Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause (22 page)

“Your Honor,” I plead, “can we have a recess for a moment

Her asshole of a son is smirking as if his mother had been caught trying to pull down her pants in the courtroom. Judge Fogarty stands up.

“Why don’t we take five minutes?” he says, smiling benignly at Mrs. Gentry.

Typically, as soon as someone speaks, she becomes quiet so she can hear what is being said. It is the silence she has to fill. I invite her to step outside with me. As we walk by the counsel table, I begin to hum “Stars and Stripes For ever.” Screw them all.

The Nerd grins, then tugs at my sleeve and whispers, “You’ll never see a dime of it.”

I shrug as if this were a pro bono referral from Legal Aid.

Yet, I have discovered in the last week that Mrs. Gentry is loaded, or was, having assets of well over a million dollars, more than enough to live comfortably in any retirement community of her choosing and to pay her newest lawyer a generous fee. Out in the hall by the water fountain, I take Mrs.

Gentry’s right hand in mine to calm her down.

“Do you remember we talked about your humming when nobody is talking, Mrs. Gentry?”

Her face flushed with embarrassment, my client stares miserably at the floor. She seems shrunken, and for the first time she looks her age. Maybe she ought to be in a nursing home. Yet why should a person be locked up because of a little humming? She is wearing a bright emerald-green dress and matching pumps with little high heels. This morning when I saw her at the nursing home, I had a fleeting thought that we had a chance. Mrs. Gentry moans, “Some people bite their fingernails when they get nervous. I hum.”

True, but not so loud they can be heard a block away, I think, but then I get an idea. I pull from my right pants pocket an unopened pack of five-flavored Life Savers I bought in the courthouse coffee shop this morning and hand it to her.

“When nobody’s talking, take one of these out and suck on it like your life depends on it.”

She squints warily at the pack of mints in my hand as if I were trying to get her to take drugs and then bends over the fountain to drink. When she is done, she straightens up and takes the mints, sighing, “I’ll try.”

Back in the courtroom, the mints don’t rescue her completely, but they help. A couple of times during her crossexamination, she sounds like someone humming with a Life Saver in her mouth, but at least the volume is way down.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Gentry is becoming more confused than ever about what she owns, and there is nothing she can do about it, since Judge Fogarty won’t sustain a single one of my objections. It is apparent that she needs a guardian of her estate but not so obvious at this point that she requires a guardian of her person, as the law distinguishes the two.

Rustling through his papers, Ferd pretends to pause, hoping he can get her humming again, but I point to her mouth, and she pops in a Life Saver just as she begins “The Blue Danube.”

The Nerd waits as long as he can and then asks, “Isn’t it a fact that three weeks ago you were caught in a closet…”

I shoot out of my seat, cutting Ferd off, “This is irrelevant, Your Honor!”

Judge Fogarty, who for some reason suffers fools more gladly than most judges, says mildly, “I can’t rule on your objection, Mr. Page, until I hear the question.”

There is no jury to keep from hearing the question, so there is no excuse to approach the Bench and argue the point quietly. I look at Mrs. Gentry and know she is beginning to die up there. She pops her last Life Saver in her mouth and stares at me with such a forlorn expression I feel a lump forming in my mouth.

Ferd, whose normal clientele is about as scruffy as mine, finishes his question, “.. . in a closet at the nursing home having sex with a Mr. Peterson?”

I am livid. I turn to Mrs. Gentry’s son as I speak. He is in his sixties, squashed down in his seat as if he knows his mother will never forgive him; nor should she.”

“Your Honor, this question is probative of absolutely nothing, is a total invasion of Mrs. Gentry’s privacy, and is simply to harass and upset her.”

Taking off his reading glasses and rubbing his eyes, Judge Fogarty, laconic as usual, says in a monotone, “What’s the relevancy, Mr. Machen?”

The Nerd, for no apparent reason, points theatrically at my poor client.

“Your Honor, Mrs. Gentry is old and sick;

she could have gotten hurt or even locked in the closet. She may well have been given a social disease. It is just another example that this old lady has no idea what she’s doing and needs to be protected.”

Judge Fogarty stands up, and crooks a finger at us.

“I’d like to see the lawyers back in my chambers right now.

