Authors: William Bernhardt
They had barely made it to the other side of the street when the bomb detonated. The force of the explosion knocked Ben facedown onto the sidewalk. The hood of his car flew up and a red fireball leapt out of the charred engine. Safety glass flew everywhere. The sound of the explosion reverberated off the buildings on either side of the street. It was earsplitting, Ben thought. And disturbingly familiar.
The frame of the car disintegrated, like a clown car in the circus, falling outward onto the concrete.
Ben scrambled back onto his feet, then looked frantically for Christina and Mike.
They, too, were a safe distance from the car. As far as he could tell, they were fine. Ben cautiously made his way to them.
“Like I said,” Mike offered, “I think you should consider getting a new car.
“Everyone okay?” Ben asked.
Christina and Mike nodded. “Just a little shaken up,” Christina said weakly. “This is becoming monotonous.”
“Right. My thought exactly.”
“Fact is, Ben,” Mike said, “you’re becoming a pretty damn dangerous guy to know.”
“Yeah.” Ben steered them down the street, away from the smoke clouds. “Well, maybe now that this sadist has had his fun, he’ll lay off.”
“If you think that, you’re kidding yourself,” Mike said. “It’s obvious this creep enjoys tormenting you, and it’s obvious he wants you to suffer. But he’s not going to be happy with that. He’s not going to be happy until you’re dead.”
Ben continued walking down the street, eyes straight ahead, not saying a word.
D
EANNA COLLAPSED INTO HER
hotel room, kicked off her heels, threw herself down on the bed, and cried.
My God, my God—what was she doing here? She had never meant to mislead anyone, never meant to be a fraud. And now, here she was on the jury of the Wallace Barrett case, probably the most publicized murder trial in the history of the state. The cameras were rolling, the prosecution was piling on evidence, and all she could think about was her daughter. Her own daughter.
My God, Martha. What have you done?
Voir dire turned out to be a breeze. She hadn’t even had to lie, not really. No one ever came close to the truth. True, she had blanched a bit at the end of the jury examination when that young attorney, the one representing the mayor, asked if anyone knew of any other reason not already discussed that might prevent anyone from serving as an impartial juror. It was a vague, broad question. Easily ignored. And yet she knew why he had asked it. He had asked it in an attempt to root out people like her, people who might be biased one way or another by factors he couldn’t even imagine, much less ask about.
But she had not raised her hand. She had remained painfully silent.
After that, she had become a full-fledged member of the Wallace Barrett jury. She’d had to get her friend Suzanne to stay with Martha while the jury was sequestered at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel. Sequestered—that was a laugh. It felt more like they’d been indicted. The whole juror compound, as they called it, was run like a prison camp. The jurors had had to meet in secret, at the fairgrounds, before the trial started. They were searched, first by hand, then by metal detectors. Their luggage was searched as well. Then they were herded onto a bus and, escorted by six men from the sheriff’s office, taken to their hotel.
Security was no less tight at the hotel. Everyone had their own room, but none of the rooms had locks on the doors. Officers from the sheriff’s office were posted in the hallway outside, not to keep them safe, but to keep them from meeting and talking about the case. No one said that the rooms would be searched while the jurors were out, but it was obvious to Deanna that they were. When she returned to her room each evening, personal belongings had been moved slightly from where they had been left that morning.
No juror was allowed to go to any other juror’s room—ever. There was one communal meeting room, which was the only place two or more jurors were allowed to gather. Again, deputies were posted in the room at all times, to make sure no one talked about the case. Meals were served in the same room, and under the same scrutiny.
The jurors were getting along well enough for the most part, but there was no denying the fact that tempers were fraying. The isolation was causing irritation, and irritation was always dangerous when people were in such close quarters. If for nothing else, Deanna was grateful that the lawyers and the judge seemed to be moving the trial along in an expeditious fashion. She couldn’t imagine living in these subhuman conditions for months on end. She was sure it would drive her mad. It would drive anyone mad.
