Defending the Truth, page 9
Joshua watched them go through the door, then walked behind the defense table and sank into the chair. He put his hand over his eyes, exhausted, frightened. It would only be a half hour or an hour at most before Pima County Sheriff Pat Dunphy would drive up to the marshal’s office with two or three sheriff’s cars and deputies with him to arrest the four young women and young man for murder. Joshua straightened in the chair and tried to think through what he would do next.
No lawyer should take a case in which he was personally involved, Joshua knew. It destroyed his objectivity, his ability to make choices that might be wrong, that might result in tragic consequences, but that must be taken if there is to be any hope of winning. It was okay to take chances on behalf of some stranger, to risk his life or his liberty. But it was virtually impossible to take those chances when your own daughter could suffer for your mistake or bad judgment.
Manipulate the statutes, twist and turn the case law to the advantage of his clients, that was what a lawyer did, that was what Joshua did. The law was not an eternally fixed, perfect creation of God, but an imperfect and time bound and necessarily changing tool created by human beings to enable them to live in an ordered society, as they themselves shaped and defined that society day by day. Men and women wrote it, and they either abided by it or ignored it. For sixteen years now, defending the innocent, mostly defending the guilty, Joshua had been arguing perfervidly to judges and juries that black was really gray and x was really y, that the law really meant this and not that, that it really only applied to this person and not that person. But this was different: Hanna Rabb was accused of murder. He could not maintain detachment. He was so totally and mercilessly drowning in this case that his thinking was blurred, and he tried to force himself to concentrate and not let his mind drift. But it was impossible. This was his daughter, not some stranger.
Will the law protect her? Will she be treated with justice?
But what the hell is justice? Who defines what is right and what is wrong? Is there some universal standard, “God’s law,” or is it the standard imposed by the religion in vogue, the government in power, the victor in a war? Or is it each of them at one time or other? He had no facile answer. He felt sick, so fearful that his breath began to come with difficulty through his constricted throat. He felt as though he were under water, gasping for air.
“Hey, Rabb. Get yer ass outta here. I gotta lock up the courtroom.” Fratangeli had returned from the holding cell.
Joshua stood up, braced himself against the table, and breathed deeply. He stiffened resolutely and walked out of the courtroom.
“But I can’t charge them with first-degree murder on those facts,” Randy Stevens said. He had light blue eyes and thinning blond hair. He was shorter than Tim Essert but stockier, an ex-marine aide-de-camp to a fleet admiral on an aircraft carrier for three years during World War Two. He had been a deputy Pima County attorney for his entire law career since graduating from the University of Arizona Law School in 1935. In late 1945, when he returned from the South Pacific, he had been made the chief deputy county attorney. He had been a close friend of Joshua Rabb’s since their first meeting five years ago.
“Jesus, Randy! The Shockley case says you can charge them all as co-conspirators,” Essert said.
“Shockley is federal law, not state. I can’t charge them with first-degree murder unless you have evidence that they actually had some role in planning or carrying out the murder of the marshal.”
Essert shook his head and frowned. “How about felony murder?”
“What’s your felony?”
Essert thought for a moment. “Obstructing justice, something like that?”
Randy opened the Arizona Code of 1939, flipped through it, and read: “‘Section thirty-nine ten, obstructing public officer. Every person who willfully resists, delays, or obstructs a public officer in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his office…’ It’s a five-year, five-thousand-dollar felony. Does it fit?”
“You bet! They danced around me and Holmes and Schlesinger with those placards, held us up for a couple of minutes going into the courthouse, did the same thing when we came out to go to my office.”
“Pretty thin stuff.”
“Come on, Randy. Ollie Friedkind was murdered during their Commie demonstration. We can’t just let them off without even a try at charging them.”
Randy nodded. “Okay, but obstructing isn’t an enumerated offense under first-degree felony murder, so I can only charge them with second degree. It’s ten years to life and bailable.”
Essert shrugged. “If it’s the best we can do, then let’s go with it.”