Court’s in recess.” He walks into his chambers without even a backward glance at us.

Ferd and I shrug at each other, wondering what’s up. We haven’t exactly been Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, but we’ve each done worse, I suspect. I tell Mrs.

Gentry she can come sit at the counsel table, but she glares balefully at her son and shakes her head. He is finally beginning to seem embarrassed by what he is putting his mother through and glances sheepishly at her.

Clarence Fogarty’s chambers are impersonal as a public urinal, without a single plaque or diploma on the walls. His office looks as if he moved in this morning. In fact, he is new, having only recently been elected, but he has had six months to unpack. He is a bachelor (shades of Justice Souter). On his desk, at an angle, I can see a single picture of, presumably, his parents, since he looks just like his mother:

a woman whose most distinguishing features are almost thread-thin lips and a chin so triangular that it reminds me of a snake’s head. No beauty queen, but at least not bovine-looking, as my father used to say of half the girls he saw on the streets in Bear Creek in eastern Arkansas.

Behind closed doors Judge Fogarty’s manner changes.

Gone is his laborious, painstaking, and diffident manner. He grabs the volume of the Arkansas code containing the guardianship statutes from a shelf by his desk and flips through the pages in a rapid, irritated manner. His reputation is that he takes so long to make up his mind on difficult cases my client could be dead by the time he gets around to making a decision.

I glance at the Nerd, who looks smug and confident, as if he has only begun to humiliate my client. It crosses my mind that I am putting Mrs. Gentry through hell. Perhaps, I should tell the judge we will take a voluntary nonsuit and dismiss the case. From the way it has gone in the last ten minutes, it might end up taking six months off Mrs. Gentry’s life no matter who wins, and at her age she doesn’t have that much time to give.

Judge Fogarty looks up over reading glasses considerably more expensive-looking than mine, and says to Ferd in a low, intense voice, “Mr. Machen, do you know what the probate code says is the purpose of the guardianship statute?”

Ferd leans back in the imitation-leather chair provided to the judge’s visitors, and says in an offhand manner, “To protect the ward.”

“Do you know?” Judge Fogarty asks me.

I rack my brain, fearing I’m about to be embarrassed. In taking the case over from Clan, I haven’t exactly knocked myself out reading up on guardianship law. I glanced over the statutes, but I didn’t memorize them. There’s too much law to keep up with all of it, especially if you’re not getting paid. Usually, judges, like lawyers, exhibit a paternalistic attitude when dealing with incompetents. Surely I can’t go wrong with the Nerd’s answer. I guess, “I don’t think Ferd is too far off.” The judge draws back in his chair in obvious disgust with both of us.

“Let me read you both something,” he says brusquely.

“I’m quoting here.

“The purpose is … the development of maximum self-reliance and independence of the parson, and shall be ordered only to the extent necessitated.”

” He pops the bright red book shut and says to Ferd: “My suggestion to you, Mr. Machen, is that in the next fifteen minutes you get together with your client and consider settling this matter along the following lines: Mrs.

Gentry does not appear in need of a guardian of her person;

however, she would seem to require the services of a guard ian of her estate. Unless Mr. Page is going to present evidence of severe mismanagement or fraud, I see no reason why her son should not be appointed guardian of his mother’s estate so long as she is permitted to leave the nursing home and resume her former quality of life. If you want to try this case, it’s fine with me. But let me warn you that I’m not inclined to keep the elderly locked up in nursing homes be cause it’s convenient to do so. You embarrassed that poor old woman out there by that ridiculous question about sex.

If she wants to have sexual relations with another consenting adult, she should be able to do so in the privacy of her own apartment or house instead of being forced to have them in a closet. I’ll resume court in fifteen minutes to either continue the trial or dictate into the record a settlement.”

Ferd leans back in his chair as if he can’t believe his ears.

“Judge, she’s batty as she can be!” he protests, pointing at his head and rotating his right hand in the time-honored manner

“She sounds like a chain saw if you give her a chance!”

Fogarty leans forward on his desk and peers over his glasses unpleasantly at Ferd.

“Mr. Machen,” he says, “the world is full of eccentric people, but we don’t institutionalize them in this country simply because they’re odd. For your information, my mother is in her eighties and hums as loud as Mrs. Gentry, and she does the crossword puzzle in the paper every morning before breakfast!”

