“‘Kill Glennon, kill Glennon.…’” The voice rose, then broke, whispering, “Kill Glennon.”
Lord felt the whisper shudder through him. “What happened then?”
“There was a flashbulb.” His voice tremored. “I saw him.…”
“Who?”
“I shot at his head.” Carson swallowed. “The camera was there.…”
“On the mission?”
“When I turned, he was lying on the stage, with Stacy over him.…”
“Kilcannon?”
“Yes—him.” Carson touched his eyes. “God, I can’t believe he’s dead.…”
Lord tilted his head. “Who?”
“Him.” Carson’s face bent to his knees. “Glennon.…”
His shoulders began shaking, and then the sounds came, keening and arrhythmic.
Over Carson’s head, Lord and Rainey looked at each other. “No further questions,” Lord told him.
Filing in, the jurors stared somberly at Carson. He sat with his hands folded, withdrawn. DiPalma watched him keenly, his body a line of tension. When Rainey banged his gavel, Lord started.
“Mr. DiPalma?”
In an instant, DiPalma was moving toward Carson. “This morning,” he began, “Mr. Lord showed us a film. When did you first see it?”
Good, Lord thought. Nervously, Carson smoothed his mustache. “This morning.”
DiPalma’s surprise showed in the briefest hesitation. “Then when did you first hear what was in it?”
Carson wouldn’t look at him. “I didn’t.”
Kleist made a note. DiPalma paused, frustrated, then summoned a skeptical expression.
“You purchased the Mauser four weeks before the concert, did you not?”
Carson bent forward. “Yes.”
Lord folded his hands. Almost casually, DiPalma inquired, “Were you thinking about Glennon then?”
Carson seemed to flinch. “I don’t know.”
“That was the first revolver you’d bought since Vietnam, right?”
“I guess so.”
As he mumbled, Lord put both hands under the table, where the jury couldn’t see them. “And when did you first learn,” DiPalma went on, “that there would be a June second concert including Senator Kilcannon?”
“Uhh—” The sound died in Carson’s throat. “I don’t remember.”
DiPalma scowled. “Whenever it was, did you think of Glennon then?”
Carson shook his head, as if to clear it. “I don’t know.”
“How did you hear about the concert?”
Carson hesitated; the jurors’ sober, inward looks were evolving into sharp attention. “John, I guess,” Carson murmured. “Damone.”
DiPalma put both hands on his hips. “And when did you first plan to shoot Senator Kilcannon?”
“Objection!” Lord stood at once. “It’s not established that the defendant planned to shoot the senator at all.”
Brow furrowed, Rainey watched Carson. “Sustained.”
DiPalma directed his faint smile at Carson. “That morning, you brought the Mauser to work. Had you ever done that before?”
Carson hesitated. “No.”
“You didn’t show it to anyone, did you?”
Carson shook his head. “I guess not.”
“Or tell anyone you had it?”
His head continued shaking, as if to ward off questions. “No.…”
“Were you planning to shoot the senator then?”
Lord realized he was gripping his knees. Look at him, dammit, he thought. Carson’s voice rose. “I don’t know—”
“You don’t know.” DiPalma straightened in astonishment. “You’re telling the jury you killed a presidential contender onstage, in front of twenty thousand people, yet you don’t know how you happened to be out there with a gun?”
“Objection.” Now Lord tried sounding weary. “Only a short time ago, on direct examination, the witness described his state of mind at the moment of the shooting.”
The camera turned to Rainey. “Sustained,” he ruled, and then Lord saw that DiPalma’s eyes were bright.
“Very well,” he said to Carson. “That morning, where did you wake up?”
“Uh.…” Carson’s voice was light, surprised. “The Holiday Inn.”
“Did you think you were in Vietnam?”
Through the glass, Shriver looked angry; Carson stared at the floor. “Uh—no.”
“Did you shower and shave?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think about Vietnam then?”
