The hanging overhead lights cast a greenish tint on the face of the jury foreperson as she passed the verdict form to the bailiff. As I stared at her, I wondered: Was the color green a good sign? Or a bad one?
I was hungry for an omen, some visible indication regarding the outcome of the trial. I wanted the woman to look at me. My eyes bored into her profile as I leaned in, the palms of my hands flat on the wooden surface of the counsel table. With all my might, I sent her an unspoken message: Look over here. At me. Do it.
The foreman didn’t glance my way. But I saw her briefly cut her eyes at the defense table before turning her attention to Judge Callahan.
I exhaled, my shoulders sagging as I released the breath I’d been holding. Because that was a bad sign. Bad for me as the prosecutor, anyway.
Judge Callahan reached out his black-shrouded arm. When the bailiff handed the verdict to him, the judge pushed his eyeglasses up over the prominent bump on the bridge of his nose and peered through them to read. I’d often wondered how he got the big bump on his nose. It looked like something or someone had broken it for him in the past. With every prejudiced ruling he’d made during the trial this past week, I’d fantasized about breaking his nose again. It would be simple, just a sharp blow with my left fist. I imagined seeing blood spurt from his nostrils every time he ruled against me.
He turned his gaze to the jury box. Giving them a small smile, just a twist of his lips, he asked, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this your verdict?”
Several of them nodded. One juror, a young woman I’d pinned my hopes on, wore a defeated look as the foreman said, “It is, your honor.”
The judge shook the sheet of paper, and it crackled into his microphone. He read, “We, the jury, find the defendant, Maxwell Alfred James, not guilty.”
The two defense lawyers flanking the defendant broke into jubilant grins. One of them slapped Max James on the back, snickering like a teenage boy. The sound of his laughter had an ugly ring.
When the judge dismissed the jury, the young woman I’d been counting on shot me an apologetic glance. I wanted to shout, Why didn’t you hold out, for God’s sake?
Because the verdict of the jury had to be unanimous to convict or acquit. Even one juror who refused to buckle would have meant a hung jury. If she’d hung them up, we would get a new trial—and I’d get another shot.
And I wanted another shot at Max James. I despised that man. As long as he walked free, he was a threat to the women of New York City.
Once the jury departed, I saw James break away from his exultant legal counsel and beat a path straight to the bench. The sight of the defendant reaching out for a handshake from the judge almost made me lose my shit.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I swiveled and came face-to-face with Anna Sung, the victim in the felony assault case. She’d been present in court for the verdict.
At the sight of her tearstained face, my stomach twisted. I said, “Anna, I’m so sorry.”
“Why did he win, Kate?” she asked me. She hung her head. “The jury didn’t believe me.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Anna, you were an excellent witness. And you were strong during cross-examination…they never made you back down. But with a jury trial, there are no guarantees. Sometimes the jury doesn’t make the right decision.”
“They think I am a liar.”
Though Anna spoke with an accent, her English was excellent for a woman who’d been born and raised in China. I wasn’t lying when I told her she’d done well on the stand. And the medical evidence of her injuries was compelling—injuries she’d received from the brutal beating inflicted by Max James.
But James had the best defense team money could buy, and they were cronies of Judge Callahan. I had passion on my side—had that in spades. But they outgunned me. At twenty-eight, I was still a neophyte in the DA’s office. And the defense lawyers knew every dirty trick in the playbook.
Max James’s girlfriend sidled over. She had been eavesdropping on us. At trial, the girlfriend had provided an alibi for James. As she drew near, I gave her the evil eye. She stared back with a sneer on her face. I broke eye contact first. A woman who would willingly perjure herself to defend a scumbag like Max James probably deserved my pity.
In an undertone, I told Anna I’d call her in the morning. She nodded and left the courtroom, shooting a fearful glance at Max James as she departed.
As I packed my laptop into my briefcase, shoving my file folders in beside it with angry thrusts, Judge Callahan called to me from the bench.
