He knew exactly how to say it. He chose not to. At the plaintiff's table, Bradford Sinclair's two associates and a paralegal sat with the body language of men watching a dog do a trick. They snickered.
They whispered. When Ulisses stood to address the court, Sinclair physically turned his chair so that his back was to the defendant's table. He kept it there for nine minutes. From the gallery behind Eleanor, a man in a sport coat leaned forward and said, just loud enough to carry, “Where are this boy's parents?” Eleanor lowered her head and did not lift it again until the recess.
During the short break, Wakefield did not retreat to Chambers. Instead, he walked to the wooden railing near the front bench where a colleague named Bill Henderson was watching from the first row and spoke at a volume he knew would carry. I've seen a lot in thirty-four years on this bench, Bill. But a black kid in his uncle's suit defending his grandma.
That's a new one. Whole thing's going to be over by lunch. Soft laughter rippled through Sinclair's table. Eleanor went very still.
A single tear fell, hit the wooden cross in her palm, and stayed there. Behind the clerk's desk, court clerk Nathaniel Brooks, a black man in his early 60s, three years on the job, and 28 years in this courthouse before that, turned his face away. He did not laugh. He opened a small drawer beneath the bench.
He reached past the official log and pulled out a thin, well-worn notebook of his own. He wrote down the time. He wrote down the words exactly as Wakefield had said them. He wrote down the name of every person within earshot.
The page he was writing on was not page one. It was page 142. Ulisses heard everything. He did not turn his head.
He only pressed his fist against the underside of the table until his knuckles went white. When court resumed, Sinclair came out swinging. He produced a document. exhibit A and presented it to the bench with the satisfied air of a man laying down a winning card. It was titled land transfer agreement.
It claimed Eleanor Daniels had sold her family home to Hollister Heritage Holdings three years prior for $50,000, approximately one-twelfth of its actual market value. Eleanor stared at the document. Her hands trembled. “I don't remember signing this. I would remember.” Wakefield did not look at the paper. “Memory fades, ma'am. Documents don't.” He had decided before he sat down. Sinclair pressed his advantage.