“Uh—” Fleetingly, Carson glanced up, then rubbed his eyes. “Sometimes, in water, I feel scared. I don’t know.…”
His voice stopped; the gallery began standing. DiPalma seemed to discard his next question for another. “How did you get to the concert?”
“My motorcycle.”
“How did you know the route?”
“Uh—I think I asked someone.”
DiPalma narrowed his eyes. “When you got to the Arena, what did you do?”
“Help set up the sound system.”
The answer was a monotone. DiPalma smiled again, as if about to ask Carson where he thought he was, then snapped abruptly, “Did you also read about Mr. Lord in the newspaper?”
Carson’s eyes shut. “Yes—”
“Because you thought you’d be needing a lawyer?”
Carson shook his head.
“Speak up,” DiPalma prodded.
“I don’t know.”
“Why?” DiPalma asked softly. “Because you thought you were in Vietnam?”
Carson turned away. “I don’t know.”
DiPalma stared at him. “Did you also park your motorcycle by the loading dock?”
“Yes.”
“And later, did you use the pay phone?”
“Yes.”
“To call whom?”
“Beth.…” Carson’s eyes were still closed. “But her number was unlisted.”
“Did Information tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“Which Information?”
“South Carolina—Columbia.”
DiPalma shook his head, as if overwhelmed by Carson’s rationality. “Tell me, Mr. Carson, who stole the concert money?”
It seemed to startle Carson, then deflate him. As if no one could believe him, he murmured, “I don’t know.”
DiPalma’s eyes were cold. “Perhaps you know if Senator Kilcannon was blond.”
Carson wiped his forehead with two fingers. “He wasn’t.”
“Then did he remind you of Glennon in some other way?”
Slowly, Carson looked up. “I thought about him all the time.”
“Who?”
Carson’s tone held sudden returning anger. “Glennon.…”
“You saw Senator Kilcannon backstage, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you recognize him as James Kilcannon?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know you were at a rock concert?”
Carson’s voice began to waver. “Yes.…”
DiPalma moved closer. “Did you mean to kill him then?”
A shiver ran through Carson’s body. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t?” DiPalma asked in an incredulous tone. “Then what made you bring the Mauser?”
Kleist leaned forward, waiting. Lord saw Shriver in the gallery, mouth open, as if speaking for Carson. But the witness was mute.
“Mr. Carson?” Rainey asked.
Slowly, miserably, Carson shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You—don’t—know.” Moving forward with each word, DiPalma stood over Carson. “But after you murdered James Kilcannon, you asked for Mr. Lord.”
Carson’s tone was chastened. “Yes.”
DiPalma paused, stretching out the moment. Quite softly, he asked, “Did you think you were in Vietnam?”
Carson’s eyes opened. “No,” he said in a clear, quiet voice. “I was in jail.”
DiPalma
nodded his satisfaction. “Yes,” he finally murmured. “You did know that.”
Lord rose. “Was that a question?” he asked.
Staring down at Carson, DiPalma gave a small, scornful smile. “I have no more questions,” he said, and sat down.
“You also finished a poem that day,” Lord began. “Called ‘Golden Anniversary.’ Did it include the line ‘feeding the cameras’?”
Carson stared to one side. “I think so … yeah.”
Lord moved closer. “After you shot the senator, what was the next thing you did?”
“I turned.…” The vague voice grew stronger. “That was when I saw the camera.”
“And what did you do?”
Carson gave a bewildered shrug. “Fired at it.”
“Instead of trying to escape?”
Carson grimaced. “Yeah.”
Lord’s expression was quizzical. “For what reason?”
Carson shook his head, as if at his own foolishness. In a parched, embarrassed tone he answered, “I don’t know.”
Lord let the three words linger for the jury, half-turning to DiPalma. “Why?” he asked gently. “Did you think you were in Vietnam?”
DiPalma’s eyes widened; Carson’s closed. “I don’t know.” The words held a kind of agony. “I just don’t know.”
Lord nodded. “I know,” he answered.
3
THE trial concluded with the psychiatrists. Though their testimony was critical, Carson stared past them, as if he had been leeched of interest in his fate.
