The Runaway Jury (31 page)

Cristano’s handshake was cold. He didn’t make small talk.

“Say, Hoppy, would you mind if we had this little chat somewhere else?” Napier asked as he looked scornfully around the office.

“It’s just safer,” Nitchman added for clarification.

“You never know where bugs might show up,” Cristano said.

“Tell me about it,” Hoppy said, but no one caught
the humor. Was he in a position to say no to anything? “Sure,” he said.

They left in a spotless black Lincoln Town Car, Nitchman and Napier in the front, Hoppy in the back with Cristano, who matter-of-factly began to explain that he was some type of high-ranking Assistant Attorney General from deep inside Justice. The closer they got to the Gulf the more odious his position became. Then he was silent.

“Are you a Democrat or a Republican, Hoppy?” Cristano asked softly during one particularly long lull in the conversation. Napier turned at the shore and headed west along the Coast.

Hoppy surely didn’t want to offend anyone. “Oh, I don’t know. Always vote for the man, you know. I don’t get hung up on parties, know what I mean?”

Cristano looked away, out the window, as if this wasn’t what he wanted. “I was hoping you were a good Republican,” he said, still looking through the window at the sea.

Hoppy could be any damned thing these boys wanted. Absolutely anything. A card-carrying, wild-eyed, fanatical Communist, if it would please Mr. Cristano.

“Voted for Reagan and Bush,” he said proudly. “And Nixon. Even Goldwater.”

Cristano nodded ever so slightly, and Hoppy managed to exhale.

The car became silent again. Napier parked it at a dock near Bay St. Louis, forty minutes from Biloxi. Hoppy followed Cristano down a pier and onto a deserted sixty-foot charter boat named
Afternoon Delight
. Nitchman and Napier waited by the car, out of sight.

“Sit down, Hoppy,” Cristano said, pointing to a
foam-padded bench on the deck. Hoppy sat. The boat rocked ever so slightly. The water was still. Cristano sat across from him and leaned forward so that their heads were three feet apart.

“Nice boat,” Hoppy said, rubbing the imitation leather seat.

“It’s not ours. Listen, Hoppy, you’re not wired, are you?”

Instinctively, he bolted upright, shocked by the suggestion. “Of course not!”

“Sorry, but these things do happen. I guess I should frisk you.” Cristano looked him up and down quickly. Hoppy was horrified at the thought of being fondled by this stranger, alone on a boat.

“I swear I am not wired, okay,” Hoppy said, so firmly that he was proud of himself. Cristano’s face relaxed. “You wanna frisk me?” he asked. Hoppy glanced around to see if anyone was within view. Look sorta odd, wouldn’t it? Two grown men rubbing each other in broad daylight on an anchored boat?

“Are you wired?” Hoppy asked.

“No.”

“Swear?”

“I swear.”

“Good.” Hoppy was relieved and quite anxious to believe the man. The alternative was simply unthinkable.

Cristano smiled then abruptly frowned. He leaned in. The small talk was over. “I’ll be brief, Hoppy. We have a deal for you, a deal which will enable you to walk away from this without a scratch. Nothing. No arrest, no indictment, no trial, no prison. No face in the newspaper. In fact, Hoppy, no one will ever know.”

He paused to catch his breath, and Hoppy charged in. “So far so good. I’m listening.”

“It’s a bizarre deal, one we’ve never attempted. Has nothing to do with law and justice and punishment, nothing like that. It’s a political deal, Hoppy. Purely political. There’ll be no record of it in Washington. No one will ever know, except for me, you, those two guys waiting by the car, and less than ten people deep inside Justice. We cut the deal, you do your part, and everything is forgotten.”

“You got it. Just point me in the right direction.”

“Are you concerned about crime, drugs, law and order, Hoppy?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sick of graft and corruption?”

Odd question. At this very moment, Hoppy felt like the poster child for the campaign against corruption. “Yes!”

“There are good guys and bad guys in Washington, Hoppy. There are those of us at Justice who’ve devoted our lives to fighting crime. I mean serious crime, Hoppy. I mean drug payoffs to judges and congressmen who take money from foreign enemies, criminal activity that could threaten our democracy. Know what I mean?”

If Hoppy didn’t know for sure, then he certainly was sympathetic to Cristano and his fine friends in Washington. “Yes, yes,” he said, hanging on every word.

