left, they told you it was because of things he had done with your sister?’ He did not answer, he just nodded. ‘What you’d really like, more than anything, is for everyone to be back together, and for everything to be like it was, isn’t that right?’
“He raised his head high enough to see me. ‘Yes.’
” ‘Is that the reason you said these things about your mother, because if there wasn’t any difference between them, if everyone thought they had both done the same thing, your father could come home again?’
“I thought for a moment he was going to answer. I think he wanted to. But things had gone too far, and whether because he thought it would be a betrayal of his father, or the simple fear of what might happen to him if he did, he could not bring himself to admit the lie.”
Four
_______
Why didn’t it end right there?” Asa Bartram inquired. Meditating on his own question, he furrowed his brow, a troubled look in his pale blue eyes. “You must have made the motion.
It’s almost always denied, but still, in a case like that, after what the boy said …” His voice trailed off as another thought came to mind. “Calvin denied it, didn’t he? But why?” An instant after he asked, his eyes flashed and he began to nod his head. “He thought there was still a chance you could lose, didn’t he?”
Asa knew his old friend well, and he was right. The boy could have admitted on the stand he had made the whole thing up and Jeffries would still have denied a motion for acquittal at the end of the prosecution’s case. But that was not what happened.
“I didn’t make the motion,” I admitted.
Asa thought I was making a joke. “Everybody makes that motion. You have to make that motion.”
“Ineffective assistance of counsel,” Jonah Micronitis observed, as if he had actually spent time in a courtroom.
Harper Bryce was laughing to himself. “And then the defendant—if she lost—would get a new trial.”
With a blank expression, Micronitis stared at Bryce and then looked at Asa for an explanation.
Asa appraised me with a shrewd eye. “Is that the reason you didn’t make the motion?”
I wanted to say that it was, but at the time I was not thinking that far ahead. The only thought in my mind then was simple defiance.
“As soon as the prosecution rested its case, I was on my feet, calling the first witness for the defense.
” ‘Mr. Antonelli,’ Jeffries interjected. ‘Isn’t there something you wish to take up with the court first?’
“It had become a war between us, and I was not about to give him the satisfaction of ruling against me again. ‘No, your honor, there is not,’ I replied. At that moment, all I could think about was getting Janet Larkin onto the witness stand. She had waited a long time for the chance to reply directly to the awful things that had been said about her and the terrible thing she was accused of doing. She deserved to have it.
“That was the only thing I knew I could do for her, give her that chance. Even after all these years, I don’t think I ever had a case where anyone was put in a worse position. In a lot of ways, it is easier to be convicted of something than just accused of it.
If the truth be told, it was easier to be Edward Larkin than Janet Larkin. He did something, he admitted it, and it became a tangible fact, something to be dealt with, something that gave a sort of definition to everything else. She was accused, and there was nothing she could do. She was helpless, impotent. Guilt clings to no one the way it does to the innocent. Imagine the shock of it. If you did something, something wrong, and you are caught, there is no surprise when you hear yourself accused. But when you did not do it, when you never would have thought about doing it, it eats you alive. You feel guilty. You think everyone who looks at you, everyone you pass on the street, is thinking of nothing else but this thing you supposedly did. The whole world is
“He raised his head high enough to see me. ‘Yes.’
” ‘Is that the reason you said these things about your mother, because if there wasn’t any difference between them, if everyone thought they had both done the same thing, your father could come home again?’
“I thought for a moment he was going to answer. I think he wanted to. But things had gone too far, and whether because he thought it would be a betrayal of his father, or the simple fear of what might happen to him if he did, he could not bring himself to admit the lie.”
Four
_______
Why didn’t it end right there?” Asa Bartram inquired. Meditating on his own question, he furrowed his brow, a troubled look in his pale blue eyes. “You must have made the motion.
It’s almost always denied, but still, in a case like that, after what the boy said …” His voice trailed off as another thought came to mind. “Calvin denied it, didn’t he? But why?” An instant after he asked, his eyes flashed and he began to nod his head. “He thought there was still a chance you could lose, didn’t he?”
Asa knew his old friend well, and he was right. The boy could have admitted on the stand he had made the whole thing up and Jeffries would still have denied a motion for acquittal at the end of the prosecution’s case. But that was not what happened.
“I didn’t make the motion,” I admitted.
Asa thought I was making a joke. “Everybody makes that motion. You have to make that motion.”
“Ineffective assistance of counsel,” Jonah Micronitis observed, as if he had actually spent time in a courtroom.
Harper Bryce was laughing to himself. “And then the defendant—if she lost—would get a new trial.”
With a blank expression, Micronitis stared at Bryce and then looked at Asa for an explanation.
Asa appraised me with a shrewd eye. “Is that the reason you didn’t make the motion?”
I wanted to say that it was, but at the time I was not thinking that far ahead. The only thought in my mind then was simple defiance.
“As soon as the prosecution rested its case, I was on my feet, calling the first witness for the defense.
” ‘Mr. Antonelli,’ Jeffries interjected. ‘Isn’t there something you wish to take up with the court first?’
“It had become a war between us, and I was not about to give him the satisfaction of ruling against me again. ‘No, your honor, there is not,’ I replied. At that moment, all I could think about was getting Janet Larkin onto the witness stand. She had waited a long time for the chance to reply directly to the awful things that had been said about her and the terrible thing she was accused of doing. She deserved to have it.
“That was the only thing I knew I could do for her, give her that chance. Even after all these years, I don’t think I ever had a case where anyone was put in a worse position. In a lot of ways, it is easier to be convicted of something than just accused of it.
If the truth be told, it was easier to be Edward Larkin than Janet Larkin. He did something, he admitted it, and it became a tangible fact, something to be dealt with, something that gave a sort of definition to everything else. She was accused, and there was nothing she could do. She was helpless, impotent. Guilt clings to no one the way it does to the innocent. Imagine the shock of it. If you did something, something wrong, and you are caught, there is no surprise when you hear yourself accused. But when you did not do it, when you never would have thought about doing it, it eats you alive. You feel guilty. You think everyone who looks at you, everyone you pass on the street, is thinking of nothing else but this thing you supposedly did. The whole world is
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