The Runaway Jury

At nine-thirty, His Honor sent word to Lou Dell to inform the jurors that he was finishing up a motion, and the trial would start in a few moments, hopefully by ten. Since this was the first delay in which the jurors were told to wait after being set to go, they took it well. The little groups reconvened themselves, and the idle chitchat of folks waiting against their wishes continued. The divisions were along the lines of sex, not race. The men tended to group together at one end of the room, the women at the other. The smokers came and went. Only Herman Grimes kept the same position, at the head of the table, where he played hunt-and-peck with a laptop braille computer. He had let it be known that he was up until all hours of the morning plowing through the narrative descriptions of Bronsky’s diagrams.

The other laptop was plugged into a socket in a corner where Lonnie Shaver had established a makeshift office with three folding chairs. He analyzed printouts of grocery stock, studied inventories, checked a hundred other details, and was generally content to be ignored. He was not unfriendly, just preoccupied.

Frank Herrera sat near the braille computer, poring over the closing quotations in The Wall Street Journal, and occasionally chatting with Jerry Fernandez, who sat across the table grappling with the latest Vegas line on Saturday’s college games. The only male who enjoyed talking to the women was Nicholas Easter, and on this day he was quietly discussing the case with Loreen Duke, a large jovial black lady who worked as a secretary at Keesler Air Force Base. As juror number one, she sat next to Nicholas, and the two had developed a habit of whispering during the trial, at the expense of almost everybody. Loreen was thirty-five with no husband and two kids, and a nice federal job which she missed not in the least. She had confessed to Nicholas that she could be absent from the office for a year and no one would care. He told her wild stories of bad deeds by the tobacco companies in trials past, and he "confessed to her that he had studied tobacco litigation at great length during his two years of law school. Said he dropped out due to financial reasons. Their low voices were carefully gauged to land just outside the ear-range of Herman Grimes, who at the moment was slapping his laptop.

Time passed and at ten Nicholas went to the door and jolted Lou Dell from her paperback. She had no idea when the Judge might send for them, and there was simply nothing she could do.

Nicholas took a seat at the table and began discussing strategy with Herman. It was not fair to keep them locked up during delays such as this, and Nicholas was of the opinion that they should be allowed to leave the building, with escorts, and engage in morning walks, as opposed to those of the noontime variety. It was agreed that Nicholas should put this request in writing, as usual, and present it to Judge Harkin during the noon recess.

AT TEN-THIRTY, they finally walked into the courtroom, the air still heavy with the heat of battle, and the first person Nicholas saw was the man who’d broken into his apartment. He was out there on the third row, plaintiff’s side, in a shirt and tie with a newspaper spread before him and resting on the back of the pew in front. He was alone, and he barely looked at the jurors as they took their seats. Nicholas didn’t stare; two long glances and the identification was complete.

For all of his guile and cunning, Fitch could do some stupid things. And sending this goon into the courtroom was a risky move with little potential benefit. What was he supposed to see or hear that would not be seen or heard by one of the dozen lawyers, or half-dozen jury consultants, or handful of other flunkies Fitch kept in the courtroom? Though he was surprised to see the man, Nicholas had already thought about what to do. He had several plans, depending upon where the man surfaced. The courtroom was a surprise, but it took only a minute to sort through things. It was imperative for Judge Harkin to know that one of the thugs he’d been so overly concerned about was now sitting in the courtroom pretending to be just another casual observer. Harkin needed to see the face, because later he would see it on video.

The first witness was Dr. Bronsky, now in his third day but his first on cross-examination by the defense. Sir Durr started slowly, politely, as if in awe of this great expert, and asked a few questions that most of the jurors could have answered. Things changed rapidly. Whereas Cable had been deferential to Dr. Milton Fricke, he was ready to battle Bronsky.

He started with the over four thousand compounds identified in tobacco smoke, picked one seemingly at random, and asked what effect benzol(a)pyrene would have on the lungs. Bronsky said he didn’t know, and tried to explain that the damage inflicted by a single compound was impossible to measure. What about the bronchial tubes and the membranes and the cilia? What did benzol(a)pyrene do to them? Bronsky again tried to explain that research could not determine the effect of a single compound in tobacco smoke.

Cable hammered away. He picked another compound and forced Bronsky to admit that he couldn’t tell the jury what it would do to lungs or bronchial tubes or membranes. Not specifically, anyway.

Rohr objected, but His Honor overruled on the grounds that it was a cross-examination. Virtually anything relevant or even semirelevant could be thrown at the witness.

Doyle stayed in place, out there on the third row, looking bored and waiting for a chance to leave. His assigned duty was to look for the girl, something he’d been doing for four days now. He’d loitered in the hallway below for hours. He’d spent one full afternoon sitting on a Dr Pepper crate near the vending machines, chatting with a janitor while watching the front door. He’d consumed gallons of coffee in the small cafes and delis nearby. He and Pang and two others had been hard at work, wasting their time but satisfying their boss.

After four days of sitting in one place for six hours a day, Nicholas had a sense of Fitch’s routine. His people, whether the jury consultants or run-of-the-mill operatives, moved around. They used the entire courtroom. They sat in groups and they sat alone. They came and went silently when there were short breaks in the action. They rarely spoke to one another. They would pay strict attention to the witnesses and the jurors, and the next minute they would work crosswords and stare at the windows.

He knew the man would be gone before long.

He scribbled a note, folded it, and convinced Loreen Duke to hold it without reading it. He then convinced her to lean forward, during a pause in the cross-examination when Cable was consulting his notes, and hand it to Willis the deputy, who was standing against the wall guarding the flag. Willis, suddenly awakened, paused a second to collect himself, then realized he was supposed to hand the note to the Judge.

Doyle saw Loreen hand the note over, but he didn’t see it originate from Nicholas.

Judge Harkin gathered the note while barely acknowledging it, and slid it across the bench close to his robe as Cable fired another question. Harkin slowly unfolded it. It was from Nicholas Easter, number two, and it said:

Judge:

That man out there, left side, third row from front, on the aisle, white shirt, blue and green tie, was following me yesterday. It was the second time I’ve seen him. Can we find out who he is?

Nicholas Easter

His Honor looked at Durr Cable before he looked at the spectators. The man was sitting alone, staring back at the bench as if he knew someone was watching.

This was a new challenge for Frederick Harkin. In fact, at the moment he couldn’t recall an incident even remotely similar. His options were limited, and the more he pondered the situation the fewer choices he had. He, too, knew both sides had plenty of consultants and associates and operatives lurking either in the courtroom or very nearby. He watched his courtroom closely, and he noticed a lot of quiet movement by people who had experience in such trials and didn’t want to be noticed. He knew the man was likely to disappear in an instant.