Invisible Boy

by Cornelia Read

  “Of course you do. That’s why I married you.”

  “And you told me it was because I’m such a buxom heifer.”

  He laughed. “That too.”

  “Ooo la la,” I said, and we told each other good night.

  59

  There was an article on page three of the next morning’s Times’s “New York and Region” section:

  MOTHER TELLS OF BEATINGS THAT LED TO HER SON’S DEATH

  In a whispered monotone, Queens resident Angela Underhill testified yesterday that her male companion had inflicted horrific beatings on her 3-year-old son in the months before the boy’s death in 1989….

  … The case has drawn wide attention because the lawyer for the child’s mother, Angela Underhill, 25, and advocates for battered women contend that she also had been a victim of these assaults. The case has also raised questions about the response of child-welfare authorities to a complaint that the boy was a victim of routine abuse.

  Hedda Nussbaum rated three mentions. Teddy Underhill was called merely “the boy” throughout.

  I figured Hetzler would be going for broke.

  Cate was standing on the courthouse steps when I got out to Queens.

  “I couldn’t get out of work yesterday,” she said. “You have to catch me up on what happened on the stand.”

  We got in line for the metal detector and I ran her through the narrative each lawyer had conjured forth: how Bost teased out the appalling choreography of both Teddy’s death and his mother’s nonchalance, Hetzler deployed Angela’s own harrowing childhood as a get-out-of-jail-free card, and Galloway limned the proportions of a mendacious greed that was more powerful than a locomotive and able to prove her own client’s innocence in a single bound.

  Cate placed her purse in a plastic bin for the X-ray machine. “The Three Faces of Teddy’s Mother?”

  “Angela Underhill: bitch, victim, or money-grubbing crack ho? You decide.” I dumped out a pocketful of nickels and subway tokens.

  “All of the above,” said Cate.

  “Yahtzee.”

  I stepped toward the metal detector’s victory arch.

  Cate and I sat down directly behind Bost once we got inside the courtroom. I gave her the article I’d ripped from the Times and then turned in my seat, trying to spy out its author. It had to be either the balding blond guy in a linty blazer or the tweed-bedecked ringer for Trotsky, but I couldn’t decide between them. Both had notepads at the ready.

  Bost had Teddy’s poster portrait back up on the easel as backdrop for her closing argument.

  She looked at it for a long moment before saying a word. The jurors gazed along with her.

  When she turned toward them, she let her hand rest along the top of the image.

  “We’ve heard a lot of testimony in this room over the last two weeks,” she said. “Testimony from a variety of experts and regular citizens who were drawn into the horrible, gut-wrenching circumstances of this little boy’s death, and its aftermath.”

  She dropped her hand from the photo and walked toward the jury box. “We can tell you how Teddy’s body was discovered. We can tell you how he was identified, and how the homicide investigation was conducted, once his identity was known. We can describe the series of horrific injuries he suffered over the course of his three years on this earth—injuries so severe that their impact is still literally mapped in his very bones, even after his death.”

  Bost looked toward the defense table. “His mother described the beating which caused his death, and the indifference with which she and Albert Williams treated his tiny, broken body when it was all over.

  “Stephanie Keller told us what it was like to hear his screams. She could give us some sense of what it must have been like to suffer the violent fury of a full-grown man for transgressions as slight as not finishing a bowl of cereal fast enough.”

  She looked back to the jury. “What we cannot know is what it was like for Teddy Underhill to be alive. We cannot know what it was like to live in that much pain, and fear—wondering when the next blows were going to come, when the next bones would be broken. He can’t tell us. He can’t tell us anything at all. Angela Underhill and Albert Williams made sure of that, made sure he would never know anything more of life than his short, desperate glimpse of this earth as a place filled with fear, and pain, and suffering.

  “We cannot know what he dreamed of, the hopes he cherished…

  what he might have become. The only things left to mark this boy’s short, horrible life are the photograph you see before you, and his tiny, ravaged bones.”

