Sons of Fortune

“I’m not,” said Nat, “she’s a gentle, thoughtful, beautiful woman, who considers holding hands is one step away from promiscuity.” He paused. “So if it wasn’t to discuss my sex life, why did you call this high-powered breakfast meeting in the first place?”

Tom gave up on the eggs and pushed them to one side. “Before I return to Yale, I wanted to know if you’re going to run for president.” He waited for the usual barrage of count me out, not interested, you’ve got the wrong person, but Nat didn’t respond for some time.

“I discussed it with Su Ling last night,” he eventually said, “and in her usual disarming way, she told me that it was not so much that they wanted me, as they didn’t want Elliot. The lesser of two evils were her exact words, if I remember correctly.”

“I’m sure she’s right,” said Tom, “but that could change if you gave them a chance to get to know you. You’ve been pretty much of a recluse since you returned to college.”

“I’ve had a lot of catching up to do,” said Nat defensively.

“Well that’s no longer the case, as your grade point average clearly shows,” said Tom, “and now you’ve been selected to run for the university…”

“If you were at UConn, Tom, I wouldn’t hesitate to run for president, but while you’re at Yale…”

Fletcher rose from his place to face the jury—ninety-nine years was written on every one of their faces. If he could have turned the clock back and accepted the offer of three years, he would have done so without hesitation. Now he had been left with only one throw of the dice to try and give Mrs. Kirsten the rest of her life back. He touched his client’s shoulder, and turned to seek a reassuring smile from Annie, who had felt so strongly that he should defend this woman. The smile disappeared the moment he saw who was seated two rows behind her. Professor Karl Abrahams graced him with a nod. At least Jimmy would discover what it took to get a nod out of Homer.

“Members of the jury,” Fletcher began, a slight tremor in his voice. “You have listened to the persuasive advocacy of the attorney general as he poured venom on my client, so perhaps the time has come to show where that venom should have been directed. But first may I spend a moment talking about you. The press have made great play of the fact that I did not object to every white juror who was selected; indeed there are ten of you on this jury. They went further, and suggested that had I achieved an all-black jury with a majority of women, then Mrs. Kirsten would have been certain to walk free. But I didn’t want that. I chose each one of you for a different reason.” The jury members looked puzzled.

“Even the attorney general couldn’t work out why I didn’t object to some of

you,” added Fletcher, turning to face Mr. Stamp. “I crossed my fingers, because neither did any of his vast team fathom why I selected you. So what is it that you all have in common?” The attorney general was now looking just as puzzled as the jurors. Fletcher swung around and pointed to Mrs. Kirsten. “Like the defendant, every one of you has been married for more than nine years.” Fletcher turned his attention back to the jury. “No bachelors or spinsters who have never experienced married life, or what goes on between two people behind closed doors.” Fletcher spotted a woman in the second row who shuddered. He remembered Abrahams saying that in a jury of twelve, there is a strong possibility that one of them will have suffered the same experience as the defendant. He had just identified that juror.

“Which of you dreads the thought of your spouse returning home after midnight, drunk, with only violence in mind? For Mrs. Kirsten, this was something she had come to expect six nights out of seven, for the past nine years. Look at this frail and fragile woman and ask yourself what chance she would have up against a man of six foot two who weighed two hundred and thirty pounds?”

He focused his attention on the woman juror who had shuddered. “Which of you arrives home at night and expects their husband to grab the bread board, a cheese grater or even a steak knife for use not in the kitchen for preparing a meal, but in the bedroom to disfigure his wife? And what did Mrs. Kirsten have to call on for her defense, this five-foot-four, one-hundred-and-five-pound woman? A pillow? A towel? A flyswatter perhaps?” Fletcher paused. “It’s never crossed your mind, has it?” he added, facing the rest of the jurors. “Why? Because your husbands and wives are not evil. Ladies and gentlemen, how can you begin to understand what this woman was being subjected to, day in and day out?

