William Bernhardt - Criminal intent

"You touched her buttocks?"

"It's a common thing to do."

"To a nine-year-old girl?"

"In the sports world!" Beale shouted. "I know I shouldn't have done it. I just wasn't thinking."

"You seem to have a problem in that department."

"It was a mistake! The girl barely noticed. But some old busybody saw it and reported it to the girl's mother, and she brought the charges. Which were soon dropped."

"Was that because your partner-in-crime, the bishop, intervened for you again?"

"It's because there was nothing to it!" Beale teetered forward, almost rising out of his seat. "I made a mistake and learned from it. It never happened again!"

"Well, not with a nine-year-old." Canelli brought his full height to bear, hovering over the witness stand. "But you've got a history of sexual impropriety that spans your entire career."

"There are only three incidents-"

"That I was able to uncover. But before you claimed there were none at all. And three is a lot for a… holy man, wouldn't you say?"

Father Beale fell silent.

"Here's how I see it, Father. When Kate McGuire confronted you, you saw the whole thing blowing up in your face. Again. If she squealed to the bishop, and word got out about what you were doing, no one could save you. You'd be finished as a priest. You'd be publicly exposed as a sex pervert. And that's why you killed her."

"I did not kill her!" Beale roared. He jumped to his feet. "I did not kill her!"

Ben and Christina exchanged a pained look. He'd lost it. Canelli had gotten what he wanted-and the jury was watching.

"You did," Canelli said. "You killed her in cold blood. To save yourself!"

"I did not!" Beale's face flushed crimson. His entire body trembled with rage. "I did not!"

"Then who did? The invisible man? The only person whose fingerprints were on that weapon was you! How do you explain that?"

"I… can't."

"Because you killed her, didn't you? You had sex with her, time and time again, and when she didn't like it anymore, you killed her!"

"No!" Beale's face was contorted by vivid, almost tangible anger. He leaned against the railing, virtually snarling. He looked like a monster.

Judge Pitcock pounded his gavel. "The witness will sit down and control himself!"

"I did not kill her!" Beale continued, oblivious to the judge, the jury, everything. "I couldn't kill anyone!"

Which he could shout all day, Ben realized, and it wouldn't matter. Because in the courtroom, actions speak louder than words. And at the moment, he looked like a man who could kill. Could and would. And did.

Canelli gave the jury one more long look, shook his head sadly, then closed his notebook. "No more questions, your honor."

After a much needed recess, Christina spent the better part of an hour redirecting, trying to salvage some semblance of Father Beale's credibility. She took him back through all the incidents Canelli had raised on cross, eliciting his side of the story. Most important, she took him back to the scene of the crime itself, step by step, establishing where he was and why he wasn't in the office at the time of the murder. It went well-better than Ben expected. But how much difference would it make with the jury? What they had witnessed would weigh heavily on each and every one of them. What they had seen in the courtroom today they couldn't possibly forget. "Is she dead?"

"Oh, yes," Manly said. "She's dead. Well and truly."

"You're certain."

"Absolutely. Not a doubt about it." He was feeling a mix of emotions so complex he had difficulty expressing them even to himself. He knew that he had struck a great blow for the cause. But at the same time… something else was buzzing through his brain. Or perhaps it was his heart. Something… less certain.

But that was nonsense. He'd done what he'd meant to do, and he was proud of it. He wasn't going to let any weak-kneed sentiment bring him down. He was a Crusader, after all. He'd done the right thing. He knew he had.

"I said, are you certain?"

"Absolutely. Dead as a doornail. Limp as a mackerel. Pick your cliche. She's gone."

"Good."

"You seem happy about it."

"I'm happy to see… to see our plan brought to fruition."

Something about his friend's answer didn't strike Manly right. "There wasn't something more, was there? You were somewhat adamant that she be the one."

"She was the perfect choice. We discussed it over and over."

"I know. I just wondered if maybe there was something more."

"Well, there wasn't. So stop being stupid. We have to remain focused. And we have to do something with the body."

What was it about that answer that didn't seem quite convincing? Manly wondered. He shouldn't be suspicious. It was just guilt creeping up on him. It was stupid. He wouldn't descend to that level.

And yet…

"So, are you going to help or not?"

Manly snapped out of it. "Yeah, yeah. I'm helping." He hesitated. "Look… don't call me stupid. I don't like it."

"Sorry. It just slipped out. It won't happen again. You know I have nothing but the highest regard for you. You're a hero in my book."

Yeah, I think I probably am, Manly thought, as he positioned himself around the corpse. But maybe not for the reason I thought.

He gazed one last time at the old woman's remains. She did look tranquil now; more than she ever had when she was living. Maybe there was a peace in the afterlife, even for babykillers and those who support them. Who knew? He took the top half, and his friend took the bottom, and together, they lifted the lifeless body of Ernestine Rupert, founder of Tulsa's top pro-choice group, late of the vestry of St. Benedict's church, into the truck. "Mr. Prosecutor," Judge Pitcock asked, "would you like to make a closing statement?"

Canelli nodded and approached the jury. "I've been in the DA's office for fourteen years now. Most of them good ones. I've won a lot of cases, and I've lost some, too. But I can tell you this, and I mean it sincerely-this has been the hardest case I've had to try in my entire career. I don't imagine there will ever be a tougher one."

Ben's eyebrows rose. This was an unusual opening, especially coming from Canelli. Unusually soft, and unusually honest.

"It isn't because I have the slightest doubt about Daniel Beale's guilt. I don't. The evidence against him is overwhelming, irrefutable. But that hasn't made my job easier. Because at heart, I'm still a good Catholic boy from the Sunday school classes of St. Thomas More's of Broken Arrow, and prosecuting a man of the cloth has not been a pleasure. And I've had to do more than that. I've had to expose him as a man who could not control his temper, and worse, could not control his sexual appetites. I've had to reveal that a man who acted as a counselor to many was in fact a sexual deviant, engaging in numerous liaisons with the women who trusted him. I've had to reveal that he had inappropriate relationships with married women and even small children. And that, you can take my word for it, has been no pleasure."

A snazzy way of reminding the jury of all the most salacious moments of the trial without seeming salacious as he did it, Ben thought. And yet, he had to admit, there was something undeniably genuine, something truly regretful, about Canelli's tone and manner.

"I kept telling myself, perhaps I was simply being inflexible. Perhaps I was too resistant to new ideas, to anything that deviated from what I grew up believing. Perhaps I had become so locked into the role of the prosecutor that I saw evil everywhere-even where it didn't exist."

Christina shot Ben a pointed look. What was this, closing argument or Canelli's private soul search? And yet, as he looked into the eyes of the jurors, he saw that they were hanging on every word. Some of them were even nodding in agreement. Whatever it was Canelli was doing, it seemed to be effective.