September 26, 2011

Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter with its challenges, which I shall address in turn.

Mr. Esposito is a person much deficient in what my mother called "Zivil Courage", i.e. the courage of the civilian confronting authority as distinct from military courage for which one is awarded the Medal of Honor. My mother displayed much Zivil Courage in Germany, and I appear to have inherited from her a surfeit.  Probably on account of the language barrier, my mother's Zivil Courage withered after she arrived on these shores.

Mr. Esposito, an engineer of very limited talents who has survived by pleasing his clients, not finds himself uncomfortably in a very sharp conflict between Nantucket and myself. His instinct is to duck. Since he neither signed nor sealed my questionnaire, I can't use it except as a template for direct and cross examination.  Ordinarily I wouldn't be permitted to cross-examine a witness whom I had called to testify in my favor. Arguably if I ostensibly called him to testify why he had refused to sign I could cross- examine him on other issues. A further complication of which I must take note is that the Appeals Court traditionally defers to the trial court concerning issues of fact; and which the Appeals Court has been, and I hope will continue to be my friend, the trial court has been my enemy, and I must assume its attitude will not change. Therefore I will try to slant my case toward procedural issues - did Mr. Ciamataro comply with the Appeals Court order - rather than with factual issues - does the plumbing leak. The biggest danger for me is that if waterboarded, so to speak, Mr. Esposito would recant and testify that my plumbing was indeed very poor. A smart attorney would sense Mr. Esposito's timidity and try to exploit it. I have as yet no indication of Mr. Pucci's interrogation skills, but it's prudent to assume they are superior to mine. I surely have my work cut out for me.

Your second question it seems to me is more about the style than about the content of our correspondence. It's my conviction (as you might know from Chapter Seven

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