“But everything’s political these days, Hoppy. We’re constantly fighting with Congress and we’re fighting with the President. Do you know what we need in Washington, Hoppy?”

Whatever it was, Hoppy wanted them to have it.

Cristano didn’t give him the chance to answer.
“We need more Republicans, more good, conservative Republicans who’ll give us money and get out of our way. The Democrats are always meddling, always threatening budget cuts, restructuring, always concerned about the rights of these poor criminals we’re picking on. There’s a war raging up there, Hoppy. We fight it every day.”

He looked at Hoppy as if he should say something, but Hoppy was momentarily trying to adjust to the war. He nodded gravely, then looked at his feet.

“We have to protect our friends, Hoppy, and this is where you come in.”

“Okay.”

“Again, this is a strange deal. Take it, and our tape of you bribing Mr. Moke will be destroyed.”

“I’ll take the deal. Just tell me what it is.”

Cristano paused and looked up and down the pier. Some fishermen were making noises far away. He leaned closer and actually touched Hoppy on the knee. “It’s about your wife,” he said, almost under his breath, then reared back to let it sink in.

“My wife?”

“Yes. Your wife.”

“Millie?”

“That’s her.”

“What the hell—”

“I’ll explain.”

“Millie?” Hoppy was flabbergasted. What could sweet Millie have to do with a mess like this?

“It’s the trial, Hoppy,” Cristano said, and the first piece of the puzzle plunged roughly into place.

“Guess who contributes the most money to Republican congressional candidates?”

Hoppy was too stunned and confused to offer an intelligent guess.

“That’s right. The tobacco companies. They pour millions into races because they’re afraid of the FDA and they’re fed up with government regulations. They’re free-enterprise people, Hoppy, same as you. They believe people smoke because they choose to smoke, and they’re sick of the government and the trial lawyers trying to run them out of business.”

“It is political,” Hoppy said, staring at the Gulf in disbelief.

“Nothing but politics. If Big Tobacco loses this trial, then there will be an avalanche of litigation the likes of which this country has never seen. The companies will lose billions, and we’ll lose millions in Washington. Can you help us, Hoppy?”

Jolted back to reality, Hoppy could only manage, “Say what?”

“Can you help us?”

“Sure, I guess, but how?”

“Millie. You talk to your wife, make sure she understands how senseless and how dangerous this case is. She needs to take charge in that jury room, Hoppy. She needs to stand her ground against those liberals on the jury who might want to bring back a big verdict. Can you do it?”

“Of course I can.”

“But will you, Hoppy? We don’t want to use the tape, okay. You help us, and the tape goes down the toilet.”

Hoppy suddenly remembered the tape. “Yeah, you gotta deal. I’ll see her tonight, as a matter of fact.”

“Go to work on her. It’s terribly important—important for us at Justice, for the good of the country, and, of course, it’ll keep you outta prison for five
years.” Cristano delivered the last line with a horselaugh and a slap on the knee. Hoppy laughed too.

They talked about strategy for half an hour. The longer they sat on the boat, the more questions Hoppy had. What if Millie voted with the tobacco company but the rest of the jury disagreed and delivered a big verdict? What would happen to Hoppy then?

Cristano promised to hold his end of the deal regardless of the verdict, as long as Millie voted right.

Hoppy virtually skipped along the pier as they returned to the car. He was a new man when he saw Napier and Nitchman.

AFTER DELIBERATING on his decision for three days, Judge Harkin reversed himself late Saturday and decided the jurors would not be permitted to attend their churches Sunday. He was convinced all fourteen would suddenly possess an amazing desire to commune with the Holy Spirit, and the idea of them fanning out to all parts of the county was simply unworkable. He called his minister, who in turn made more calls, and a young divinity student was located. A chapel service was planned for eleven o’clock Sunday morning, in the Party Room at the Siesta Inn.

Judge Harkin sent a personal note to each juror. The notes were slid under their doors before they returned from New Orleans Saturday night.

