James Patterson - Murder House

But he can’t suppress the surge of hope he feels. He has a chance.

“Cross-examination?” Judge Barnett asks.

The prosecutor, Sebastian Akers, drops a notepad on the lectern between the prosecution and defense tables. This is the kind of moment a guy like Akers lives for. The packed courtroom, the big trial, the cross-examination that will make or break this case.

Keep your composure, his defense attorney told Noah. Akers wants to paint you as someone who committed murder in a blind rage. He wants you to show the jury that rage. He’s going to try to bring it out, get you upset.

“Mr. Walker,” Akers begins, “you have no alibi for the night of the murder, correct?”

Noah clears his throat. “As I told Mr. Brody, I stayed in that night.”

Akers makes a face. “What I meant was, nobody can corroborate your alibi, correct?”

“Correct.”

“The jury has to take your word, and only your word, for it.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“And you admit you were once given a key to the front door of 7 Ocean Drive, correct?”

“Yes. I’ve done work on that mansion for years. At some point, it made sense for the contractor who used me to just give me my own key.”

“And that key has now magically disappeared.”

“I don’t know about ‘magically’ — but I don’t know where it is.”

There was no evidence of forced entry at the mansion on the night of the murders. The fact that Noah had his own key isn’t a good fact for him.

“You deny that you confessed to this crime to Chief James. You deny that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So when he said you did, he wasn’t telling the truth.”

“He wasn’t.”

“And when Detective Murphy testified to what the chief told her about your confession, she wasn’t telling the truth, either.”

“I don’t know if she was or not. Maybe the chief said that to her. Maybe he didn’t.”

“If he did, then he was lying to her, too.”

“Right.”

“Or maybe Detective Murphy just made the whole thing up! Right, Mr. Walker?”

Noah feels perspiration on his forehead, his neck. “Could be.”

“So maybe she was also lying. Right, Mr. Walker?”

“Maybe.”

“Sure,” Akers says with no shortage of sarcasm, flipping a hand. “And Dio Cornwall, who shared a cell with you in lockup, who testified that you confessed to killing Melanie, that you said you ‘cut her up good’ and that she ‘couldn’t be no movie star now’ — Mr. Cornwall was also lying. Right, Mr. Walker?”

“He was lying. I never said anything like that to him. I never talked to him about my case at all.”

“I see.” Akers looks at the jury. “Any idea how Mr. Cornwall would have known the name Melanie, or that she’d wanted to be a movie star, if you didn’t tell him anything about your case at all?”

“I–I don’t know. Maybe he read it in the newspaper.”

“The newspaper? Mr. Walker, Dio Cornwall was in lockup with you. Do you recall ever being given a copy of any newspapers while you were in lockup?”

Noah pauses. He casts his eyes downward.

“If you like, we can bring in the sheriff’s deputies who controlled lockup while you were—”

“No, we never got newspapers,” Noah concedes. “I don’t know how Dio got that information. Maybe Chief James told him.”

“Chief James? So now you’re saying not only that Chief James lied about your confession, but that he helped Dio Cornwall make up a story, too?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Chief James isn’t here to testify, is he, Mr. Walker? So we’ll never be able to ask him, will we?”

Noah fixes a glare on the prosecutor. He feels his blood go cold.

“During your direct testimony, you admitted that you confronted Melanie at her job — at Tasty’s Diner — asking her to take you back. You admit that, correct?”

Noah shakes his head, focuses on the change of subject. “Yes, I admit that we argued, and I grabbed her arm, but Remy has the date wrong. He said it happened two days before Melanie was killed. June second. But that’s wrong. Melanie broke up with me in April. About seven weeks before she died. That’s when I talked to her at Tasty’s.”

He met Paige a week after Melanie dumped him, in April. He’d moved on from Melanie. But he’s never told anyone that. He’s never publicly acknowledged his affair with Paige. And he won’t now. No matter how many times Paige has told him to do so. He won’t bring Paige into this.

Akers nods along, his eyes alight. “Pretty big difference between April — seven weeks before the murder — and two days before the murder.”

“Yes, it is.”

“So Remy’s lying, too.”

“I don’t know if he’s lying—”

“But he’s not telling the truth.”

“That’s right. He’s not.”

“So, to summarize,” Akers says, strolling along the edge of the jury box, “Chief James, Detective Jenna Murphy, Dio Cornwall, and Remy Handleman — none of them are telling the truth. But you, Mr. Walker, on trial for your life, whom Melanie broke up with so she could start dating Zach Stern — you are telling the truth.”

Noah feels his pulse ratchet up. The way Akers is stacking up all the evidence... nobody’s going to believe Noah. It hits him hard, for the first time. They won’t believe me. They’re going to convict me.

“I’m telling the truth,” he pleads. “I swear I am. I would never hurt somebody else.”

“You’d never hurt anybody?” Akers asks, with mock innocence. “Well, Mr. Walker, isn’t it true that, in 1995, you brought a rifle to Bridgehampton School and opened fire on a number of your classmates?”

The courtroom erupts at Sebastian Akers’s question. Noah’s defense lawyer, Joshua Brody, is on his feet, arguing. Judge Barnett stands down from the bench and walks to the far end of the courtroom, away from the jury, for a sidebar with the lawyers. The spectators are all abuzz.

I wasn’t in Bridgehampton back in 1995, but I have a memory of Uncle Lang mentioning that someone had brought a BB gun to school and shot a bunch of the kids on their way into school. He never mentioned a name; no reason he would have. This was before Columbine, before zero-tolerance policies cropped up around the country and kids were expelled from school for even bringing toy replicas in their backpacks.

If this was in 1995, Noah would have been young. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, something like that. It would have been a juvie beef. And if it was in juvenile court, it would have been confidential. I wonder if the town even knew who it was who did it. There would be rumors, sure, but I wonder if there was ever an official announcement. Judging from the reaction of the spectators — many of whom are presumably lifelong Bridgehampton residents — it seems like they’re hearing this news for the first time.

The lawyers and court reporter and judge resume their positions, and the room goes quiet again.

Noah’s lawyer, Joshua Brody, objects. “This is a juvenile offense,” he says.

“Your Honor,” Sebastian Akers replies, “he just testified he’d never hurt anybody. He opened the door. I’m entitled to impeach him.”

“Overruled,” says the judge. “Proceed, Mr. Akers.”

And the prosecutor does just that, with a vengeance, a gleam in his eye. “You were arrested on Halloween, 1995, for shooting a number of schoolchildren on the south playground of Bridgehampton School, correct, Mr. Walker?”

“I was... I was arrested, yes. It was a BB gun.”

“Fifteen schoolkids were shot that day, weren’t they?”

“I believe... that’s right.”