The Right Kind of People

"What could you discern from what you saw? Did she appear ... what? Bored? Tired? Aroused?"

Now the judge cut his eyes at Resnick as if to ask him where he intended to take the line of questioning. But Preacher Pete enthusiastically waded in.

"I sensed that she was aroused, yes," he said, a smile beginning to form on his face.

"Why do you think that?"

"Well, I could see signs of ... wetness in her private area," the pastor said, clearly warming to the subject.

At the defense table, Evie buried her face in her hands out of abject embarrassment. In one of the chairs behind her, Troy cleared his throat and leaned forward as if ready to leap to his feet and ask for the whole inquiry to stop. Evie, however, knew something like this was coming because of her private attorney-client conference with Resnick two days earlier. Solly had reminded her that both she and her husband wanted him to play offense, and that he had his own score to settle with Redmond.

From behind the bench, however, the only other legal professional in the room, the judge, had recognized the slaughter pen Resnick was guiding his adversary into.

"So you could see that she was aroused. What did she do next?"

"She sat in the recliner, facing in the direction away from me, but I could see her arms moving back and forth like this (he made a back-and-forth massaging motion) and her hands were on her body somewhere ... touching herself. After a few minutes, her legs came off the lounger and her feet rested on the grass as she, you know ... opened herself up for more ... self-fornication," the pastor said, staring intently ahead as he reconstructed the scene carefully, almost lovingly, in his mind and described it. Solly could see a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip. His words were pouring out faster and his respiration rate was increasing.

"Amazing, Apostle Pete. How did it end?"

The pastor swallowed hard.

"It couldn't believe my eyes. She started a moaning and her body was shifting about and her hips were rolling and then there was this muffled groan or ... almost a growl and she stiffened up and ..." the pastor confessed, spilling his narrative with almost an obsession. He looked at Resnick and then at the judge. "She was totally surrendered to the demon of lust and lost in a dance with Satan."

"So you saw her climax?" Solly said.

Only now was it beginning to dawn on the pastor where the skillful jurist was leading him.

"I suppose. Again she had her back to me ..."

"Demon lust? A buck-naked tango with Lucifer himself? I can only imagine your level of revulsion, and horror at all you saw over a period of, what? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?" Resnick said, a mirthful glint now evident in his eye as he anticipated the knife he was about to twist in the poor pastor's ribs.

"Uh ... yes ... I was ... what you said. Horror. Offended."

"And how was it that you could see all of this through the dense shrubbery, a fence and 15-foot-tall flowering trees, Apostle Pete? You've testified that you were never in the defendant's backyard, so how were you able to watch this?"

This is where a lawyer would have stepped in on Redmond's behalf had the pastor not been so conceited as to believe his pulpit presence would translate into a court of law and that his grandiloquence would sway a judge and everyone else in the courtroom. Now, he was a lamb who had been meekly led to his own slaughter.

"I ... I'm not sure I should ...," the pastor, now timid, said.

"Your honor ...," Resnick said, appealing to the bench.

"Mr. Redmond, you have told this court in, uh ... vivid detail everything you watched Mrs. Meriwether do that morning and it is the basis of your complaint, so counsel for the defendant has every right to ask you how it is you witnessed what you saw. You are directed to answer the question," the judge said.

"So tell us, Apostle Pete, how was it that you were able to see what you saw in my client's private backyard, and you should know before answering that we've already discovered the answer," Resnick said, his eyes blazing at the shrinking parson now squirming in his chair.

"Fence. A crack in the fence," Redmond muttered. "There was a space between two boards and the shrubs on the other side hadn't grown completely together."

The court stenographer turned to the judge and shrugged.

"Mr. Redmond, you need to speak up so the court reporter can hear what you say," the judge said.

"I said there was a crack in the fence between two boards and the hedges on the other side were kind of sparse."

"How high off the ground is that crack, would you say?"

"About yay high," Pastor Pete said, holding one hand about two-and-a-half to three feet from the floor.

"Well, that couldn't have been very comfortable. Did you bend over at the waist for however long, 20 to 30 minutes? Did you kneel on your knees like .... you know, like you're praying to watch this whole, lurid, offensive show?"

