Temporary Sanity (25 page)

This is news. I turn and raise my eyebrows at the jurors, but they don’t react. When I look back at the judge, she’s waiting for me. Her bird eyes fix on mine and her lips arc downward at the corners. They barely move when she speaks.

“The courtroom clerk will swear the witness.”

Beatrice’s eyes don’t move. They speak volumes. She’ll give me this battle, they say, but the war is a hell of a long way from over.

Everything about Buck Hammond says he has nothing left to lose. He’s allowed to wear his own clothes during trial, but they don’t fit anymore. His gray suit jacket hangs loosely, its cuffs too wide for his wrists. His black pants are baggy, as if he borrowed them from a much heavier man. He’s not permitted a belt; no shoelaces or tie, either. He wears an old pair of scuffed loafers and a white, starched shirt, unbuttoned at the neck.

All male prisoners on trial are given the opportunity to shave each morning, but Buck hasn’t bothered for the last couple of days. A dark shadow of stubble covers his cheeks, chin, and neck. His black hair is neatly parted and combed, but it’s ragged at the edges, in need of a trim. His face is that of a man who has only a distant memory of a good night’s sleep. Dark circles underline his eyes.

Buck could be a physically imposing presence-he’s taller than Harry by a couple of inches and almost as broad-but his approach to other people is cautious, timid even. His shoulders, a match for any linebacker’s, sag as if taxed by a burden the rest of us can’t see. His light gray eyes, wide and moist, reveal little and ask less. It’s not that he has no questions. It’s that the questions-the few that still matter to Buck Hammond-have no answers.

He will ask to go home, though; of that I’m certain. Buck will ask these jurors, in his own muted way, to send him back to his South Chatham cottage, to spare him the void of a lifetime at Walpole. He’ll make that request for Patty’s sake, not his own, but he’ll make it just the same. And it’s my job to give him the opportunity.

The task is simple, really. We’ll start with questions that allow Buck to describe his life before June 19. The jurors will hear about a solid family man who went to work every day and ate dinner with his wife and son every night. They’ll hear about a man born and raised on Cape Cod who, until six months ago, never had a single encounter with the law. And then they’ll hear how all of that changed.

Stanley, of course, is a problem. His forehead vein has been throbbing all morning. He’s perched on the edge of his chair, prepared to pounce, and we’re just getting started. He might object, it seems, before I ask my first question.

Judge Beatrice Nolan, of course, will be all too eager to sustain Stanley’s objections. She’s another problem.

“Mr. Hammond, please state your full name for the record.”

“William Francis Hammond. People call me Buck.”

Stanley’s chair creaks and he clears his throat. When I turn to look at him, he mouths the word
hearsay
.

He can’t be serious.

Stanley flutters his fingers in the air and leans back in his chair, a small, tolerant smile spreading across his face as his gaze moves up to the judge, then over to the jurors. He’ll let it slide, he’s telling all of us. Just this once. He’s a reasonable guy.

This could take a while.

When I turn away from Stanley and face the witness box again, Buck looks up from his lap, his expression calm. He’s waiting patiently for my next question, oblivious to Stanley, unconcerned with his prosecutor’s posturing.

It hits me so hard-the obvious truth-that I have to lean on the witness box for a moment. Buck is right. Stanley is irrelevant. His tiresome objections don’t matter. His petty antics don’t matter. And my preliminary questions don’t matter either.

These jurors know who Buck Hammond is. They know where he lives; they’ve met his wife. They can pretty well guess his age and they don’t give a damn how he makes his living. They know what he did to Hector Monteros. The only thing that matters now is why.

I head back to our table and take two photographs from my briefcase. Eight-by-ten laminated glossies of Billy. One before. One after.

Buck hasn’t seen either one of these photos. He took the “before” shot, but was jailed before it was developed. He has no idea Patty gave it to me, no idea she kept it from him at my direction.

The “after” shot is one of a dozen taken during Billy Hammond’s autopsy. Standard procedure.

Ordinarily, it’s not a good idea to surprise your own witness on the stand. But this was no ordinary murder; it’s no ordinary trial. The rules-most of them, anyway-don’t apply here. We’re in uncharted waters.

