by Rose Connors
“And what have we here? Ah, it’s Mr. Hammond. Acting insane yet? No, not at all. He’s moving into position to take a clear shot, aligning himself-and his weapon-with his prey.” Stanley’s footsteps start up again, back toward the TV. “Sound insane to you?”
He hits the remote control, hits it again when Buck raises his hunting rifle. “And here’s Mr. Hammond again, taking aim. Perfect aim, don’t forget. See any sign of insanity here? I don’t. Not a trace.”
Stanley plants himself beside the TV, its screen frozen, and he faces the panel. It seems he intends to deliver his entire closing argument in the dark.
“Let’s be candid, ladies and gentlemen. We’re all horrified by what happened to this man’s son. That murder was an ungodly act.”
Stanley hits another button and the sound kicks in, the single shot heard ’round the Commonwealth.
“And so was this one.”
No one moves-or breathes, for that matter-while Hector Monteros dies yet again. Stanley waits until a good-sized pool of blood collects on the runway, then he freezes the scene.
“What will happen, ladies and gentlemen, if you accept this man’s temporary insanity claim? He’ll go home, that’s what. He’ll be a free man.”
Stanley moves slowly and deliberately toward the jury box. “And what will happen then?”
He stands still and waits, as if he expects one of them to volunteer. “I’ll tell you what will happen. Someone else will set him off, send him into a rage. Maybe next week. Maybe next year. I can’t tell you when. But I can tell you it will happen. I guarantee it.”
Stanley turns on one heel and looks through the darkness in our direction. “And what then? Well, that’s easy. Mr. Hammond told us himself. He told us exactly what will happen. He’ll hunt down the person who enrages him. He’ll hunt him down and kill him.”
Stanley’s footsteps tell me he’s pacing slowly in front of the jury box. I wish he’d turn on the damned lights.
“I must tell you,” he continues, “I wondered about Mr. Hammond’s mental state today. One has to wonder about a man who would utter those words in a court of law. But his mental state today isn’t my concern. His mental state most days isn’t my concern. It isn’t yours either.
“Your concern is this moment.” Stanley extends his pointer toward the bloody scene on the TV.
“Frankly, I don’t care if you think Mr. Hammond was insane on every other day of his life, today included. It doesn’t matter.”
He moves closer to the TV, taps his pointer on the glass. “Because this fragment of time is the only one that matters. And in this moment, Mr. Hammond was in control. At this moment, he was methodical. At this moment, he was purposeful.”
Stanley bangs the tip of his pointer against the pool of Monteros’s blood.
“We all know, ladies and gentlemen, that at this moment, William Francis Hammond was sane. Maybe-just maybe-it was a moment of temporary sanity.”
Chapter 45
Beatrice’s jury instructions were lengthy, but by the book. She glanced at Buck too many times when she defined malice aforethought and premeditation, but we couldn’t do anything to stop her. Ugly looks from the judge don’t normally form the basis of an appeal. In this case, though, we might give it a whirl.
Most members of the panel lost interest in the instructions, and their eyes glazed over about halfway through. I can’t blame them; mine did too. Listening to the Commonwealth’s Uniform Jury Instructions is like suffering through multiple bad sermons. Each one is more monotonous than the last, teeming with boilerplate directives and unqualified commands. The judge may as well read aloud from the phone book.
She’s wrapping it up now, not a moment too soon. It’s almost seven o’clock. Most of the jurors slouch in their seats, their eyes half closed. Not the retired schoolteacher, though; her posture is perfect, her eyes alert.
“And that, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, concludes my charge to you.” Beatrice sets her glasses on the bench, folds her hands beside them.
The jurors look exhausted, but they rally when the judge tells them she’s through. They shift in their seats, stretch their tight limbs. A few even rub their eyes, as if waking from a nap. Late as it is, they seem ready. Ready to get to work. Ready to take on Commonwealth versus Hammond. Ready to decide Buck’s fate.
“At this point in time, ladies and gentlemen”-Beatrice covers her mouth, stifles a yawn-“it’s my intention to dismiss you for the holiday.”
Harry shoots up as if fired from a cannon. “Dismiss them?”
