Injustice (34 page)

Judge Ballard says, “Ms. Brill, do you wish to cross-examine?”

“Not at this time, Your Honor, but I would like the opportunity to recall the witness later on.”

Gregory opposes Monica's request, but the judge says he'll allow it. Philbin is allowed to step down. As he exits the witness box, I see a twinge of satisfaction in his jowly and generally unsmiling visage. He knows he got in a few good body blows against Henry, whom he seems to loathe so intensely.

Gregory is finished with the chain of custody. He calls Paula Myrtle, director of the Orchard City branch of the state legal assistance corporation. She is a Birkenstock kind of woman, with salt-and-pepper hair hanging to her shoulders in untamed waves. Gregory asks about her organization, and she tells us they provide free legal assistance to low-income clients, particularly in child and family matters. Gregory questions her:

MR. NATIONS:
In your position at the legal assistance corporation, did you ever come in contact with the defendant, Henry Tatlock?

MS. MYRTLE:
Yes.

MR. NATIONS:
And can you tell us about that?

MS. MYRTLE:
Well, yes, Henry was in law school. He interned with us the summer after his first year.

MR. NATIONS:
What year was that?

MS. MYRTLE:
I checked my records before driving here today because, you know, we get scads of interns. And it's hard to keep them all straight, but it's a little easier with Henry because of, well, you know.

MR. NATIONS:
No. Tell us.

MS. MYRTLE:
The way he, um, looks. Memorable. So I remember him really well. Really, really well. But I had to check on the year, because, well, like I said. And it was 2006. Summer 2006.

MR. NATIONS:
And what were the dates he worked there?

MS. MYRTLE:
Right. Yes. I looked that up, too. He joined us on June fifth, then he left again on August twenty-fifth.

MR. NATIONS:
And when you say he left, you mean he left your employ on that date?

MS. MYRTLE:
Yes.

MR. NATIONS:
But do you know the date he actually left Orchard City to return to school?

MS. MYRTLE:
I guess I don't.

MR. NATIONS:
And do you happen to know the date Kyle Runion disappeared?

MS. BRILL:
Objection.

JUDGE:
Sustained.

MR. NATIONS:
Or the date classes resumed at the law school here in town?

MS. BRILL:
Objection. Your Honor, how is this—

JUDGE:
Sustained. Mr. Nations, behave.

Everyone knows Kyle Runion disappeared on September 4, and I'm sure we'll learn that school started for Henry sometime after that. The time line is perfect. Henry had all summer to find a victim, learn his schedule, and then nab Kyle and be two hundred miles away within a few hours, never to return.

I
t's Friday afternoon. Barnaby, ZZ, and I drive up to the lake in Kenny's truck. He's four and a half, talking in complete sentences. Toddlerhood is behind him. He's a little boy now.

“Are you going to live in my house again, Daddy?”

“Don't you like Friendly City?”

“Yeah.”

“You like the pool, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And the big TV?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So.”

“Lizzy says maybe you won't.”

“But maybe I will.”

“I gotta pee.”

We take a bathroom break and get an ice-cream cone for Barn and one for me, and a tiny vanilla one for ZZ, which Barn gives him on the sidewalk in front of the shop. Barn and ZZ are the cutest boy-and-his-dog pair you'll ever find. Sometimes this ice-cream cone shtick gets people out of their cars taking pictures. Not today, though.

It's cold out. When we get to the cabin, the lake looks frozen, but I don't trust it. I warn Barn against walking out on the ice. He listens, looking very serious. “Okay,” he says. Then he eyes ZZ and says, “If ZZ runs on the ice, I'll yell, ‘Bad dog, ZZ. Bad dog. The ice is too thin.' Okay, Daddy?”

“Good plan, Barn.”

We make a fire to get the cabin warmed up, then we go over to Flora's cabin and heat that one, too. Lizzy and Ethan will be along later to stay in Flora's. I want to make it welcoming.

Tina arrives as it's getting dark. I'm making dinner, and Barn is watching a movie about penguins on my computer.

“How was your drive?” I ask her.

Tina says her drive was fine, and I say that mine was fine, too, and we talk about how it's cold, but not really cold for this time of year, and how it's nice to have snow but there's not much snow compared to last year, and then I say finally, “What's the deal with Craig?”

“You mean my ex?”

“Yes, that's who I mean.”

“I don't know,” she says. “We've reconnected. He heard about Lyd and got in touch.”

“And came to visit,” I say.

She studies me a moment.

“I recognized him at that hearing,” I say. “From your photos.”

“I should have told you,” she says.

I shrug. “We don't talk that much anyhow. Probably slipped your mind.”

“It's not anything.”

“Whatever,” I say. “You're a free agent.”

She stares at me a few seconds. “No,” she says, “not really.”

Tina mixes some dinner for ZZ and puts it in his bowl. I watch her. The past several years have taken a toll: postpartum depression; breast cancer; Lyd's murder. Then we believed Lydia's killer was coming after Tina. And now the horror of Henry. I should be glad she's doing as well as she is, and maybe she's beyond the worst of it. She is opening up to me again in minor ways: coffee sometimes in the morning when I pick up Barnaby for school; a beer sometimes at night. Now this weekend. “Don't walk out on the ice,” I tell her. “It's still not safe.”

She comes over to where I'm sautéing vegetables at the stove and gives me a kiss on the cheek, just below my eye.

Lizzy and Ethan arrive. Bill-the-Dog comes in with them and, after some butt-sniffing with ZZ, curls up by the woodstove. We get dinner on the table.

“Daddy,” Lizzy says, “I've got more info on Subsurface.”

“You want to brief me later?”

“It's all public knowledge,” she says. “Remember, I promised. No sleuthing. Just researching.”