“Glennon,” Shriver told Lord, “is the missing piece.”
He had a new assurance, Lord saw. “In your opinion, Doctor, how did Glennon affect Harry’s life since Vietnam?”
“He haunted him for fourteen years.” Turning to the jury, Shriver ticked off fingers. “First, Glennon symbolized the horror of what Carson was forced to do—as exemplified by the poem he wrote for Beth. Second, his half-repressed memory of Capwell’s death became fused with anger over the death of other friends, and guilt that he’d survived without avenging them. Third—and this is important—working for Damone would subconsciously remind him of Glennon.” He paused, touching the fourth finger. “Remember that in Harry Carson’s mind, Glennon never died until this trial. That’s what ‘Golden Anniversary’ is about.”
Kleist listened, Lord noticed, with the air of someone straining to decide. “And what,” Lord asked, “was the influence of Glennon on the shooting of James Kilcannon?”
“Decisive.”
“Even in connection with carrying a weapon?”
Shriver nodded. “That seems a classic instance of the anniversary reaction—compounded by all the drugs he took there, which would operate to repress memory and help telescope time. Under those circumstances, Carson wouldn’t know why he did certain things in the real world—fight his father, slap his wife, even bring a gun to work.”
Lord felt the gallery, the camera, the jury watching. “And what about the actual moment of the shooting?”
“Harry reacted in terms of his training—to shoot specific people in the head. In his mind, the chant Miss Tarrant started—‘Kill-cannon’—became a summons to kill Glennon.” Pausing, Shriver gave Carson a pensive look. “It’s tragic, really. Harry Carson shot the wrong person, on the anniversary of trying to kill the right one.”
Carson touched his mustache. He did not look up.
“When we first met,” Lord said to Shriver, “I asked how vets can live part in the everyday world, and part in their memories of war. Do you recall the example you gave me?”
“Yes.” Shriver took out his glasses case. “It was the vet who commandeered a woman with a station wagon, then told her to go fast enough to escape the Viet Cong but not so fast the cops would stop them.
“He was charged with kidnapping. His psychiatrist’s opinion was that the crime had no rational explanation—that the veteran had coalesced real and unreal. The jury agreed, and acquitted him.”
Lord paused. “After that,” he asked at length, “what did the veteran do?”
Shriver glanced at Carson. “He hung himself.”
“I’m curious,” DiPalma began, “how you explain the rational things Harry Carson did up to the moment he shot the senator?”
Shriver frowned. “I can’t, really, beyond what I’ve already said—that stress victims can function with apparent normality.”
“I note the word apparent.” DiPalma placed both hands on hips. “Isn’t it also possible that Carson came to work planning to shoot the senator, and succeeded?”
“That,” Shriver said in a dubious tone, “is always a possibility.”
DiPalma’s voice rose. “And isn’t it further possible that in the execution of a preconceived plan, Carson had some temporary confusion with certain details of a Vietnam experience?”
Shriver hesitated. “It’s conceivable, yes.”
“Even that he made the whole thing up?”
Shriver’s tone sharpened. “Conceivable, but unlikely.”
“But possible?”
Shriver gave a reluctant nod. “Yes.”
Glancing sideways, DiPalma underscored Carson’s averted gaze. “No further questions.”
Dr. George Ford was a blocky man with black hornrimmed glasses, a square face, and lips he pursed to show authority. He taught at Berkeley, wrote articles, and had a thriving practice; his brusque tone suggested that he was being inconvenienced.
“In my opinion,” Ford said briskly, “there is no basis for isolating the murder from the rational conduct which preceded it.”
DiPalma nodded. “Even in light of Vietnam?”
“Yes.” Ford looked toward the camera. “Don’t misunderstand me—part of Mr. Carson’s service there was unfortunate, even unfair. But lots of people lead unfair lives, and remain capable of making rational decisions.” Turning to the jury, Ford concluded, “Put bluntly, I do not believe that a fourteen-year-old trauma made him kill a well-known stranger at a concert he helped set up.”
