Alex Cross’s Trial

“I tried the case. I fought the case. I pled the case. But all along, even before I got here, it was always your case, Ben.”

Chapter 119

IT LOOKED AS IF half of America had come to tiny Eudora for the conclusion of the White Raiders Trial.

Outside the courthouse that morning, hundreds and hundreds of spectators jammed the town square. Little boys had climbed trees for a better view of the action. Photographers muscled their tripods through the crowds, jostling for the best angles. A few of the more enterprising had bought out Russell Hardware’s entire stock of ladders to get an over-the-heads-of-the-crowd view.

Judge Everett Corbett had petitioned Governor Vardaman for state militiamen from Jackson to keep order. The soldiers had set up temporary wooden fences along the sidewalk in front of the courthouse to control the spectators who’d been flooding into Eudora by train, carriage, horseback, and on foot.

Inside the courtroom there was no question who was in control: Judge Everett Corbett.

During the course of the trial, he had expelled four colored women from the gallery for reacting too loudly. He had found three reporters in contempt of court for referring in unflattering terms to his dictatorial ways. And he had sent an old colored man to jail for shouting, “The Lord hates a liar!” during one defendant’s testimony.

The first thing my father did on the trial’s last morning reaffirmed his imperial status.

“Now we are ready to deliver this case to the jury,” he said. “The testimony has been passionate on both sides. Tempers have run high. Outside interest has been remarkable by any standard. And thus, gentlemen of the jury, we have come to the crux of the matter. You have to let the facts speak for themselves. You will now hear from the prosecutor, Mr. Curtis, his last and best argument about how you’ll decide. Then you’ll hear the same from Mr. Lewis. And finally, it will be entirely up to you, the jury, to make your decision, as the framers of the Constitution intended. Mr. Curtis?”

Jonah rose with an impassive face. “Your Honor, the jury has heard quite a lot from me in this trial. More than enough, I think. So I’m going to let my colleague Mr. Benjamin Corbett deliver the summation for the state.”

Chapter 120

I GOT TO MY FEET, a little wobbly in the legs. The dumb-founded faces of my father, Loophole Lewis, and his three murdering clients gave me at least some pleasure.

It took my father only a moment to make the calculation: I had the right to speak, and there was nothing he could do about it. He smiled, crossed his arms, and sat back in his chair.

“I wondered if we were ever going to hear from Counselor Corbett,” he said. “Of course, as his father, I have heard a great deal from him over the years, and I look forward to sharing that pleasure with the rest of you.”

Appreciative laughter rolled through the room. I had no choice but to smile and try for a little joke of my own. “And, of course, as the proud son of my father, I can only say I have done at least as much listening over the years as talking,” I said. “I have learned a great deal that way.”

“Please proceed, Mr. Corbett,” my father said, “and let us decide for ourselves if that is true.”

The audience laughed again. My old dad had definitely won the first round.

I wondered what he saw, peering down at me from his bench. Did he see a Harvard Law graduate, a well-known Washington defense lawyer? Did he see a man of passion, righteousness, ambition?

No. He saw a boy crying when he fell off his rocking horse, a child furiously resisting a spoonful of the hated mashed carrots. He didn’t see me. He saw a powerless boy.

So I was determined that when I finished speaking, he would see a man; he might even see the real Ben Corbett.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said. “I will try not to disappoint you.”

Chapter 121

BENJAMIN E. CORBETT’S SUMMATION to the jury:

“Judge Corbett just told you that you have to let the facts speak for themselves. The only problem with that is, facts do not have voices of their own; they can’t actually speak. So I’m the one who is standing here to give voice to the facts. That is my job today, and I appreciate your willingness to give me an ear.

“It’s the middle of the night in the Eudora Quarters. Three men ride up to execute a search warrant. It’s two o’clock in the morning-hardly the most traditional time to conduct a search of private premises-but that is what these men have decided to do.

“Ah, but wait. There’s a girl in the house, granddaughter of the old dying man. She reads the warrant and accepts it. She doesn’t like it, she says, but it’s the word of the law, so she will not resist. Come on in, she says. Search our house. Torment us. Question us. Rifle through our belongings. We have committed no crime, there is no actual legal reason for you to want to search here. But she allows it. She opens the door. She lets them in.