William Bernhardt - Naked Justice

Out the corner of his eye, Ben saw the jurors carefully scrutinizing Whitman. They wanted to know the answer to that question, too.

Whitman stumbled, stuttered. “I … don’t recall … It’s been a long time.”

“But this is probably my favorite of the messages,” Ben continued. He held it high in the air so the jury could see. “Number eleven. This one was sent on the very same day the murders occurred. I admire brevity in a writer, and this message is the very soul of brevity. Only five words, in fact.” Ben faced the jury and read. “It says, ‘Did you get the nigger?’ ”

The courtroom went crazy. The roar was loud enough to cause feedback on the television mikes. People stood on the pews, craning their necks for a better view. The cameras swirled around, trying to catch everyone’s reaction. Reporters threw messages to runners, while the rest of the gallery stared forward in stunned silence.

Judge Hart pounded the courtroom back into order, and Ben asked his next question. “Mr. Whitman, what exactly were you trying to find out when you asked Buck Conners ‘Did you get the nigger?’ ”

Whitman’s hands were pressed against the edges of the witness box. He blinked, twitched, rubbed his finger against the side of his nose. He looked up at the jury, then over at the judge, as if searching for some recourse, some place of appeal. “I don’t believe I want to do this anymore. This is an outrage. I am not the defendant.”

“No,” Ben said, “but you should be. Answer my question.”

“I won’t. I want a lawyer.”

Judge Hart leaned down from the bench. “Excuse me, sir. You will answer the question. That is an order.”

“I will not.” Whitman folded his hands across his chest. “I’m taking the Fifth.”

“That again?” Ben turned wide-eyed toward the jury. “There seems to be an epidemic of this today.” He took a step toward the witness. “Tell us the truth. You hated Barrett. You’ve hated him for years. You couldn’t be mayor as long as he was around. You had to get him out of the way. He was your enemy.”

“Yeah? What of it?”

“As you said yourself, Mr. Whitman. You know how to deal with your enemies, don’t you? Those were your own words!”

Whitman’s lips parted wordlessly.

“That’s why you hired Buck, isn’t it? You didn’t hire him for any phony photography job. You hired him to ‘get the nigger’!”

The clamor rose, this time even louder than before. Judge Hart pounded her gavel futilely.

Ben shouted above the tumult. “Answer my question! Isn’t it true? You engineered these murders, didn’t you? It was you! ”

“It was not! I—” Whitman stared back at Ben with unmasked hatred. “I’m not saying another word till I see my attorney. You’re wasting your time.”

Ben threw his hands down in disgust. “That’s just fine, Mr. Whitman. I think we all know what happened, whether you care to admit it or not.”

“Objection!” Bullock shouted.

“Never mind,” Ben said. “I’m finished with this witness.”

Judge Hart leaned across the bench. “Do you care to cross-examine, Mr. Prosecutor?”

Bullock frowned. If he thought he could do himself any good, Ben knew he would. But it was hopeless. Whitman had taken the Fifth. And even with a friendly questioner, Whitman couldn’t explain away Ben’s evidence without risking a waiver of his Fifth Amendment right of silence. “No.”

“Very well. Anything else, Mr. Kincaid?”

“I see no need,” Ben said. He placed his documents back on the table and firmly placed his hands on his client’s shoulders. “Wallace Barrett did not commit these crimes. We rest our case.”

Chapter 65

AS IT TURNED OUT, there was no rebuttal testimony, so Ben got to go out on a high note. That was good, but the critical question was—how good? Whitman had been proved a liar, but had he been proved a murderer? There was no doubt in Ben’s mind, but he knew it was pointless to try to predict what the jurors were thinking. All they could do was wait and hope for the best.

After the tumult of the last witness, closing arguments were almost an anticlimax. Ben wondered what approach Bullock would take. He remembered that old trial lawyer’s canard: When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

As it happened, Bullock did very little hollering. He had plenty of compelling evidence to wield, and he reintroduced every bit of it.

“I’m reminded of a story my father told me once,” Bullock began. He leaned his hands against the rail and edged toward the jurors. “Seemed a married man had been out all night, drinking and carousing and carrying on, and he didn’t get back until the wee hours of the morning. He knew his wife would be angry, so he took off his shoes and tiptoed into the kitchen. To his surprise, he found his wife was already up and sitting at the kitchen table, with a very angry expression on her face.

“ ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

“ ‘Well,’ he said, thinking quickly, ‘I woke early this morning, so I thought I’d go out for a jog.’

“His wife stared back at him. ‘I woke several times during the night,’ she said. ‘You were never there.’

“ ‘Well,’ he said, thinking at lightning speed, ‘I didn’t come to bed because I knew you were already asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.’

“ ‘I dead bolted the doors last night,’ his wife replied. ‘You were never inside.’

“ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, so I slept outside in the hammock.’

“His wife shook her head. ‘I sold the hammock last week at a garage sale.’

“The man took a deep breath, folded his arms, and said, ‘That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.’ ”

Bullock pushed himself away from the railing. “For some reason, I kept thinking of that story the whole time the defense put on its case. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. That was more or less the main theme of the entire defense. Wallace Barrett has his little story about how he was conveniently not at the scene of the crime at the exact time of the murder, even though he was seen there throughout the afternoon. It’s illogical. It’s preposterously contrived. It conflicts with the evidence. But that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.”

Bullock sauntered into the center of the courtroom, gesturing toward the defense table. “They would have you forget all about the mountain of evidence we have laid before you, all of which points to one man. Wallace Barrett. They have even attempted to tarnish the reputation of one of the leading citizens of this community in their desperate attempt to break the strong arm of justice. They want you to forget everything, but I want you to remember everything— all the facts, all the evidence.”

Bullock then proceeded to catalogue in detail the considerable evidence the prosecution had put before the jury. He covered it all—the eye- and ear-witnesses to Barrett’s violent episodes and his threats—Cynthia Taylor, Dr. Fisher, the man at the ice-cream shop. And perhaps most poignantly, Karen Gleason, the little girl who had the misfortune to hear her eight-year-old playmate being murdered on the other end of the phone.

And then he started on the forensic evidence. Ben could see the jurors’ eyes dart, their heads nod, as he reminded them of some of the most compelling, seemingly unrefutable points. The blood traces—could anyone deny that Wallace Barrett’s blood was on his wife’s body? DNA blood typing might not be precise, but the odds against that blood coming from anyone else were enormous. And then there was the skin sample found under his wife’s fingernail, the sample that DNA testing proved had almost certainly come from Barrett. How could he possibly explain that? And then, of course, there was the devastating testimony of the coroner—that Caroline Barrett was pregnant at the time of her death, a two-month-old fetus who had died with her.