Private Screening

by Richard North Patterson

  Lord bought him a gray suit and had his hair cut short, trying to suggest the younger Carson he wished the jury to imagine. Instead, Lord sensed his stare at the camera remind the jurors of the violence which had brought them here.

  For Carson to have a chance, Lord needed jurors with open minds. He tried to pick those who would listen to Shriver: opponents of the Vietnam War; older women with sons; young women who might prefer him to the prosecutor. But DiPalma saw this. Using peremptory challenges, he got rid of three young secretaries, a scientist from NASA, a nurse whose teenager had gone through counseling.

  DiPalma’s priorities were equally clear to Lord: admirers of Kilcannon; order-givers who disliked weakness; ex-military officers or business executives; fundamentalists; feminists who would identify with Stacy Tarrant. They seemed to come at him without a break. With one juror left to pick, Lord used his last peremptory challenge to strike a female executive who kept smiling in his direction; hard experience had taught him that smilers voted against the lawyer they smiled at.

  Cass was already watching the next prospect, a severe-looking woman with a Bible. “Get rid of her,” she whispered. “Somehow.”

  Briskly, DiPalma found out that the woman was childless, a bookkeeper, had never traveled or known a psychiatrist. He blessed this life with an approving smile and sat.

  Rising, Lord asked, “You do know that Mr. Carson has been indicted for the murder of Senator Kilcannon?”

  The woman’s thick glasses gave her a wary look. With a curt nod toward Carson, she answered, “Yes.”

  “But you’re willing to presume his innocence.”

  She frowned. “I know that’s the law.”

  “I gather you’re afraid that the indictment means that he’s not innocent.”

  She clutched her Bible. “Yes.”

  “Your Honor, I think we can excuse Miss Walker.”

  The judge leaned forward. “Miss Walker, if I tell you to ignore Mr. Carson’s indictment, will you?”

  After a moment, she answered, “Yes.”

  “Challenge denied,” the judge said. “You may continue, Mr. Lord.”

  Lord turned to Rainey long enough to register amazement, then faced the woman. “I notice you’ve brought your Bible, Miss Walker. Do you sometimes pray?”

  Her eyes brightened. “Yes,” she answered firmly.

  “Does God answer your prayers?”

  “He hears them. He hears the prayers of all those who believe.”

  Lord looked puzzled. “But does He speak to you?”

  She gave a resolute nod. “In my thoughts.”

  “Does that happen when you ask Him to?”

  “No.” She scowled at Lord’s incomprehension. “When He wishes, He will speak to me.”

  “Even about decisions in your everyday life?”

  “Yes.”

  Lord tilted his head. “Suppose He decides to speak to you about Harry Carson? Who will you obey, God or Judge Rainey?”

  The woman was silent. “Take your time,” Lord said mildly. “I know what a difficult choice that would be.”

  Behind him, Cass coughed.

  “God,” the woman answered.

  Lord turned to Rainey with a half-smile.

  “You’re excused,” the judge said tersely.

  The next prospect, an older man with a crew cut, cool gray eyes, and a clipped manner, gave his name as George Kleist.

  “What is your occupation?” DiPalma asked.

  “I’m a retired naval captain.”

  “Whose navy?” Cass scrawled on her notepad.

  Staring at it, Lord listened to more answers: that Kleist was an engineer by training; that he had served honorably in World War II; that both sons were business executives; that he had been married for forty-three years; that his family had never felt need of a psychiatrist.

  “Whichever navy,” Lord whispered to Cass, “they’ll elect him foreman if he stays.”

  He had slept perhaps an hour, and now had brief seconds to decide how to approach a nightmare twelfth juror with his peremptory challenges gone and the first eleven watching. Standing, he faced a man whose strong jaw and steady gaze suggested neither hostility nor doubt.

  “Mr. Kleist,” he began. “I’ve just listened to the outline of an exemplary life. So all I ask is this: can you look at Harry Carson, and promise him and me that you will judge his actions with an open mind?”