“That’s right, Mr. Madigan. Dismiss them.”
I’m up too. “But they’re sequestered.”
“Not tonight, they’re not, Ms. Nickerson. It’s late. And it’s Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas Eve?” Harry’s at the bench in a flash. Stanley follows on Harry’s heels, as if he thinks Beatrice might need assistance.
Harry points backward to our table, to Buck, and almost smacks Stanley’s head in the process. “You think it’s Christmas Eve for Mr. Hammond, Judge? You want him to go back to his cell and decorate a tree? Let visions of sugarplums dance in his head? His life is on the line here.”
The judge doesn’t care to look at Buck now. She doesn’t acknowledge Harry’s pointing at him. Her eyes don’t move. She stares through Harry as if he’s not there. “Spare us your poetry, Mr. Madigan. And your melodrama as well. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts doesn’t impose the death penalty-not even in capital murder cases. No one’s life is on the line here.”
Beatrice shakes her head in the silence that follows her speech; she apparently finds it regrettable that death isn’t an option.
For a split second, it seems no one in the courtroom breathes. Even Harry is speechless. He turns to me and blinks, momentarily unable to grasp what he just heard.
Beatrice faces the jury again. She’s through with Harry. “We’ll reconvene on Monday morning, December twenty-seventh, at nine o’clock.”
“No. We won’t.” Harry’s voice is low, controlled. I know that tone. This is war.
“Pardon me, Mr. Madigan?” Beatrice glowers at Harry, her gavel in hand.
“You heard me, Judge. We’re not going to reconvene, because we’re not going to unconvene.”
“Unconvene?”
“You’re not sending them home, Judge. Not until we have a verdict.”
“Are you giving me an order, Mr. Madigan?”
“No. I’m not giving anybody an order.” Harry turns to the jury, his voice still steady, restrained. “Judge Long gave the order. These jurors are sequestered until they reach a verdict. Quarantined with the evidence presented in this courtroom. Sheltered from the media blitz. That’s been the standing order of this court since trial began.”
Harry faces Beatrice again. “You can’t change it now.”
“I can’t?”
“No. You can’t.” Harry’s still addressing the panel, not Beatrice. “It’s one more order Mr. Hammond relied upon. It’s an order that guarantees him a trial by jury-this jury-not by the press. You can’t take that away from him now. We won’t let you.”
“We?” Beatrice glares at the back of Harry’s head.
The jurors look as if they might agree with Harry. One by one, they nod up at him, then check in with one another. More than a few look up at the judge, as if they’d like to be heard on the matter.
Beatrice doesn’t notice, though; she doesn’t even look at them. Her eyes bore holes through Harry’s back.
After a moment of paralysis, Beatrice straightens in her chair, still clutching her gavel. She sends a silent signal to one of her two court officers, a burly man with a red beard.
Big Red signals back-salutes, almost-then leaves his post beside the jury box and heads for the side door.
Harry and I both know where he’s going. He’s rounding up the troops, preparing for battle. Big Red has been involved in removing Harry from this courtroom before. It’s not an easy task. If he and his partner
need to do it this evening, and it looks as if they might, they’ll need help.
Beatrice leans across her bench toward Harry and takes a deep breath. “I’ll instruct them to avoid the press, Counsel. They’re perfectly capable of doing so. No TV. No radio. No newspapers. And no discussion of the case with anyone. Not family members. Not even one another, until they begin formal deliberations. This won’t be the first jury to be so instructed. And it certainly won’t be the last.”
Harry turns to the packed gallery and lifts his arms toward the crowd as if he’ll belt out a chorus or two as soon as someone strikes up the band. Simultaneously, TV camera lights focus on him and flashbulbs explode. He’ll almost certainly be the top story on tonight’s late news, the front-page photo on tomorrow morning’s Cape Cod Times.
I can see the headline now: Defense Attorney Home for the Holidays-If Only in His Dreams.
“Avoid the press?” Harry laughs out loud. “How the hell are they supposed to do that? Spend the weekend in space, maybe?” His voice isn’t restrained anymore.