DiPalma raised an eyebrow. “What about the ‘anniversary reaction’?”
“Certainly, intense memories do follow traumatic incidents.” Ford pursed his lips. “It’s the notion that this one would seize him from morning to night, causing him to carry a gun, which strikes me as fantasy.”
“Even at the moment of the shooting?”
Ford gave a heavy shrug. “Oh, he might have had associations then. But how did he get that far?” Another pursing of lips. “Here is a man with experience in killing those he’d planned to kill, hours or days before. I don’t view this as some sustained mistake.”
He was good, Lord thought—Kleist had begun taking notes. “Can you enlighten us, then,” DiPalma was asking, “on the motives common to assassins?”
“Objection,” Lord cut in. “The question asks Dr. Ford to speculate on the motives of others, using them to tar Harry Carson.”
“I’m soliciting an observation,” DiPalma retorted crisply, “not unlike Dr. Shriver’s on the veteran who killed himself.”
“Overruled,” Rainey said.
“Motives other than money?” Ford answered DiPalma. “Fame is one, political differences another. However disagreeable killing may be to most of us, these are clearly understood motives, common to many assassins.”
“Even if the assassin never states them?”
Ford examined Carson. “Absolutely.”
“Thank you.” With an air of satisfaction, DiPalma turned to Lord.
Standing, Lord watched Ford until he felt the jury’s anticipation. “How would you describe your practice?”
“Wide.” A tacit gibe at Shriver. “And varied.”
“Varied enough to include veterans of Vietnam?”
“Of course.” Ford looked nettled. “In my career, I’ve treated veterans of four different wars.”
Including the Crimean? Lord considered asking. “For stress?”
“Their problems may include that—people can be quite c
omplex.”
Lord gave him a quizzical look. “In the midst of all this complexity, have you also found time to testify in criminal cases?”
Ford paused. “On occasion.”
“How many occasions?”
“I’m not sure.”
Lord tilted his head. “If I said fifty-six, would that seem wrong?”
Ford’s lips pursed. “It may have been that many.”
Lord smiled faintly. “Perhaps it would be simpler to count the times you’ve testified for defendants.”
“It wouldn’t, actually.” Ford began sounding nettled. “As you suggest, I’m quite busy.…”
“Try seven.”
Ford stared at him. “You’ve obviously counted—”
“What did they have to do to impress you?” Lord broke in softly. “Bark like dogs?”
“Objection!” DiPalma snapped. “Harassing the witness.”
Lord turned on him. “Let him answer,” he shot back. “Lots of people lead unfair lives—”
Rainey pounded his gavel. “Mr. Lord, I’ll thank you to restrain yourself. Objection sustained.”
But the jury was riveted. “Isn’t it true,” Lord demanded in a low, angry voice, “that four of those defendants were previously diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenics?”
Ford sat straighter. “Paranoid schizophrenics,” he intoned, “are a particular interest of mine.”
“But not Vietnam veterans.”
“No.” The quick, curt answer was that of a man eager to be rid of someone. “Not as such.”
Lord’s smile returned. “Thank you,” he said politely. “No further questions.”
They recessed before closing arguments.
Lord sat alone at the defense table. “Hi,” Cass said behind him.
“Hi, yourself. And thanks for the stuff on Ford.”
“I saw your cross,” she said, sitting. “That was some fine indignation.”
“Had to make him look bad.” Lord felt himself coming down fast. “I knew couldn’t shake his opinion.”
Cass contemplated him. “You know,” she said, “the first time I saw a psych defense, I kept waiting for the answer. There never is one, is there.”
“No.” Lord gazed at the jury box. “Finally, they just vote.”
The jury waited, opaque but for their nervous attention.
Rising to face them, DiPalma held an open magazine.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is the aim of the defense you’ve witnessed to make Harry Carson seem the victim. But the victim is not here.” Pausing, he flipped the magazine to its cover. “This was James Kilcannon.”
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