Running From The Law

stretching down over his desk. “Is this some kind of stunt?”

Gulp. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Your Honor?”

“Please.” Judge Kroungold looked around for his court reporter and waved him over irritably. “Wesley, I want this on the record.”

The court reporter, an older black man with oddly grayish skin, picked up the stenography machine by its steel tripod and huddled with us at the front of the dais. A sidebar conversation is out of the jury’s hearing, but not the appellate court’s. The word disbarment flitted across my mind, but I shooed it away.

“Ms. Morrone,” Judge Kroungold said, “please tell me, on the record, that I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Your Honor. What is it you’re seeing?”

“No, Ms. Morrone. No, no, no. Nuh-uh. You tell me exactly what you’re doing.” Judge Kroungold leaned so far over that I experienced a fine spray of judicial saliva. “You tell me. Right now.”

“I’m conducting my cross-examination of this final witness, Your Honor.”

The judge’s liver-colored lips set in a determined line. “So it would appear. But let me state for the record that you seem very tired today, Ms. Morrone. Very lethargic. One would even say that you seem depressed.”

Ididn’t know he cared. “Your Honor, I am tired. It’s been a long trial and I’ve worked this case myself. I don’t have the associates Mr. Vandivoort does, from Webster amp; Dunne,” I said, loud enough for the jury to hear.

Judge Kroungold’s eyes slipped toward the jury, then bored down into me. “Lower your voice, counsel. Now.”

Win some, lose some. “Yes, sir.”

“I would never have expected to see something like this in my courtroom. For God’s sake, you’re even wearing a black suit!”

“I noticed that, too,” Vandivoort added, as it began to dawn on him.

“Your Honor,” I said, “I’ve worn this suit to court many times.”

“Not in this trial you haven’t,” the judge spat back. Literally. “And no makeup. Last week you had on lipstick, but not today. What happened to that pink lipstick? Too bright?”

Time to raise him. “Your Honor, why are we discussing my clothing and makeup in court? Do you make comments of this sort to the male attorneys who appear before you?”

Judge Kroungold blinked, then his eyes narrowed. “You know damn well I wasn’t making… comments.”

“With all due respect, Your Honor, I find your comments inappropriate. I object to them and to the tenor of this entire sidebar as an unfortunate example of gender bias.”

His mouth fell so far open I could see his bridgework. “What? I’m not biased against you. In fact, I took great pains in my instruction not to tell the jury whose mother had died, in order to avoid undue sympathy for the defense. You, Ms. Morrone, are giving the jury the distinct and entirely false impression that it was your mother who died and not Mr. Vandivoort’s.”

“What?” I said, sounding as shocked as possible. At the same nanosecond, a quart of adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream and a familiar rush surged into my nerves, setting them tingling, jangling, and twanging like the strings of an electric guitar. Believe. “Your Honor, I would never do such a thing! I couldn’t even begin to do such a thing. Who can divine what a jury is thinking, much less attempt to control it?”

Judge Kroungold’s eyes glittered. “Oh, really. Then you won’t mind if I suggest to the jury that the death was in Mr. Vandivoort’s family, not yours.”

Shit. Was he bluffing, too? This game could cost me my license to play cards-I mean, practice law. “On the contrary, Your Honor. I would object to any attempt to gain the jury’s sympathy for male counsel, whom you are clearly favoring. In fact, I move that you recuse yourself immediately on the grounds that you are partial to defense counsel, sir.”

Judge Kroungold reddened. “Recuse myself? Step down? On the last day of trial?”

Up the ante. “Yes, sir. I wasn’t sure until today, but now you’ve made your sexism quite clear.”

“My sexism?” He practically choked on the word, since he fancied himself a liberal with a true respect for women. Like Bill Clinton.

“Are you denying my motion, Your Honor?”

“I most certainly am! It’s absurd. Frivolous! You’d lose on appeal,” Judge Kroungold shot back, but he twitched the tiniest bit.

It was my opening and I drove for it. I had a straight flush and a dead mother. I believed. “With all due respect, Your Honor, I disagree. This sidebar is interrupting my cross-examination of a critical witness. Every minute I stand here prejudices my client’s case. If I could proceed, perhaps I could put this ugly incident behind me. Mr. Vandivoort didn’t object to my questioning, after all.”

Kroungold snapped his head in Vandivoort’s direction. “Mr. Vandivoort, don’t you have an objection?”

I looked at Vandivoort, dead-on. “Can you really believe I would do such a terrible thing, George?” The pot is yours if you can call me a liar to my face. In open court, on the record.

Vandivoort looked at Judge Kroungold, then at me, and back again. “Uh… I have no objection,” he said, folding even easier than my Uncle Sal. Vandivoort was too much of a gentleman, that was his problem. Biology is destiny. It’s in the cards.

“Then may I proceed, Your Honor?”

“Wait a minute, I’m not done with you, Ms. Morrone. Stay here.” Judge Kroungold scowled at Vandivoort. “Mr. Vandivoort, take your seat.”

What was this? Not according to Hoyle, surely.

Judge Kroungold signaled to Wesley as soon as Vandivoort bounced away, and Wesley got the convenient urge to stop typing and crack his knuckles.

What gives?

Judge Kroungold leaned over the dais. “I’ve been reading about you in the newspapers, Ms. Morrone, so I can’t say I’m surprised by your showmanship. But I warn you. Play all the tricks you want. It might work in this case, but it won’t work in Sullivan. You’re in over your head in Sullivan.”

It gave me a start, like he was jinxing me, but I couldn’t think about Sullivan now. “Then may I proceed, sir?”

“Of course, Ms. Morrone,” Judge Kroungold said loudly. “Ladies first.” He leaned back and waved to Wesley to go back on the record.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said, and turned to face my jury. But not before I remembered my bereavement and brushed an ersatz tear from my eye.

Which is when I caught a glistening behind the engineer’s glasses.

Winner take all.

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