“Okay. Tell.”

“That representative who added the amendments . . .”

“Porter,” I say.

“Right. Turns out he got, like, these huge construction projects in his district. Tons of jobs.”

Across the table, Tina and Ethan are talking between themselves. I'm able to hear a little: “She might meet up with me in June,” Ethan says to Tina.

“You haven't talked to Porter directly, have you?” I ask Lizzy.

“Only CD,” Lizzy says. “I called him to talk it through. He's going to call me back.”

Tina overhears Lizzy. “CD,” she says. “Who's CD?”

“Calvin Dunbar,” Lizzy says. “He's a friend of Dad's. He was a legislator.”

Ethan says, “Of course, we'll miss each other between now and June, won't we, babe?”

“Wait a second,” I say. “You'll miss each other when? Meet up where?”

“In the Andes,” Ethan says.

“Ethan's leaving soon,” Lizzy says. “Didn't you get my email?”

“Who's Andy?” Barnaby says.

“Andes,” Lizzy says to Barn. “They're mountains. We're going to hike in the Andes. At least to start. Not sure after that.”

I'm dumbfounded. It sounds like everybody else knows. “When, Liz? When are you leaving?”

“Ethan is leaving in a week, Daddy. I'm meeting him in, like, a month or two.”

“I never got an email.”

“I'm sorry, Dad,” she says. “I'm pretty sure I sent one. I figured you were just, you know, stressed about your little girl growing up, so you didn't say anything.”

“Have you told your mom?”

“Of course.”

Tina pats my hand. “Don't worry, Nick, you've been busy with Henry's trial.”

I'm disconcerted to know that there's a bit of truth in Lizzy's assessment of me. I
am
choked up. My little girl
is
growing up and going away. “We'll have a party,” I say.

“Okay,” Liz says, “but Mom's planning something, so you should just combine.”

After dinner, we get the place cleaned up. When Barn falls asleep, we all play Scrabble. Then Lizzy and Ethan get their boots on for the walk over to Flora's cabin. “C'mon, Bill,” Liz says. Bill-the-Dog gets up. ZZ goes along, too. They leave. I shut the door behind them. Then I open it. “Stay away from the lake,” I say. “The ice isn't safe.”

I can't see them, but Lizzy answers from within the darkness: “We know, Dad. You told us.”

G
regory calls Arthur Cunningham, who steps into the witness box and takes the oath. The sequence of Gregory's witnesses was thrown off by Dr. Farquar's schedule. Normally, Farquar would have been called at the end to give his ironclad scientific proof of Henry's guilt after all the background testimony of his motive and opportunity. No matter. This order of presentation will work just fine. Instead of ending with the rock-solid scientific proof of Henry's guilt, we started with it. And instead of introducing the gut-wrenching description of unearthing Kyle's decomposed remains at the beginning of the case, we can present it at the end. Either way, it tells the story.

Arthur is taller than I remember. He's average height and average build, but in my memory from when I went with Tina to the reservoir, I see him as small and unobtrusive.

Gregory takes extra time putting Arthur at ease with background questions. “Where do you live?” (Right there outside the reservoir preserve.) “What do you do for a living?” (He calculates bids for a large construction firm.) “And are you married?” (He's divorced.) Et cetera.

Gregory is good. He gets Arthur settled in and even gets him to chuckle by commenting on his own ineptitude with numbers when Arthur explains his job. And then Gregory begins in earnest:

MR. NATIONS:
Living near the reservoir as you do, do you spend much time in the woods there, walking or hiking or anything?

MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Almost every day.

MR. NATIONS:
Doing what?

MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Well, I'm . . . I'm . . . I have dogs, you know. I've always had a yellow Lab. That one was Bo-Jangles. Not that I hunt. I don't hunt, but I work them, and you know how energetic Labs are.

Cunningham seems shy and fragile, traumatized by having to remember finding Kyle's remains. I understand why I thought of him as small and slight. He has a paunch and sits bent over and avoids eye contact with Gregory. He tends to inflate his cheeks like a chipmunk when thinking. Gregory handles him gently: “On the day we're talking about, Mr. Cunningham, what did Bo-Jangles do that caught your attention?”

Arthur inflates his cheeks. “She dug.”

“Oh,” Gregory says, “you mean like with her front paws?” He imitates a digging dog.

“Yes. Like that.”

Gregory nods. “And she didn't do that often, is that right?”

“Not often. No.”

“So she wasn't a digger by nature. I mean, some dogs are. I had a dog once that dug up my whole backyard. Dug till his paws were bloody.”

Nobody here cares about Bo-Jangles, and we care even less about Gregory Nations's backyard. We care about Kyle Runion's remains, and I'm enjoying watching how deftly Gregory lures the skittish Arthur Cunningham into the open. Jurors like shy witnesses. Some identify with them, and others enjoy feeling superior. Gregory works Arthur slowly at first, and then he hands him photographs from the scene, evoking from him the slow and horrific recognition of what Bo-Jangles had found.

Arthur tells us how, when he walked over to where Bo-Jangles was busily tugging and excavating, the dog tore some of the shroud free from around the child's face. Nothing can prepare you for the first glimpse of the leering skeletal grin, dried flesh clinging in places
and dirt filling the eyeholes. It is vile. The joy and love and hope that once lived there seem not merely to be gone but to actually be undone. It makes you feel that all of life might be no more than a cruel hoax. As the photos are passed around, jurors press hands against their mouths. I hear gasps. And though she is in the gallery and can't see the photos from where she sits, Kyle's mother weeps openly. The jurors, I'm sure, wonder how they'd have reacted if they'd been in Arthur's place that day. They gaze with watery eyes at Kyle's mother and at poor Arthur, who had to unearth this horror.