Paul Madriani: The Jury Part 24

thirteen.

crone is waiting for us at the jail. Harry called ahead to make sure the guards would deliver him to one of the attorney-client consulting cubicles over the dayroom where "the Professor" has been pumping iron and putting miles on the treadmill while we've been in court.

The news that Epperson served as a source of information for Kalista's mother hit us out of the blue. Harry has tried and gotten nowhere with Epperson. Now we are faced with the prospect of hostile testimony, what we have feared from the former basketball star from the inception.

"What did Crone say when you gave him the news?"

"If he was surprised, he didn't voice it," says Harry.

"You think he knew?"

"If he didn't, he's the coolest character since James Dean. Didn't seem to phase him in the least. Said he had absolute confidence in us." Harry looks at me with a crooked grin.

"Maybe he didn't know what else to say."

"He could have shown a little fear," says Harry. "That would be a nice change."

"So the man's got ice in his veins."

"He's a f.u.c.king snow cone. Which leaves us right where we started. Kalista Jordan being dead, anything she told her mother we can keep out. That's hearsay," says Harry. "But Epperson's another matter. He's alive and available. If Tannery puts him up on the stand and Epperson testifies that Crone was mixing some genetic stew with the entrails of wombats to come up with a new formula for African IQ, our closing argument is gonna resonate like the n.a.z.i national anthem. It wouldn't be a long leap for the jury to conclude that Kalista was killed because Crone found out she was about to go public on some hair-raising racial experiments. You're going to find yourself defending the angel of death," he tells me.

"That doesn't make sense," I say. "Why would he hire her in the first place if he was working on something that was racially charged? Why take the chance?"

"Who's he going to hire?" says Harry. "There's not a lot of skinheads running around with Ph.D.s in whatever it was."

"Molecular electronics," I tell him.

"Whatever. Crone needed qualified researchers to get funding. And the presence of a minority or two didn't hurt. He knew how to play the game. Maybe he didn't have a choice. You have to remember Crone had to get the funding, the corporate grant, from that company."

"Cybergenomics."

"That's the one. If he had to take Epperson to obtain a research grant, it could be he was induced to hire Kalista Jordan for the same reason. They knew each other before they went to work there. Epperson was still with the company when Kalista was hired. He didn't come on board at the center until after," says Harry. "What if they were working together to get information on Crone? If Kalista's mother is telling the truth and she fired up her daughter with tales of activism from the days of yore, the daughter could have gone to Epperson, enlisted his help."

"And you think they were out to set him up?"

"If the mother is to be believed. And if Epperson comes through for him on the stand, Tannery's got a good chance of selling it to the jury."

I think about this for a moment. "There's something wrong, which doesn't fit."

"What is it?" says Harry.

"Why would a corporation like Cybergenomics touch anything like that? I mean if Crone was engaged in research with a social and political downside why would they get involved, sully their corporate image? I can't imagine there would be that much money involved in it."

Harry mulls this over for a moment, deep in thought as we walk through the courthouse lobby. "What if . . ." He's thinking out loud. "What if their funding was for something else? What if Crone was working on the racial stuff on the side? Something the company didn't know about? If news of it got out, think what would happen to his funding."

"Dry up overnight," I say.

"It could be worse than that," says Harry. "If Crone was diverting funds for something else, playing hide-and-seek with grant money, you're talking some nasty criminal s.h.i.t. Now there's something to kill for."

Harry and I suffer the same thought instantly. We utter the words in unison: "A financial audit."

We turn to look at each other, stopped dead in our tracks. Anybody watching us from the top of the escalator, looking down, might half expect by body language alone to see some luminescent green light flicker on behind our eyes.

"Was there one?" I ask.

"I don't know."

Then I remember I had some of the doc.u.ments, working papers on the early grant request for the Huntington's study on the children.

"That would give us something to start with. The project number and the name they used for the princ.i.p.al research. It was on the grant request."

"What do we know about the funding?" I ask Harry.

"Squat," he says. Suddenly the sickening thought: We've been looking in all the wrong places.

I think maybe I might have filed the grant request in one of the cabinets back in the office, but then I realize where I left them. They were copies only, and when we finished with them I left them with Doris Boyd.

I tell Harry I'll call her in the morning. He can stop by and pick them up. "That'll give you a start, anyway. Tell us where to begin looking."

"If that's it," says Harry, "Crone would be under a legal hammer."

"Like a moth under a mallet."

"He could have been personally liable for the funds," says Harry.

"That's if they were feeling charitable. Didn't nail him criminally for diversion, embezzlement," I say.

"That wouldn't look too good on his resume next time he goes out fund hunting. And it's tough to get a grant when you're in the joint," says Harry. Though I suspect Harry has known a few clients who have done it.

"You think this is what Jordan and Epperson were doing, chasing the money trail?"

"I don't know." Harry doesn't want to think about it. "Maybe we're just worried about nothing," he says. "I mean, we can't connect all the dots."

"Let's just hope Tannery can't. I don't need any more surprises. Find out everything you can about any audits. Track the trail of the grant money, especially anything coming in from Cybergenomics."

Harry makes notes as we walk, then clicks the top of his pen and sticks it back in his vest pocket. "If there's anything there, I hope you have an answer for them."

"Me?" I look at him as we stride across the lobby. I'm half a step behind.

"You're the one Crone has all this confidence in," he says.

