Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller

by Clifford Irving

  THE COURT: Amy, don’t ask me questions like that. I can’t answer them. Just tell me the truth.

  MISS BEDFORD: Well, that’s how I feel, too. Don’t ask me questions like that.

  THE COURT: Are you saying that you decline to answer?

  MISS BEDFORD: That’s what I’m saying.

  THE COURT: You refuse to answer?

  MISS BEDFORD: Right.

  THE COURT: If you lied to Billy, if your father didn’t really do those things to you, no one will punish you for having made up the story. I promise you that. I give you my word.

  MISS BEDFORD: Don’t try to trick me.

  THE COURT: Miss Bedford, I’m not trying to trick you. I’m trying to encourage you to tell the truth.

  [The witness did not answer.]

  THE COURT: All right, let’s go at this another way…

  When Ms. Dury of Child Protective Services asked you if your father had ever sexually touched you, or molested you, or done anything with you that could be construed as a sexual act. You replied — and I’m quoting here from the transcript of the tape-recorded interview — “No. Carter never did anything like that to me.” Isn’t that what you said to Ms. Dury?

  MISS BEDFORD: [inaudible]

  THE COURT: Miss Bedford, I’ve heard your voice on the tape-recorded interview. What I need to know is this. When you said to Ms. Dury that your father had never done anything of a sexual nature to you, were you telling the truth? Or were you lying — excuse me — were you covering up? — so that your father wouldn’t get into trouble? Or were you so ashamed of what had happened that you didn’t want to talk about it?

  I need you to make this clear to me.

  [The witness became distressed and declined to answer the question and any further questions.]

  From the direct examination of Ms. Inez Tur de Villanueva by counsel for the defense, Ginger A. Casey:

  MS. CASEY: … Did Billy give you any instructions at that point, Ms. Tur? After he left you in the car with his brother Simon?

  MS. TUR: Billy tells me, “Inez, if the door-banger comes outside, if you can see him, honk on the horn of the car. Honk loud,” Billy says.

  Q: By “the door-banger,” do you mean Mr. Carter Bedford?

  [The witness crossed herself and nodded in the affirmative. Extensive inquiry by the court determined that the phrase “the door-banger” referred to the victim, Carter Bedford.]

  Q: And?

  MS. TUR: That’s exactly what happens. The dog barks, so the guy comes out. It’s still a little dark, but I know what he looks like. I honk loud. He stands there in his underwear, he looks around. Like — What’s going on? Who’s in that car?

  I keep honking on the horn. So he decides to go around the house to see what else he can see. I’m scared. I can’t see Billy or his friend Duwayne. I want to tell Billy to run but I’m too far away, he won’t hear me. I keep honking but that doesn’t stop the door-banger from going to see what’s going.

  Now the dog starts barking louder.

  I’m in the car with Billy’s brother, Simon. I say to Simon, “This old car has a stick shift, Simon, and I don’t know how to drive a stick shift.” I ask Simon if he knows how to drive this kind of car with a stick shift. Simon says, “Sure.”

  I believe him. I say, “Then get behind the wheel. Get us over to where Billy is. And do it rápido.”

  Simon jumps into the front seat, and he starts the car. I keep leaning over his shoulder and honking the horn until Simon says to stop, it’s driving him crazy, he can’t concentrate. And we have the monkey in the back seat, too, and Iphigenia don’t like the sound of the horn, so she’s making her own racket to wake the dead.

  I can see Simon’s not a great driver. He’s a beginner. I decide, okay, no more honking. I think to myself, Inez, you better pay attention to what’s going on.

  We drive down this bumpy dirt road and as soon as we get close I see that the door-banger…

  THE COURT: Ms. Tur, if you’re referring to Carter Bedford, please call him by his proper name. We’re trying to establish a record.

  MS. TUR: All right, your honor. I see Mr. Carter Bedford push the girl aside, and the next thing, Diós mio, he’s got hold of Billy by the collar, or the throat, I don’t know. And he’s got a gun in his hand. Madre de Diós. I yell and scream —

  MS. CASEY: Stop there, please, Ms. Tur. Think back carefully, and answer the next questions with great consideration. You said he had a gun in his hand. By “he” do you still mean Mr. Carter Bedford?

