Critical Reaction (36 page)

The judge looked like a woman unaccustomed to chaos in her courtroom. Ryan knew her concerns: Should she adjourn for a week for exams and counter exams—putting the jury on ice? Should she send Martin home—and risk a serious appeal issue?

She turned to the witness.

“What do you say, Mr. Martin? About these exams.”

The witness began shaking his head and talking rapidly. “They forced me to take these exams because I wouldn’t change my report about that night and say Lewis didn’t take a shot. Then they locked me in a hotel with this Janniston and gave me tests all day for weeks. Now I’ve been threatened. They’ve buried contaminated crows in my garden, Judge.”

Ryan listened to Patrick Martin’s rants and thought,
This man isn’t helping
himself
. He could see the judge watching skeptically his rapid, almost unintelligible explanation.

The judge raised her hands, interrupting Martin. “I’m going to look these records over tonight and through the weekend,” she said, holding up the reports King had just given her. “I’ll take oral argument on the issue on Monday. We’ll be in recess until Monday morning.”

Kieran and Emily gathered anxiously with Ryan at counsel table as the judge and staff left the courtroom. When the Covington group had also left, Kieran finally burst out, “Isn’t she going to let Martin testify?” Emily’s face had the same question.

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “But get the witness,
now
. Bring him to the Annex. We’ll talk there.”

Ryan stared at Patrick Martin sitting on the Annex couch, surrounded by Kieran, Emily, and himself. Remnants of delivered pizza sat on plates scattered around the room. It had to be closing in on ten o’clock.

Patrick Martin—Poppy, he’d asked to be called—had gone on for nearly four hours. The story he’d related was so far beyond anything Ryan had imagined that he struggled to give it credence.

A second guard on the roof not mentioned in the investigation report. That man, Poppy’s partner, Lewis Vandervork, firing a gun at a third, unseen figure—and supposedly hitting him. Rank intimidation of Poppy by Covington. Efforts to get Martin to change his statement (he had a copy of the original, Patrick had said). Threats and dead crows—matching the crows buried at Kieran’s home. Except these were radioactive.

Then an unidentified body, moved from the Sherman retirement home at night, out onto the reservation through a closed security station. And the second guard, Lewis Vandervork, missing.

If Poppy hadn’t settled down this evening, telling his story
with such careful rhythm and detail and confidence, even Ryan wouldn’t have believed him. It was all too fantastic. But this man wasn’t delusional. It was no accident that Poppy Martin’s name and the very existence of his partner were left out of the Covington investigation reports. It was no wonder that a Covington psychologist had spent three weeks trying to bury this man.

“Can the judge really keep him from testifying?” Kieran asked as Poppy wound down.

Ryan nodded. “She’s a federal judge; she can do what she wants. She could do it because she thinks he’ll bust open the whole case, adding a week to trial. She could do it because we hadn’t revealed Mr. Martin before today. Or she could do it because she buys King’s line that Mr. Martin is delusional.”

Ryan turned to Poppy, now looking exhausted. “Tell us more about Vandervork’s disappearance.”

Poppy nodded, proceeding to tell his story, beginning with the last memories he had of Vandervork on the way to the hospital and ending with his conversation with Vandervork’s girlfriend.

“Are you saying he could have been the body you saw taken out onto the reservation?” Ryan asked, hardly believing they were discussing this possibility.

Poppy shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot. If they’d done away with Lew, I don’t see why they’d wait nine months to move him onto the reservation. And I don’t have a clue where they’d take his body—or why they’d need two cars and four guys to do it.”

The man looked like he was going to keel over. They’d have to let him get some rest. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” Ryan asked.

The guard shook his head. “Nope. I’ll stay at home—or at my sister-in-law’s place, where my wife’s at.”

“If you’re going home, how about if Kieran stays with you,” Ryan said. “Given what you’ve been through. That okay with you, Kieran?”

Ryan was concerned for the man, but equally concerned with not letting him out of their sight. Kieran nodded. “Things have been quiet at my place since after the softball game, so I suppose that’s fine.”

