Angel Taylor, a twenty-something blonde in the front row, nodded. “I think I’ve got the general idea.”
“Will you be able to honor this standard?”
“I believe so.”
“Do you understand everything this high standard of proof requires?”
“I believe so.”
“What do you think about it?”
She sighed. “I think you’ve about exhausted this subject. Could we move on to something else?”
Ben had to smile.
Chapter 35
Ben spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the jurors’ ties to the logging industry and the obvious tendency that might have to predispose them against Zak, and trying to assess the impact of pretrial publicity regarding the murder. As he soon learned, there wasn’t a soul in the jury box who didn’t know something about the murder. And it didn’t take a mind reader to deduce that most of them assumed George Zakin had done it. All Ben could do was ask the jurors if they believed they were biased (none of them did, of course), and whether they thought they could be open-minded and fair (all of them did, of course). Unless someone admitted to bias, he couldn’t get them removed for cause. He would have to use his precious peremptory challenges to root out the worst of them.
He tried to delicately address the subject of conservation, of ecology and efforts to protect the old-growth forest, but he almost immediately felt such an intense chill he backed off. This was not a sympathetic audience. The less he reminded them of Zak’s environmental “extremism,” the better off he’d be. He began considering ways to reshape Zak into something less controversial, like maybe a communist or a child molester.
By the end of the day, both sides were ready to pick a jury. Ben knew up front he couldn’t eliminate everyone who ever worked for a logging company; that industry was far too pervasive in this part of the world. And it was even possible that people who had an up-close look at logging practices might be more sympathetic to Zak. So he took off the two that seemed most extreme and left the rest. He removed Mrs. Preston and Mrs. Cooper, then two other jurors he thought would be likely to convict even without evidence, much less evidence meeting any burden of proof. Granny peeled her six off as well-all, Ben judged, because they had seemed less than zealot-like in their determination to apply the death penalty. Which gave Ben a pretty good idea what she thought was most important.
Judge Pickens excused the dismissed jurors and told the lucky fourteen to be back in the courtroom at nine o’clock the next morning. And then court was in recess.
The preliminaries were over, Ben realized. Now the real work would begin.
“How do you think it went?” Ben asked Christina, after they returned to their office.
“Comme ci, comme ca,” she replied. “Of course, the jury is going to be hugely pro-logging. But you knew that was inevitable when Judge Pickens declined to grant your motion for change of venue. Still, I think you got the worst of them off.”
“We can only hope.” Ben plopped down into the chair. “I thought voir dire was grueling. I wanted to ask a million questions. And I think they wanted me to stop before I started.”
“Nonetheless, you plowed ahead and did what you needed to do.” She smiled. “I can remember when you were too embarrassed to ask individual jurors questions. And today you did it for hours. You’ve come a long way, Ben.”
“I was probably better off before. All I did was give them an opportunity to make me the butt of their jokes.”
“Not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone likes to be the class clown on occasion. You gave them a chance to do it in court. Which may endear you to them. Just a bit.”
“Sort of like … everyone loves the village idiot?”
She grinned. “Sort of. Any way you look at it, it’s a good thing.”
“Sounds great. They love Granny. They patronize me.”
“I’m not sure they do love Granny. They respect Granny, just as they would respect a Doberman or anything else that might rip out their throats with its bare teeth. She’s a femme fatale big-time, and they know it. But don’t confuse that with love.” She paused. “You’re never going to make the jury forget you’re an outsider, because you are. But you could possibly make them like you. More important, you could make them trust you.” She leaned across the desk. “And that’s the only way you’re going to win this case.”
There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Ben said.
After a moment’s hesitation, Sheriff Allen poked his head through the doorway.
“Oh.” Ben stood up and glanced at Christina. “I guess you two have a dinner date.”
“Actually, no,” Allen said. He tipped his hat and smiled in Christina’s direction. “Although I wish I did. The little lady told me she was off-limits till the trial ended.” He cleared his throat. “No, I came to see you, Ben.”
“Me? Why?”
Allen cleared his throat again. There seemed to be something he needed to say-something he wasn’t looking forward to saying. “Got a call on the radio from one of my deputies. Deputy Andrews.”
“A fine fellow,” Ben said. “He helped me break up a near riot.”
“Right.” A longer pause. More hesitation. “He’s found something.” Something about Allen’s expression sent a chill down Ben’s spine. “Something? Or … someone?”
Allen nodded grimly. “Tess O’Connell. What’s left of her.”
Ben joined Sheriff Allen in his Jeep for a half-hour drive into the forest. On the way, Allen showed Ben where he’d broken up the whipping incident several nights before. Their destination, though, was a good fifteen minutes beyond that.
“This is pretty well off the beaten track,” Allen explained. “It’s pure coincidence that Andrews happened on it.”
“What was he doing in the forest?”
“Oh, we try to patrol out here from time to time. Just as we do in the city.”
“Patrol for what? Jaywalking grizzly bears? Spotted owls flying under the influence?”
“More like environmental radicals blowing up expensive equipment. Sabotaging machinery.”
“You take your instructions from the logging companies?”
“Kincaid, try to get this through your head. I don’t take my instructions from anyone. I’m not on anyone’s payroll. Neither is my department. When we go out on patrol, we go looking for crime, regardless of the politics behind it.”
“But you patrol in places where you’ll catch environmentalists.”
“Or loggers. If more of my men had been in the forest that night, your Green Rage buddies might not have lost their camp. And if I hadn’t been driving around the night that whipping took place, three of your friends might well be dead now.”
Ben bit his lip. Allen was right, of course. Ben was out of line. “I’m sorry. Trying this case has made me paranoid.”
“Can’t say as I blame you for that.” They drove another fifteen minutes or so down a narrow dirt trail into the heart of the forest. Ben supposed that Allen probably had landmarks that he followed. For Ben, it was just trees and trees and more trees.
Eventually Allen pulled the Jeep over to the side of the road. “From here, we walk.”
Allen checked his pocket compass and pointed. They headed off in that direction.
Not two minutes later, Ben saw Deputy Andrews in the distance. As they approached, Ben picked up on his distressed expression, the pasty white condition of his face.
“Where?” Sheriff Allen asked.
Andrews pointed, up high and to the left.
And there she was.
She had been nailed facefirst to the tree, with six sturdy iron spikes hammered through her arms, legs, and torso. She had been crucified, her arms stretched out and her legs splayed. Except on closer examination, Ben realized her arms weren’t so much stretched out as … wrapped around the tree trunk.
She was a tree hugger, now. Literally. And finally.
Chapter 36
“You gonna be all right?”