The jurors had all sworn not to expose themselves to media accounts of the trial or to discuss the case amongst themselves before the time for deliberation. They had given their word. You would think that would be enough. But instead, the jurors were restricted and monitored constantly. They were treated like children, children who had to be surrounded at all times by hall monitors to prevent them from talking. It was insulting and degrading. Clearly the judicial system did not trust them. A woman giving up her time, separated from her loved ones, ought to be entitled to better treatment.
And in the midst of all these miserable living conditions, all Deanna could think about was her Martha. She felt certain that Martha would not intentionally participate in any murders. But Martha had a huge blind spot where Buck was concerned; she had proven that many times over. She might have done something unwittingly, might’ve helped in the tiniest way. Tiny, but still enough to get her a felony conviction. And jail time. Enough to ruin her life.
If Wallace Barrett went free.
That was the rub. She was convinced that Barrett was innocent. Maybe no one else on the jury believed it, but she did. She had believed it from the instant she’d heard his neighbor describe the strangers he’d seen casing Barrett’s home. The tall man with the goatee wearing fatigues. The shorter, younger, dark-haired girl with the blue headband.
How could she doubt that Buck was involved? She had seen his camera; she had developed the pictures herself. Pictures of Barrett’s house taken from every possible angle. The work of a hit man planning his crime. Indeed, she could believe a monster like Buck could commit this crime a good deal more easily than she could believe Wallace Barrett did it.
But what if Barrett was acquitted? What if, in the jury room, she argued her heart out and convinced the rest of the jury to acquit? Barrett would go free, and the DA, feeling pressure from all sides, would start looking for a new suspect. He would follow the only other real lead they had—the tall stranger casing the neighborhood. If they worked hard enough at it, in time they would eventually find Buck.
And Buck would lead them to Martha.
Deanna couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let her little girl’s life be ruined before it had really begun.
But the alternative was watching an innocent man go to prison. Or worse.
Even if he avoided the death penalty, Barrett would have to live the rest of his life with the shame and despair of knowing that the world believed he had killed his own wife. His own two small children.
When he hadn’t.
The defense case was not expected to take more than a day or two. If she hadn’t spoken up by then, it would be too late.
Deanna buried her face in the pillow. There had to be some way out, some solution, some compromise. Some way to prevent this great injustice without destroying her little girl’s life.
But she was damned if she could think of it.
She rolled over onto her back, wiping the tears from her eyes. She was damned, all right. Either way she went, any way she turned, she was damned.
T
HERE ARE MOMENTS IN
every trial when time stands still. Even in the most ordinary exercises in judicial fact finding, there are unexpected moments, moments of upset or revelation or salvation or despair. A trial is simply too huge, too complicated; even the best attorney on earth cannot anticipate everything. It is during these breakthrough moments that the true character of the jury trial system is revealed.
The trial of Wallace Barrett was far from ordinary. But its breakthrough moment was close at hand.
“Your honor,” Ben said, “I call Wallace Barrett to the stand.”
It was the announcement everyone had waited for, hoped for, speculated about. Everyone knew that a criminal defendant was not required to testify; the Fifth Amendment protects the innocent as well as the guilty. Everyone knew all the perfectly sound reasons why even the most innocent of defendants often opt not to take the stand. But at the same time, everyone hopes that they will. There’s no substitute for hearing the story from the defendant’s own lips. There’s nothing quite as telling as being able to look into the man’s eyes as he tells it.
O. J. Simpson never took the stand. Lee Harvey Oswald never took the stand. James Earl Ray never took the stand.
But on this day, Wallace Barrett did.
Flashbulbs, supposedly barred from the courtroom, erupted like lightning. Minicam operators climbed onto seats and chairs, craning for a better view. The courtroom was pandemonium, a loud roar punctuated by the judge’s futile pounding of her gavel. Despite what Ben had said in opening statement, everyone had expected the defense to begin with its less important witnesses, evaluating as they went the need for placing Wallace Barrett in the witness stand, making him subject to scrutiny by God, his country, and cross-examination.
