by Rose Connors
Buck looks surprised. I’m not. I know exactly what Harry’s doing.
“I want to tell you about a client of mine,” Harry says.
Buck turns to me, question marks in his eyes.
“Listen,” I tell him. “This is important.”
And it is. There are probably a hundred reasons why I wanted Harry here tonight, a hundred points Harry knows how to cover that I don’t. This one, by far, is the most important.
“My client,” Harry says, walking toward the wall, “is a two-bit hood. He’s got a record his mother isn’t proud of, but it’s all pretty low-level stuff.”
Harry turns and pauses to make sure Buck’s listening. He is.
“Then one night he shoots a guy-kills him. Says it was self-defense. Swears it was. The guy came out of nowhere, he says, with a knife. Mad as hell about a woman. Tried to slit my client’s throat.”
Harry walks slowly toward our table again, hands thrust into his pants pockets. Buck watches, his expression blank.
“The Commonwealth-in the person of Attorney Geraldine Schilling-doesn’t buy it. My client’s no stranger to the system, don’t forget. She doesn’t buy much of what he says. So she charges him with first-degree. Premeditated.
“The arresting officers take him to the station and book him, then lead him to the interview room. The cop asking the questions wants to know about the handgun, where it came from.
“What my guy should do is keep quiet. He shouldn’t say a word until I get there. But he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He talks. He tells them he had the gun in his pocket, in the inside pocket of his jacket.”
Harry pulls his chair out from the table and flips it backward before he sits.
“The next question the cop asks is important. Everybody in the room-except my guy-knows how important it is.”
Buck shifts in his seat and looks my way for a moment before turning back to Harry. He’s wondering what any of this has to do with him, I’m sure.
“The question the cop asks is: Do you always carry the handgun? Or did you just happen to have it with you on that particular night?
“Remember,” Harry says, “I know this guy. He probably isn’t a murderer, but he’s a hell of a good liar. He thinks it over. He decides the cops-not to mention the judge and jury-probably don’t like guys who carry guns. Especially guys who aren’t licensed. So he tells them he almost never carries it. It was a fluke. He just happened to have it in his jacket pocket that night.”
Buck shrugs. “So?”
“So,” Harry says, “the Commonwealth’s case just got a hell of a lot easier. My two-bit hood just handed them premeditation.”
Buck’s gaze lingers a moment on Harry, then moves to me. He’s still, silent.
“So,” Harry continues, “I thought you might find that interesting.”
Buck’s eyes leave mine and return to Harry. He nods, slowly. He gets it.
“On June twenty-first, where did the hunting rifle come from? Where did you get it?”
Buck shakes his head. “Do you think…?”
“I don’t think anything.” Harry leans over the seat back, his eyes holding Buck’s. “I’m asking a question.”
For a moment, no one speaks. The room is still.
“From my rack,” Buck says. “I have a rack in the truck. I keep it there.” He leans back on two legs of the chair. “Always.”
Harry stands and bangs on the metal door. “You’re ready,” he says. “Get out of here. Go to sleep. You need to be clearheaded tomorrow.”
The guard appears instantly and ushers Buck out the door, leaving it open for Harry and me.
I lean in the doorway and watch them walk down the brightly lit corridor while Harry packs up his old schoolbag. The guard’s head is turned upward toward Buck, the two of them exchanging comments as if they’re buddies, on their way to a ball game, maybe.
Harry and I have known from the beginning that Buck should testify. In this particular case, it’s critical that the jury hear from him. If he had opted to keep quiet, we would have done our level best to change his mind. But that wasn’t necessary. From day one, Buck insisted he would take the stand, insisted he would tell the jurors what happened that morning, from where he stood in the shadow of the airport hangar. And he never wavered from that decision, never needed a push from us.
I’m glad. Glad it’s Buck’s decision. Glad he’s so sure about it. It’s Buck, after all, who will live with the outcome.
Chapter 34
It’s almost ten o’clock by the time Harry and I reach Cape Cod Hospital. Neither one of us has had dinner, and we’re both soaking wet. Snow melts on our hair and eyelashes and trickles like little rivers down our faces as soon as we enter the building. We stomp our feet and bang our briefcases on the inside mat, hoping to leave at least some of the slush and snow in the lobby.