  She turned back to his picture once more. “Take a look at that little face, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. That moment captured when he was overjoyed to be sitting on Santa Claus’s lap in a department store, smiling with gratitude because he got to have at least one normal childhood afternoon—secure in the love of his great-grandmother, safe from harm for just a few precious hours.

  “What Angela Underhill and Albert Williams did to this child goes beyond homicide. They didn’t merely rob him of his future, they took his entire life, stripping away all vestiges of his childhood even before he was so brutally slaughtered.

  “Albert Williams’s lawyer would like you to forget the testimony of Stephanie Keller, who knew full well what sort of abuse Teddy was suffering at her client’s hands. Keller, a medical professional with twenty years’ experience, knew exactly what she was seeing and hearing. Stephanie Keller fought to live long enough to come here and tell us all that, in person, to prove that someone in this world cared enough about Teddy to seek justice for him. She offered to help Angela Underhill save her son from this life of pain, and she did her best to make sure the state would step in to protect him, if his mother wouldn’t. Think about that, ladies and gentlemen: a stranger cared more about the welfare of this child than his own mother did.

  “But Albert Williams’s lawyer didn’t manage to shake Ms. Keller on this stand. She knew exactly what happened, and she told her story clearly, and convincingly. Because of her, we know what sort of life Teddy was forced to lead, and we know the kind of violence that ultimately led up to his death. We know that Albert Williams killed him, as Ms. Keller feared he would.

  “And here’s the thing that’s most sickening, of all the sickening things you’ve had to think about, here in this courtroom: none of this had to happen. There was a safe, nurturing place for Teddy to live, with a beloved family member who cared for this child and who loved him dearly. Teddy’s great-grandmother offered him a home, but his mother was too selfish to let him go. Teddy’s suffering was Angela Underhill’s ticket to independence—a free place to live, free food, no need to work. If only she could put up with the nuisance of raising a child, she had no one to answer to. Ultimately, that free ride was worth more to her than her child’s very life. And now that he’s gone, she’s got another meal ticket on the way, fathered by the same man who beat her little boy to death.

  “Angela Underhill’s lawyer will tell you that she was so damaged by the violence she saw in her own childhood that we could not have expected her to safeguard the life of her son. He wants you to believe that she was not responsible for the actions of Albert Williams, and that she was powerless to stop him from battering her child to death.”

  She looked at the photograph again. “Take a look at this boy’s face and tell me that you wouldn’t have tried to save him from a life of pain. Take a look at his great-grandmother’s face, here in this courtroom, and tell me she didn’t love him enough to give him a loving home. Angela Underhill knew that full well, but she was too selfish to keep her child safe, or even to keep him alive.

  “We know how Teddy Underhill died: Albert Williams punched him in the chest a dozen times, until the damage to his tiny ribs was so severe it stopped his heart. That is a horrible, excruciating, and absolutely sickening way to die. Teddy Underhill’s life ended with fear, and pain, and suffering. And his mother sat on a bed four feet away watching television
while it happened. She didn’t protect him, she didn’t comfort him, she didn’t even get up off the bed to look at him once the beating had stopped. She sat by as Albert Williams stuffed her son’s body in a refrigerator. Then she spent a week in the motel room with her son’s corpse, doing drugs.

  “Her lawyer has argued that the only reason Angela Underhill is facing charges in her son’s death is that she’s ‘poor and black.’ He’s argued that she feared for her life, and that her judgment was so distorted by an abusive childhood that she was incapable of protecting her son. He’s argued—and I’m sure will argue further—that this means you should declare her not guilty on all counts.

  “But I’m asking you, today, to think about the fate of Teddy Underhill when you weigh your decision concerning the guilt of both Albert Williams and Teddy’s mother, Angela Underhill. A three-year-old child is dead because of their cruelty, their selfishness, and their depraved indifference. Nothing can bring him back, but it’s within your power to demand justice in his memory.