Harry sets up an easel where both Buck and the jurors can see it. I tuck the autopsy shot under my arm, careful that only its white backing is visible against my jacket. I set the other photo on the easel and pause so they can take it in: Billy on the beach, beaming, a glorious sunset behind him, streaks of violet against a pale pink sky. He holds a surf-casting rod in one hand, a three-foot-long, shimmering fish in the other.

“Can you identify this photograph?”

Stanley leaves his chair and marches toward the jury box, ostensibly to see Billy Hammond’s picture, in reality to distract the panel. He’s seen all of the photos before. He has his own copies.

Buck stares at the glossy and blinks repeatedly as his eyes fill. He says nothing. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he hadn’t heard the question.

“Yes,” he says finally. “That’s my son. Billy.”

“Who took the photo?”

“I did. We’d been fishing for stripers at Potter’s Landing.” Buck points toward the glistening fish. “Billy caught a few earlier in the season, but they weren’t big enough. This one was his first keeper.”

“When was that?”

“Saturday, June twelfth. A week before…” Buck stares at his lap again for a moment, then back at the panel. “A week before.”

“Before what?”

“Your Honor.”

Beatrice had her gavel in hand even before Stanley spoke.

“Before what, Buck?”

“Your Honor!”

The gavel descends.

I knew this would happen, but I thought it would take a little longer. I thought I’d get at least a half dozen questions out before the prosecutor-judge team began its power play. But I’m ready.

Maybe I’m overly defensive. Maybe I’m sleep-deprived. I don’t give a damn. I’ve planned this moment. I intend to shut my opponents down. Both of them.

“Before what, Buck?”

“Your Honor!”

Beatrice leans toward me, but I don’t turn. I fix my gaze on Buck, keep the judge in my peripheral vision. “Counsel,” she barks, “there’s an objection pending.”

“I haven’t heard one, Judge.” Still I don’t look at her. “Before what, Buck?”

Beatrice bangs her gavel and then points it at Buck. She sits up straight, apparently taken aback by my poor manners. “The witness will remain silent. Counsel, Mr. Edgarton has raised an objection.”

She inhales audibly when I wheel around to face her. “No, he hasn’t, Judge. You’re interrupting my examination of the defendant and there’s no objection pending.”

I turn my back to her and point my pen at String Tie. His eyes grow wide, but his fingers keep tapping. “It seems
you
have an objection, though, Judge. So let’s hear it.”

When I face her again, her mouth is a perfect oval, as if she’s about to begin an aria.

“Go ahead, Judge. Put your objection on the record. And we’ll ask the Big Boys to rule on it.”

My irreverent reference to the appellate panel is more than Beatrice can bear. “Now just a minute, Counsel.”

“No, Judge. You don’t get a minute now.”

She’s no longer taken aback. She’s indignant.

“
Now
is my client’s time to testify, Judge, my time to question him. And nobody interrupts, not even you, unless
this man
”-Stanley takes a step back when I aim my pen in his direction-“voices a coherent objection.”

Now Stanley’s mouth is circular. Maybe they plan a duet. “You’re not the prosecutor, Judge. He is. It’s his job to raise viable objections. ‘Your Honor’ doesn’t cut it. Those words don’t appear in the Rules of Evidence. If the prosecutor can’t state a legal basis for his objection, then the judge can’t rule on it.”

The gavel pauses midair. Beatrice looks like she might reach out and pound it on the top of my head.

“And if you’ve got nothing to rule on, then
this man
”-Buck stares into his lap again when my pen finds him-“keeps talking.”

My face must be maroon by now. I’m winded. I lean against the witness box until Buck looks up, and then I turn to the jury. They’re gaping at me.

“Buck Hammond sat in this courtroom all week without uttering a word. He listened to a parade of the Commonwealth’s witnesses without making a sound. He’s the man on trial; it’s his fate we’re deciding here. It’s his turn to talk now.”

Side-by-side men in the back row rub their chins and stare hard at me. The rest of them avoid my gaze. They look instead at the judge, at Buck, at the floor.

“Buck Hammond is entitled to his turn. The Constitution says so.”