Two security guards eye us from the front desk, then exchange wary glances. It’s plain from their expressions that they don’t like what they see. And I don’t blame them.
Harry looks like an unusually well-fed refugee. Shin-high work boots and an old tan coat hide his suit. A day’s worth of salt-and-pepper stubble covers his cheeks and chin, and dark half-moons underline his bloodshot eyes. He’s either a man on a mission or he’s a nut.
I don’t need a mirror to tell me I look every bit as bedraggled as Harry does. Even my soul is tired.
One of the uniformed guards listens to Harry tell our story and checks both our IDs. The other one rides the elevator with us to the third floor, clutching a two-way radio. He faces his reflection in the elevator doors throughout the ride. He doesn’t look at us, doesn’t speak.
Geraldine sits in the small waiting area outside the intensive care unit, writing in a notepad. It’s a rare sight, Geraldine in a chair. She looks no different now than she did at nine o’clock this morning. Her dark gray suit and starched white blouse are unwrinkled. Her black spiked heels and smoky nylons are flawless, relentless snowstorm or not. And every blond hair is in place. I don’t know how she does it.
She stops writing as we approach, removes her glasses. Her arched eyebrows say she wasn’t expecting company. “Good of you to drop in,” she tells us. “But His Honor isn’t receiving guests at the moment.”
There are a dozen empty chairs in this antiseptic square, but Harry drops into the one next to Geraldine’s and leans toward her over their shared armrest. “Is he awake?”
Harry’s been doing this to Geraldine-invading her personal space whenever possible-for the past month. He’s aspiring to greatness, he tells her, emulating her hand-selected protégé, Stanley.
Geraldine doesn’t think it’s funny. She growls at him like an annoyed German shepherd, then gets to her feet. “No, he’s not awake. But he was a couple of hours ago-for a few minutes.”
“Did he say anything?” Harry pats Geraldine’s vacant chair, inviting her to reclaim it.
She scowls at the invitation, directs her answer to me. “No, not a word. But he tried. He couldn’t get anything out. His throat is bad.”
Geraldine takes a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and taps one out. I’m relieved, to say the least, when she doesn’t light it.
She twirls it around in her fingers instead. “His throat is sore from the tubes-or whatever the hell they put down there-during surgery. The poor guy’s dying of thirst. He kept reaching toward the water pitcher, but the nurse”-she points her unlit cigarette at us for emphasis-“and she’s a story for another day-anyway, she’d only give him ice chips.”
Geraldine waits for a reaction but neither of us has one. “Ice chips,” she repeats, as if we must not have heard.
Still, Harry and I are silent.
Geraldine shrugs, gives up on us. She puts the unlit cigarette between her lips, turns away, and starts pacing. “So he went back to sleep.”
At the wall she pivots to face us, cigarette in hand again. “I’d go to sleep, too,” she says, “if all the world could offer m
e was ice chips.” She points her cigarette at me, her expression suggesting she’s shifting gears. “The lab work,” she says. “It’s back.”
Harry straightens in his chair. I take a few steps toward Geraldine. “The blood?”
“All Sonia Baker’s,” she says.
Harry arches his eyebrows at me. This is good news.
I turn my attention back to Geraldine. “And the prints?”
She smiles. “All Sonia Baker’s.”
This news is not so good.
A sheet of white fills the small entry to the waiting area, and Geraldine lights up like a hundred-watt bulb. “Ah, Nurse Wilkes,” she says. “May I call you Annie?”
The large woman in white folds her arms beneath her substantial bosom and frowns. She’s apparently not a Stephen King fan. She points to her name tag: Alice Barrymore, RN.
“The judge is awake again,” she says in a full baritone. “But I’m not taking a crowd in there.”
Geraldine stares up at her newfound friend, who has a good six inches on her. “Crowd? What crowd?”
Nurse Wilkes keeps her eyes fixed on Geraldine but tips her gray bouffant toward Harry and me. Her undersized nurse’s cap doesn’t budge.
