The Judge Read online

  “Did the opening statement of Skyler Hadji create any reasonable doubt in your mind?”

  Hadji had surprised Finney with his acceptance of the Resurrection. And the statement about déjà vu made Finney think. The kid was sharper than he let on. But still, he hadn’t shaken Finney’s faith.

  “No.”

  Zirconni made a little check next to the answer. Had he done that before? Finney couldn’t remember.

  “Did the opening statement of Kareem Hasaan create any reasonable doubt in your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Did the opening statement of Victoria Kline create any reasonable doubt in your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Did the opening statement of Hokoji Ando create any reasonable doubt in your mind?”

  Finney licked his lips, suppressed a cough. “No.”

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Finney saw Zirconni make another check.

  “All right, now I want to change direction a little bit.”

  “Hold up,” Finney said, turning his head to the side for a brief coughing spell. “Okay.”

  “Do you believe that your God can perform miracles?”

  Without hesitation, “Yes.”

  “Do those miracles include healing people from physical diseases?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe that your God hears your prayers to Him?”

  Finney paused for a moment, not because the question gave him any trouble, but because he didn’t like where this line of questioning was headed. It was an old courtroom trick: never ask the real question directly, just imply the condemning information through a series of tangential yes-or-no questions.

  “Yes, and He always answers my prayers. But it’s not always the answer I want.”

  This brought another over-the-glasses look. “Just answer yes or no, please. Do you believe that your God hears your prayers to Him?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Have you been diagnosed with lung cancer that has metastasized to your liver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been told that there is nothing the doctors can do about liver cancer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you also been told that you have less than a year to live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Judge Finney, that’s all I have.”

  17

  Finney stopped by the restroom after his interrogation. He found Kareem at the sink, washing his hands and wrists. Finney headed to the urinal. “You’re gonna love the cross-examination room,” he said.

  “I am pure. They can ask me what they wish.”

  “It’s a lie detector,” Finney said. “You ever been hooked up to one before?”

  “No.”

  Finney finished and stood behind Kareem at the sink. “It monitors your heart rate, breathing, and other vital signs. The theory is that they can tell when you’re lying because—”

  “I know what a lie detector is,” Kareem snapped. “I’m a lawyer, remember? I’ve seen dozens of lie detector tests administered to my clients. I never trust them.” He rinsed out his mouth and then held some water in his palm, sniffing it up his nose.

  “Me, either,” Finney said, watching Kareem with curiosity.

  In silence, Kareem washed his face from his forehead to his chin and from ear to ear. Finney realized that this was probably part of Kareem’s purification process for his midday prayers. Either that or the man was some kind of compulsive neat freak.

  “You mind if I slip in there?” Finney asked.

  Kareem was in the process of washing his forearms. Without responding, he shook the water off and stepped aside.

  Finney washed his hands and then stepped out of Kareem’s way to dry them. Meanwhile, Kareem wet his right hand and passed it over his thick black hair.

  “How often do you have to do this?” Finney asked.

  “Five times a day,” Kareem said. He breathed in deeply and then stopped for a second, looking at Finney in the mirror. “If a pure river ran to your door and you took a bath five times a day, would I notice any dirt on you?”

  “What kind of soap?”

  Kareem ignored the response. “Of course I wouldn’t. The same can be said for the five prayers by which Allah annuls evil deeds.”

  “I admire the passion of your beliefs,” Finney said. “But I’d hate to see your water bill.”

  Kareem shook his head and resumed his washing.

  “Good luck,” Finney said as he opened the door to leave. As soon as the words crossed his lips, he wished he could take them back.

  “I do not believe in luck,” Kareem said.

  Finney didn’t believe in luck either when the drawings took place later that afternoon. At least not good luck.

  With cameras rolling, Tammy gave them their next assignment. After two false starts and one quick break to reapply her makeup, she managed to get it right. In two days the contestants would start the next phase of the trial process. They would each be asked to cross-examine one of the other contestants about the weaknesses in the other’s belief system. Tomorrow and the next day would be for research and preparation. Three contestants would go Thursday; two contestants would go Friday. Highlights would run on next week’s show.

  Dr. Kline drew first. She picked a card from Tammy’s hand and turned it over. “Kareem Hasaan,” she announced.

  “This means that Mr. Hasaan draws next,” Tammy said with a smile.

  Kareem drew the next card. “Judge Finney,” he announced. He shot Finney a triumphant look.

  Finney winked, then stood to draw the next name. “Hokoji Ando,” he said. Darn it! Every lawyer knew it was toughest to cross-examine a witness who elicited sympathy. Finney would have to handle Ando with kid gloves.

  Ando then drew Hadji, and Hadji was left with Dr. Kline.

  “We may need to spend some time together in private preparation,” Hadji suggested. Victoria Kline gave him a look that could melt steel.

