Mr. Devlin looked up at me. He said it quietly and deliberately. “I mean my cocounsel will handle the defense.”
The judge looked at the two of us. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought he might be delirious, but he never looked cooler. I was taking strength from what I saw in his eyes.
Judge Posner looked at me. “You’d better consult with your client, to see if that’s what he wants, Mr. Knight. And perhaps Judge Bradley.”
I looked around at Anthony. He was standing behind me. He nodded his head. “If that’s what Mr. Devlin wants, that’s OK with me.”
Judge Bradley was standing at the rail behind the defense table. I looked at Mr. Devlin. He gave me a nod in the direction of Judge Bradley, and I called him over. He bent down over Mr. Devlin and put his ear close to Mr. Devlin’s lips.
Mr. Devlin whispered something that brought a stunned, if not angry, look to Judge Bradley’s face. He started to stand, but Mr. Devlin grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. I couldn’t tell what he was whispering, but I think he was disclosing his tactics to the only human being other than me to whom he could tip his hand.
When Judge Bradley stood up, he still had deep furrows across his brow. He looked at me for several seconds before going back to take his seat.
The judge called Ms. Lamb over from the prosecution table and whispered the situation to her. Needless to say, she approved of the substitution of counsel.
The men in white uniforms were lifting Mr. Devlin onto a stretcher. He waved me over, and told the others to stand back. I leaned down so he could whisper.
“You can handle it, sonny. Do you understand the game plan?”
I told him I did. We’d gone over it a number of times at our last meeting.
“Good. If it’s going to work, it has to be now. We can’t put it off. Go to it, sonny.”
They lifted the stretcher so that the wheels snapped down under it. They cleared a path through the crowd and moved him out of the courtroom fast. They had him at the door, when I remembered the news I’d forgotten to tell him.
I couldn’t get through the crowd, so I yelled, “I’ll see you later! I’ve got news! You’re cleared!”
The crowd folded in behind him. I didn’t think he heard. I prayed to God to give him time to hear.
By the time the judge got the courtroom reassembled, it was nearly one. He ordered a break for lunch. We were to reconvene at two. I had too much to go over with Anthony before the afternoon session to be able to follow Lex in the ambulance, so I tried to settle down to business.
At two, the judge’s gavel brought silence to the arena, and the combat began.
Angela led off with an opening statement to the jury that was a masterpiece. She laid the blame for the bereavement of a persecuted people at the loss of Chinatown’s grandfather squarely at the feet of the defendant. She did it so convincingly that I wanted to smack him myself.
The key at this point was to keep the cards close to the chest. I waived the right to make an opening statement.
The prosecution’s first witness was the medical examiner who testified to the time and cause of death of Mr. Chen. There were no surprises. The time of death was midafternoon of the Sunday of Chinese New Year’s. The cause of death was a thirty-eight-caliber bullet to the brain of the deceased. The gun itself had not been recovered.
The evidence went in smoothly and without objection from my side of the room. Judge Posner nodded to me for cross-examination after Angela finished.
I was brief. “No questions.”
The judge looked at me a bit quizzically, but pressed on.
Angela’s second witness was from the police lab. He discussed the trajectory of the bullet. He concluded that the assailant was standing in front of Mr. Chen when the bullet was fired. He was either in the area of the street or the sidewalk across from Mr. Chen’s window.
I had no objections to the questions and no cross-examination. That brought another look from Judge Posner, and a smile to the lips of Ms. Lamb.
Then she got down to the heart of the business. The next witness was Mrs. Lee, the “owner” of the Ming Tree Restaurant.
She looked terribly worn as she crossed to the witness stand. She never looked at the prosecutor, the defendant, or me.
Walt Dougherty, the court clerk, swore her in. She appeared to understand his words, and she answered with a quiet “I do.”
I found that interesting. She did speak English. Mr. Liu was no fool. The night I went to interview her, he said she spoke no English, which meant he had to interpret. Which meant he had total control over the interview.
Angela walked her through the opening questions-name, address, occupation-which last she gave as “restaurant owner.”
“Mrs. Lee, do you see the defendant?”
I nudged Anthony to stand up. He did, and Mrs. Lee nodded.
Angela coached, “You have to say it out loud, Mrs. Lee, for the court stenographer.”
She said a muffled “yes.”
She had been merely tense up to this point. But now I noticed that her hands began kneading a small handkerchief.
“And did you see the defendant, Anthony Bradley, come into your restaurant at about three in the afternoon a week ago Sunday?”
“Yes.” Quieter than before.
“Could you speak more loudly, Mrs. Lee?”
She moved closer to the microphone. “I said, ‘Yes.’”
“And did he ask for a particular table?”
“Yes.”
“And was it the table at the front of the restaurant toward the street?”
“Yes.”
“And did the table look directly across the street to where Mr. Chen was watching the activity below?”
Judge Posner held up a hand to stop the answer. He was getting visibly concerned. He gave me the look of a law professor when a student seems out to lunch. He was worried about the defendant’s getting a fair trial at the hands of substitute counsel who didn’t have brains enough to recognize a series of leading questions.
I rose. “I have no problem with the question, Your Honor.”
I hadn’t set his mind at rest, but he motioned Mrs. Lee to answer the question.
“Yes.”
Angela was on a roll. She strode to the far end of the jury box to draw Mrs. Lee’s eyes to the jury and force her to speak up to be heard.
“And at the conclusion of his dinner, did you see a gun on the defendant’s person?”
I was on my feet, partly to keep Judge Posner from having a stroke.
“Objection now, Your Honor. I’d like to hear the story in Mrs. Lee’s words, not Ms. Lamb’s. Leading question.”
“Sustained.”
Angela came at it again the right way, realizing that the mannequin at defense table had come to life.
“When the defendant finished eating, did you notice anything unusual?”
Mrs. Lee leaned into the microphone. She seemed rigid as a pole.
“I saw a gun tucked inside of his belt.”
“And what kind of a gun was it?”
Mrs. Lee was out of her area of expertise.
“Was it a gun that could be held in the hand?”
“Yes. A gun for the hand. About this big.”
“Thank you. And when you saw the gun, what did you do?”
“I watched. I saw him go down the stairs from the restaurant toward the street. I went to the window to