“But not satisfied with such degradation, one night this thug returns home drunk, goes upstairs, drags his wife out of bed by her hair, back down the stairs and into the kitchen; he is bored with simply beating her black and blue.” Fletcher began to walk in the direction of his client. “He needs some other thrill to reach new heights of excitement, and what does Anita Kirsten see immediately when she’s dragged into the kitchen? The ring on the stove is already red hot, and waiting for its victim.” He swung back to face the jury. “Can you imagine what must have been going through her mind when she first saw that ring of fire? He grabs her hand like a piece of raw steak, and slams it down on the stove for fifteen seconds.”

Fletcher picked up Mrs. Kirsten’s scarred hand and held it up so that the palm was clearly visible to the jury, looked at his watch and counted to fifteen, before he added, “And then she fainted.

“Which of you can even imagine such horror, let alone be asked to endure it? So why did the attorney general demand ninety-nine years? Because, he told us, the killing was premeditated. It was, he assured us, most certainly not a crime of passion carried out by someone defending their life in a moment of rage.” Fletcher swung around to face the attorney general and said, “Of course it was premeditated and of course she knew exactly what she was doing. If you were five foot four, being attacked by a man of six foot two, would you rely on a knife, a gun, or some blunt instrument that this thug could so easily turn against you?” Fletcher turned and walked slowly toward the jury. “Which one of you would be that stupid? Which one of you, after what she had been through, wouldn’t plan it? Think of that poor woman when you next have a row with your spouse. After a few angry words have been exchanged, will you resort to putting the stove on to 350 degrees to prove you’ve won the argument?” He looked at the seven men on the jury one by one. “Does such a man deserve your sympathy?

“If this woman is guilty of murder, which one of you would not have done the same thing if you had been unfortunate enough to marry Alex Kirsten?” This time he turned his attention to the five women before he continued. “‘But I didn’t,’ I hear you cry. ‘I married a good and decent man.’ So now we can all agree on Mrs. Kirsten’s crime. She married an evil man.”

Fletcher leaned on the rail of the jury box. “I must beg the jury’s indulgence for my youthful passion, for passion it is. I chose to take this case as I feared justice would not be done for Mrs. Kirsten, and in my youth I hoped that twelve fair-minded citizens would see what I had seen and would be unable to condemn this woman to spend the rest of her life in jail.

“I must close my summation, by repeating to you the words Mrs. Kirsten said to me when we sat alone in her cell this morning. ‘Mr. Davenport, although I am only twenty-five, I would rather spend the rest of my life in jail than have to spend another night under the same roof as that evil man.’

“Thank God she does not have to return home to him tonight. It is in your power, as members of the jury, to send this woman home tonight to her loving children, with the hope that together they might rebuild their lives, because twelve decent people understood the difference between good and evil.” Fletcher lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “When you go home to your husbands and wives this evening, tell them what you did today in the name of justice, for I am confident if you bring in a verdict of Not Guilty, your spouses will not turn up the stove to 350 degrees because they don’t agree with you. Mrs. Kirsten has already suffered a nine-year sentence. Do you think she deserves another ninety?”

Fletcher returned to his seat, but did not turn around to look at Annie, for fear that Karl Abrahams would notice he was fighting back the tears.

19

“Hi, my name’s Nat Cartwright.”

“Not the Captain Cartwright?”

“Yes, the hero who killed all those Vietcong with his bare hands because he forgot to take any paper clips with him.”

“No,” said Su Ling in mock admiration. “Not the one who flew a helicopter alone across enemy-infested jungle when he didn’t have a pilot’s license?”

“And then killed so many of the enemy that they stopped counting them, while at the same time he rescued a whole platoon of stranded men.”

“And the people back home believed it, so he was decorated, given vast financial rewards and offered a hundred vestal virgins.”

“I only get four hundred dollars a month, and I’ve never met a vestal virgin.”

“Well, you have now,” said Su Ling with a smile.