  Before they left the courthouse, Judge Javitts turned to the day’s final order of business. To Finney’s surprise, Javitts told the contestants that he was prepared to render his verdict for the opening statement episode and that it had been heavily influenced by the jury members. He explained that he had purposely selected a diverse jury composed of several production crew extras—“runners” in the lingo of the trade—two security guards, the cook from the Paradise View, and two members of the resort lawn crew. After the contestants had finished, Javitts had discussed the opening statements with the jury in another room while the contestants took their turns with the lie detector.

  “Contestants, please stand,” Javitts ordered. Finney knew the protocol—this was what criminal defendants and their lawyers did at the end of a criminal case. “Based on my consultation with the jury and my observation of the opening statements, I am rendering my first verdict in favor of—” Javitts looked from one contestant to the next in standard reality show staging—“the Buddhist advocate, Dr. Ando.”

  Finney looked to his left and watched the shy Dr. Ando nod in thanks. Finney did his best to mask his own disappointment. It’s not as if Ando didn’t deserve the verdict, Finney told himself. And Finney had been around courtrooms long enough to know that a lot could happen between opening statements and final judgments.

  But he also noticed that the warm and fuzzy feelings he had last night toward the other contestants, particularly Ando, had largely disappeared. Finney wasn’t used to losing. As a trial lawyer, he had put together a remarkable won-lost percentage. As a judge, of course, he lost only on those infrequent occasions when the appellate court didn’t see things his way. He reminded himself that this was undoubtedly a sympathy verdict. After all, he still had truth on his side. And even in a court of law, that ought to count for something.

  Ando could have his fifty thousand dollars. Finney had his sights set on a million.

  “That’s just unacceptable,” Murphy lectured. “I watched the tests myself
.”

  Bryce McCormack leaned inconspicuously against the wall with his arms crossed. He was staying out of this one. He didn’t even join the men at the table.

  The air of confidence that had accompanied Dr. Zirconni’s first announcement of his polygraph results had long since dissipated. The man appeared to be shrinking by the minute under Murphy’s assault.

  “Why’d we fly you all the way out here for this?” Murphy asked. “Bryce, do we have enough footage for the first show without the polygraph tests?”

  Bryce shrugged. They both knew they would never cut the polygraph segment. Murphy was just trying to pressure this guy by threatening his few minutes of fame.

  Zirconni placed his glasses on the table. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t give the answers; I just interpret them.”

  The problem, as expressed by Murphy, was that Zirconni had ferreted out few doubts among the advocates about their cases. Ando admitted that reasonable doubt had crept into his mind when he heard both Finney and Dr. Kline. Zirconni also concluded that Dr. Kline, despite her denials, had reasonable doubt when she listened to Ando and Finney. But none of the other advocates—Finney, Hasaan, or Hadji—harbored any doubts at all.

  “Wouldn’t it be more interesting if the advocates were struggling a little themselves?” Murphy asked. “I just can’t believe that these guys all think they’ve got a monopoly on truth. I watched Finney with my own eyes. The guy was sweating like a pig.”

  “It’s not my job to make it more interesting,” Zirconni said.

  “Yeah, but can you sit there and tell me that there was no difference at all between Finney’s answers when you asked him about Kline and Hasaan, on one hand, or Hadji and Ando, on the other?”

  Zirconni pulled in a long breath and glanced at Bryce McCormack, apparently hoping for a bailout. When none came, Zirconni picked up his graphs, put on his reading glasses, and studied them again.

  “I’m not saying there was no difference,” Zirconni explained. “I’m just saying that Judge Finney denied he had reasonable doubts, and with respect to Ando and Hadji, the data is inconclusive. I can’t say he was lying.”

  “All right,” Murphy countered. “But that means you can’t say he was telling the truth, either. Am I right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Okay, now we’re getting someplace. With respect to Finney, why don’t we just show his response to those two questions on camera and let you explain how the heart rate and breathing increased a little, though the results were inconclusive.”

  Zirconni considered this. “I guess I could go that far. Just as long as I say the same thing about Hadji with regard to his answer when I asked him about Ando.”

  Murphy looked at Bryce, who shrugged his acquiescence. “Works for us,” Murphy said.

  After a few more minutes of discussion, Zirconni left the room.

  “Is that part of the ABF plan?” Bryce asked.

  “The what?” Murphy said.

  “The ABF plan—anybody but Finney.”

  Murphy scowled. “He was lying, Bryce, and you know it. He just knows how to beat the machine.”

  “Justice on Paradise Island,” Bryce said sarcastically.

  18

  On Tuesday night Nikki Moreno hosted her first Oliver Finney Victory Party. Well, she didn’t exactly host it herself. But she was the one who did the heavy lifting—passing out invitations, calling a local television station and the newspaper, and dropping major hints to lawyers thinking about not coming that the judge had a long memory when it came to these sorts of things.

  She rented out Norfolk’s Finest Sports Bar at the Waterside complex and gave the owner strict instructions to have every television tuned to Faith on Trial at exactly 9:00 p.m. She placed several donation containers at the front door (this was, after all, a religious ceremony of sorts) to offset the expenses. She made herself conspicuous next to the containers in the hour before the show started, just as the main crowd rolled in, pretending to take casual note of how much the patrons contributed to the worthy cause. It was amazing how many attorneys reached into their pockets and plunked in a twenty. The judges, of course, didn’t put in a dime.

