Chap 5 A legal Matter

by Shin

 

 

 

 

They parked the car in the lot outside the prison. Matt alighted on the passenger side, carrying the case file of Yang.

Alex got out of the car and put on his jacket. He was two years older than Matt and slightly heavier. They had been partners for five years now and had an intuitive nose for each other's ways. It was a team spirit they had cultivated through the cases they worked on, as if each crime and criminal represented a passion that they shared, with a carefully crafted sense of detachment.

Yang's case had thrown them into an encounter with the furnace of the dammed. It caused them some anxiety despite their detachment.

When Matt mentioned Sara's suggestion about Yang, Alex had been enthusiastic but it waned slowly when they discussed the approach they would take on the interrogation. Matt brought a cool detached view of the situation, as if he was a surgeon discussing procedures. Alex seemed to be grappling with issues he did not bring out into the open and Matt was left feeling like a king of the hill where only fools would dare to tread.

It exposed Matt to a greater responsibility and it irked him. After five years he was starting to feel some pressure on their team spirit.

They passed through the outer gates and made their way to the holding cell block and then to the interrogation room.

Yang was brought in and handcuffed to the hook on the table. His lawyer joined them.

Matt stood by the wall while Alex began the session. He took out a picture of a Jesuit priest being tortured by the emperor's guards in 19th century Vietnam. It was a picture they took off the wall in Yang's room. Alex placed it in front of Yang.

“Relevance?” inquired the lawyer.

“We'll establish relevance,” replied Alex. Then he turned to Yang. “ Can you tell us why he was being tortured?”

Yang viewed the picture. A faint recollection met his eyes. He smiled and then turned to look at Alex.

“ His teaching was not suitable for us.”

“Why?”

Yang paused then replied.

 

“ He said you have to die and be born again.”

Alex raised his eyebrows and responded,

“Why would that be wrong?”

Yang clamped up and didn't seem to want to answer. He looked at his lawyer. Matt observed the manner that had arisen in Yang and found himself relating to it.

“ Because nobody would believe you,” he offered. His voice was warm.

“ Gentlemen,” his lawyer protested, but before he could go on, Alex cut in.

“You want to plead diminished capacity, we want to let you do that....and if we satisfy ourselves that its so, you sail through the court and onto an asylum. No hassle from us.”

The lawyer considered it, then turned to his client,

“ In your own words, Yang. Just say what it is.”

Yang turned to Alex.

“ Because the world is already perfect. We are all born perfect.”

Matt took over from Alex at the table.

“ What made it imperfect?” he asked.

He turned to his lawyer again who stayed motionless. He had the look of a person who was facing a catharsis. He seemed to bend to the will of the inevitable. He sighed deeply.

“ When your people came to war with us we thought we were going to die. But we won. You are the biggest army in the whole world and we won..... “

“ No more questions gentlemen,” his lawyer interrupted.

Alex tried to protest but Matt held him back.

“ I got it,” he whispered to Alex.

The guard led Yang away. The lawyer looked at them suspiciously. Then he asked,

“ Have you made a determination?”

“ He was brought here by his cousin's family. This is a nation his people defeated. He's not doing well in college, his grades are weak and he figures he is losing face to a people he had defeated. He quarrels with his cousin about coming here. They joke about it. Manslaughter not amounting to murder.”

“You have to prove it,” the lawyer replied.

“ On the stand counselor, in court,” Matt replied.

On the way to the parking lot, Alex went over the event out loud.

“ The kid must have thought he owned the world. So he bashes his cousin, the brother interferes and he bashes the brother. Now he has nowhere to go. He comes out of the room, sees the father and kaboom, mother kaboom. Then he feels sorry for the life of little sister because she has no idea what's in store in the future...kaboom.”

They walked out of the prison and to the car, two men united by the passions they encounter in their work. A shared view of humanity to which only they hold the key to its understanding. Where one of them faces a tragedy, the other will lose all sense of understanding he held of the world. One man's truth is reflected by another.

Reviews

[Marie]

Good way of describing Yabg. By what he says (and not too much of that) not by what he seems to be.