Rough Justice

'Was Mr. Walters an organ donor?'

'Why, yes.'

'Thank you very much,' Marta said and hung up.

57

Christopher's stomach was killing him. Pain shot through his gut like buckshot. He'd never had cramps like this before. He gulped his coffee but it didn't help. He wanted to roll over and die.

'Let's deal with the testimony, friends,' Ralph was saying. He stood at the other end of the conference table and drew in Magic Marker on a wipe-off board on an easel. The thick black lines wiggled before Christopher's eyes and he blinked to bring it back into focus. It looked like a star or a triangle or something. The lines wouldn't stay put.

'Ralph, what is that?' Christopher heard himself say. His voice sounded weak, and Megan looked over with a concerned frown.

'You okay, Christopher?' she asked, and he nodded.

'Sure.' It hurt to talk but Christopher didn't want them to know that. He'd get sent home or kicked off the jury or who knows what would happen. He had to stay here and convince them. 'You were saying, Ralph?'

Ralph pointed to the easel with his finger. 'It's a diagram of the carjacking. Point A shows where Steere stopped his Mercedes. Point B is the pillar under the bridge where the carjacker was hiding. The testimony is that this is a distance of five feet at the most. Correct?'

The jurors nodded. Christopher watched their heads bobbing like a herd of horses. He felt so damn sick. He took another swallow of coffee, avoiding Megan's eye. She really looked worried. Lainie had never looked that worried about him.

'Now,' Ralph continued, 'what I'm saying is that if I were the driver of the car and somebody jumped out of the pillar that close at me, I couldn't even think about what to do. There would be no time, like that Marta Richter showed us.'

'I agree with you, Ralph,' Mrs. Wahlbaum said. 'You'd have to react in a split second. You wouldn't have time to think. You wouldn't have time to consider your alternatives.'

Christopher struggled through the pain, which was worsening. He wanted to grab his stomach. He was supposed to be convincing the jury to convict Steere.

'You sure as hell wouldn't,' Ralph said. 'Not with a knife at your throat.'

'It's a natural instinct,' Mrs. Wahlbaum added, nodding her gray head. 'Flight or fight. Even animals have it.'

Mr. Fogel smirked. 'A zoologist now. Is there anything this woman does not understand? Any area of science, mathematics, or philosophy that she's not an expert in?'

Mrs. Wahlbaum's head wheeled around and she finally exploded. 'So what do you think, buster? Every day for two months I've listened to you criticize me. All you do is criticize. You never say one thing for yourself. You're all negatives and no positives.'

Christopher looked between Mrs. Wahlbaum and Mr. Fogel. Don't fight, we have to convict, he wanted to say. Don't be tired. We have time. His gut twisted like a wrung-out rag. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.

Mr. Fogel blinked behind his thick glasses. 'You want to know what I think, Miss Know-It-All? I'll tell you. I'm the expert on just one thing. I'm the expert on time. And I, for one, have given enough time to this trial. I have been here seventy-two days, two hours, and' —Mr. Fogel checked his Timex— 'twenty- three minutes. The way I see it, that's too much time!'

Ralph clapped heartily. 'Hear hear!'

Support seemed to embolden the watchmaker, who stood up at his seat, tall and straight as an hour hand. 'I'm not giving a day more of my time. Not an hour more, not even a minute more. I want to go home. I want to drive my own car. I want to talk on my own phone. I want to go into my shop and fix Mrs. Millstein's clock, which I owe her from September. We listened to the witnesses, the lawyers, and the judge. Now it's time for them to listen to us.' And then Mr. Fogel sat down.

The jurors started applauding, Gussella loudest of all. Megan clapped, too, less enthusiastically because Christopher wasn't clapping. His face was turning gray and he leaned to the right. 'Chris?' she said softly.

Nick's lower lip began to tremble. 'I wish I could see my wife. I want to go home, too.'

Mrs. Wahlbaum patted his suit sleeve. 'I miss Abe. He has a hard time all by himself, the shopping and the cooking. It's his knees.'

'Lord, I got to see my little grandbaby!' Gussella shouted, so loud that Wanthida jumped.

'We all want this over with,' Wanthida said in accented English, 'and we think Mr. Steere innocent. We should vote and go home.'

'Not all of us would vote for acquittal,' Ralph said, though he couldn't have been happier. The war was almost won and he'd taken out the opposing general. The only problem was Kenny Manning. Time to attack, when his enemy was weakest. 'Kenny, what do you think? You still would vote to convict?'

'Why wouldn't I?' Kenny said, cocking his head.

'It's up to you, friend. I'm the first one to say that we all respect your right to vote however you want. I'm not tryin' to put pressure on you. If you want to talk about it longer we will. I'm here to tell you that you have a right to satisfaction.'

Christopher saw it all slipping away. Marta. The conviction. Somebody was pounding hoof nails through his stomach. Megan was saying something to him but he replied only with a gurgling sound the jurors didn't hear. They were all looking down the table at Isaiah, who suddenly cleared his throat and hunched over the table, meeting Kenny's glare head-on.