Poppy considered the offer for a moment. “No. I’m okay.” He smiled sheepishly. “I almost took out your process server with my shotgun.”

Then he looked Ryan in the eye. “I’ve gotta know something for sure, though. Are you my lawyer now?”

“It’s too late to get you into this case, Poppy.”

“I don’t care. I just want a lawyer. I can’t do this alone anymore.”

Ryan glanced at Emily, whose eyes registered her assent—then looked once more at Poppy.

Ryan nodded again, as he had in the courtroom. “Then yes. You’ve got yourself two lawyers now.”

CHAPTER 39

Sitting in a booth at the Lightning House Brewery amidst a Saturday night crowd, Adam sipped his ale. It was too hoppy, he thought; overdone, like everything in this worthless town.

He looked across the table at their excuse for an attorney who’d just put his self-protective spin on the day’s news about Poppy Martin’s testimony.

“I did what I could,” King said again. “As soon as Janniston’s report arrived, I was able to cut the guy off.” Then he added, defensively, “You know, we would’ve interviewed Martin before if you hadn’t instructed us to leave the roof guard alone. And whoever this other guard was, we could have interviewed him, too.”

Adam had no time to make up a story for this lawyer. He seethed, but said nothing.
I told you to stay away from Martin to
avoid a moment like this. Do I have to make
a diagram for you?

The room was off; he shouldn’t have had the beer with the three pills he’d taken earlier to get through this awful day. Now all he wanted was to strangle this man. No, that wasn’t it: what he really wanted was to strangle Janniston for continually reassuring Adam that the guard was near to “coming around.” And while he was at it, throttle his chief of security, who’d failed to frighten the security guard enough to keep him off the stand or at least keep his mouth shut. And especially Cameron Foote,
for insisting they drive the Project ahead in the face of Adam’s advice. Putting Adam’s seven-figure bonus at risk.

They were all incompetent. He should’ve done it all himself.

Adam rubbed his eyes to stop the tilt the room was taking. “And the judge said she’d decide by Monday whether to let Martin testify?”

King nodded. “And even if she lets him testify, that business about what the other security guard supposedly did still shouldn’t get in. It’s all hearsay coming from Martin. All Martin can talk about is what he saw on the roof himself.”

That and the grilling Janniston
had been giving him
, Adam wanted to add.
And the
crows buried in his yard and who knew what else
he may have witnessed
.

King was going on. “And I really do think this judge isn’t going to let Martin testify at all, based on the psychologist’s report.”

Adam clenched his glass tightly with one hand while he fondled his bow tie with the other. Had King forgotten they had a new judge in this case? Renway had been in their corner, but King had already proven clueless about how Johnston would rule.

“But listen, Adam,” the attorney went on—except now, even through the layers clouding his vision, Adam saw King straightening in his chair as a tone of command crept into his voice. “You need to tell me if there’s anything to what Martin’s saying—about somebody else in LB5 when the explosion happened. And about this second guard and the shooting. Martin’s implying that something was going on in that building—like their Dr. Trân testified. I really can’t do my job with half the facts, Adam. Is there anything to what they’re saying?”

Adam felt a fuse taking fire. His heart quickened and his head flooded with sudden rage, the kind he’d kept from surfacing publicly for so many years.

He slammed an open hand on the table, sending beer sloshing from each of their glasses, then rose, gripping the table until his knuckles ached. King shoved back from the table, his eyes wide.

“Listen,” Adam hissed, leaning into the shrinking lawyer. “Do you know why Covington hired you? You think for a nanosecond they heard about your overwhelming barrister skills all the way from their world headquarters in New York? Covington goes for firms with offices in DC, New York, LA, maybe Chicago—the ones that
consume
law firms with names like McNary and King from Sherman, Washington. You’re the compromise, Eric,” Adam slurred, “because maybe,
just maybe
, you can bring some leverage and insight to this damp spot in the middle of a desert. You’re a
geographic convenience
. So let me know if this case is making you uncomfortable, Eric King. Otherwise, you do what you’re told with the information you’re given—and
never . . . question me . . . again
.”