  MS. TUR: Right. The door-banger. The one with the dogs.

  Q: Mr. Bedford had a gun in his hand? A pistol?

  MS. TUR: In his hand.

  Q: Was this gun pointed at the respondent? The defendant? Do you understand the question? Did Carter Bedford point the pistol at Billy Braverman?

  MS. TUR: Señora Casey, can I tell you this in my own words? Then I won’t get confused. When I finish you can ask me what you want to ask me.

  Q: Of course. Tell it your way.

  MS. TUR: I’m yelling. I yell at Simon, too. I yell at him to hit the brake, because the car is headed for this big wire gate. And the monkey’s loose, and jumping around the back seat, hissing. All this gets Simon rattled. Later he tells me, “Inez, you’re yelling and screaming at me, Iphigenia’s gone nuts, too — how can I think straight?”

  MR. HULL: Objection. Irrelevant. We don’t need to hear what anyone said to her later.

  THE COURT: Overruled. She’s telling her story as best she can. You may continue, Ms. Tur.

  MS. TUR: What happened is that I got scared, and I jump over into the front seat. I try with my foot to hit the brake so we wouldn’t bang into this wire fence. And I hit the gas pedal instead. I didn’t mean to. I meant to hit the brake but I missed. So all of a sudden the car goes fast and we hit the fence. Bang. I don’t know how fast we’re going but it did damage to the fence. The car’s okay. Simon gets the car into reverse so we can back away, and when we do, the fence jumps open. Must have done something to the electric control when we bang into it. So I jump out of the car. And I grab the poker from the back seat. I’m still in my bathrobe —

  MS. CASEY: Wait, please. What poker are you talking about, Señora Tur?

  MS. TUR: The same one I pick up last winter from the fireplace when this guy bangs on the door and tries to break into the house. And this time I bring it along. You can ask me to swear on ten bibles why I bring that poker along, and I can’t tell you. No reason. I pick it up when we’re back in the house because I hear voices in the night, and I don’t know whose voices it is — turns out to be Billy and Simon — and I take the poker with me. So, later, I jump out of the car, and run through the gate. I’ve still got the poker in my hand.

  Q: Would you stop for a moment, please, Ms. Tur? Please describe this poker you were carrying.

  MS. TUR: It’s about this long. [Indicates, with her hands, a length of approximately three feet.] It’s got a pointed end. You poke with it, in the fireplace. Let’s say it’s a winter night, you got a fire going, you want to move the log that’s the most burned down, make room for a new log —

  Q: Yes, we understand. Thank you. What did you intend to do with the poker?

  MS. TUR: Kill that guy if he harms one hair of my Billy’s head.

  Q: And I ask you again, Ms. Tur, did Mr. Bedford have the gun pointed at the defendant? At Billy Braverman?

  MS. TUR: I think so, but I can’t swear for sure. He’s waving it around. It’s pointed here, then it’s pointed there. Sure he had it pointed at Billy. But he had it pointed at the other boy, too, and at the trees, and at the poor girl. He was yelling at everyone and pointing it everywhere. And then he saw me with the poker. And I’ve got blood in my eye, let me tell you. In Spain we have the corrida, the fighting bulls. I’m like a bull out of the gate. Only I’m not out of the gate, I’m inside the gate. I get inside the gate and I charge. I’ve got the poker in my hand. And he can see I’m not kidding around, I’m going to brain
him with it.

  He yells something at me. I think what he said was, “Crazy Puerto Rican bitch.” He’s a stupid man, he thinks I’m from Puerto Rico. But he’s not so stupid that he don’t know I’m going to brain him with the poker.

  So before I can do it, he hits me. I don’t even see it coming. He hits me with the gun. I didn’t know then that it was the gun. Billy tells me later, “It was the gun, Inez, the barrel of the gun.”

  I just know that something smacks into my jaw, and I see stars. I hit the ground. Diós mío. I don’t see nothing. I don’t hear nothing. Maybe ringing in my ears. Even when I wake up, I’m not so sure what’s going on. Thanks God I’m alive. I got bones like rocks.

  [The witness indicated her chin, which showed swelling and bruising. N. B. Southampton Hospital out-patient report # 99-24-9934 reports a hairline fracture of the mandible.]