Six people attended the service, a rather dull affair. Mrs. Gladys Card was there, in a surprisingly nasty mood for the Sabbath. She hadn’t missed Sunday School at the Calvary Baptist Church in sixteen years, the last absence caused by the death of her sister in Baton Rouge. Sixteen straight years without
a miss. She had the Perfect Attendance Pins lined up on her dresser. Esther Knoblach in the Women’s Mission Union had twenty-two years, the current record at Calvary, but she was seventy-nine and was afflicted with high blood pressure. Gladys was sixty-three, in fine health, and thus considered Esther catchable. She couldn’t admit this to anyone, but everyone at Calvary suspected it.

But now she’d blown it, thanks to Judge Harkin, a man she didn’t like from the start and now despised. And she didn’t like the divinity student either.

Rikki Coleman came in a jogging suit. Millie Dupree brought her Bible. Loreen Duke was a devout churchgoer, but was appalled at the brevity of the service. On at eleven and over by eleven-thirty, typical hurried style of white folks. She’d heard of such foolishness, but had never worshiped in such a manner. Her pastor never got to the pulpit before one, and often didn’t leave it until three, when they broke for lunch, which they ate on the grounds if the weather was nice, then trooped back inside for another dose. She nibbled on a sweet roll and suffered in silence.

Mr. and Mrs. Herman Grimes attended, not through any calling of faith but because the walls in Room 58 were closing in. Herman in particular had not voluntarily gone to church since childhood.

Throughout the course of the morning, it had come to be known that Phillip Savelle was angered at the notion of worship. He told someone he was an atheist, and this news had spread in a flash. To protest, he positioned himself on his bed, apparently nude or certainly close to it, folded and tucked his wiry legs and arms into some type of yoga drill, and
hollered chants at full volume. He did this with the door open.

He could be heard faintly in the Party Room, during the service, and this no doubt was a factor in the young divinity student’s rather hastened wrap-up and benediction.

Lou Dell marched down the first time to tell Savelle to shut up, but backed away quickly when she noticed Savelle’s nakedness. Willis tried next, but Savelle kept his eyes closed and his mouth open and simply ignored the deputy. Willis kept his distance.

The nonworshiping jurors hunkered down behind locked doors and watched loud televisions.

At two, the first relatives began to arrive with fresh clothing and supplies for the week. Nicholas Easter was the only juror with no close contact on the outside. It was determined by Judge Harkin that Willis would drive Easter in a squad car to his apartment.

The fire had been out for several hours. The trucks and firemen were long gone. The narrow front lawn and sidewalk in front of the building were strewn with charred debris and piles of soggy clothing. Neighbors milled about, stunned, but busily going about the cleanup.

“Which one’s yours?” Willis asked as he stopped the car and gaped at the burnt crater in the center of the building.

“Up there,” Nicholas said, trying to point and nod at the same time. His knees were weak as he left the car and walked to the first cluster of people, a family of Vietnamese who were mutely studying a melted plastic table lamp.

“When did this happen?” he asked. The air was
thick with the acrid smell of freshly burnt wood and paint and carpet. They said nothing.

“This morning, about eight,” answered a woman as she walked by with a heavy cardboard box. Nicholas looked at the people and realized he didn’t know a single name. In the small foyer, a busy lady with a clipboard was scribbling notes while talking on a cellphone. The main staircase to the second level was guarded by a private security guard who at the moment was helping an elderly woman drag a wet throw rug down the steps.

“Do you live here?” the woman asked when she finished her conversation.

“Yes. Easter, in 312.”

“Wow. Totally destroyed. That’s probably where it started.”

“I’d like to see it.”

The security guard led Nicholas and the woman up the steps to the second floor, where the damage was quite apparent. They stopped at a yellow caution tape at the edge of the crater. The fire had gone upward, through the plaster ceilings and cheap rafters, and had managed to burn two large holes in the roof, directly over the spot where his bedroom used to be, as far as he could tell. And it had burned downward, severely damaging the apartment directly under him. Nothing was left of number 312, except for the kitchen wall, where the sink hung by one end and seemed ready to fall. Nothing. No sign of the cheap furniture in the den, no sign of the den itself. Nothing from the bedroom except blackened walls.

And, to his horror, no computer.

Virtually all the floors, ceilings, and walls of the
apartment had vanished, leaving nothing but a gaping hole.

“Anybody hurt?” Nicholas asked softly.

“No. Were you home?” she asked.

“No. Who are you?”

“I’m with the management company. I have some forms for you to fill out.”