“Okay,” Randy said. He pushed a lever on his intercom. “Anne, come in here with your book please.”
His secretary came into the office and sat down in the round-backed oak chair next to Essert. His eyes roamed her tall, voluptuous body. She had just graduated from the University of Arizona Law School a week ago, one of its first women graduates, and was studying to take the bar examination. County Attorney Morris Udall had promised her a job as a deputy county attorney if she passed.
Randy started to dictate the arrest warrant to her, then paused. “You got the list of defendants?” he said to Essert.
Essert handed him a sheet of paper. Randy read it quickly and looked up puzzled. “This is ridiculous. Hanna Rabb and Jan Diedrichs? Fred Mergen? They didn’t commit murder. I’ve known Hanna since she was fourteen. I’ve known Jan Diedrichs since she was born. Hell, Paul Diedrichs’s been my barber and my friend for twenty years. And Fred Mergen’s dad works out at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. He’s a civilian aeronautical engineer for the Strategic Air Command.”
“So maybe Mergen knows something he shouldn’t about our defense secrets.” Essert fixed Stevens with a truculent stare. “They were in the demonstration. The murder occurred during the demonstration while they were obstructing justice. It’s not your call, Randy, you’re not the jury. It’s your job to charge them, and if they’re not guilty, the jury will cut them loose.”
Randy shook his head. “This is bullshit and we both know it.”
“It happens to be our jobs. We don’t decide who did it, we just gather the evidence to let the jury decide. There’s evidence enough here to charge them.”
Randy sighed morosely. “Okay, Anne, here’s the names of the defendants.” He handed her the sheet of paper. “Count one obstructing, to support count two, second-degree felony murder, section forty-three, twenty-nine oh two.”
Anne left the room, and Essert followed her behind with greedy eyes. “Great-looking piece of ass.”
“Her husband died at Guadalcanal, she’s got a nine-year-old son, and I don’t think your wife would approve.”
Essert laughed maliciously. “Yeah, she puts a definite damper on my love life.”
Randy picked up the telephone receiver and dialed Sheriff Patrick Dunphy. “Pat. I got an arrest warrant that’ll be ready in about ten minutes. I’ve just got to get Judge Velasco’s signature.” Pause. “They’re five U of A students, caught in a demonstration over at the federal courthouse this morning when Ollie Friedkind got killed.” Pause. “Yeah, really terrible.” Pause. “They’re over at the marshal’s holding cell. They’ve been charged federally with a misdemeanor. The murder happened in the VNB parking lot. We’re charging them with felony murder two.” Pause. “Yeah, as soon as you get them, bring them up to Velasco’s courtroom for the initial appearance.” He hung up.
He stared wanly out of the window of his office at “A” Mountain a few miles away, where U of A students whitewashed an “A” on rocks preceding football season each year. “Shitty thing to do to Joshua Rabb and Paul Diedrichs and Fred Mergen,” he mumbled.
“They ought to keep their little bastards on shorter leashes,” Essert said.
“Is this a kick in the ass, or what!” Pat Dunphy said, loud enough for Joshua to hear twenty feet away at the defense table. “Arrestin’ ol’ Joshua Rabb’s little girl for bein’ a Commie murderer. What’s this world comin’ to anyway?” He slapped his knee and belched out laughter. The raucous noise rebounded off the walls of Judge Bernardo Velasco’s courtroom on the second floor of the county office building.
Velasco came out of his chambers and sat down in the big swivel chair at the bench. “This is the time for the initial appearance in the matter of State of Arizona versus Mergen and others.” He looked around the courtroom and then studied the faces of the five students. His eyes were deep brown under thick black eyebrows. He had a bushy black mustache and a graying fringe of hair around an almost completely bald crown.
“Mr. Rabb, you’re representing all of the defendants?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Joshua said, standing.
“Have you had the opportunity to read the charges?”
“I have, Your Honor.”
“How do your clients plead?”
“Not guilty.”
