promise you, that they will be good boys and girls. And then something like this happens. It shakes your faith in human nature… Hello? Yeah, Amby Merrion. Got a homicide to report. No, I'm not a cop, I'm the clerk of court. Yeah that's me, I am the guy: I know everything.'
TWENTY-SIX
At 1:45 on the afternoon of the second Friday in November, US District Court Judge Barrie Foote stood up scowling at the end of the table in the library of her chambers. She wadded the bag containing the debris of her lunch and threw it overhand, hard, at the wastebasket in the corner, clanking it off the near edge. 'Bummer,' she said, 'shit.' She walked over to the corner, picked it up and threw it down hard into the basket. Then she returned to the head of the table, sat down and pushed the buzzer on her phone, saying: 'Tell Sandy to send in the clowns.'
She was refolding her New York Times when she heard Sandy Robey, talking to someone behind him, open the outer door and come through her office into the library. Geoffrey Cohen, Arnold Bissell and Merrion followed. The judge cast the paper aside and stood up. 'Gentlemen,' she said.
'Lizzie'll be right along with her machine, Judge,' Robey said. 'I assume you want this on the record.' He took his usual chair at the opposite end of the table, near the door.
'Oh, by all means on the record,' the judge said. 'If you'll all be seated gentlemen, we'll be able to get underway on whatever it is we're doing here I'm not entirely clear on it myself, so you'll have to enlighten me as soon as she arrives. I'd suggest you, Geoff, here on my left, and your client, next to you. I'm assuming he's Mister Merrion.'
'That's correct, your Honor,' Cohen said. He wore grey flannel trousers, a heather-blue Harris tweed two- button jacket, a blue button-down shirt and a pine-patterned dark blue silk tie. His brown van Dyke was faultlessly groomed.
'Mister Merrion,' the judge said.
'Afternoon, your Honor,' Merrion said, neutrally. He wore a dark blue blazer, grey flannel slacks, a grey shirt and a tie that Cohen had affably described as 'hideous,' red, with gold triangles interlocked kaleidoscopic ally His face was taut and although he had nothing in his hands he moved gingerly, as though carrying a possibly explosive parcel.
'And you, Arnie, here, on my right,' the judge said.
Elizabeth Gibson, a stocky black woman in her forties in a tight brownish-grey striped suit with a brown sueded collar, her greying hair bunned tightly back, stomped into the room on her two short heavy legs carrying her stenotype machine by the chrome standard connecting it to stubby tripod legs. She set it down next to Bissell, sat and began to type.
'All right,' the judge said, 'we're now in business. If you'd identify the matter for the record here now, Sandy.'
This'd be United States of America versus John Doe, civil docket number Ninety-five-dash-eight- hundred- seventy-four, In re Ambrose Merrion,'
Robey said.
'And if counsel'd identify yourselves now for the record, please?'
Foote said.
'Assistant United States Attorney Arnold Bissell for the government,'
Bissell said. He was thirty-four years old, six-two, about a hundred-fifty pounds, his blond hair in a Fifties- retro pompadour up swept in the front. It made his head look disproportionately small.
His chin was narrow. Ever since learning from classmates at Cornell Law School why his future as a poker player was not bright, he tried very hard at all times to keep his face expressionless, lest he reveal his trial strategy prematurely and give his opponent time to devise tactics to defeat it. Discerning his effort, opposing counsel misconstrued his apprehensive prudence as slyness, making it plain they distrusted him before he had given them any reason. Perceiving their mistrust as unwarranted hostility, and resenting it as unjust, he often acted precipitously and unpredictably. Those actions created surprises, the situation litigators fear most and therefore loathe as sneaky, thus inadvertently validating their initial suspicions that he was underhanded. Angered, they felt justified retaliating. Judges, most having been trial lawyers, tended to sympathize with them. They exercised their discretion not only to allow Bissell's opponents to get even with him, but to make sure that jurors understood the provocation.
That made Bissell feel persecuted, wounded and friendless, prompting him to become harsh and scornful. In his two years as a federal prosecutor the vicious cycle had happened repeatedly; he acquired the reputation as 'a shifty prick, a sneak, and one rude cocksucker.' He became discouraged; his increasingly perfunctory efforts to deal civilly and pleasantly with opponents he encountered for the first time were usually greeted with disdain.
Mindful that United States Attorneys with hopes of future federal judgeships are ill-advised to discharge troublesome assistants whose families' political contributions have been generous enough to bring them invitations to state dinners at the White House, the Chief Assistant US Attorney in Boston had settled for excluding him from civil matters and minor criminal cases. 'For you this's not a promotion; it's purely damage-control, the only way I can get any use out of you. We now know your only chance of winning is by making sure the defendant's someone the jury'll dislike more'n they've come to dislike you, bite clean through their lower lips and convict him by default. Otherwise they'll ignore the evidence and acquit the bastard, just to give you the finger.'
'Geoffrey Cohen, counsel for Ambrose Merrion,' Cohen said. 'Mister Merrion is also present.'
'And also for the record, before we get started here,' the judge said.
'Several years ago Attorney Cohen was my personal lawyer, providing excellent counsel during my divorce. Mister Bissell, I take it you and your superiors in the US Attorney's office in Boston are aware of this?'
'We were aware of that, your Honor,' Bissell said. 'We perceive no potential problem of prejudice or bias inhering in your past attorney-client relationship with Mister Cohen.'
'And so I take it the US Attorney's office does not wish me to recuse myself from this proceeding, voluntarily, as I am willing to do is that right?'
'That is correct,' Bissell said.
The judge exhaled. 'Sorry to hear it,' she said.
Bissell frowned. 'Beg pardon, your Honor?'
'Oh, nothing,' she said. 'I'm not in a very good mood today. This morning we had a civil case unexpectedly settle. Ordinarily this'd be a development I'd welcome, parties finally able to come to an agreement without taking up any more of the court's time; too bad they couldn't've done it sooner. But this one was different. Wrongful Death action, but quite unusual. This was the dead parachutist.
Remember him? The landscaper from Suffield, Nicholas Hardigrew. Summer before last. Took off from Barnes Airport, one of a party with four other sky divers, planning to jump over Conway. He was experienced; over the course of several years he'd done it a good many times without even spraining an ankle. As far as anyone seems to know, everything went fine, according to the book. He was third in the chain at the door, so two people saw him leave the plane and drop clear of the tail wing That's when you're supposed to pull the ripcord. When he went out his hands were in the proper position. But for some reason his chute didn't open.
'The case was about the reason. His family's theory as the plaintiffs was straight res ipsa loquitur. They don't know what went wrong with the parachute, whether it was some defect in the chute itself or the person who packed it didn't do it properly. They do know and'd proven, at least to my satisfaction that he was a veteran sport parachutist.
People who'd jumped with him considered him highly skilled. He knew all the pre-flight and in-flight precautions, proper safety procedures.
He was famous for being meticulous, going through the pre-jump checklist, every item double-checked. They noticed nothing different this time, can't explain why his chute didn't open. Dead men tell no tales, but for his family his death speaks eloquently; somewhere there was a defect. Someone had to've been negligent.
'The defendants are the parachute manufacturer and the technicians at the airport who packed it. They can't account for it any other way than by saying it must've been suicide. The packing's a two-person procedure: one