But on this point, the defense had fooled them all.
And for about the ten millionth time, Ben wondered if he had done the right thing.
They had been over and over it, almost throughout the entire night. After the explosion, Mike had insisted that he and Christina go to the police station to file reports and provide any information that might possibly allow them to track down the bomber who was stalking Ben. It was after eleven before they got out of there. And then they had to return to Barrett’s jail cell and prepare him to testify.
To his credit, Barrett had come through all the pretrial rehearsals with flying colors. And why not? He was a seasoned media veteran. Barrett had insisted on testifying, had demanded his chance to confront his accusers and to tell his faithful followers the truth. Given his insistence on testifying, the only decision left to Ben was when. And he had decided to put Wallace on first.
There were a few other possibilities for lead witnesses. Jones had lined up a crime reconstructionist, a man who used computer graphic reenactments to show the jury how a crime was committed even when there were no eyewitnesses. His presentations suggested for a variety of reasons that it was unlikely (though not impossible) that one assailant committed all three murders. But his testimony was founded on a host of likely but unprovable assumptions, assumptions Ben knew Bullock would tear apart on cross. Besides, all the prosecution had to prove was that Barrett had committed one of the murders. Any one of them would be sufficient to strap him down on the lethal injection table.
Jones had also found some forensic experts who were willing to testify for the defense, assuming Barrett would pay their not insignificant fees. There might have been some value in calling their own experts on blood or DNA. But the bottom line was that these witnesses would only reiterate the issues Ben had already introduced during his cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses. The points had already been made, and they had not been sufficient to overcome the presumption of guilt created by the prosecution’s mountain of evidence. If he was going to win this trial, he needed something more.
He needed Wallace Barrett. On the witness stand.
Barrett took the stand with his usual deliberative, confident manner. Ben had coached him to be careful not to seem in any way smug or overbearing. He should at all times seem helpful, even deferential, to the judge and jury. And without being indignant or melodramatic, he must make it clear that he did not enjoy this. After all, a tragedy had occurred, a tragedy that had struck him personally. He had to make sure the jury never forgot that.
As Ben elicited the introductory information, Barrett performed flawlessly. He was striking exactly the right chord, making exactly the right impression. At this stage, the information being conveyed didn’t much matter. Everyone already knew who he was, what he did for a living, why he was here. What mattered was the impression he made on the jury while he was saying it.
They were watching him.
Ben was also riding a perceptual tightrope, vacillating between the formality required by the court and the casual friendliness necessary to show the jury that Ben liked the man. “Wallace, how long had you and Caroline been married?”
“Twelve years.”
“And how would you describe your marriage?”
“I would describe it as being very happy, for the most part. Sure, we had fights now and again, like any other couple. But the bottom line was I loved her, and she loved me. And we both loved the kids.”
The kids, the kids, the kids. The specter of those poor horribly murdered children hung over this trial like a thundercloud. “Some of the prosecution’s witnesses have suggested that your marriage was an unhappy one.”
“They’re wrong.” Barrett seemed firm, not pushy, but certain. “Believe me, I’m the one in the position to know. We had a very loving marriage. The fact is, Caroline’s sister never liked me from day one. I don’t know why. But she’s never made any bones about it. This is not the first time she’s tried to embarrass me publicly. And now that she’s got this six-figure book deal—well, she’s not going to do me any favors, put it that way.”
“We’ve also heard testimony from your neighbor, Mr. Sanders, and Caroline’s … friend Dr. Fisher.”
“They were both in love with her,” Barrett said flatly. “I don’t think anything ever came of it. I don’t think Caroline would’ve allowed anything to come of it. I think she loved me too much. But that didn’t stop them from trying. Sanders was constantly at our house on the feeblest of excuses. He wasn’t protecting Caroline; he was trying to get close to her. And Dr. Fisher was just the same.”