  “Stephanie Keller came here at great personal cost, asking you to do just that. She battled cancer with tremendous courage for a long, long time, and willed herself to survive long enough to testify before you.

  “Stephanie Keller was a warrior. She fought to save the life of Teddy Underhill even as her own life ebbed away. She fought to make us comprehend this little boy’s pain and fear and suffering, knowing full well it meant spending her own final hours in crushing physical agony. She fought to be wheeled into this room because nothing could stop her from asking all of us—with her last ounce of strength, her last breath of life—for justice.”

  Bost dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment, hands clasped at the small of her back.

  “I’ll say it again: Stephanie Keller was a warrior.” She looked up, taking a step closer to the box of jurors.

  Cate said, “ Was?” beside me.

  I countered with an unvoiced “ Fuck.”

  Bost said, “When you think about Teddy Underhill, I want you to think about what this woman—a stranger—willingly sacrificed on his behalf.”

  She turned, pointing toward the defense table. “Weigh her compassion against Angela Underhill’s cruel indifference…. Weigh her courage against Albert Williams’s cowardly brutality….”

  She faced the jurors once more. “Make her strength your touchstone as you consider the facts of this case.”

  Bost stepped toward Teddy’s picture. “Teddy Underhill was murdered.”

  She gripped the side of the poster firmly with one hand and pointed to the boy’s joyous face with the other.

  “Angela Underhill knew how the ravages of physical abuse build inevitably, until they culminate in murder. Albert Williams knew he was smashing the fragile rib cage of a three-year-old child into shards, just as he knew that his final blows punched through to crush a tiny, beating heart.

  “They are both murderers,” said Bost.

  “ Yes,” said Cate, under her breath but vehemently.

  Bost looked at Teddy’s picture one more time, then let her gaze linger on the face of each juror in turn.

  “Hold them accountable.”

  Please God.

  “Thank you.”

  60

  Hetzler took his time getting up, each motion distinct, a sort of gestural stop-motion. Chair pushed back. Hands on tabletop. Chest tipped forward. Feet braced. Legs straightened to full height. Jacket patted smooth and buttoned closed. Three strides to the center of the floor.

  It was like watching a sniper assemble his favored rifle, click by click.

  “The facts of this case…” said Hetzler.

  His nostrils flared, once, as though he were testing the air to ensure that even the fragrance of Bost’s closing had dissipated entirely before conjuring forth his own.

  “Here’s the main fact of this case: Teddy Underhill’s death was a senseless tragedy.”

  Teddy’s portrait remained in place on its easel. Hetzler gave it a look of sad appraisal.

  “This beautiful, innocent boy? Just barely three years old?”

  He raised his hand to the pixels of Teddy’s cheek.

  “Horrible, what happened to this little angel … heart-

  rending.… No one with a shred of human decency could call his death anything less.

  “ But”—he looked up from Teddy, toward the jurors—“as tragic as it was, what happened to little Teddy Underhill was not murder, ladies and gentlemen.

  “To find either Angela Underhill or Albert Williams guilty of murder, the prosecution would have had to prove that their actions were undertaken with the intent to cause Teddy’s death. The prosecution would have had to prove that the defendants sitting before you actively planned to kill this child, which is what we call premeditation.”

  He nodded, sagely. “The defendants did not intend Teddy’s death. No one has testified otherwise, here in this courtroom, and rightly so.

  “The facts of the case,” said Hetzler. “You’ve been told that Albert Williams injured this little boy repeatedly—finally battering him to death. Angela Underhill described witnessing him inflict those injuries. Stephanie Keller testified that she heard Williams yelling, heard him strike the child, heard the boy’s own screams as Williams beat him. Mrs. Elsie Underhill told you that she saw the mark of a clothes-iron burn on the boy’s back, the day before he died.”

  Hetzler dropped his hands, taking a few strides closer to the jury box. “Were they telling the truth, those three women?”

  He looked at one juror, then another. “ I think they were. I think these injuries were inflicted on Teddy Underhill by one person: Albert Williams.”

