Wild Heart (35 page)

"He sank?"

"Yes, he
sank,
because he couldn't swim! Everybody was so surprised, and Dad said afterward, 'Hm, never thought of that.' But he jumped in anyway to save me, so then Sydney had to jump in and save
him,
and he almost drowned but she pulled him over to the sailboat, and then I pulled the boat to the dock and he was okay. But it hurt his feelings, and afterward I told him I was sorry. Right after that we found out he could talk, and he told me he wasn't mad at me. And we're still best friends."

Mr. Osgood took a moment to leaf through his notes before looking up and saying kindly, his satisfaction poorly hidden, "Well, I think that covers it. Thank you, Sam. No further questions."

Mr. Merck declined to cross-examine.

Dr. Slocum, Papa's boss and the chairman of the anthropology department, testified next. Sydney thought he would have made about as good a witness for the prosecution as the defense. He gave an unsympathetic account of Michael's arrival at the university, his silence and hostility, examples of his "violence"—which Mr. Osgood was quick to argue were really attempts to escape, not hurt anyone. Without badgering him, Osgood made Dr. Slocum appear at least remiss, possibly even negligent, for hiring a man like O'Fallon in any capacity, much less one of trust and responsibility. When the chairman stepped down, he left an impression behind that maybe Michael MacNeil had been treated badly by the University of Chicago.

Next witness: Dr. Harley Winter.

"All anthropologists are interested in the question of heredity versus environment in determining human nature. After fertilization of the ovum, the female egg, we can say that every particle of matter in the human organism is contributed by the environment; and it is the interaction of specific environmental conditions with a fertilized ovum of a definite character—
of a definite character;
that's important—that determines the nature of the resulting structure. Trouble is, we can't prove that hypothesis because we can't study it."

"Why not?" asked Mr. Osgood, looking wary; he knew by now that when Papa got going on anthropology, nothing could stop him.

"No human model. You'd need an experimental model for the lack of human intercourse during the young, impressionable years, when the ordinary child is learning to be a human being."

"Learning
to be a human being. So you're saying—"

"What you'd really need is a pair of identical twins. Rear one in an ordinary environment and the other in a vacuum. Now
that
would be interesting."

"Hm, yes." Scratching his head, Mr. Osgood scanned his notes. "So you and Mr. West were going to use Mr. MacNeil to study the question of heredity versus environment? Because as far as you knew at that stage, he
was
an experimental model for the lack of human intercourse during the impressionable years?"

"No, no. No, that's what Slocum and the others wanted to use him for. When he wouldn't cooperate, they gave him to me. West and I, we had a different theory to test."

"And what was that?"

"Altruism, the origins of."

"Could you explain that? In layman's terms, if possible."

Mr. Merck stood up to say that this whole line of questioning was irrelevant, but the judge overruled him.

"Well, from a biologist's perspective, the difference between altruism and selfishness—"

"First of all, what is altruism?"

Papa blinked in surprise behind his lenses, opening and closing his mouth a few times, having trouble adjusting to the level of simplicity to which Mr. Osgood wanted his answers to descend. "Altruism. Altruism is an unselfish regard for the welfare of others. In animals, it's behavior that's not good for the individual, may even harm it, but benefits the survival of the species. Take ants, for example. Ants provide a fascinating parody of human social life in—"

"I see, thank you. Just, ah, could you tell us very briefly, sir, and very simply, what exactly you and your colleague, Mr. West, hoped to learn from the defendant in the early days of your experiments?"

"Well, in human beings, the difference between altruism and selfishness, biologically speaking, is the difference between right and wrong, you might say. As an anthropological ethicist, I'm interested in the
origins.
Why would an organism—in this case, a man—risk his life for another organism? Why? Did he learn it in school? Is it an instinct he was born with? Where does this habit, this propensity, which seems to fly in the theoretical face of Darwin's natural selection, come from? Why—"

"And were you and Mr. West able to come up with an answer to this question, using Mr. MacNeil as your guinea pig?"

"No, of course not."

"Why not?"

"Because he turned out to be no model at all. He could talk, he was already socialized, he had a conscience, he could even
read.
I might as well have taken
you
for a model, or anyone else in this room. No, Mr. MacNeil was a miserable failure as a study subject, I'm sorry to say. He was entirely too civilized."

"Thank you," Mr. Osgood said with feeling. "And so your studies of him ceased, then, sometime in late June or early July, is that correct?"

"Correct. After that I didn't see much of him. Just at meals, you know."

"At meals?"

"He moved into the house, became one of the family."

"Nobody supervised him?"

"Oh, no. After I fired O'Fallon, Michael was on his own. Well, except for the children—they took him under their wing. Sydney taught him to write, Sam tauglit him arithmetic, Philip taught him . . . how to play tennis. They took him to the city, to the fair. Trying to bring him up to speed, you know." He looked over Osgood's shoulder at Michael and sent him one of his soft, sweet smiles. "Succeeded, too. Boy's a credit to them. Not to me—I did him more harm than good."

"How's that?"

The smile turned wistful. "I forgot I was dealing with a man, not just a research subject. I used Michael. Simple as that. Not very altruistic of me, was it? And when I couldn't use him anymore, I let him go, forgot all about him. Lucky for him, I've got three wonderful children, and not one of 'em takes after me in the least."

Sydney's hand crept over to Philip's, and they both squeezed. Through an embarrassing blur, she saw her father's smile come again.
I
love you,
she told him with her eyes, and he said it back to her with his.

"Did you ever try to find out who Mr. MacNeil's parents were, Dr. Winter?"

"I didn't, but Sydney did. She engaged a detective to look for them. Last I heard he'd found them."

"Would that be the Earl and Countess of Auldearn—"

"Your Honor, I object to any testimony regarding this defendant's alleged parents, who may or may not even exist. It's hearsay, it's prejudicial, and at this point it's completely speculative."