Geraldine looks over her shoulder at us as if she hadn’t realized we were in the room. “Oh, them.” She flicks one hand at the giant nurse, directing her out of the doorway. “They won’t say a word. They promise.”
For reasons I’ve never been able to articulate, people obey Geraldine. Annie Wilkes is no exception. She steps aside, then follows as Geraldine leads the way down the brightly lit corridor. Harry and I bring up the rear.
Annie takes charge again, though, when we reach the doorless entry to Judge Long’s cubicle. “Hold on now. Stop right there.” She issues her command to Geraldine’s back. And, surprisingly enough, Geraldine complies.
The nurse steps in front of her and blocks the entry to the cubicle. “Put it away,” she says.
“Put what away?” Geraldine looks around the corridor as if the nurse might be speaking to someone else. Her scowl says she already took one order; surely she can’t be expected to take another.
“That.” Nurse Wilkes points at the unlit cigarette.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Geraldine taps the butt into its pack and drops the pack in her pocket, shaking her head.
Annie Wilkes turns her back, then, her authority reestablished, and leads all three of us into Judge Long’s small compartment.
It’s high noon in here. Fluorescent tubes beam down from above, exaggerating the glow of silver equipment and white linens. Machines hiss and beep from every direction. A brightly lit monitor displays four lines of constantly changing graphics. And it must be eighty degrees. It’s hard to imagine anyone-even a postsurgical patient-sleeping here.
Judge Long lies perfectly still on his hospital bed, his head and shoulders somewhat elevated, a thin white blanket pulled up to his chest. Two IV bags drip from a pole at his bedside. One delivers blood to his left arm, the other a clear solution to his right. He turns his face toward us as we approach, his eyes open and pleading. He lifts his left hand just an inch, toward the opposite side of his bed, toward the water pitcher.
Nurse Wilkes stations herself between the bed and the bedside tray, blocking Judge Long’s view of the pitcher. “No water,” she says. “Not yet.” She takes a small paper cup from the tray and scoops a plastic spoonful of ice chips between her patient’s parched lips.
“The guy just wants a sip,” Geraldine argues. “He’s not asking for a goddamned martini.”
The nurse shakes her head.
“You’re an angel of mercy,” Geraldine tells her.
Annie Wilkes glares.
Geraldine turns her attention to the judge, all business. “Try,” she says. “Try to tell us what you know.”
Judge Long makes a guttural sound. It sounds like “Ndt.”
It’s Geraldine’s turn to shake her head. The nurse delivers more ice. And the judge tries again. This time it sounds like “Hndt.”
Harry moves to the head of the bed and squats, so his face is level with Judge Long’s, and the judge gives it another shot. It sounds no different to me, but it’s clear at once that Harry gets it. He nods at the judge, then turns toward Geraldine and me.
“Hand,” he says. “He saw a hand.”
Judge Long nods, then lifts his head an inch from the pillow. “Mnz.”
“A man’s hand,” Harry translates.
The judge nods again.
“White.”
We all got that.
With considerable effort, the judge raises one arm and presses his hand against his shoulder, forcing his upper body further down on the pillow. His assailant must have braced him from behind with one hand, stabbed with the other.
“Anything else?” Geraldine has her notebook open, pen poised, but so far there’s not much to write.
We all stare at Judge Long. “Tis,” he says.
“I always thought you were Irish,” Harry says. “Now I know for sure.”
A smile spreads across Judge Long’s lips. It’s faint, but it’s there. He points to the bottom of his bed, wiggles his foot.
“Shoes?” Harry asks. “You saw his shoes?”
The judge nods.
Geraldine clicks the pen, tucks it in her pocket, and rolls her green eyes to the ceiling. “So we’re looking for a white guy with shoes.”
“That narrows it down.” Harry grins at her. “And I’m glad to hear you’re looking.”
Geraldine smirks at him as if he’s an annoying child, but she knows he caught her. She slipped. She’s still holding Nicky Patterson in custody, but she doesn’t think he did it. And she just admitted as much to the firm representing him. A rare mistake on her part.