“Very well,” Velasco said. He put on a pair of “readers” and studied the calendar on the bench before him. “The preliminary hearing is set for Friday, June 29, at nine in the morning. Bail is set at ten thousand dollars each.” He glanced apologetically at Joshua and left the courtroom.
Pat Dunphy magnanimously afforded Joshua five minutes to talk to the defendants and get the names and telephone numbers of their parents. It was almost noon when Dunphy led them out of the courtroom to the holding cells on the first floor of the county building.
Joshua drove home, just five minutes away. Barbara was typing at the reception desk on the first floor of the small Victorian house.
Hi, honey,” she said, looking up and smiling at Joshua. Her smile quickly faded. “What’s wrong?”
“Hanna’s been arrested for murder.”
Barbara’s mouth gaped open. “What?”
“The firebombing of the U.S. marshal’s car. She was one of the demonstrators.”
“Oh, my God!” she gasped. “But she couldn’t have had anything to do with murder.”
“Of course not. But she was there. It was an illegal demonstration.” He shook his head and swallowed.
“What are you going to do?”
“First thing, I have to call the parents of the other kids. They’ll have to pay a bondsman a fifteen-hundred-dollar premium so their kid can post bond and get out of jail. They’ll probably have to put up their homes as security.”
Barbara shook her head. “We don’t have fifteen hundred. Maybe eight or nine.” She rummaged in the center drawer of the desk and pulled out a bank deposit book. “Yes, seven hundred and ninety-two dollars.” She looked at him in alarm. “I’ll call my father. Then you can use the phone and call the others.”
Carlos Moreno, the only bail bondsman Joshua knew, was ecstatic. But he had learned to hide his glee from the people whose money he was taking, and on whose houses he was securing a mortgage.
Moreno posted bail for Hanna and Jan Diedrichs at four o’clock that afternoon. Barbara picked Hanna up and drove her home. She went straight to her bedroom, avoided looking at her father as she passed his office.
The boy, Fred Mergen, made bail at five o’clock. The other two girls were sisters from Phoenix, and Joshua had been unable to reach their parents until after six o’clock. They were unable to withdraw money from their bank and get the mortgage papers on their house prepared at that hour. So the two girls would not be released until the next morning.
Barbara set the kitchen table with an elegant Irish linen tablecloth, matching cloth napkins, Lenox stem water glasses with gilt-edged tops, Wedgewood Florentine Cobalt dinnerware, and Gorham silver in the Medici pattern. All of it had been wedding gifts from her mother, and they had only used it three times since the wedding. Tucson was not a place of fancy dinner parties.
When Adam got home from summer school, Barbara took him into his dormer bedroom and told him what had happened. He had heard about Marshal Friedkind’s death earlier in the day, because Nancy and Tony Friedkind had been taken out of school by their mother. But he hadn’t heard about Hanna, and he was shocked and frightened when Barbara told him about Hanna’s role in the demonstration and being charged with murder.
“God. Murder?” he gasped.
“Your dad is going to get her off,” Barbara said, trying to look resolute, but feeling uneasy. “She and her friends didn’t do anything wrong.”
Adam was hardly listening, still trying to digest the fact that his sister had been somehow involved in a killing. And Tony Friedkind’s father. They played together on the football team.
“Please don’t kid her about it at dinner,” Barbara said.
He shook his head. “I won’t. I promise.”
“All right. Get washed up. It’s time to eat.”
She walked down the stairs from the dormer and knocked on Hanna’s door.
“Yes?” Hanna’s voice was muffled.
“Time for dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Barbara opened the door a foot and looked in. Hanna was lying on her back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The drapes were open on the window, flooding the room with light from the low, late-afternoon sun.
“Come on, honey,” Barbara said, “you can’t hide from your dad forever.”
“He’s going to kill me.”
“Maybe. But I won’t let him do it at the dinner table and get blood all over our lace tablecloth.”
Hanna sniffled.
“I think right now he’s too tired to kill you anyway.”
“Okay,” Hanna said.
“What’s all of this?” Joshua said from the kitchen, surveying the resplendent kitchen table. “Is it a holiday or something?”