  MS. CASEY: And after that?

  MS. TUR: After that, tell you the truth, my head hurt. I really don’t know what’s going on.

  Chapter 39

  Back then, six years ago, I did a private online cram course about criminal law and cross-examination, and I read every book I could dig up in our local library. I found out that it’s usually best if the defendant doesn’t testify at a felony trial. The theory is this. You let the cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses and the direct questioning of the defense witnesses make the case for the innocence of the defendant. Then, if things look good, or even if it’s a toss-up, you quit while you’re ahead. Because, too many times, when the defendant testifies, he undoes all the good that’s been done before he took the stand.

  Why is that?

  Because no one is perfect, and a jury, or a judge, looks for stains and imperfections and sees them as clearly as a shopper sees them on a garment that someone’s trying to sell at too high a price.

  But I was stubborn. I didn’t think I could win if I didn’t testify. I figured that the judge would reason that if I didn’t take the stand, then I was hiding something.

  Ginger said, “Billy, let’s make that decision when the time comes.”

  “I’ve made it already,” I explained.

  My dad was in on this discussion. He said, “Billy, Ginger’s right. And you’re not hiding anything. You have nothing to hide.”

  That wasn’t really true.

  I guess I’d better finish the story of what happened that brightening dawn outside of A-1 Self Storage on Accabonac Bay. I’ll tell the rest of it in my own words, as honestly as I can. Then you’ll see my problem.

  When Inez went at Carter with the poker, and Carter hit her in the jaw with the barrel of his Airweight pistol, I freaked out. I know she wanted to bash his brains out, but all he had to do was grab her and lift the poker out of her hand. She couldn’t have stopped him. Inez is tiny. Carter was a body-builder, a weight-lifter — not huge, but strong. I’d wrestled with him in the water off Georgica Jetty, and I knew.

  I got myself wedged between them, and I said, “You gutless scumbag.”

  In Spanish, then, I said some worse things. But I don’t think Carter understood them. Finally in English I called him a piece of slimy garbage off his own truck. I think that last one got through to him.

  I indulged in that lung exercise while I was bent to my knees in the dirt of the yard of A-1 Self-Storage, because at the same time I was also looking to find out if Inez was dead or alive.

  I saw she was alive. Just a bit of bleeding. Conscious, but moaning. I felt awful. It was my fault she was there.

  Amy just stood there by the fence, looking shell-shocked. Stevie and Jimmy were hanging on the bars of their bedroom window, hollering, but I have no idea what they were saying. Ginette was outside, too. She shrank back into the shadows. I wouldn’t get any help from her.

  I said, “Duwayne, here we go again. You have to call nine-one-one.” I meant: that was how it all started, that day in October, when we found Amy in the brush on Red Dirt Road in Springs.

  Duwayne took one gliding step toward the house. Carter said, “Hold it right there,” and pointed the gun at Duwayne, who, wisely, I think, slid to a quick stop.

  Carter said, “Fuck you both. Call from somewhere else. Pick up that crazy Puerto Rican cunt and get the hell out of here.” He waved the barrel of the gun in my face. “You’re trespassing on my property. You’re a menace, they should put you in an asylum for the criminally insane. You tried to drown me. You tried to bash my brains out with a rock. I told you I ever saw you again, I’d kill you. You don’t move, I’ll do it. I swear it.”

  He said to Duwayne, “You, too. Move your skinny black ass.”

  Duwayne told me later that at first he was too frightened to move.

  Apparently Carter decided to make up Duwayne’s mind for him. He pulled the trigger, firing a shot into the ground at Duwayne’s feet. Duwayne jumped back three feet and banged into the fence.

  I lost my head. I grabbed the poker from the ground — it was laying right beside Inez — and jumped to my feet. I think Carter was more worried about Duwayne than me because Duwayne’s tall and so fast on his feet. So Carter was looking at Duwayne and not at me, and that gave me my chance. I swung at Carter’s gun arm with the poker. I mean, I took a good cut, trying to hit a home run.

  I connected. Carter yelped the way Pablo had done when I tackled him in the living room at Oak Lane. The gun jumped out of Carter’s hand, spinning down into the dirt. Carter grabbed his hurt arm with his other hand.