"Sustained."

"But Your Honor—"

"Counsel, approach the bench."

The courtroom buzzed while the judge and the two lawyers had a whispered conference. Sydney could only speculate on what they were discussing, but when it was over she knew from Mr. Osgood's face that the argument hadn't gone his way. Back at his own table, he said brusquely, "Nothing further," and sat down.

* * * * *

After lunch, Judge Tallman asked if the defense had any more witnesses to present. "May I have a moment to confer with my client?" "A moment," the judge said severely. He was tired, Sydney could tell, of Mr. Osgood's requests for delays, recesses, conferences. He was stalling. Even the jury must know it by now, although they probably didn't know why.

Michael and the lawyer put their heads together. Osgood murmured; Michael listened. Sydney couldn't decide what she wanted the outcome of their conference to be. If Michael testified, Mr. Merck would surely get him to admit he was guilty, and then what could the jury use to acquit him? But if he didn't testify, what would they think of
thatl
Not to take the stand in your own defense—didn't that imply you were guilty?

"I said a moment, Mr. Osgood. You're trying my patience, sir."

The lawyer mumbled an apology and stood up. "Your Honor, the defense rests."

She couldn't interpret the meaning behind the soft rumbling in the courtroom in the wake of Osgood's decision. But Mr. Merck smiled, and that couldn't be good. And Michael looked grim.

Her shoulders sagged. Philip gave her a bracing pat on the knee, but he must realize, too, that the only weapon they had left now was Mr. Osgood's closing argument.

Mr. Merck's summation was simplicity itself. Michael's clothes and his name on a "document"—Sam's drawing—had been found at the scene; two witnesses identified him as the perpetrator, and the defense had never challenged their testimony. He was guilty; nothing could be clearer. The defense's "case"—Merck's cynical tone put the word in quotes—amounted to nothing but a pathetic attempt to obfuscate the real issue: crimes had been committed and this defendant had committed them.

"You may feel sorry for Mr. MacNeil. You may understand why he did what he did. A few of you may even appreciate why he did it. But you can't in good conscience find him innocent on any of those grounds. In your hearts you know there's only one choice. It's your duty, gentlemen, however much you dislike it, to make that choice. Thank you."

Mr. Osgood stood up slowly. He spoke slowly. He summed Up his case slowly, and then he repeated himself. Slowly.

When he started to summarize a third time, the judge interrupted to snap, "This case is going to the jury this afternoon, counsel, whether you're through arguing it or not. Do I make myself clear?"

Osgood nodded dispiritedly. "Yes, Your Honor."

He faced the jury. Straightening his shoulders, he took a deep breath. "Gentlemen, I won't try your patience for much longer. I'll only ask you to look at this man and see him as he really is: an innocent. And I put to you that, for him, the confinement of animals in zoos is torture on a massive scale, unconscionable, inhumane, and inhuman. Michael MacNeil had not yet learned that the wholesale imprisonment of his fellow creatures on this earth, representatives of virtually every species human science has so far been able to identify—is perfectly acceptable, no crime whatsoever. Indeed, we think of it as one of our God-given human rights to while away a summer afternoon, wandering from cage to cage, looking at wild animals behind bars. If there's cruelty in that, we're blind to it. It's harmless, we say; it's natural in this human world—no law is broken.

"But Michael MacNeil is new to the human world. New and innocent. He did a bold and daring deed that happens to be against our human law, but for him it was no crime. It was a necessity. He acted on pure, selfless impulse, as irresistible to him as a mother's impulse to run into a burning building and save her child. Or his own impulse, when he risked his life to save the little boy he thought was drowning.

"He must have known he couldn't get away with it. He probably even knew the futility of it. Those considerations didn't stop him. I would ask you to put yourself in his place, but I know you can't do that. Neither can I. None of us can. Michael's life has been unique, too far beyond the realm of our experience even to imagine.

"And that is the reason you must let him go, find him innocent. Because he
is
innocent, in the profoundest sense of the word. There's no violence in this man, no cruelty. What you have in Michael MacNeil is a human being at his most natural. Uncorrupted. Fine. Flawed in small ways, like any man—he leaves wet towels on the bathroom floor, they tell me, and sometimes he doesn't hear what people say to him because he's daydreaming—but not yet flawed by the daily depredations of society. Michael is what God made him, and what men haven't had a chance yet to spoil. He's innocent.

"And so I ask that you let him go. Not because you condone what he did. But because you respect what he is. Thank you."

Sydney swallowed down a lump in her throat. Michael had looked modest, tortured, and uncomfortable during his lawyer's speech, hands clamped together, his gaze locked on the edge of the table. How awful it would be to listen to yourself being vilified in front of strangers one minute, glorified the next. The jurors sat stonefaced; try as she might, she couldn't read them.

Mr. Osgood resumed his seat. Michael leaned over and said something that made a tired smile flicker in the older man's face. Judge Tallman cleared his throat. He only had a few things to say before they began their deliberations, he told the jurors in a grave voice. Sydney half expected Osgood to jump up and request another recess. But he didn't, and with no further delay, the judge began to give the jurors their instructions.

And then a sound like low, curious murmuring started at the back of the courtroom. Sydney turned her head, but the hat of the woman behind her blocked the view of the door. The muttering rose in volume until the judge noticed it and broke off. "Order in this court," he commanded, frowning down the center aisle at the source of the disturbance.

Sydney craned her neck again. She saw the head and shoulders of a tall man with black hair, bent in a solicitous posture over a woman. Her breath backed up in her lungs. Could it be? And then Sam, who had an aisle seat and a better view, suddenly jumped up from his chair and announced in clear, ringing tones, "There's Michael's father."