  Slowly, Kleist turned to Carson. As if startled, Carson’s gaze snapped from the camera. For the first time, he looked confused, vulnerable. Across the gulf of age and experience, the two men stared at each other.

  “Yes,” Kleist answered finally. “I can.”

  Lord nodded. “Then we’ve got a deal, Mr. Kleist.”

  It was done, he thought. And then he saw Hart Taylor, grinning through the bulletproof glass.

  The trial opened badly, with the coroner.

  Lord addressed Judge Rainey. “I’ve already assured Mr. DiPalma that we’ll stipulate the cause of death. The evidence he wishes to offer through Dr. Boyd has the potential to inflame the jury without adding one scrap of necessary proof.”

  Rainey scowled. “The prosecutor has a right to present his own case.” Sitting, Lord could only hope that he had dampened the impact of what was coming.

  It happened ten minutes into Boyd’s succinct testimony.

  “And did you,” DiPalma asked, “photograph the deceased?”

  “Yes.”

  As DiPalma held up three color photographs, the court reporter looked up from his machine. “Are these the photographs?”

  “They are.”

  “Your Honor, I ask that they be marked as People’s Exhibits One through Three.”

  “Mr. Lord?”

  DiPalma placed each picture in front of Carson. He turned away. Staring down, Lord was glad that someone had closed Kilcannon’s eyes.

  “No objection.”

  DiPalma gave them to the jurors.

  One by one, Lord watched them react—a young black cabbie, a Japanese professional woman, a retired Chinese businessman, a Korean draftsman of about Lord’s age, several middle-class Caucasians, the two mothers he had managed to hang on to, Kleist. A jury more DiPalma’s than his.

  After a ballistics expert, the two guards who captured Carson, and a tearful young woman who had watched Kilcannon falling from front row center, DiPalma called Curtis Blake.

  Lord saw a man with lank brown hair and sharp features, well-coached by DiPalma. But Carson eyed him as if he were a piece of furniture.

  “So you helped Mr. Carson set up the sound system?” DiPalma was asking.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did he behave?”

  Kleist leaned forward in the jury box. “Just like always,” Blake answered. “Maybe a little like there was something on his mind.”

  “But not crazy?” DiPalma asked.

  “Objection,” Lord snapped. “If Mr. DiPalma wishes to qualify the witness as a psychiatric expert, let him do so.”

  “Sustained.”

  DiPalma gave a faint smile. “How did the sound system work?”

  “Real good. Stacy—she tested it out.”

  The witness’s voice was artificially quick, Lord thought; his eyes moved more than his head. There was a faint glaze on his forehead.

  “What did you do after that?”

  Blake looked uncomfortable. “We just screwed around backstage. You know, waiting for Stacy and the senator.”

  “What was Carson doing?”

  “Same thing. I remember about six, he called someone.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “No.” Blake darted a glance at Carson. “He asked me and Jesus to split.”

  Lord forced himself not to look at Carson. “What did he do then?” DiPalma asked.

  “I saw him talking into the phone. When I came back he’d gotten real quiet.”

  “Did he go anywhere?”

  Blake shook his head. “All I remember is him sitting
against the wall, like he was waiting for someone.”

  Lord wondered how many hours it had taken DiPalma to make these answers so artfully artless. Kleist had begun taking notes.

  “Were you there,” DiPalma asked, “when Senator Kilcannon was shot?”

  The witness looked at the floor. “I sure was.”

  “Did you see who shot him?”

  As if on cue, Blake turned to Carson. “Harry did. I watched him do it.”

  Carson stared at the camera. “Could you tell the jury what happened?” DiPalma asked.

  “Stacy was singing great, best in years—the crowd was calling her name. She introduced the senator.…”

  “And then?”