The Nerd, whose face has turned almost as red as the statute book on the judge’s desk, says, “Yes, sir,” and he and I leave, chastened as schoolchildren who have been sent to the principal’s office for disrupting class.

After a talk alone with our clients, within ten minutes we witness a reconciliation between mother and son. As Ferd and I watch, our clients embrace in the hall outside the courtroom, I marvel at the capacity of some humans (at least) to forgive and to trust once again people who have wronged them. I wouldn’t want her son near me, but as I watch the tears run down his mother’s cheeks, I realize she really loves him, regardless of how he treated her. However, at her age, she doesn’t have a lot of choice, leaving me to speculate what, if anything, was going on in that closet. Her boyfriend, a man at least a decade younger, refused to talk to me and wasn’t worth a deposition I couldn’t afford. Subpoenaed to testify by Ferd, he has been sequestered with the other witnesses but with this settlement, we will never know, and, for once, I am content to leave my prurient curiosity unsatisfied.

Judge Pogarty, again relaxed and in good spirits after learning Ferd’s client has swallowed the settlement the judge rammed down his throat, tells me to prepare a petition for an attorney’s fee for my representation to be paid from Mrs.

Gentry’s estate, but hints, as I feared, that the amount won’t be overly generous, since he was less than impressed with the quality of representation by both attorneys in the case.

He tells Ferd bluntly that he won’t be able to charge the estate at all for his time in court. My cheeks burn, but Mrs. Gentry is happy. She tells me to come visit her any time. When Eagle Savings and Loan forecloses on my mortgage, I will remember her invitation.

Cooking in the July heat, I walk back to my office wondering what lessons I have learned from this case. In the future, reading the law might help. I realize now that despite what I had told myself, I was only going through the motions, never expecting to win, never expecting to be paid a dime, so I didn’t prepare adequately, relying mainly on my instincts from the days when I represented mental patients at the state hospital as a public defender. If the state hospital wanted a patient badly enough to go through a commitment proceeding the judge wasn’t going to get in its way. The patients rarely had a chance, so I assumed Mrs. Gentry wouldn’t either. My clients won’t always be so fortunate as to have a judge rescue them.

Across the street, waiting for the light to change, Martha Birford waves at me and yells, “Gideon, wait a minute!”

Nonplussed by this effusiveness after our last meeting at the Hardhat Cafe, I stand above a steaming gutter, wondering if another snotty remark is on the way.

“I got a job!” she says gleefully, pounding across the pavement toward me.

Good for you, I think, meaning it. Dressed in a red suit I’ve seen half a dozen times, Martha looks as happy as a woman who’s been told she doesn’t have ovarian cancer.

Instantly, I forgive her for her remark at the Hardhat about me landing on my feet. We may talk about sex as if we can’t live without it, but it is our work that defines both men and women these days.

“Great!” I say, touching her arm as if for luck.

“Who’s the lucky firm?” “Verser and Jeffcoat,” she says, naming a partnership that has come together in only the last year.

“Actually, I’m only kind of a glorified paralegal, but it’s a start.”

A paralegal! I maintain my grin, hoping it has not become a grimace, but inwardly I feel embarrassment for her. True, at Mays & Burton we got the shit cases, but at least we got to see the inside of a courtroom. Poor Martha. Those idiots at Verser and Jeffcoat will probably never discover how much money she could be making for them. A few more bromides about our mutual good luck, and I head off in the opposite direction, once again glad I’m not a woman or black. As sloppy as my performance was today, I realize I’m one of the primary beneficiaries of discrimination. I may be a capitalist now, but damn if I like competition.

On my floor in the Layman Building, Julia, seeing my scowling face, greets me cheerfully, “Lose another one, Giddy baby?”

I check my box for messages.

“Not quite,” I say, noting her outfit. This is sex week, I decide. Everything so far has been skintight or see-through. Today, underneath a sheer white blouse she has on a purple bra, which matches her eyeshadow. The effect is that she appears to have two badly rotted grapefruits under her blouse. I have a message to call David Spath, administrator at the Human Development Center who keeps playing telephone tag with me.