Harry’s beaming now. He turns back toward Judge Long, leans on the bed’s guardrail. “Attorney Schilling has Nicky Patterson in custody.”
The judge’s eyebrows arch.
“The deadbeat dad,” Harry tells him. “The guy who ordered the special at Zeke’s.”
Judge Long closes his eyes and frowns. He remembers.
“Attorney Schilling thinks he’s the perp,” Harry says.
The judge squints at Geraldine, shakes his head.
“At least that’s what she tells us,” Harry adds.
“Nicky Patterson was there,” Geraldine answers. “He’s a white male. And I’m pretty sure he was wearing shoes. I haven’t heard anything here tonight that rules him out.”
The judge shakes his head again, but I’m the only one who notices. Geraldine and Harry are facing off.
“Come on,” Harry says, “you don’t have anything to rule him in. And you know it.”
“Keep your voices down.” Annie Wilkes sets her paper cup of ice chips back on the tray and hurries around the bed. She intends to usher us out.
“Everything rules him in.” Geraldine hisses.
“Shut up. All of you.” The three of them turn my way.
Harry and Geraldine are surprised. Nurse Wilkes looks stunned. I don’t imagine she’s told to shut up very often.
Their eyes follow my index finger to Judge Long. He’s silent, but his eyes aren’t. He shakes his head at Geraldine, mouths “No.”
“Never argue with opposing counsel,” I tell Harry, “if the judge will do it for you.”
Late as it is when I get back to the cottage, I am unable to resist the allure of Mr. Justice Paxson. Once more, I center his words under my desk lamp, the only light on in the house. I flip ahead in the opinion, past the remaining evaluation of expert witnesses, and turn to his discussion of the defendant.
Orfila has said that the mind is always greatly troubled when it is agitated by anger,…overcome by despair, haunted by terror, or corrupted by an unconquerable desire for vengeance.
Then, as is commonly said, a man is no longer master of himself; his reason is affected, his ideas are in disorder, he is like a madman.
But in all thes
e cases a man does not lose his knowledge of the real relations of things;…his misfortune is real, and if it carry him to commit a criminal act, this act is perfectly well motivated.
And in the near-darkness of my bedroom, I realize that this is precisely my concern. One truth about Buck Hammond is beyond debate. His misfortune is real, and if it carry him to commit a criminal act, this act is perfectly well motivated.
Chapter 35
Friday, December 24
It’s not a dream, not a nightmare. I bolt upright, my heart racing. My adrenaline pump switches on, an instant cold sweat seeping from every pore in my body. I will my breath silent, my eyes open.
The darkness is complete but for the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock. It’s two A.M. And the noise-the one I thought I imagined in my sleep-it’s real.
Scratching. Something-or someone-is scratching, digging maybe. But not outside; it’s not a fox or a coyote. The sound is here. In this room.
I decide against the light, swing my legs out of bed, and grab the telephone from the nightstand. The scratching stops, though, abruptly, and I freeze. A split second later, something lands on my feet and I jump up. My heartbeat halts. The phone falls to the floor.
My attacker whimpers. It’s Charles. I forgot about him. He lifts a pudgy front paw and runs it down the shins of my red flannel pajamas until I pick him up. He licks my chin as I flip on the lamp. Dog breath.
It was after midnight by the time I got home. Luke had left the outside floodlight on for me, illuminating the back stairs and deck. And the aroma in the driveway told me the woodstove was still burning. Otherwise, though, the cottage was dark. Luke and Maggie were asleep. Half an hour later, I was too. Charles never crossed my mind.
I put the phone back in its spot on the nightstand and examine the leg of my headboard. Sure enough, little dog scratches at the base.
Charles’s tail wags against the inside of my arm when I scoop him up. He looks up at me hopefully, mouth open, long tongue hanging over one side again. He really does have dog breath. And he’s hungry.
Danny Boy snores in his bed, oblivious to his adopted son’s needs. Every mother hen deserves a helper, I believe, so Charles and I head for the kitchen. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a two A.M. feeding, but I remember the drill. Feed him till you’re wide awake, then he’ll fall sound asleep.