Adam settled back down, his fury momentarily spent, glaring blearily at King as he cooled down. Then, it slowly occurred to Adam to wonder how loud he’d actually been. He glanced around the bar. It was crowded and noisy tonight; no one seemed to be looking their way. At least not anymore.

Good. Even through the haze, he knew he had to get out of there. People didn’t seem to forget when this side of him came out. And it could happen again, the way he was feeling sitting here with this empty suit. He stood again, carefully.

King had collected himself now and was trying to project a facsimile of his usual bravado. “Adam, you’re overreacting,” he said, his voice still rattled. “We’ve got this. We’ve got the evidence of the whole-body count and the dosimetry badge. And this is still a Hanford jury. We can handle this. We’re going to win it.”

Adam eased forward, picking up the check.

“So you’re going to win this case, are you?” he said, hearing his voice as through a tunnel. “Well, I’ll take that as more than a promise, Eric. I’ll take that as an
oath
.”

CHAPTER 40

Judge Johnston was a torn person this Monday morning—it was broadcast on her face. This hearing wasn’t a formality. The judge was still looking for answers.

“Counsel,” she began, “we’re here this morning, out of the jury’s presence, for a hearing to decide whether Mr. Patrick Martin will be permitted to testify—and the extent of that testimony. Mr. Hart, I’m going to let you go first.”

Ryan stood at counsel table, Emily seated at his side. Kieran was in the gallery, beside Poppy Martin. The psychologist was in the gallery, too, seated not far from another man: the one with the sport coat who Ryan had occasionally seen in the gallery during the trial.

“Your Honor, Covington’s counsel has presented a psychologist’s evaluation concluding that Mr. Martin is incompetent to testify because he can’t understand the difference between truth and fiction.”

Ryan paused. “Trials are about juries sorting truth tellers from liars. We vest that power in jurors because we think humans are endowed, naturally and by life experience, with some skill in that department.”

Ryan pointed to Dr. Janniston in the gallery. “Covington is offering the court a tool that it says is superior to that skill. It is a man who claims that the science of psychology has got this one figured out, that there’s no need to trouble the jury with
Mr. Martin’s ravings. Take this psychologist’s word for it, Covington says: Mr. Martin is a liar—or at best, unequipped to tell the truth. They would have you believe that dozens of tests are better suited to judge Mr. Martin’s lucidity than your average man or woman in the jury box.”

He leaned into the table. “It’s a fair question, when we’re being asked to put such faith in this psychologist and his tests, to ask where they found this man. Who hired him for the examination of Mr. Martin? Why now? Why not eight months ago?”

He stood straight once more. “Those are important questions. But we don’t have to answer them to recognize one overriding and fundamental truth: that even if this psychologist’s role has been strictly professional and proper, Covington’s argument that this court should rely upon him to exclude Mr. Martin is contrary to our core belief in the jury system. The fact is, weeks of psych exams aren’t necessary to
test
Mr. Martin’s truthfulness or his sanity. That’s the jury’s role. And it’s also Mr. King’s job. Because Mr. King has the right to cross-examine the witness. If Patrick Martin spins a fantasy, Mr. King has the opportunity and the skill to point out the fallacies in his testimony. He can lay it all bare for the jury.

“Judge,” he finished, “my personal experience is not evidence. But I will represent to this court that I spent hours this weekend speaking with this witness—a man who saw and heard things Covington saw fit to leave out of its investigation report. This is a man who Covington has been persecuting for weeks before trial in an effort to silence him. During all the hours with our team this weekend, Mr. Martin did not rant, he did not foam at the mouth. If he appeared agitated in this courtroom on Friday, it is only because he has seen and experienced extraordinary things, things that this court and jury need to hear. The court and jury can judge for themselves Mr. Martin’s competence through his own words. Two hundred years of American jurisprudence proves they’re very good at it.”