Critical Reaction (35 page)

“Do you recognize this document, Mr. Christensen?”

Taylor smoothed his moustache with his spare hand as he stared at the page for a few long seconds. Then he looked up at Emily with glassy eyes.

“No, ma’am. I’ve never seen this paper before.”

“Why’s he lying?” Kieran was almost shouting. “I still work with Taylor out there. I can’t believe he’d lie like this.”

“Keep it down,” Ryan commanded. After Taylor Christensen’s testimony, all they needed now was for a juror to hear Kieran proving he had the temper Taylor painted him with on the stand.

Emily looked stricken. “I’m sorry, Dad. I should’ve stopped asking about the confrontation with Whalen, but every word from Taylor got worse and I kept thinking I could make it better.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan said. “Covington got to him. You said he was under stress when you saw him.”

Taylor’s turn on the argument issue was bad enough. But his failure to identify the key vat room document was far worse. Without Taylor’s identification, that paper would not make it into evidence.

This was a body blow. He’d seen it in the eyes of the jurors—even those in Kieran’s corner. Now they saw Kieran as a potential hot head with an attitude and an agenda. And a cornerstone of Trân’s testimony was gone.

Down the hall and around the corner, Ryan could hear the court clerk calling everyone back into the courtroom.

“It’s not your fault, Emily. They got to the man,” Ryan said with as much assurance as he could manage. “We’ll sort it out
tonight. Now let’s get back and see what this Patrick Martin has to say.”

Poppy shifted in his seat in the witness box. This place looked as big as a paneled basketball court, he thought, with every player and spectator staring at him. That included the judge, sitting in her seat in the skybox to his left.

The lawyer at the podium had introduced himself as Ryan Hart, Kieran Mullaney’s attorney. The boy was seated at the attorney table, beside the girl he’d seen that day at the boy’s house. He could tell Kieran remembered him. Now Hart was launching into questions while the girl at the table beside the Mullaney kid took notes.

The Covington lawyer at the other table made an immediate objection to him testifying. Something about not being on a witness list. The judge brushed it off quickly and they rolled on.

The first twenty minutes were all background questions. Poppy felt so nervous he almost forgot his home address. Then Hart asked about his education. His stint in the navy. His work history at Hanford.

A bird came to rest on the courtroom window ledge directly in Poppy’s sight. It was a thrush, with spots and orange coloring on its wings. It perched there only for a moment, its head twitching about, then flew away.

It was going to start now, Poppy thought. The real questions were coming. Poppy had the overpowering urge to follow the bird off the ledge.

“Were you on the roof of LB5 the night of the explosion last fall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you recall that night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Martin,” Kieran’s attorney was asking, “why don’t you just describe what you saw on the roof that night?”

Pause. “What do you mean?”

The lawyer smiled slightly. “Okay, let’s break it down. What’s the first thing you noticed about the explosion?”

“It knocked me down.”

“Where were you?”

“I was in the guard shack on the roof.”

“What did you do after you were knocked down?”

“After the roof stopped shaking, I got up and went outside.”

“How many explosions do you recall?”

Pause. “Three.”

“Which one was the most powerful?”

He paused. “I think the last one. Or the last two.”

“What did you see on the roof?”

“I saw . . . smoke.”

The lawyer seemed to grow more interested. “What kind of smoke?”

Poppy described it briefly. Hart followed up, making Poppy describe the plume—it’s color and movement and source. Then a description of what he remembered about the HVAC workers on the path west of LB5. The lights going out. His own exposure to the plume.

Still, no question forced him to reveal Lewis—or the shot he’d fired. Or the man Lew said came out of the building that night.

The lawyer asked if Poppy had ever been to the vat room where the first explosion originated. Poppy told him no. The lower levels of LB5? No. Did he know what caused the explosion? No.

Maybe it was the tension, or maybe it was just because he’d had a reprieve from the cough for several hours, but Poppy could feel the congestion growing in his lungs.

Hart seemed to be losing interest. Poppy watched as the girl walked up to the podium and handed him a note. Hart looked at it, then back to Poppy.

The lawyer asked Poppy if he was alone on the roof that night. No, he answered. That seemed to interest Hart, and he made some notes. Who was the other guard? Lewis Vandervork, Poppy replied. Did he still work with Mr. Vandervork? No. Did he know where he was? No, Poppy answered truthfully. He’d been told Lewis had transferred to Savannah River.

The lawyer was shuffling his notes as though he was about to go to another subject.

“Mr. Martin, before we move on,” he said, “other than what you’ve already testified to, did you observe anything else on the roof that evening that was in any way related to the explosion?”

He’d been holding it back, but now Poppy felt his lungs spasming. A sudden coughing fit doubled him over in his chair. Through watered eyes, he saw the other lawyer—the Covington one—push back like he was contagious. The girl with Kieran ran around the table and handed Ryan Hart a glass of water that he brought up to Poppy.