Still, almost no eye contact. The retired schoolteacher looks at me for just a second, then quickly turns away.

Stanley remains on his feet but says nothing. Beatrice sets her gavel on the bench and folds her hands into her sleeves.

I’ll take that as a go.

“Let’s get to the point, Buck”-I pause to glare at Stanley-“while we still can.”

“Counsel, that’s enough.” Beatrice retrieves her gavel and pounds again. “One more editorial comment from you, Ms. Nickerson, and you’ll take a break-a long one.”

I block her out, block them all out. The judge. Stanley. String Tie. Even the spectators. What happens now is between Buck and the jurors. No one else.

“What did Hector Monteros do to Billy?”

In the silence that follows, I study the jurors. Their gazes move from Buck to the easel, then back to Buck again.

“Took him,” he says, “took him from the beach.”

“And?”

Buck grasps the arms of his chair, as if he just hit turbulence.

“And hurt him.”

I pour a glass of water and set it on the railing of the witness box, but Buck shakes his head.

“How?”

Now a few of the jurors grasp the arms of their chairs too. They don’t want to hear the details again. Once was more than enough. They don’t want to hear the story again from anyone, but certainly not the boy’s father. They needn’t worry. Buck has never even been able to say the word.

“He…did terrible things, and then…” Buck changes his mind, takes a sip of water. “And then he killed Billy.”

“How did he kill Billy?”

Buck lowers his head. For a few moments, he seems unable to lift it again.

“Your Honor,” Stanley whines, “perhaps we should take a brief recess.”

“It won’t be any easier ten minutes from now, Judge.”

Beatrice glares at me, her pursed lips arcing downward at the corners again. That’s one of those editorial comments I’m not supposed to make. Next time I’ll tell her ten years won’t make much difference either.

“Take your time,” I say to Buck, and I mean it. Every minute he spends on this witness stand should take us one step closer to a decent result. To me, his agony is apparent, his grief tangible. I can’t tell, though, if the jurors feel it. Their faces reveal nothing.

When Buck lifts his brimming eyes, they settle on the photo tucked under my arm, the autopsy shot. He can see only its blank back, but the look on his face tells me he knows what it is. And he doesn’t want it here. He turns to the jury, still clutching the arms of his chair.

We practiced this testimony. Not because we doctored the answer, but because Buck couldn’t address the question at all, at first. He couldn’t say it out loud. Even now, he has to say the words quickly, or he won’t get through the answer.

“He bound Billy with metal cables…” Buck lets go of the chair arms and presses his wrists together. “At the wrists and ankles. And he smothered him.”

Buck drops his hands to his lap. That’s all he can say on that topic. He’s reached his limit.

“And what did you do, Buck, to Hector Monteros?”

“Your Honor, please, these jurors watched the videotape, they heard from the Chief of Police. They know what the defendant did.”

Stanley knows better. His objection is nothing more than a ploy, a manufactured opportunity to make a speech.

Beatrice stares at me-grimaces-when I look up. I’m tempted to smile. She won’t dare prevent Buck Hammond from telling the jury what he did. There isn’t an appellate panel in the country that would uphold that ruling. Stanley knows that. And Beatrice does too.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, “I remind you of the limiting instruction you were given on the first day of this trial. I caution you now-that instruction is still in full force and effect.”

Funny, that’s the only ruling of Judge Long’s that Beatrice has acknowledged. The jurors nod, though, almost as one.

Stanley acts as if he isn’t satisfied. He folds his arms across his chest and stamps one foot ever so slightly on the worn carpeting. Yet another temper tantrum, this one stifled.

“Buck, what did you do to Hector Monteros?”

“I tried to stop him.” Buck shifts in his chair so he can face the jurors. “I shot him.”

“Were you able to stop him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He closes his eyes, still facing the panel. “I tried. But I failed. I was too late.”

I move to the easel and set the photo-Billy beaming with his striped bass-to one side. Next to it I position the other one.

Buck keeps his face averted, toward the jury box, his eyes still closed. The jurors, though, look first at me, then at the easel. One by one, their gazes settle on the photo. The awful one.