Fighting Chance(39)

Tibor did not turn to look at them. He stared straight ahead until he got to the defense table. A young, harried-looking man was sitting there. Gregor assumed he was from Legal Aid or the Public Defender’s Office. Tibor sat down next to him and shook his head.

“What’s that?” Bennis demanded.

“My guess is that Tibor is refusing the services of yet another attorney,” Gregor said.

“He turned me down yesterday,” George Edelson said.

“He should have Russ,” Donna said. “He’s always had Russ for everything. He’s got to know he can trust Russ no matter what’s going on.”

“He couldn’t trust Russ to plead him guilty to something he’s not guilty of,” Gregor said. “And he couldn’t trust Russ to hide anything that the court needs to know.”

“Do you think he’s going to plead guilty?” Bennis asked. “Do you think he’d really do something like that?”

“There isn’t a deal on the table,” George Edelson said. “And it’s a capital murder case.”

Lida Arkmanian blanched.

Gregor explained. “Most judges won’t let a defendant plead guilty to a capital murder charge if there isn’t a deal on the table to forgo the death penalty. You don’t want—”

The bailiff was suddenly at the front of the court, droning out a string of words and numbers that went by without Gregor being able to take them in.

Then the bailiff said, “All rise,” and everybody stood up.

The judge who walked in from behind the bench was an older man, tall and broad but also a little stooped. The bailiff announced him as “the Honorable Roger Maris Oldham presiding.”

The judge sat down. Everybody else sat down.

Bennis turned around and leaned as close to Gregor’s ear as she could get. “I know him,” she said. “He went to school with Bobby and Chris. Not that he could stand either of them, mind you, because he was Dudley Do-Right and they definitely weren’t.”

“He’s very fair,” George Edelson said.

The bailiff was glaring at them. He’d already read out a stream of numbers and case codes. Gregor gestured at Bennis frantically. He did not want them all removed from court.

Bennis turned forward again. Roger Maris Oldham leaned over the bench and asked, “Is that Mr. Hernandez? You’re appearing for the defendant?”

Mr. Hernandez stood up. “Excuse me, Your Honor. I don’t know that I am.”

The judge got a half-bemused, half-furious look on his face. “Well, Mr. Hernandez,” he said. “You were sitting at the defense table. You rose to talk to me from the defense table. On most occasions, those would be clear indications that you were speaking on behalf of the defendant.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I did come here this morning to speak on behalf of the defendant. But Mr.—Father Kasparian has indicated to me since I got here that he does not want me to appear on his behalf.”

The judge sat back. “I’ve been hearing about this all day yesterday,” he said, “but I wasn’t sure I believed it. Sit down, Mr. Hernandez. Father Kasparian, if you would please rise.”

Tibor stood up. Gregor spent a useless moment trying to gauge his mood. There didn’t appear to be any mood to gauge.

“Father Kasparian,” the judge said, “you are within your rights, of course, to serve as your own counsel, and to defend yourself. I will say that I find the idea of doing so in a capital case to be completely insane. You may be a very intelligent man. You may be justifiably convinced of your own innocence. But the law is not a game. There are no automatic do-overs if you get things wrong. And if you get things wrong in this matter, the consequences could be literally a matter of life or death. Do you still insist that you want to act as your own counsel?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Tibor said.

“Very well, then,” the judge said. “But I want to tell you something else. I have heard all about your behavior since your arrest yesterday, and I want you to understand, without ambiguity, that I will not stand for it here. This is an arraignment. It is not enough for you to stand on the Fifth Amendment here. Nobody is denying your right to refuse to incriminate yourself. Such right notwithstanding, you are required to enter a plea to this charge. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“The charge is one of capital murder, willful murder in the first degree. The State will contend that you did willfully and with malice aforethought bring about the death of the Honorable Martha Handling on the ninth of September in this year. Do you know what that means?”