False Testimony by Rose Connors Read Free Book Online

defense table, his expression blank. He settles into the seat next to mine—the one farthest from the bench—without looking at me. “Get rid of the cat-licks,” he says matter-of-factly.
    It takes a moment for me to get it. “We don’t know their religions,” I tell him. “The jury questionnaire doesn’t ask that.”
    He snorts and the familiar sneer resurfaces. “What?” he says, his voice low. “You don’t know one when you see one?”
    “I guess not.”
    He shakes his head at my incompetence. “That lady there”—he twists in his chair toward the benches behind us and the sneer evaporates again—“on the end, front row. She look like a cat-lick to you?”
    “She looks Italian,” I answer.
    He faces front and plants both hands on the table, resting his case. “You ever knowed a guinea what ain’t a cat-lick?”
    I lean back against the worn leather of the high-backed chair and close my eyes. Some conversations aren’t worth finishing.
    Harry arrives, pulls out the chair on the other side of mine, and hoists his bulging schoolbag onto the defense table. He doesn’t sit, though. “What’s up?” he asks, snapping open the bag’s metal clasp.
    “We were discussing the finer points of jury selection,” I tell him.
    He glances sideways at me as he unpacks, then blinks twice when he takes in our client’s new persona.
    “So what’s the plan here?” Holliston says from my other side. “You people got a plan or you just wingin’ it?”
    Harry laughs and tosses the pleadings file, a blank legal pad, and a few pens on the table. He says nothing.
    “Judge Gould likes to complete jury selection the first morning,” I tell our client. “And he usually does. It’ll be a late lunch break, though.”
    Holliston purses his lips; he seems not to approve of late lunches.
    “After that,” I continue, “the prosecuting attorney will deliver her opening statement. If there’s time, Harry will deliver his before we wrap up for the day.”
    “And if there ain’t time?”
    I shrug. “Then he’ll do it tomorrow morning. Either way, he’ll open. Don’t worry.”
    “Oh, I’m worried,” Holliston says, staring up at Harry. “I got good reason to worry.”
    Harry doesn’t let on he hears. He walks away from us, delivers a short stack of documents to Geraldine, another to the courtroom clerk. Judge Gould emerges from chambers as Harry returns to our table. Billy “Big Red” O’Reilly tells us to rise.
    “What the hell is that?” Holliston mutters, his eyes on Big Red.
    “He’s the bailiff,” I whisper back. Holliston knows a fair number of the courthouse players, no doubt, but he’s probably never laid eyes on O’Reilly. Big Red is the seniormost bailiff in the county complex and, as he’s fond of reminding those with less seniority, he doesn’t work kiddie court. It’s dress rehearsal.
    “We need a new one,” Holliston informs me as the judge sits and tells everyone in the room to do likewise.
    “A new what?” The words escape before I can stop them. I’m a little slow on the uptake this morning, but I don’t really need an answer to that question.
    I get one anyhow. “A new bailiff,” Holliston says. “I don’t want no mick hangin’ around my jury.”
    I turn in my chair so I can look him in the eyes. “Funny thing. You don’t get to choose your bailiff. The Bill of Rights doesn’t stretch that far.” He opens his mouth to argue, but I beat him to the punch. “Shut up,” I tell him. “A trial’s about to start here.”
    Oddly enough, he obeys.
    Judge Gould has already welcomed the sixty citizens seated in the gallery. He thanks them for their willingness to serve, then gestures to those of us seated at the tables. All four lawyers stand and face the back of the courtroom. After a signal from me, Holliston does too. Sans sneer.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge says, “before we get started, I’d like all of you to look at the lawyers and the defendant involved