  Here, he pointed an accusing finger at Teddy’s killer, bouncing his hand angrily to underline each emphasized word to follow.

  “ I think that the man you see seated before you—a man who weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and who measures six feet two inches in height—battered the body and soul of a three-year-old child without mercy, whenever the spirit took him. I think Albert Williams is a vicious man, a coward, and a bully.”

  He paused.

  “The facts of the case—here’s another one: the medical examiner estimates that at the time of his death, Teddy Underhill weighed thirty pounds and stood three feet tall. We all know that he had no hope of defending himself against the violent attacks of Albert Williams.

  “But we all have to wonder why Teddy’s mother didn’t step in to defend him, don’t we?” asked Hetzler, looking over his shoulder briefly at Angela. “Well, here’s another fact: Angela Underhill stands five feet two inches tall. And before her pregnancy, she weighed roughly one hundred five pounds. Physically, she is no match for Williams.”

  Hetzler crossed his arms. “The sad truth is that she was no match for him emotionally, either. We can hate her, we can despise her, for not protecting her son, but we all must take into account the fact that she suffered irreparable, horrifying, profound damage during the course of her own childhood. Mrs. Elsie Underhill told us that, didn’t she? She said that the man who killed Angela’s mother killed something inside Angela, too.”

  Hetzler clasped his hands behind his back, looking thoughtful. “Angela was forced to take a terrible, crushing, and flawed lesson to heart during that long dark night when she lay pinned beneath her mother’s dead body: she learned that if you speak up in defense of your own child, you will not survive. She learned that the only possible result of attempting to deflect the violence of a lover’s rage is death.”

  He nodded again, raising his eyes above the heads of the jurors. “We can hate her. We can despise her. We can smugly assure ourselves that we would have been strong enough to act differently. But we cannot blame her. Angela Underhill sustained such devastating psychological damage when her mother was shot to death before her nine-year-old eyes that she was rendered wholly incapable of defending her child from Albert Williams.

  “Three years ago, another child died at the hands of a vicious, cowa
rdly bully named Joel Steinberg. The dead child’s name was Lisa Steinberg, and her adoptive father battered her into a coma, then left her body lying on the bathroom floor for twelve hours. Steinberg went out to dinner with friends for several hours, and his common-law wife, Hedda Nussbaum, did nothing to help little Lisa. She didn’t call nine-one-one. She didn’t call the pediatrician. She didn’t even try to make the little girl more comfortable—with a blanket, or a pillow.

  “Hedda Nussbaum waited until Joel Steinberg told her it was time to take Lisa to a hospital, but all charges were dropped against Hedda Nussbaum, in exchange for her testimony against Steinberg.”

  Hetzler unclasped his hands. “Here’s what I find fascinating about that case. Do any of you remember what Nussbaum and Steinberg did in the hours before they carried Lisa’s body to the emergency room?”

  Several of the jurors nodded.

  “They smoked crack cocaine together, didn’t they?” he said. “For seven hours, according to Nussbaum. So that means Hedda Nussbaum was alone in that apartment with little Lisa for five hours—five hours in which she could have called an ambulance, or a friend, or a doctor. But she didn’t do any of those things. And the State of New York decided that she wasn’t responsible for Lisa’s death because she had been battered herself to the point that she was no longer capable of exercising the sort of judgment necessary to saving the life of her own adopted daughter.

  “Ms. Bost, the prosecutor, asked you to weigh the character of Stephanie Keller against that of Angela Underhill. I ask you now to weigh something else: the State’s treatment of Hedda Nussbaum against its treatment of Angela Underhill.”

  Hetzler started pacing slowly, as though considering the import of his thoughts for the very first time himself.

  “Two women equally ravaged by domestic brutality, two women equally damaged, equally overwhelmed by the violence inflicted on their children, equally incapable of normal human response in the face of that tragedy. One white, one black. One privileged and highly educated, one equipped with a high-school diploma.”