harry picks the phone up. He puts his glass down on the desk, his expression suddenly dark, worried.