The fits eased. Poppy took the glass with a gasped “Thanks” and swallowed. He ran a sleeve across his eyes, then sat up once again.

“Are you okay?” Hart asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want a break?”

Poppy hesitated, clearing his throat once more. “No,” he said softly.

“Alright. Court reporter, please read back the last question.”

“‘Mr. Martin,’” she read in a monotone, “‘other than what you’ve already testified to, did you observe anything else on the roof that evening that was in any way related to the explosion?’”

Silence. The bird came back onto the ledge.

“Mr. Martin,” the lawyer said. “Would you like me to repeat the question once more?”

“No. I heard you.” An image of the buried crows filled Poppy’s head; then the hotel room where the psychologist had cornered
him the past weeks. Suzy’s hug as he went out the door each day—including the long one he’d gotten this morning.

“Lewis shot a man that night from the roof,” Poppy said to the lawyer at the podium, “a man who shouldn’t have been there. Then Lewis disappeared. They made him disappear. Now I think they’re coming for me.”

Poppy’d never been in a courtroom before today, but he knew he must have crossed some line here. He could see it in the blank faces around him, the sudden rustle of the people in the jury box across the room. And in the wide eyes of the lawyer at the Covington table, who was rising to his feet about to shout.

And then, as if it all weren’t unreal enough, there was Janniston, the psychologist, coming through the courtroom doors like he was on fire, rushing something in his hand up to the lawyers at the Covington table.

Everything was foreign to Poppy now, and he suddenly didn’t care a lick what the rules might be in this place. So he said it—the next words coming out of his mouth intended just for Ryan Hart, the lawyer at the podium. Except as he said it, he knew that Hart couldn’t possibly hear him over the shouts from the other guy—the Covington lawyer who was now on his feet waving the papers he’d just got from Janniston, waving them toward the judge on Poppy’s left.

“I want a lawyer,” Poppy tried to say to Hart. “Will you represent me?”

Ryan saw the place exploding. Still standing at the podium, he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard from this graying, worried-looking security guard on the witness stand.

Eric King was shouting an objection and waving some papers at the judge that a skinny, tired-looking man had just pushed into his hands. King was shouting an objection about Patrick
Martin lacking foundation for the testimony he’d just given, or was about to give, and lacking capacity to testify.

Judge Johnston was banging her gavel so hard it hurt Ryan’s ears. Then Johnston was calling for the bailiff to get the jury out of the room.

Through the chaos, Ryan looked to this sixty-three-year-old Patrick Martin on the witness stand who’d just given Kieran Mullaney’s case a sliver of light.

As he looked, the security guard mouthed some words. He could only make out the last four. They were,
Will you represent me?
And now the man was staring back at Ryan, waiting for an answer.

Through the chaos that was only starting to settle down, Ryan gave the man a nod.

CHAPTER 38

“This witness is
incompetent
to testify,” King was bellowing, pointing in the direction of Patrick Martin, still on the witness stand.

The jury was out of the room at last, the sudden silence still charged with the chaos it replaced.

King approached the judge and handed her a document.

“This is a report from Dr. Zachary Janniston, who has been treating this witness— ”

“Treating me?”
the witness shouted, his face red.

The judge whirled on the man, her usual smile replaced with cold fury. “Mr. Martin, you will be quiet or you
will
be escorted from my courtroom.”

“Your Honor,” King continued, “as this report reflects, Mr. Martin here is a very sick man. Ever since Mr. Hart belatedly informed us he would be calling this witness today, we’ve hurried to gather what information we could about Mr. Martin—and, frankly, to determine why Mr. Martin was not interviewed for purposes of the official investigation report.”

King held up his own set of the documents. “What I’ve provided this court and counsel just now is a psychological evaluation of Mr. Martin. For the past several weeks, he has been examined and treated by Dr. Janniston . . .”

Ryan was paging through the documents as King went on.

“Covington commissioned an evaluation of Mr. Martin to determine his competency to retain his security status at Hanford. As you can see, Mr. Martin is suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of the explosion, manifested in delusions and paranoia.”

Ryan could see the witness barely restraining himself.

“Judge, this man can’t testify to what he witnessed on the roof of LB5 that night,” King went on, “because he can’t distinguish truth from fiction about that night. Allowing him to testify given the medical proof of his incompetence would taint this jury and bog this trial down with days or more of medical testimony.”

The judge leaned back with a heavy sigh. “Mr. Hart, what do you say?”

“Judge,” Ryan launched in, “I’d say we have to hear from Mr. Martin. First, these psych exams apparently only occurred as we were approaching trial. If Mr. Martin was so delusional, why wasn’t he in treatment the past ten months since the explosion? And second, when there’s such critical evidence involved, we should at least have a chance for our own evaluation of the witness. At this late date, a last-minute psychologist report is no basis to muzzle this man.”