"What about you? You're the one who's dreaming up all this s.h.i.t to worry about."

"That's probably why he doesn't have any confidence in me." Harry smiles.

Walking fast, we're at a near jog, down the front steps of the courthouse and around the corner toward the jail. Harry is out front, the two of us angling toward the curb. It's like one of those surreal dreams. I'm listening to Harry talk, but my brain isn't in it, as the tumblers of recognition turn, clicking into place.

It is almost by us before I realize. The driver could have turned around in the middle of the block, pulled a U-y, but he was already committed; it would have been too obvious. The best he can do is lift an elbow to shade his face as he glides past, headed for the larger herd of vehicles on Broadway. The elbow up was a good effort, except that I have seen the move too many times on the basketball court, and it's hard to be inconspicuous when you're seven feet two.

"You see that?" I say.

"What?" Harry looks up, at me, then at the sky-it's a bird . . . it's a plane.

"The car," I tell him. "That van."

By the time he turns, the vehicle is at the corner sixty yards away.

"I didn't see it."

"Epperson was behind the wheel."

Harry gives me a dull look, then finally stops to turn and get a fix. "What do you think he's doing down here? A long way from work. And he's excluded from the courtroom."

"Yeah. I know." But what is most troubling to me is the vehicle itself, the dark blue van with a sizeable dent in the left front fender, its parking light smashed on that side: the same van that was parked in front of my house last night.

By the time we get to the jail, Crone is waiting, and Harry and I are in no mood for games. We are positioned on the other side of the thick gla.s.s that separates us from the jail holding area. Though we can hear every word and see each gesture, we can't touch Crone, and Harry at this moment is ready to. There are no smiles from either side of the gla.s.s.

Crone is the picture of concern, as anxious as I have seen him from the start of the trial, though this isn't saying much. What we are getting is mostly denials.

"I don't know what she's talking about. I had a lot of students over the years. I can't remember them all."

"She remembers you," says Harry.

"I probably gave her a bad grade."

Harry and I have decided not to mention Cybergenomics or questions regarding the grant until we know more. We confine ourselves to Epperson and Tanya Jordan's testimony.

"The fact is, Bill and I had a good working relationship," says Crone. "We got on well. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about him."

"Let's hope the feeling is mutual," I say, "when they put him on the stand."

"From what we're hearing, I doubt it," says Harry.

"There's nothing that I know of. Believe me."

"Where have we heard that before?" Harry is starting to get short with Crone. "We're not interested in stories about collegial working relationships or academic mutual respect. What we want to know is whether you were working on anything with a racial edge."

Crone looks at him over the top of his gla.s.ses. "We're back to that."

"We've never left that," says Harry. "Apparently this good working relationship you had with Dr. Epperson included his disclosure of information to Kalista Jordan's mother that involved some-how do I say it?-'socially divisive issues.' "

Crone looks at him from beyond the gla.s.s.

"Racial genetics," says Harry. "And we're not talking a cure for sickle-cell anemia. Tell us about this racial graying."

Crone shakes his head. "There was a misunderstanding back then."

"Back when?" says Harry.

"When I was at Michigan."

"We're not talking about Michigan. We're talking about now."

Crone actually looks mystified, as if he doesn't understand. "What is she saying, that I'm doing it now?"

"That seems to be what she's saying, and according to her, Epperson is prepared to substantiate it on the stand."

"No," says Crone. His eyes suddenly flash toward me. "Paul, you have to believe me. I don't know what the woman is talking about." He has both palms laid flat on the countertop in front of him, leaning toward the acrylic part.i.tion, staring intently into my eyes as if to emphasize the truth he is telling.

"Tell us about racial graying," says Harry. He's not about to be put off.

Crone is a bundle of frustration. Eyes darting, looking at everything but us. "Where do I start?"

"Try the beginning," says Harry.

"Fine. Let's go back to the beginning, back to the Middle Ages when there were dynastic wars, when armies fought under the banner of Christendom to blot religious differences from the map. They butchered in the name of G.o.d: a higher calling than what we are about to engage in if we continue heading in the direction we're drifting."

Suddenly his eyes are on us, cutting through me like twin lasers. "Do you have any idea how many people over the ages have lost their lives as a result of religious strife?"

No answer.

"You're wondering what this has to do with genetics?"

"It crossed my mind," says Harry.

"The sectarian wars of religion were merciful compared with the racial and ethnic conflicts that will engulf man if we don't deal with them now. People could convert to new religions if presented with the sharp blade of a sword or the heat of the flames as an alternative. But how do you change the pigmentation of your skin, the shape of your nose, the texture of your hair?

"We are already engaged in the new Inquisition; if you don't believe me, just look at the racial composition of our prisons. We are headed for the new Crusades and if you don't buy that, witness what is happening in the Balkans.

"You know," he says, "the great thinkers, the masters of intellect from the earliest writings, lectured on the equality of the species since long before Christ and yet we have lived through eons of slavery.

"Here in the Land of the Free it took seventy-five years, a Civil War and six hundred thousand dead before the preamble of Jefferson's declaration became fact: that all men are created equal. And still there are those who don't accept it.

"Yes, that's what I was working on. Back in Michigan. I admit it." He looks at Harry.

"You don't get it?"

There is only the sound of silence from our side of the gla.s.s. Harry and I are now confronted with the thought, How do we put Crone on the stand to talk about this?