Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

Mr. Darrow took his hand from his neck and shrugged in a big, exaggerated motion. “Dramatic stuff, gentlemen. And, if it were true, very hard to contest. But the fact is, the story isn’t true. Clara Hatch didn’t just wake up one morning ready to tell her tale, and insistent on doing so-she was carefully coached, coached and prodded back into the speaking world. And by whom? By the same man who now sits behind the state’s attorney.” Mr. Darrow didn’t look to the Doctor at that point; but everybody else in the courtroom did. “A man who’s spent his life working with children who have been the victims of tragedy and violence. And a man who happens to have spent the last week assessing the mental condition of my client, and who will be called to the witness stand to speak on that subject-by the state .”Finally, Mr. Darrow looked our way. “Dr. Laszlo Kreizler. The name may not be familiar to you, gentlemen, or to the citizens of Saratoga County generally. But it’s very well known in New York City. Very well known. Respected, by some. Others…” Mr. Darrow shrugged again. “Gentlemen, you may well wonder what and who has brought me here from Chicago to defend my client. But I wonder what and who has brought this stranger, this alienist , here from the madhouses of New York City, to coax a young girl into telling the world that her own mother shot her. That’s what’s got me confused, gentlemen. That’s what troubles the ‘very accomplished attorney,’ to the point where I just can’t gather my wits enough to be able to ‘work on your sympathies.’ Whatever that means…”

Those of us in the two rows behind Mr. Picton shot each other wide, anxious glances-for while Mr. Picton had spoken eloquently to the jury, Mr. Darrow was speaking their own language, and we all knew it.

Rubbing his neck wearily again, Mr. Darrow pulled out a handkerchief and started to wipe away beads of sweat that, as noon got closer, were starting to form faster and faster on his face. “Your Honor,” he said, his voice going very soft and sad, “gentlemen of the jury-life presents us with many events that go unexplained. Some of them are wondrous, and some of them are terrifying. A simple enough thought, maybe, but, like so many simple things, full of implications. Because the mind tends to reject what it can’t explain-reject, fear, and revile it. So it’s been with this case, especially for the men whose job it is to solve crimes and mete out justice for the state. The assistant district attorney calls my client’s explanation of what happened that night a ‘fantastic’ tale. Well… maybe it is. But that doesn’t make it false. That doesn’t even make it complicated. Look at what she’s said-that while she was driving her children home after a long day spent enjoying each other’s company in town and at the lakeshore, she was set upon by an apparently lunatic Negro, who attempted to assault her and threatened her children when she hesitated to surrender herself. The man was wild, crazed, desperate-and when my client made a sudden movement that this man interpreted as resistance, he shot the children and fled.”

Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his pants, Mr. Darrow returned to the jury box. “You don’t get a lot of behavior like that up here in Saratoga County, I know. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. It happens every week in Chicago. Maybe we should ask Dr. Kreizler-who’s a man in a position to know, gentlemen-how many times a day it happens in New York City. Is it ‘fantastic’ there, too? Or just here , because this is a quiet, pleasant little town? The state’s going to tell you that the fact that no one besides my client ever saw hide nor hair of the crazed lunatic means that he didn’t exist. But remember, gentlemen-it was hours before my client was coherent enough to tell anyone exactly what had happened on the Charlton road. More than enough time for such a man to make his way to the train depot and hide aboard a freight car, or to sneak unnoticed into the back of a shipping truck, and find himself the next morning somewhere far from the search parties in Ballston Spa. Maybe he showed up in Chicago. Maybe in New York. He would’ve had time. Maybe he was picked up, raving about some white children he’d shot, by the New York City police, who, after failing to find that any white children had been shot in their jurisdiction, figured he was crazy and sent him over to the famous Bellevue Hospital Insane Pavilion. And maybe Dr. Kreizler-who does a lot of work in that hospital-was called in to, as the alienists say, ‘assess’ the man’s mental condition. Maybe he thought the fellow was having delusions. Maybe the miserable creature’s still there, rotting away in a cell, tortured by dreams of those three children in the wagon…”

By now Mr. Darrow was staring at the floor, and a faraway, wandering tone had come into his voice. His brows then furrowed suddenly over his eyes, and he shook himself. “The point, gentlemen,” he continued, “is that we may never know. This case, and thousands like it every year, go unsolved and become open wounds in the soul of our society. We want to close those wounds-of course we do. Who wants to go through his everyday business with the knowledge that at any moment a lunatic may spring from the roadside and rob him of the things-or, more horribly, the people-he values most? None of us. And so we look for solutions, for safeguards, and every time we find one we tell ourselves that we’re that much closer to being perfectly safe, perfectly secure. But it’s an illusion, gentlemen-an illusion to which I have no intention of seeing my client sacrificed. The state may rest easier, thinking that it has brought the murderer of Thomas and Matthew Hatch to justice, and so may the citizens of this community. But that won’t make these charges any more true, or any more believable to those who have the courage to stand back and look at the thing in the cold light of reason. The state has told you what evidence it will introduce, and what witnesses it will call to prove its allegations. And I tell you now that on every one of these points the defense will enter the testimony of witnesses-expert and otherwise-that will refute the prosecution point by point.”

Lifting a heavy finger and pointing it in Mr. Picton’s direction, Mr. Darrow started to pound away: “They’ll tell you that they have physical evidence, supported by ‘experts,’ that the gun used to shoot the Hatch children belonged to their father, and was fired by their mother. But that entire theory is based on forensic ‘science,’ which, as the defense’s expert witnesses will explain to you, isn’t worthy of the name. The prosecution will then tell you that my client had financial and romantic reasons for wanting her children dead. But, gentlemen-household gossip is not evidence!” His blood getting hot, Mr. Darrow spun round to look at the galleries, the first really quick movement he’d made. “Finally, they’ll tell you that my client is sane, and that, being sane, she deserves to be taken to a terrible little room in the state penitentiary and strapped into a chair that would’ve had more place in the dungeon of some blood-crazed medieval tyrant than it does in the United States, and that she should then be assaulted by the vicious power of electricity until she’s dead-all so that the state can declare the case closed and its citizens can have their ‘peace’ restored!”

Stopping himself suddenly and catching his breath, Mr. Darrow dropped his hands helplessly. “Well, that’s really the point, isn’t it, gentlemen? Yes, my client’s sane. And in the days to come you’ll hear, from people who have a long experience with these matters, that no sane woman could or would commit such violence against her own children. Oh, the prosecution will give you precedents-they’ll tell you a lot of ghastly tales about women who’ve committed such crimes in the past, and were found sane by courts of law, and were locked away forever or hanged as punishment. But, gentlemen-prior injustices should not make you feel any better about committing an injustice here . Yes, there have been such women. But you will hear-again, from people who’ve studied these matters carefully-that those women, too, were suffering from terrible mental disorders, and that they were sacrificed to the same craving that drives the state in this case. The craving, not for justice, but for revenge-revenge and, even more urgently, an end to the uneasiness, the fear , that is engendered by a horrible crime that admits of no solution.”