FBI office and Howard and his prosecuting angel, Kelso, at the prosecution table, which happened by absurd coincidence to be near Nick and Sally’s seats in the front row of the courtroom. Hugh Meachum sat behind the prosecutor’s table, in a three-piece gray herringbone suit. He had a little red bow tie on and Nick decided he looked three hundred years old.
Sam Vincent also stood. He was a slouchy grand-pop with a face like a bowl of walnut shells, and not much hair on his head. He wore a string tie and a pair of bottle-bottom glasses; his fingers were long and gnarly and dirty from the pipe he was continually stuffing when he wasn’t in court, and the thick lenses inflated his pale blue eyes when they fixed on you, so they were as large as shark’s eyes. He was nearly eighty and had won the Silver Star in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
“You may be seated,” said Judge Hughes, a stern black man in his fifties. “Now ladies and gentlemen, first I want to warn you that although today’s case has national implications, it is first and foremost a case of law and it will be treated as such. I warn spectators, particularly those of you with the press, to conduct yourself with the proper decorum or I will clear this courtroom in one minute’s time, is that understood?”
His booming voice was met with silence.
“Now, today we are having, at the defense’s request, a preliminary hearing in the matter of the
And so Bob was led into the courtroom.
In a bright blue prison jumpsuit, with his hands manacled before him, and secured by a chain around his waist that was connected in turn to leg irons, he shuffled in, hair clipped short and face raw and white. He was calm, however, as calm as the last moment Nick had seen him, sitting next to Julie on the floor of Hard Bargain Valley, his face sealed off behind the war paint as Howard’s SWAT team surrounded him.
God, he looked so, so
“Your Honor” – it was Sam Vincent – “is it strictly necessary to humiliate my client, who has yet to be convicted of a single crime and who was a decorated Marine hero of this country, by festooning him in chains like a common thief?”
“Your Honor,” answered Kelso, just as fast, “Mr. Swagger has a known propensity for both extreme violence and escape. These precautions are merely prudent.”
“Ah,” said the judge, “Mr. Swagger, are you duly uncomfortable or humiliated?”
“Sir, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Bob.
“All right, we’ll undo the manacles, but the leg irons stay. Is that an adequate compromise, gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is, Your Honor.”
“Bailiff, would you make the adjustments. Now, Mr. Kelso, your opening statement please.”
“Ah, thank you, Your Honor.”
Manfully, Kelso strode to the center of the courtroom.
“Your Honor, the government will demonstrate very simply that adequate proof exists to conclude that at approximately twelve-nineteen P.M., on March first of this year, Bob Lee Swagger did in fact fire a shot from an attic at Four-fifteen St. Ann Street in the French Quarter of this city, that, though aimed at the president of the United States, did strike and kill Archbishop Jorge Roberto Lopez, of Salvador, El Salvador. Mr. Swagger had the classic three-part
“All right, Mr. Kelso. Thank you. Mr. Vincent.”
Nick’s heart sank a little when the old man stood on rocky legs, and essayed a little sally past the defense table where he sat alone with Bob. It was a contrast to the team of bodies that surrounded Kelso and Howard at the prosecution table.
“Well, sir,” he said, looking fully his eighty years, his rheumy blue eyes staring at nothing in particular, his suit a collection of bags that hadn’t seen a dry cleaner but had seen more than a few pipe cleanings, his clunky black shoes unshined, “I s’pose you could say we’ll show the other side and that this decorated war hero could not – ”
“Objection, Your Honor, Mr. Swagger’s war record isn’t in question here and is irrelevant to the proceedings.”
“He’s got a point, Mr. Vincent.”
“Well, hell, sir, if they say he’s a shooter then damned if they oughtn’t to point out it was the U.S. Marines that taught him to shoot and who gave the boy a chestful of medals for it.”
There was an eruption of laughter at Old Sam’s zinger.
“Well stated, Mr. Vincent. But since there’s no jury here today and since I am in fact well acquainted with your client’s military record, perhaps we could forgo, in the interests of moving into the meat of the matter, any further references to Mr. Swagger’s wartime heroism, and perhaps that would encourage the prosecution to forgo any time-consuming pattern of objections.”
“Well, I reckon that’s a tolerable deal,” said Vincent.
“Excellent. Mr. Kelso, it’s time for you to open your case.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Kelso began by introducing into evidence a letter dated December 15, 1991, addressed to the president of the United States, in which Bob Lee Swagger argued in a strident, faintly irrational tone that he deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor for his exploits in Vietnam.
The letter was projected on a portable screen that Kelso’s minions quickly assembled.
“Your Honor, this document was what initially put Bob Lee Swagger on the Secret Service list of potentially threatening suspects and earned him an investigation, albeit a tragically inefficient one, by the FBI.”
Nick winced.
Object, he protested silently. Make the point that Bob was on the C-list, felt to be the least dangerous and that even the Secret Service guys had said he could be skipped.
But Sam Vincent and his client sat mute at their table.
“Your Honor, I have here the depositions of four handwriting experts in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New Orleans Police Department, the New York City Police Department and one widely respected consultant, stating that they’ve identified – well, it varies, Your Honor – but between fifteen and thirty-one similarities in handwriting between this document and authenticated samples of Bob Lee Swagger’s penmanship.”
“Mr. Vincent.”
At last Vincent spoke.
“Your Honor, I know I can’t enter evidence, but if I could, I’d enter three depositions from handwriting experts in Los Angeles, London, England, and Chicago, Illinois, stating that the document is a forg – ”
“Objection, objection, surely Your Honor can see that the defense is trying to enter evidence which is – ”
“Objection sustained. Mr. Vincent, you do know the rules.”
“Sir, I do and I apologize. But, the truth is in handwriting analysis there’s just no way to know positively. You can have more experts than a mama possum has teats” – laughter from the spectators in the darkness – “and you won’t get any two of ’em to agree. And let me point out one last thing; Mr. Swagger unfortunately didn’t have the benefits of a fancy education like some among us. He’s a product of public schools in rural Arkansas in the 1950s, with no college experience. Thus his handwriting, as you all can see, remained somewhat in the primitive stage; it looks to sophisticated people as if it were written by a child. Now the one thing most handwriting experts agree on is that such a script – it’s called, oh, I think, ‘infantile cursive’ ” – he said this as if he were just making it up – “is indeed the easiest for any kind of accomplished forger to imitate.”