  “He comes forward. People are smiling and cheering. Then it just stops.” Blake spoke much slower now, as if still shocked. “I turn and see Harry. He just walks out with a gun, real calm, like he’s pacing out the distance on a floor.”

  “What does he do then?”

  “For just a second he stops with the gun held out in front of him, like he’s getting a better aim—”

  “Your Honor,” Lord cut in sharply. “I move that the answer be struck. Despite Mr. Blake’s persistence in characterizing the defendant’s actions, he is no more an expert in marksmanship than he is in psychiatry.”

  “It seems to me, Mr. Lord, that he’s simply describing the defendant’s actions. His answer will stand.”

  DiPalma still looked at Blake. “And after that?”

  “Harry took one more step, and shot him.”

  “What did the senator do?”

  “He fell.” Blake faced the jury. “Stacy dived across him. Then I saw the blood coming from the top of his head.”

  As the jury filed out for recess, Lord saw reporters watching Carson through the screen, cynical smiles, mouths that made no sound. He had lost more weight, Lord thought—there was a closeness of bone to skin. His eyes had a lost quality.

  “You’ve got to stop watching the camera,” he said softly.

  Carson stared. “It bugs me.”

  “It also looks like you don’t care.”

  Carson began rubbing his eyes. “That’s their problem.”

  “I know it’s hard listening to people interpret you, Harry—even me. But I need your help about that phone call.”

  “It was to Beth.” When Carson’s hand dropped, his eyes were closed. “But I couldn’t find her. Just the operator.”

  “So there’s no record of it.”

  Slowly shaking his head, Carson looked up, gazing at Lord’s red silk tie. “That’s a nice tie, man.”

  “Thanks anyhow,” Lord said.

  As Blake wiped his forehead, Lord caught the sick-sweet smell of a speed freak, sweating.

  “How well do you know Harry Carson?” he asked.

  “I know him okay.”

  “Ever talk to him about his life?”

  Blake twisted the handkerchief. “He didn’t talk much.”

  “Do you know where he’s from?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or that he had a wife?”

  “Yes, sir,” Blake said finally. “I knew that.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Blake hesitated. “I forget.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about Vietnam?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you know what Harry did after Vietnam?”

  “Not until he worked for Stacy.”

  “You really don’t know him at all, do you?”

  Blake dabbed his forehead. “I know what he’s like.”

  “About how many hours have you spent with him alone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Under ten?”

  “Like I said, I haven’t counted.…”

  “As many hours as you spent with Mr. DiPalma, preparing your testimony?”

  “Objection,” DiPalma put in. “Irrelevant.”

  “Sustained.”

  “In whatever time you managed to spend with the defendant, did he mention James Kilcannon?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And yet you saw him shoot Senator Kilcannon, you said. Does it strike you as normal to go about your work and then kill a United States senator in front of twenty thousand people?”

  “Objection!”

  Lord wheeled on DiPalma. “You can’t have it both ways, Ralph.”

  “Overruled,” Rainey said. “Calm down, Mr. Lord.”

  “Mr. Blake?”

  “Maybe it’s normal for Harry,” Blake said to the wall.

  “Did he tell you what was on his mind?”

  “No, sir.” As Blake turned to him, Lord saw too late the trap that DiPalma had set for him. “He was writing something down, though. In a book.”

  Lord’s brain felt slow. Find a next question, he thought, don’t look rattled. “What kind of book?”

  “All I know is it was black.”

  End on an upbeat, don’t show that you’ve been hurt. Shoving both hands in his pockets, Lord surveyed the witness with a quizzical, faintly contemptuous expression. “How many amphetamines did you take that day?”

  “Objection!” DiPalma rose. “Harassing the witness, lack of foundation, unwarranted character assassination.”

  Rainey nodded. “Really, Mr. Lord.”

  “I believe Mr. Blake understands me, Your Honor. By this evening, I suspect some enterprising TV reporter will have made his recreational pleasures into dinner-table chitchat.”

