William Bernhardt - Perfect Justice

“I won’t ask questions about any subjects you don’t want to discuss. I won’t ask you what you and Vuong fought about. But I have to get you on the stand so the jury can hear you say you didn’t kill him.” Ben glanced over his shoulder, just to make sure no one else was listening. “Otherwise, frankly, I don’t think you have a chance.”

Vick stared back at him, his voice caught in his throat. Surely he realized the trial was going badly, but that probably wasn’t the same as having his own attorney tell him straight out that he was headed for death row.

“I—I’ll think about. I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll be outside your cell tomorrow morning bright and early. So we can prepare your testimony.”

Vick nodded, and the deputies took him away.

Ben watched as Vick faded out of the courtroom. Every time Ben saw him, he looked less and less like a hardened hatemonger and more and more like a scared little boy who thought he saw the bogeyman lurking underneath his bed. A terrified youth who didn’t know what to do next.

And the tragedy was, his attorney didn’t know what to do next either.

54.

BEN REVIEWED HIS FIFTH draft of the direct examination he’d prepared for Donald Vick. He moved his lips as he read, trying each question on for size. It was the hardest direct he had ever written. Normally he would just take a witness through his story. What could be easier than that? In this case, unfortunately, Vick’s story was like a mine field. It was filled with dangerous subjects Vick refused to mention. Ben had to hone his questions to draw out responses on topics Vick would discuss without making the jury wonder about the topics he hadn’t.

Jones and Mike dropped by, but neither had any new information to report. They hadn’t found a trace of the woman Ben rescued from the burning Truong home, and they hadn’t found any witnesses who were willing to testify on Vick’s behalf. Loving, they said, was at the Bluebell shooting pool, as he had been for the last several nights. They weren’t sure if he was onto something, or if the Bluebell crowd was just his kind of people.

And Christina still adamantly refused to help.

It was almost ten-thirty before Belinda quietly opened the front door and walked to the back desk where Ben was working. She sat in a chair several arm’s lengths away from him. It was a long time before she spoke.

“What are you working on?” she asked.

“A direct examination for my client.”

“You’re going to put him on the stand? Is that wise?”

“Most defense attorneys prefer not to if it can be avoided. But I don’t have any choice. Vick doesn’t have any other witnesses. Even ASP appears to have turned against him. Our only chance is to put him on the stand and hope the jury believes him.”

She nodded. It was obvious she wanted to discuss something other than the case, but couldn’t quite bring herself around to it. “Most of the evidence the prosecution put on is circumstantial.”

“Most? All.” Ben pressed his hand against his forehead. “But there was so much of it. The jury can’t overlook so many links between Vick and the crime.”

“You think the jury is leaning toward a guilty verdict?”

“I’ve seen men convicted on less.”

“Ben—” She paused, then started over. “Ben, I know you take your work seriously, and I admire that. But don’t forget who it is you’re representing. This is Donald Vick, the Vietnamese assassin. The man probably responsible for the car bombing that maimed three people. The man who tried to beat Vuong senseless at the Bluebell Bar. Even if he didn’t commit this crime, he’s probably committed others as bad or worse.”

“If he didn’t commit this crime, he shouldn’t be convicted of it,” Ben said flatly.

Belinda sighed. She fidgeted with her hands, turned them over in her lap. “Ben … this isn’t what I wanted to talk about. I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. I figured, if that’s the way you want it, fine. If you already got all you want—”

“Belinda! I promise you, it isn’t—” “But I couldn’t let it go. I just couldn’t. Maybe you can bury all your feelings. But I can’t.”

“Belinda—” He gazed across the desk at her. Her eyes were wide and sparkling. “It isn’t that at all. It isn’t anything to do with you. It’s all me. All my problem.”

“Then let’s at least talk about it!”

Ben reached out and took her hand. “We don’t have to. I’m over it. I’ve decided. I’m not going to allow myself to wallow in the past forever. I’m over it.”

“Are you hoping that if you say it often enough it will be true?”

“No. It is true.”

Belinda closed her eyes. “I was afraid I had done something wrong. I was afraid I was too aggressive, or too … I don’t know. Strident. I was afraid I had done something that … changed how you feel about me.”

“I can’t conceive of anything that could make me feel differently about you.”

“Really?”

Outside, the red neon Coors sign in the front window of the Bluebell cast colored shadows across the street and through the undraped office window. The faint echo of Mary-Chapin Carpenter seeped through the doors and flowed down Main. Her voice was like the wind whispering in Ben’s ear. Come on, come on . … it’s getting late now. …

Ben pulled Belinda closer. “I love you,” he said, in the instant before their lips met.

Twenty minutes passed before either of them thought to pull the drapes.

55.

BEN SPENT THREE HOURS the next morning preparing Vick to take the stand. He wasn’t nearly as concerned about what Vick would say as how he would say it. His demeanor was critical. If the jury detected any hesitance, or uncertainty, or equivocation, they would assume the prosecution’s version of the facts was correct.

As the jury filed back into the courtroom Ben patted Vick reassuringly on the shoulder. “Try not to worry,” he murmured. “You’ll be fine.”

Vick smiled, but the smile was unconvincing in the extreme.

Judge Tyler breezed through the preliminaries with unaccustomed dispatch. He appeared as anxious as everyone else to proceed with the day’s programming.

Ben called Donald Vick to the witness stand.

“Would you state your name for the jury?”

“Donald Allan Vick.” He spoke in calm, clear tones. Confident, but not cocky. Honest, but not like he was working at it. Just as Ben had instructed him.

Ben guided him through a general description of his background in Alabama: his childhood, his education, his family life.

“When did you become a member of ASP?”

“When I was eighteen.”

“Why did you join?”

Vick tilted his head to one side. “All the Vick men have been ASP members since the Organization was first formed a hundred and twenty years ago.”

“Sort of a family tradition, then?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Did your father expect you to join ASP?”

Vick nodded. “He insisted on it. If I hadn’t, he would’ve booted me out of the house.”

“Do you remember when you joined?”

“Oh, yes. The first day I was able. On my eighteenth birthday. ASP makes a big ceremony of it—putting on uniforms and lighting torches. They talked about how I was making the transition from boyhood to manhood.”

“It’s sort of a rite of passage for the Vick men, then?”

“Exactly.”

“Your honor, I object.” Swain rose to his feet. “We’ve been very patient with this line of questioning, but I don’t see what it has to do with this murder case.”

He did, of course. He understood its purpose just as well as Ben did. The purpose was for the jury to get to know Donald Vick, the person. For him to become a human being, rather than a cardboard villain.