Beatrice leans back in her chair, lips clamped, decision written on her face. The offer to instruct the jury was her final attempt at reasoning with Harry Madigan. She’s had it. And everyone in the room, including Harry, knows that he’s had it too.
“Once again, Mr. Madigan, you are in contempt of this court.”
“You bet I am.” Harry hustles across the courtroom, staring up at her. “This court is contemptible.”
Beatrice pounds her gavel.
Harry keeps moving. When he reaches our table, he rests his hands on Buck’s shoulders and faces the jury again. He’s flushed, sweating. He’s running out of time and he knows it.
“This man deserves your verdict before you leave this building, before you’re bombarded with the opinions of those who think they know what happened here. No fair-minded person would say otherwise.”
Harry steals a glance at Beatrice, in case she missed his drift.
She didn’t. She fires eyeball missiles at him.
“You have a say in this,” he tells the jurors.
Big Red is back. His reinforcements include Joey Kelsey, who looks as if he’s been drafted for the front lines of the next world war. His cheat sheet apparently doesn’t cover taking a lawyer into custody.
Big Red looks up at the bench, checks in with Beatrice, and she gives him the go-ahead.
They surround Harry-four court officers in all-but Harry keeps talking to the jury as if he doesn’t notice.
“Don’t let her railroad you. She doesn’t get the final word. Tell her you want to stay, want to deliberate now, tonight. If she says no, we go straight to the Court of Appeals, Christmas Eve or not.”
Two of the officers take Harry’s arms and try to move him toward the door. He drops to his knees on the worn carpeting instead. It’s pretty clear to all of us that he won’t be going to the Court of Appeals tonight. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
I get to my feet. “Absolutely,” I tell the jury. “We’ll call in an appellate panel.”
As if to confirm my promise, the Kydd emerges from the crowd and stands with me at the defense table. The jurors don’t seem to notice him, though. Their eyes are glued to Harry and the struggling court officers. It’s hard to move Harry when he’s on his knees.
The retired schoolteacher turns to the man beside her, the restaurant owner, and whispers. He looks back at her and nods once, then again. Whatever it is she said, he agrees.
Big Red seems to be in charge of Operation Remove Harry; he’s calling the shots. He slaps a handcuff on one of Harry’s wrists but can’t get hold of the other one. He orders Harry to stand.
Harry sits.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Big Red says.
A few jurors snicker.
“Enough!” Stanley’s losing it. He backs away from the struggling guards, points at Harry. “This man is vile! Reprehensible! Get him out of here!”
All action stops, even the guards’ efforts to restrain Harry, and all eyes move to Stanley. He’s frozen in front of the jury box, still pointing at Harry.
The room is quiet until Harry starts laughing-howling, actually-and tosses his head toward his captors. “What the hell do you think they’re trying to do, pal?”
“Your Honor!”
Stanley undoubtedly has been called many names in his lifetime, but “pal” apparently isn’t among them.
The elderly schoolteacher twists around in her seat, whispers to the juror behind her. That juror, in turn, passes a message down the back row. The restaurant owner does the same in row one.
The guards have Harry in hand now-literally. Two grasp his shoulders while the other two hold him by the ankles. His wrists are cuffed behind his back. And he’s still talking. “You’re in charge,” he tells the jurors. “Don’t forget that.”
This is one of the first things that impressed me about Harry Madigan. I noticed it years ago, before I knew anything else about him. When Harry gets carted off to jail, he goes out the courtroom door talking to the jury. Always.
With a good deal of effort, the court officers drag Harry, still talking, across the worn carpeting and through the side door. When it closes behind them, the room falls abruptly still, silent.
I lean toward the Kydd. “Follow them. See where they put him. Then get him the hell out.”
The Kydd does a surprisingly good imitation of Big Red’s salute, then heads for the door.
Our retired schoolteacher raises her hand, but Beatrice doesn’t notice. The older woman clears her throat and gets to her feet. “Excuse me, Your Honor.”
Beatrice looks startled.
“We’ve discussed it, you see.”
“Discussed what?” Now Beatrice looks annoyed.
“We’d like to deliberate.” She fingers her lapel, looks apologetic. “Now.”
“Now?” Beatrice takes hold of her gavel again, as if she might use it on the elderly juror.