  Rainey flushed. “I’ll permit the question,” he said after a moment.

  “Mr. Blake?”

  Lord saw the calculation moving through Blake’s eyes—how much does this man know, how can he trap me? “One or two,” he finally mumbled. “Just with my girlfriend.”

  “What other drugs?”

  “A little coke, is all.”

  “And yet you’re willing to offer us your perceptions of Mr. Carson.”

  Blake looked away. “I know what I saw,” he told the jury. “So does everyone.”

  They were sitting in Lafayette Park, a reckless ten-minute drive from the Hall of Justice in Rachel’s MG. The grassy knoll was sheltered by palms and lightly peopled with gay men or small kids and their mothers. It was one of the few places, Lord reflected, where he could eat lunch without being bothered.

  As Lord took a bite of his apple, Rachel watched him. “I’ve been wondering where Marcia was, Tony. It might look more sympathetic if your wife were in court.”

  There was something kinetic about her, Lord thought, like a too-bright child who said things to see what would happen. “She finds this kind of thing depressing,” he said at length.

  “Anyhow, I think the jury likes you.” Rachel took a sip of wine. “Did you see that the opening statements got the highest rating in SNI’s history?”

  “People will turn out to watch pit dogs, too, or executions.”

  “It’s also you, Tony—like it or not, you’re made for TV.” She watched him. “I only wonder whether your case is made for this jury.”

  Lord gave a short laugh. “You have a way of beginning conversations, Rachel, that ends conversation.”

  Her look was funny, close to hurt. “I just was concerned. For me, not the station.”

  Lord began to watch a young mother, walking her baby a few short steps. “We’ve come up with one strong witness,” he finally said. “A vet who can testify to Harry’s service in the Hundred and First.”

  “But no one else?”

  “No.” Lord realized he felt uncomfortable. He covered this with a shrug. “DiPalma knows all that.”

  Rachel was quiet. “I’d like to do this again,” she said after a while.

  Lord watched the mother and baby disappear into a grove of trees. “You deserve better company, Rachel.” He checked his watch. “I’d better get back. DiPalma’s waiting for me.”

  2

  WHEN Lord returned, there was a bound black book in front of DiPalma. Now, as Johnny Moore testified on behalf of the FBI
, he picked it up. Lord felt the jury waiting.

  “What did you discover,” DiPalma was asking, “when you checked the registration of the Mauser?”

  “That Mr. Carson purchased it a month before the concert.”

  “Did you find other articles which belonged to Mr. Carson?”

  “His motorcycle, for one. It was parked at the loading dock, the clearest route for an escape. After that we found his duffel bag.”

  “What did it contain?”

  “Personal items—cigarettes, a newspaper.” Moore paused. “There was also a journal, filled with Mr. Carson’s writing.”

  Lord tried looking bored. DiPalma gave the book to Moore. “Is this the journal in question?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what is its final entry?”

  “A poem.”

  “Would you please read it to the jury?”

  As Carson stared at the table, Moore took out glasses. Peering at the open journal as if at Sanskrit, he began reading in a flat, embarrassed voice:

  “Feeding the camera

  Hair golden, spirit dead

  Time circles back to you

  A bullet through the head.”

  “Does that suggest to you that Mr. Carson intended to kill someone?”

  “Objection,” Lord said casually. “The verse should speak for itself. Whatever it means.”

  Rainey turned to DiPalma. “We wish to prove premeditation,” the prosecutor said.

  “Objection denied, Mr. Lord.”

  “Yes,” Moore answered. “Combined with the other evidence of preparation, the poem suggests planning by Mr. Carson.”

  “And after writing these words, and speaking with an unknown third party by telephone, what did Mr. Carson do?”

  “He shot Senator Kilcannon.”

  “That night, did any other violation of law occur?”

  “Objection,” Lord put in quickly. “Whatever other alleged crimes took place are irrelevant to that charged to Mr. Carson.”