  The crowd was loose by the time the show started, and they hollered like crazy when Finney’s face graced the screen during the show’s opening. After a commercial break, however, things became much more subdued as the Jewish advocate who had resigned in protest, a young rabbi named Samuel Demsky, recounted all the reasons the show was a bad idea.

  Faith is a private and serious matter, he argued, not something to be exploited for reality TV. When he first signed up, he explained, he thought the show was going to be much more respectful and deferential toward these sensitive religious matters. Now, he feared, the show would inflame religious passions and exploit the worst in human nature by pitting one faith against another. His people had suffered too much as a result of such passions for him to be a part of this production.

  He concluded by noting that many other religious leaders agreed with him. He mentioned a few leaders of the religious Right whose names Nikki had heard a time or two before, though she happened to know that other conservative Christian leaders thought the show was a wonderful idea and were already drumming up support for Finney. Rabbi Demsky concluded by noting that even the father of the executive producer of the show, Pastor Ronald Martin, had sent a letter of protest to the network.

  What a strange way to start a reality show, Nikki thought.

  The producer himself came on the screen next and said he regretted that Rabbi Demsky had withdrawn but that the show would go forward.

  “Enough already!” somebody yelled.

  “Bring back the judge!” somebody else shouted. And soon the entire place was again buzzing with anticipation.

  Things picked up as the show featured short highlight pieces on each of the contestants. Though nobody was quite sure what the etiquette was for an event like this, a show involving serious matters of faith, they started booing the other contestants anyway, as if it were a college football game.

  By the time the network cut to a commercial, right after the first few lines of Finney’s powerful opening statement, the crowd was totally into the show, chanting, “Fin-ney! Fin-ney!” It made Nikki proud to be an American.

  The same crowd started jeering and hissing a few moments later, not at Finney, but at the juror in the back row whom the camera caught dozing. “Throw her in jail, Judge!” somebody yelled. The camera zoomed back out, and Finney concluded his opening to thunderous barroom applause.

  The wisecrackers got going in earnest during the highlights from the Swami’s opening, though Nikki thought he was fairly compelling. Nobody that hot should also be that smart. You could barely hear the television as the audience heaped derision on both Kareem Hasaan and Dr. Victoria Kline, the women being especially critical of the atheistic scientist. This sports bar wasn’t usually quite so sanctimonious, but Finney was a hometown boy and that ought to count for something.

  But the crowd grew unusually quiet, Nikki noticed, during the opening statement by the Buddhist representative, whatever that guy’s name was. Even Finney seemed to be moved by it, according to the results of the lie detector test. The lie detector guru made a big deal about the fact that Finney’s heart rate and breathing increased when he was asked about Ando and Hadji.

  Nikki wasn’t completely shocked when the judge announced his verdict in favor of Ando, though she thought a small riot might break out at the sports pub. The plaintiffs’ lawyers in the crowd—the ones who made their livings accusing big corporations of fraud and negligence and conspiracies—were the first to suggest that the judging on the show might be rigged.

  The show ended with dialing instructions and some titillating peeks at what lay ahead. In the next few episodes, temptation and trauma would be coming to Paradise Island, and everyone would see whose faith could hold up to that. Thursday they would reveal the results from the viewers’ verdict for round on
e and another charity would be fifty thousand dollars richer. As soon as the credits rolled, cell phones popped up everywhere, the lawyers drinking with one hand and dialing with the other.

  Despite the judge’s verdict for Ando, Nikki thought the home team was off to a decent start. But it did worry her when it was easier to get through voting for the judge than it was when she voted for the Swami.

  The Patient turned off his television with mixed emotions. There were, on the one hand, a lot of things to like. He was more than pleased with the publicity the show had generated. The opening segment worked brilliantly, and he was sure that millions of people had tuned in just to see what all the fuss was about. The unanswered question, of course, was how many people had changed the channel after Rabbi Demsky’s remarks. He doubted that number was high.

  The production quality of the show had been superb. This was tricky business—a reality show involving the most volatile and sensitive issue known to the human race. It had to be entertaining (after all, this was television), but it also had to be handled with great respect. The show needed to gain credibility week after week, increasing its ratings, garnering positive reviews—basically, doing whatever it took to gain worldwide attention. They were a long way from where they needed to be, he thought, but they were off to a good start.

  His mind turned to the final episode; he considered all they would be putting on the line in that one short hour. He wanted to build to a huge audience—not easy to do in the middle of the summer. But still, that final episode deserved nothing less. Truth be known, he wanted it to be the most watched hour in the history of television. He was already sure it would be the most talked about.

  So, on the one hand, he was pleased with their progress. But on the other hand, that first show hadn’t helped him at all in his own dilemma. The doctors were still all gloom and doom, and they seemed to shorten his already-truncated life expectancy every time he saw them. Brain cancer. A cruel twist of fate for a man widely envied for his gray matter.