Don't Scream (9780307823526)

COOPER
: Wayne Randall … I look at you in your neatly pressed suit and realize that to anyone who doesn't know your record, you could easily be mistaken for a model student representing your school.

WAYNE
: I
was
a model student, in my own way. School was too easy, if anything.

BRILL
: Your Honor, it's just a matter of signing the papers. If you'd …

COOPER
: Wayne, the psychiatrists who examined you four years ago agreed that you are a sociopath. Do you know what
sociopath
means?

WAYNE
: Do I know the big words? I ought to by this time, Your Honor.

BRILL
: Careful, Wayne.

COOPER
: It's the
meaning
of the word I'm concerned with. A sociopath is a person who is antisocial.

WAYNE
: [
Laughs
] How about if I change my deodorant?

COOPER
: A sociopath can seem open and even charming, which makes him a successful con man. But he's unable to live peaceably with others. He's after self-gratification at the expense of everyone else, because he has no conscience. He doesn't know the meaning of truth. He can be a constant threat … a danger to those around him.

BRILL
: Not all sociopaths are considered dangerous, Your Honor. There are many who—

COOPER
: Don't waste your breath, Mr. Brill. I'm well aware that
all
sociopaths make life difficult for those around them, and those sociopaths with violent histories in childhood will—in most cases—repeat that violence as adults and should be locked up.

BRILL
: Your Honor, it's late. If I may say—

COOPER
: No, you may
not
say. You have already said your piece—you and the other federal agents who operate your protected witness program. You've made it clear that this is out of my hands. I have no choice but to sign Wayne Randall's release, although it's most decidedly against my wishes and better judgment.

BRILL
: Surely Your Honor understands that if Wayne were to retain his own identity, Grasso's crime “family” would retaliate. The least we can
do is give Wayne what we've given other protected federal witnesses—a new identity and a new life.

COOPER
: What about the lives of others? Wayne Randall has killed before. Without a conscience to stop him, there's every chance in the world he'll murder again.

WAYNE
: It wasn't murder, Your Honor. The charge was dropped to manslaughter. I was only thirteen. I was too young to know what I was doing.

COOPER
: You knew what you were doing. According to the court records, you robbed the boy, then stabbed him.

WAYNE
: That's just part of what happened. I mean, there were so many lies told about me, about how I had planned to stab him. But I hadn't. It was self-defense on my part. And the jury agreed.

COOPER
: Self-defense? Do you expect me to believe that? I've dealt with enough sociopaths to know they can be quite disarming and skilled at telling convincing lies.… Mr. Brill, from the time Wayne was nine until his last arrest at the age of fifteen, he compiled a long record of arrests for burglary, shoplifting, animal abuse, and—what worries me the most—brutality against other children.

BRILL
:
Sealed
records, Your Honor. Records for juvenile offenders are—

COOPER
: But we have no record of any arrests during the last two years. Why is that?

BRILL
: We—uh—have no actual knowledge that Wayne participated in any criminal activities during this time. He was with and—uh—was … he was protected by Grasso's organization.

COOPER
: This report mentions an older brother. What about the brother? What type of work does he do for Grasso?

BRILL
: Boyd worked as a bodyguard. He was shot and killed six months ago during a drug bust.

COOPER
: Let's get this straight, Mr. Brill. In exchange for Wayne's testimony, you're sending him to live in another state. You're giving him a new identity and inflicting him on innocent people who will have no idea that there's a dangerous sociopath in their midst.

BRILL
: You're only assuming that he's dangerous. We have the full cooperation of his aunt, who'll be with him. Wayne knows that if he violates the conditions of the Federal Witness Protection Program, he'll be back to square one. We have every hope that his future behavior will—

COOPER
: How do his parents fit into all this?

BRILL
: They've never been able to deal with either of their sons. They're completely agreeable to the arrangement, Your Honor.

GLESS
: If you'll just sign the papers, Your Honor, we'll be on our way.

End of transcript

As I plopped down in a shady spot on my front porch steps, cuddling Pepper, my gray-and-white-striped cat, I watched a trio of moving men struggle with the furniture they were delivering to the house next door. They were sweating in the September heat and breathing heavily the pungent odor of salt from Galveston Bay.

I noticed that the furniture was new, but not expensive and not especially good-looking. I was curious. Would these new neighbors be crabby, like old Mr. Chamberlin, who lived at the end of the block? Or maybe young, and have kids?

I sighed. I couldn't help thinking about the kids in the noncontagious children's ward at our county hospital. Little towheaded Ricky had held up his arms to me, begging to be picked up. He'd burrowed his face against my own, making little mewing noises like a kitten. If only … But when one end of a pine chest of drawers came down with a crash and the man who had dropped
it let out a yell, my attention turned back to the movers.