“Ms. Stone, don’t forget to pick up your exhibits.”
I walked over and snatched up a packet of X-rays and photos from the table beside the court reporter. Max James was still snuggled up to the bench with his buddy the judge. I was determined not to look his way, but when I heard James laugh, my eyes flew up to his face.
He was grinning—actually smirking at me. My heart began to pound, and I felt the blood rush up my neck. A common criminal, a serial assaulter of women, had the gall to laugh in my face because he had beat the justice system once again.
Judge Callahan knew Max James’s reputation as well as I did. I glared at the judge with a silent challenge. He swiveled in his high chair and turned his back on me.
Returning to the counsel table, I swallowed the angry accusations I longed to toss at the judge. In a lot of ways, the miscarriage of justice was his fault. How many times had I jumped out of my chair during the trial to make valid objections to the smarmy tactics of the defense? Too many to count. I got a workout just flying out of and back into that chair. And Callahan had overruled me, time after time. Then he let the defense counsel shut me down without cause. I didn’t get a fair shot.
I’m a great believer in the US Constitution but sometimes I wish they’d omitted the language about double jeopardy in the Fifth Amendment. Because I deserved a second chance when it came to Max James.
In addition to the X-rays, a couple of color photographs taken at the hospital spilled out when I tossed the packet onto the counsel table. Angry tears burned my eyes as I looked at Anna Sung’s bruised face, broken nose, black eye, and swollen mouth. My left hand squeezed into a fist. With an effort, I relaxed my fingers and used them to massage the web of skin between my right thumb and forefinger. Chill, I thought.
I picked the photos up with a careful hand and slipped them into my briefcase. Prolonged examination of her injuries was bad for my mental health. But even though I locked the pictures into my bag, I couldn’t unsee them. The images were burned into my head.
As I left the courtroom, carrying my briefcase along with my personal failure, I just wished I could have the opportunity to strike the same blows into Max James’s smirking face that he’d enjoyed inflicting on Anna Sung. I thought of how cleansing it would feel, how supremely satisfying.
Chapter 2
It wasn’t 5:00 p.m. yet, but I was done—done for the day and ready to down a drink. I rode the elevator to the lobby, planning to dash from the courthouse. But when I stepped out, I was confronted by the sight of Max James. Again. Laughing with his attorneys while his girlfriend tagged along behind him.
I briefly considered returning to the DA’s office but I knew that my coworkers would ask about the outcome of the trial, and I was in no mood to enlighten them.
And my boss, the district attorney, would be certain to rub my nose in the not guilty verdict. Frank Rubenstein, the DA, had discouraged me from pursuing the felony charge, had warned against presenting it to a jury. He said the case boiled down to a swearing match between an immigrant and a Wall Street businessman, and the reasonable doubt standard would work in the defendant’s favor. As it turned out, he was right. But I wasn’t ready to hear him say “I told you so.”
So I dawdled in the lobby. I walked slowly along the marble wall. I stopped to check the time in the hanging clock: 4:34 p.m. I watched the second hand tick down and up again.
When I finally figured the coast was clear, I left the lobby and emerged outside. But James was still there, continuing his victory lap on the sidewalk.
The sensible choice would have been to avoid him, head to the subway and go home. But I wanted to cross the intersection and walk over to Walker Street; there’s a bar there that I like. And Max James was in my direct path. I almost changed direction and walked the opposite way. Unfortunately, the pit bull in me wouldn’t permit it. “Fuck that,” I muttered as I barreled down the sidewalk and swept past James and his entourage.
I kept my chin up, didn’t look their way. But I heard the heavy footfalls as he broke away from his lawyers and came after me.
“Look who’s running out. Hey! Kate Stone!”
Increasing my stride, I walked faster. So did he.
“Got your tail between your legs, Stone? Looks like it to me. What else have you got between your legs?”