  I tossed the poker to one side, scrunched down and picked up the gun from the dirt. I held it with two hands and pointed it at him, with my finger curled around the trigger.

  Inez woke up right then. She took it all in, and said, “Billy… be careful.”

  Carter was rubbing his sore arm. He sniffled hard; then, as usual, swallowed it. He bobbed his head up and down. What I read in his eyes was a combination of hatred and surprised respect.

  “You sure are a tougher kid than you look. But you can drop that gun, because you’re not gonna shoot me with it. I know that much.”

  I wasn’t going to drop the gun, no way; in no time flat he could get his hands on it again. He stood there, looking grouchy, pissed off, and wary, rubbing his arm where I’d slammed it.

  Inez was awake: groggy, but she seemed okay. Duwayne and Simon helped her to sit against the fence. She was in shade, since it wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning. “I still think we better call an ambulance,” I said.

  “No, Billy, I’m not killed,” Inez said. “It’s not the first time in my life a pendejo socked me. I want to get out of here. Go home.”

  “Inez —”

  “Let’s just go. Por favor.”

  “Okay,” I said. I turned to Duwayne. “You and Simon help her to the car.”

  Inez wouldn’t even look at Carter. I think she was ashamed that he’d got the better of her.

  Simon and Duwayne brought Inez slowly to her feet. The electronic gate was still wide open from Simon having slammed Duwayne’s car into it.

  “Hey, what about that?” Carter pointed at the gate. “You teen-age vandals ruined my gate. Who’s gonna pay for that?”

  I crossed to Amy — she hadn’t moved — and took her by the arm. She didn’t resist me but she didn’t help me, either. She stood in the dust, white-faced, taking shallow breaths, her lips moving. I think she was talking to the Princess.

  I intended, of course, that Amy come with us. But Carter began to figure out what I had in mind. In the melee, he’d forgotten the chief issue.

  He said, “Hey, no way.”

  “Your stuff’s in the car,” I told Amy. “In your Macy’s duffel bag.”

  Carter took a step toward his daughter and said, “What the fuck you think you’re doin’?”

  “She’s coming with me,” I said.

  “Not this time.” Carter took a long darting stride forward, across the yard, and grabbed Amy from my grasp. He had recovered from my blow; he was strong again. “You crack me up,” he sai
d, and now in the pale light his eyes had no more color than chips of dirty ice. “You know what you should do? Go home and sit on the toilet, read a comic book and jerk off. Got your ashes hauled one time, you think it makes you a man? Know what you are? You’re a piss-ant. Go home to your momma and your fucking mansion.”

  He had one arm wrapped around Amy, holding her waist, and with his other flat heel of his palm he shoved me, the same way he’d shoved me into his pickup truck when we left the hospital last October. I was between him and the house, so he shoved me in that direction. He didn’t care where he was shoving me. He just wanted to shove and show me he was in charge again, Amy’s boss, that he could do as he pleased with her.

  “I’ll put your brains in the dust,” he said. He stooped, and he picked up the poker I’d dropped. He raised it and leaned toward me.

  I stumbled backward to keep out of harm’s way, but I kept my balance. He moved again, heading toward the door that led into the office of A-1 Storage. He was still hauling Amy, and she began to squirm to get out of his grip. I could see clearly that she didn’t want to go with him. But once he got her back into the house, I knew that was the end. He would lock her up, and by the afternoon he’d be out of there, with her and the boys and crazy Ginette, headed toward the pleasures of the sunshine state. I would never see Amy again. Carter would slam the door on her life. He would do whatever he wanted to do with her.

  Silently, Amy kept struggling to get free of his grip. Her struggle had halted their progress toward the house. Carter had her wrapped in his left arm, but he focused his attention on me.

  He showed those shiny teeth. “You brat, you ain’t gonna shoot me. You couldn’t even shoot the branch off a tree.”

  True enough. And he raised the poker again to show me he meant business.

  In my fantasies I had killed Carter so many ways. The pistol jerked in my hand, making the same cheap and silly snap that it had made when Carter had fired it in the forest behind his house last winter, and when he’d fired at Duwayne’s feet. “Not like the movies,” Carter had said. I didn’t even aim. I just pulled the trigger.