Pastor Redmond sat with a defeated scowl on his face. His mouth was a tight, thin line expressing both humiliation and self-loathing — the lamentation of a phony now found out.

"Mr. Redmond, please answer the question," the judge prodded again.

"I knelt. On my knees," he said, then looked down at the table. "Ain't answerin' no more questions. Fine me, jail me, do whatever you need to," Redmond said, almost pouting.

Resnick and the judge looked at each other. Resnick shrugged. The judge nodded and rolled his finger in a circle, a move-this-along gesture.

"Your honor, as you've concluded, the statute requires that to sustain a guilty verdict on the offense of indecent exposure, the state or the petitioner must prove that the accused committed lewd, sexual acts in a public place or within public view," Resnick said. "Not only has the petitioner failed to meet that burden of proof, he hasn't even alleged it in his complaint. Therefore, we would ask for a summary judgment of not guilty."

"The court concurs and the motion is granted," the judge said.

"Further, your honor, what the petitioner has proved in his sworn testimony before this court just now is that he willfully invaded my client's privacy. Not only does he violate Mrs. Meriwether's Fourth Amendment rights, his behavior meets every element outlined in § 5-16-101 of the Arkansas Criminal Code."

"Your honor, Mr. Redmond, in his own words, has acknowledged that he secretly observed Mrs. Meriwether in a private area that she and her husband have spent thousands of dollars to keep out of public view, that she had every expectation of privacy that morning, and that she certainly never consented to her neighbor's surreptitious peeping, and the fact that the activity he observed occurred in daylight is not in any way relevant or exculpatory,"

The judge nodded and glanced at Redmond. His face was ashen as he sat helplessly at the table reserved for the complaining petitioner, only to have himself turned into the defendant.

"What's your motion, Mr. Resnick," the judge said.

"We would ask, your honor, that a copy of this transcript be sent to the District Attorney for Pulaski County to consider as a possible basis for investigating Mr. Redmond and possibly bringing charges against him under § 5-16-101," Resnick said.

The judge nodded, looked at the papers before him on the bench, looked at Redmond and said, "Normally, I'd ask if you would like to be heard on the motion, Mr. Redmond, but I think you've gotten to the point where you need to be given the opportunity to hire an attorney before I go any farther."

Redmond nodded.

"Mr. Resnick, the court takes your motion under advisement and will let you know. Mr. Redmond, I suggest you retain an attorney at your earliest opportunity and have him contact the court."

Looking nauseous, Redmond nodded again.

"If there's nothing more, judgment is entered in favor of the defendant and this matter is concluded. Mr. Redmond, it's the responsibility of the petitioners who do not prevail to pay court costs. You'll need to stop by the Local District Court Clerk's office, find out what the charges are and write a check before you go home," the judge said before tapping his gavel and rising from the bench for a 10-minute recess.

Troy and Evie embraced each other tightly. Then she hugged Solly Resnick, and Troy shook his hand.

"Can't thank you enough, Solly," Troy said.

By the time Solly had gathered all his papers from the table and put them back in his briefcast, Pastor Pete was just mustering the energy to leave.

"You really should have had a lawyer, Mr. Redmond," Resnick told him.

"Get away from me you filthy shyster," Redmond growled back.

"See, slurs like that are the reason I went for your throat today. Tell me, you remember what you said to Abe Hudin when you were trying to essentially steal his vacant discount store from him some years back?" Resnick said.

"Hudin? Not really. Didn't like him much. Didn't seem much interested in helping me spread the word of the Lord," Redmond said.

"Well maybe that's because you called him, and I quote, 'a filthy, greedy Jewboy.' I know that because my law partner at the time represented Abe, and Abe and I grew up in the same synagogue," Resnick said, his eyes blazing into Redmond's. "A 'filthy, greedy Jewboy.'"

"Well, he was and so are you," Redmond said.

Raskind smiled and chuckled to himself.

"Thank you, Mr. Redmond," Raskind said as he began to walk away.

"Thanks for what?" Pastor Pete replied.

"For allowing me to thoroughly enjoy the hell your life's about to become," Solly saod. "Now go hire yourself a lawyer. A good one. You'll need it."

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