“Maybe it’ll cheer us up a little,” Barbara said, walking over to the oven and opening the door. “I made stuffed kishka and potato kugel.”
Joshua smiled at her. “By God, it’s Rosh Hashanah.”
“Nope, just a special day.”
“That’s certainly true.”
Barbara walked close to him. “Take it easy on her. She’s miserable enough.”
Joshua’s face was haggard and drawn. “It could get a hell of a lot worse than this,” he whispered.
Adam came to the table and sat down, looked around warily, and said, “Is it Christmas or something?”
“Rosh Hashanah,” Joshua said. “We don’t have Christmas.”
Hanna came out of her bedroom staring at the floor. She sat down quickly at the table, placed the napkin in her lap, and folded her hands on it. Her eyes were glued to her hands.
“Where’s Magdalena?” Joshua asked.
“It’s parent-teacher day over at Dunbar,” Barbara answered. “She won’t be back until about eight.” Magdalena was teaching history in summer school at the segregated Negro school near downtown Tucson. Negro students in grades one through eight were required to attend Dunbar. After that, in the unlikely event that they continued their education, they were permitted to attend Tucson High with the white students. Magdalena had tried to get a teaching position at Tucson High, but the Board of Trustees had refused to let a Papago Indian teach there. The only place they would permit her to teach was in the segregated school.
“Too bad she’s going to miss this,” Joshua said, pointing at the china and silver and crystal. He sat down at the head of the table in the only armchair. “So how’s summer school?” Joshua asked.
“I hate it,” Adam said. “Bad enough I have to go all year, but summer, too?”
“Only five weeks.”
“It’s hot in there. The cooler doesn’t work.”
“Next year don’t get a four in any of your classes and you won’t have to take them over again in the summer.”
“Geometry teacher didn’t like me,” Adam grumbled.
“Sure, some vicious vendetta,” Joshua said.
“What’s a vendetta?”
Barbara spooned a square of potato kugel on Joshua’s plate, then on her own, and passed the metal baking pan to Hanna. “Careful, hot.”
Hanna took the pan with the hot pad and took a small piece of kugel. Adam took two large squares. Joshua took a long piece of kishka off the serving plate and passed it to Adam.
“Have some stuffed cow guts,” Joshua said.
Adam wrinkled up his nose. “Ugh.”
“I also made some chicken for you two goyim,” Barbara said, smiling at Hanna and Adam.
“Thank God,” Adam murmured.
“Yeah,” said his sister.
Barbara got up and took the baked chicken breasts out of the oven. She put one on Hanna’s plate and two on Adam’s.
“I didn’t know you two were so squeamish about good ol’ Jewish food,” Joshua said.
“It’s a new world, Dad, you gotta face it,” Adam said. “We ain’t living in the ghetto in Brooklyn anymore.”
Joshua smiled. “Aren’t.”
“Aren’t.” Adam smiled sarcastically.
“And he was such a nice kid when he was twelve,” Joshua said to Barbara.
She laughed, a little too gaily.
Hanna picked at the chicken breast on her plate, cutting a tiny nibble out of it and chewing on it endlessly.
“You’ll starve to death doing that,” Joshua said softly.
“I’ve got to get used to bread and water,” she mumbled.
Joshua smiled at her. “Well, at least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
She put down her knife and fork and laid her face in her hands. She wept with deep gasps, her shoulders shuddering.
Joshua got up and walked to her. He put his good arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek. She threw her arms around his neck and wept against his chest. Tears spilled over his eyelids, and he looked away from Barbara and Adam so that they wouldn’t see.
Barbara caught Adam’s eye and gestured with her head to his bedroom.
“But I’m starving,” he whispered.
“Take it with you,” she whispered back.
He took his dinner plate and a fork, walked up the stairs into the dormer, and closed the door quietly behind him. He could hear his father trying to console Hanna. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” he was saying over and over. “I’m going to take care of everything.” But Adam was no longer a child, and he knew that there were things that his father couldn’t take care of. And maybe this was one.
