Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

Mr. Picton nodded grimly, glancing to the jury box. “For the jury’s information, Clara’s father, Daniel Hatch, passed away on December the twenty-ninth, 1893-approximately six months before the night in question. The cause was a sudden”-here Mr. Picton turned around to look at Libby-“a very sudden, and unexplained, attack of heart disease.”

“Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow said, standing up as quick as he could, “this kind of innuendo-”

“Mr. Picton,” the judge agreed, nodding to Mr. Darrow and then looking at the assistant district attorney, “I’ve warned you-”

“Your Honor, I suggest nothing,” Mr. Picton said, his eyes going wide and innocent. “The plain truth is that every medical man in Ballston Spa examined Daniel Hatch during his illness, and could find no explanation for his condition.”

“Then say that,” Judge Brown replied. “Half-truths are not better than lies, sir. Continue with your questions.”

Mr. Picton turned to Clara once more, letting his voice go soft again. “And what did you think that your mama meant, when she said that your dada told her that God wanted you to be with Him?”

Clara’s left shoulder shrugged again. “I didn’t know. I thought she meant that-that someday -but…”

Nodding, Mr. Picton said, “But that wasn’t what she meant, was it?”

Clara shook her head, this time hard enough to move the braid; and as the scar on the back of her neck became visible, I noted that one or two of the jurors caught sight of it, and silently pointed it out to the others. “She opened her bag,” Clara said. “And she took out dada’s gun.”

“Dada’s gun?” Mr. Picton asked. “How did you know it was your dada’s gun?”

“He kept it under his pillow,” Clara answered, “and he showed it to me once. He told me never to touch it, unless somebody bad was in the house. Somebody who was stealing, or… Mama left it there after he died.”

The girl’s voice trailed off, and her face began to get frightened: frightened in a way what even looking to the Doctor didn’t seem to help. Knowing that he’d reached a very dangerous point, Mr. Picton moved in closer to ask, “What happened then, Clara?”

“Mama, she-” Clara’s head began to shiver a little, and the left side of her body followed. Wrapping her good arm around herself, she worked hard to go on: “Mama came up into the wagon. She woke up Matthew and told me to give Tommy to him. So I did. Then she looked at me again. She told me it was time to go see Dada and God. That it would be a better place, and we had to do what God wanted.” Tears filled the girl’s eyes and started to roll down her face, but she never really cried as such, just grabbed herself tighter and tried to keep going. “She touched me with the gun-”

“Where did she touch you, Clara?” Mr. Picton asked. The girl pointed to her upper chest, finally letting out just one choking sob. “And then?”

“I remember she pulled the trigger, and there was a big bang-but that’s all,” Clara answered, getting a better hold of herself. “I don’t remember anything more. Not until I was in my bed at home.”

Mr. Picton nodded, letting out a deep breath of his own. “All right, Clara. It’s all right. We can talk about something else now, if you want.” Clara wiped her face with her hand and said, “Okay.” After giving her a couple of minutes, Mr. Picton asked, in a louder voice, “Clara-do you remember Reverend Parker?”

“He-he gave the services at our church. And he came out to visit Mama and Dada sometimes.”

“And what did he do when he came out to visit?”

“He’d come to dinner,” Clara answered. “And sometimes he’d go for walks with Mama. Dada didn’t like to go. He said the air was bad for him.”

“Did your mama ever take you or the boys along?”

Clara shook her head. “She said it wasn’t our place.”

Mr. Picton reached into the box to touch the girl’s left arm, looking very relieved. “Thank you, Clara,” he said. Then he added, not caring whether it was loud enough for anybody else to hear him, “You’ve been a very brave young lady.” Turning to walk back to his table, Mr. Picton then stood and looked at the judge and the jury. “The state has no more questions for this witness, Your Honor.” He sat down, leaving Clara exposed to the full power of her mother’s eyes.

Libby had reacted to her daughter’s testimony very much the way that the Doctor had predicted she would: first she’d tried quiet tears and hand-wringing, then she’d bobbed her head around, trying to get Clara to look at her. Then, when Mr. Picton stepped in to make sure Clara couldn’t see her, the tears and head bobbing had stopped, and she’d settled into still silence, while her eyes filled again with that cold, hateful glare.

But had the jury been able to see that? Or was it only the few of us what knew her full history who’d been able to read Libby’s face?

Looking terribly alone without Mr. Picton nearby, Clara turned her eyes downward once more, and started moving her lips silently. Seeing the near desperation on the girl’s face, the judge leaned over toward her. “Clara?” he said. “Are you able to go on now?”

With a start Clara looked up at him. “Go on?” she asked softly.

“The defense must question you now,” the judge answered, with just about the only smile I ever saw him exhibit during the trial.

“Oh,” Clara answered, like maybe she’d forgotten. “Yes. I can go on, sir.”

The judge sat back, looking to the defense table. “All right, Mr. Darrow.”

During the whole of Mr. Picton’s examination of Clara, Mr. Darrow’s hands’d been folded in front of his face, so that it’d been pretty tough to tell what he was thinking or how he was reacting. But when he stood up for his cross-examination, all the deep worry and occasional outrage what we’d seen him exhibit to this point seemed gone, and his features became open and relaxed in a way what Clara pretty obviously considered a relief.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow said, gently smiling and moving toward the witness box. But he moved at an angle what made it impossible for Clara to get any more looks at the Doctor: life is never more tit-for-tat than when you’re in a courtroom. “Hello, Clara,” he said as he got closer to her. “I know this isn’t easy, so I’m going to try to get you out of here as soon as I can.” Clara just dropped her eyes as an answer. “Clara, you say the next thing you remember is waking up in your house, is that right?” At another nod from the girl, Mr. Darrow went on, “But I don’t guess you thought you’d had a bad dream, did you?”

“No,” Clara answered. “I was-hurt…”

“Yes,” Mr. Darrow said, fairly oozing sympathy. “You were hurt pretty bad. And you’d been asleep for a long time, did you know that?”

“They told me later-the doctors did.”

“A long sleep can make people confused sometimes. I know if I sleep too long, I sometimes don’t even know where I am or how I got there, when I wake up.”

“I knew where I was,” Clara said, softly but firmly. “I was at home.”

“Good girl,” the Doctor whispered, craning his neck in an effort to get a look at her but not wanting to be obvious about it.

“Of course you were,” Mr. Darrow said. “But did you know everything else? I mean, as soon as you woke up, did you remember everything else?”

As if she couldn’t help herself, Clara again glanced over at her mother, who had her hands folded on the defense table like she was pleading for something, while her eyes’d filled with tears. Seeing this, Clara bobbed her head back down like she’d been jerked with a rope, and said, “I remember Mama screaming. And crying. She said that Matthew and Tommy were dead. I didn’t understand. I tried to get up and ask her, but the Doctor gave me some medicine. I went back to sleep.”