“Yes, Your Honor. No disrespect intended. We feel it’s the right thing to do. It’s what we all expected to do. And it’s what Mr. Hammond expected of us. It was planned that way from the start, you see.” She gives the judge a slight bow, then sits again.
Beatrice turns away from the impudent juror and glares at me. She looks as if she’s certain I orchestrated this. I’m flattered.
Big Red and Joey Kelsey return to the courtroom. The other two must have Harry under control. That means he’s in a cell. And it’s locked.
I pull my phone from my briefcase and place it in the center of the defense table, then drop into my chair and smile up at Beatrice.
She scowls at the phone, so I know she gets it. Either she allows these jurors to deliberate or I place a call to the Court of Appeals’ emergency line. And the appellate panel won’t like that. The judges on call won’t appreciate being summoned on Christmas Eve. Far better that Beatrice work the holiday than the Big Boys.
“Oh, and Your Honor.” Our schoolteacher is on her feet again.
Beatrice turns an angry face to her. “What now?”
“I just thought I should mention…” The older woman looks resolute, not a bit nervous. “We’re in agreement on this. It’s unanimous.” She takes her seat once more.
Beatrice’s face turns to stone. She signals Big Red again, and he strokes his beard. He tells the panel to stand and follow him, and they do. Just like that, they’re gone. Deliberating. Beginning their draft of the final chapter.
Joey Kelsey looks relieved as he approaches our table to escort Buck Hammond back to the House of Correction. Compared to Prisoner Madigan, Prisoner Hammond is a breeze. He surrenders to the handcuffs willingly, as he always does, then asks Joey Kelsey to give him a moment. Joey hesitates, then agrees.
Buck turns toward me. “Thank you. And thank Harry too.” He smiles. “If you ever see him again.”
I laugh. “Don’t worry. We’ll see him again. But don’t thank us yet. It’s too soon.”
Joey gestures toward
the door.
Buck leaves his seat, shakes his head. “It’s not too soon,” he says. “I mean it. No matter what happens. Thank you.” He stares into the first row for a moment, at Patty, then allows Joey to lead him away.
Beatrice watches them exit, then looks from Stanley to me. “Well, Counsel, I trust you’ll enjoy your evening. I’m going home.”
“Home?” The word escapes before I realize I’ve thought it. Beatrice lives in Provincetown, a solid hour from here even without the snowstorm.
She leaves the bench, her footsteps decidedly heavy, and pauses at the chambers door. “That’s right, Ms. Nickerson. Home. These jurors want to bring in their verdict on the holiday, they can damn well wait for me to get back.”
Chapter 46
Santa Claus spends Christmas Eve-every Christmas Eve-in Chatham. He arrives at dusk, waving from the bow of the year’s designated Coast Guard vessel, thigh-high oilskins protecting the legs of his cherry red suit. Coastguardsmen outline the masts of the chosen boat with twinkling white lights each year. The crew docks at the Fish Pier, where Santa disembarks and glad-hands his way through the wind-whipped, near-frozen assembly. He distributes candy canes as he makes his way through the crowd, ho-ho-ho-ing all the way.
On the street side of the pier, the Chatham Fire Chief waits in his official truck, heater running and red lights ablaze, to serve as Santa’s surrogate chauffeur. The reindeer, we’ve always been told by town selectmen, are busy elsewhere. After all, they explain each year, some children don’t live in Chatham. Someone has to deliver their toys.
Every year, Santa and the Fire Chief lead a caravan from the Fish Pier to the Main Street Elementary School, where the Cape Cod Carolers and the Chatham Band greet one and all with holiday music, home-baked cookies, and mulled cider. There, Santa sits enthroned on the gymnasium stage, chatting leisurely with every good boy and girl in town. The naughty ones usually stop by for a few words as well.
When Luke was little, he worried about the rest of the world’s children. Who visits them, he wondered, if Santa spends all of Christmas Eve-every Christmas Eve-with us? Helpers, I told him. Santa has thousands of helpers, and many of them look remarkably like him. The real Santa, I said, would just rather spend Christmas Eve in Chatham. That explanation made perfect sense to my son, for more years than he now cares to admit.