At that point, he was directly beside me, keeping pace. As he shouted in my ear, I felt the spit spray from his mouth and land on my face. I wanted to wipe it off my cheek, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
He said, “I saw you giving me the eye in court. Why won’t you look at me now? You afraid of me?”
That stopped me in my tracks. I spun and looked back at the courthouse steps, where his lawyers stood watching us.
I called out to them, “You need to control your client.” One of the defense attorneys shrugged. The older one shook his head and looked away.
But I had lit a fire under James’s girlfriend. She trotted toward us on stiletto heels. When I tried to move on down the sidewalk, Max blocked me. It must have looked incongruous to the casual observer, this street brawl ignited by a man whose haircut cost more than my monthly rent. He stood so close I could smell his breath. In a tight voice, I said, “Back off, Mr. James. I have nothing to say to you.”
His eyes bulged with an artificial look of disbelief. “I can’t believe that. You’ve got nothing?”
His girlfriend slid to his side. Wrapping her fingers around his forearm, she tried to intervene. James snatched his arm away. She took a step back, watching him with apprehension in her eyes. James worked for a glossy asset management firm; I wondered whether his fellow traders on Wall Street had seen this side of his character. Maybe they didn’t care.
He said, “Oh, so now you’ve got nothing to say. You’ve been slandering me all week.”
People were staring. Even in New York, this was a noteworthy spat outside the Criminal Courthouse, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I pushed past him and strode to the street corner but the light was red. I’m a New Yorker, more than willing to jaywalk. But the rush hour traffic was thick.
His voice was directly behind me. “I’d like to see a ball gag in your mouth. That’s what it would take to shut you up.”
The ball-gag remark almost did it. I tensed, clenching both fists. But I held off, thinking, They’re only words. He can’t hurt me with words. Sticks and stones and all that bullshit.
That’s when I felt it. Two fingers in my back, shoving me. Shoving so hard I almost stumbled forward into traffic.
Then he did it again. Harder.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!”
My vision tunneled, graying out on the edges of my sight. I spun around. Without thinking it through, I acted on pure instinct. I landed a nasty uppercut to his chin. Seeing the surprise explode in his eyes, right as the blow was struck, was delicious.
James went down hard. I saw the back of his head bounce off the concrete when he landed on the pavement. Time had slowed for me. It felt like I waited a long stretch for him to react. But once he did, I was ready.
He sat up. Growling, he rose from the sidewalk with his fists clenched. I broadened my stance, prepared to fight. Looking forward to it, in fact.
But his lawyers were on the run and quickly separated us. The girlfriend gave me a kick in the leg before it was over. I didn’t even feel it. Our brief altercation evolved into a shouting match; James and I exchanged insults as his lawyers pulled him toward the far end of the block. Like a soprano in an Italian opera, the girlfriend shrieked curses at me.
When I pulled myself together enough to look around, I saw that a circle of onlookers had their cell phones out, undoubtedly recording every second of the confrontation. Some of the amateur reporters looked disgusted, a couple appeared amused. One young man with tousled blue hair lifted a fist in a salute.
“You rock,” he said.
I laughed a little at that. As the light changed, I limped into the crowd crossing the street. My laughter quickly faded as my leg started to throb; the girlfriend had kicked me harder than I realized.
I should have seen it coming. I am, after all, an avid student of martial arts. And kickboxing. And my dad taught me how to defend myself with my fists when I was in grade school. Dad spent thirty years as a cop in the NYPD, and he had been determined to ensure I could handle myself when the situation called for it. Before his untimely death, he took a lot of pride in my prowess. And living in the city, it’s a valuable skill to possess. My expertise is common knowledge around the criminal courthouse.
Maybe Max James’s lawyers should have mentioned that to him.
I never made it to Walker Street. Instead, I ran for the subway, where I took the train uptown. When I arrived in my own neighborhood, I went straight to my regular watering hole and ordered gin. Followed by more gin.
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