“You’re wrong.”
“Look, baby, I ain’t no priest—”
“Lucky for you.”
“—but I can see you got troubles. Somebody done you wrong, right? I don’t know exactly who it was. Maybe yo’ mama done you wrong. Maybe it was your wife, your girlfriend. Your mistress. Your fiancée, even. I don’t know. But I know this. Whoever it was, I can make it better.”
“No one can make it better. Not even God.”
“Well, I got to be honest with you. I don’t know much about God. But it’s just possible I’ve got a few tricks in my bag He don’t have.”
Kirk turned his head up, teeth clenched. “Leave me alone!”
When she saw his face, Chantelle’s eyes went wide. “Honey! What happened to you?” She bent down and cradled his head in her hands. “You look like someone done you but good.”
Kirk almost laughed. “Wait’ll you see my chest.”
“Honey, you need someone to be good to you. Someone to make the hurt stop hurtin’.” She pulled him closer and pressed his head against her breasts. “I’ll take good care of you, sweet thing. Promise I will.”
The heat of her body warmed him. He felt the chain reaction it sent cascading through his body. And he panicked.
“Get away from me, you filthy whore!” He rocked her backward, sending her rolling across the alley. “I’m not like that. I’m not!”
Chantelle held up her hands defensively. “All right, boy, stay calm. Just stay calm.”
“I’m not like that!” he bellowed again. “Just because I—it doesn’t mean—” He broke down. He jammed his face against his fists, bending over, thrashing from side to side.
Chantelle pushed herself to her feet. “My friend, you are in sorry shape. Truly sorry shape.” She walked to the end of the alley. “I’m prob’ly crazy to do this, but here I go anyway. Most nights you can find me right here, on The Stroll. But I’ve also got a place, a little room just above that pawn shop on the corner of Lewis. Room 12. Anytime you decide you want to see Chantelle, you just come on up there.”
She gave him a long look, shook her head a few more times, then clickety-clacked out of the alleyway.
Kirk wanted to tear his eyes out. As his fingers pressed hard against his eyeballs, he gave it serious thought. Why couldn’t he make anyone understand? It only happened once. He wasn’t like that!
Or maybe he was. Maybe that was what really bothered him. The knowledge that he was the sinner who did that horrible thing. And what’s worse, that he did it because he wanted to. Because he enjoyed it.
He flung himself down on the pavement, pummeling himself against the concrete. His head clanged against the Dumpster, then against the brick wall, then back again and again and again, beating his head into a bloody pulp.
God, God, God, he cried, sobbing silently. Why couldn’t he make this torment end? Why couldn’t he finish it, once and for all?
35
AS PROMISED, D.A. LaBelle started the next day of trial with the state medical examiner, Bob Barkley. Barkley was relatively new and this was the first time Ben had seen him in court. His predecessor, Dr. Koregai, had passed away from a heart attack several months before.
Barkley was young, energetic, buoyant—a complete contrast to Koregai. Koregai had always been serious and dignified, had always treated his job with enormous gravity. To Barkley, it was more like an all-night party. His infectious enthusiasm suggested that he thought being a coroner was, well, a good time. He seemed to adore rattling on about body parts and blood splatters.
It was quite a change. Koregai had always been so intelligent and commanding that jurors treated his opinions with respect, even if his testimony tended to induce premature napping. Barkley was much better at keeping them awake. The question was how much respect the jury would give the opinions of a coroner who came off more like a surfer dude.
After the preliminary elicitation of Barkley’s background and credentials, LaBelle brought him to the case at hand.
“Did you perform a forensic examination on the remains of Joe McNaughton?”
“I sure did,” Barkley answered, sort of like, Gee whiz, Mom, I remembered to take out the trash.
“And did you reach any conclusions regarding the cause of death?”
“Absolutely.”
“Would you describe those conclusions to the jury?”
“Of course.” Taking the cue, Barkley shifted himself slightly so he could make eye contact with the jurors. “The cause of death was the twenty to thirty stab wounds inflicted by a knife, perhaps an inch to an inch and a fourth, with a serrated blade. It’s a common configuration; a kitchen knife would fit. The blows landed all over the victim’s body—torso, arms, legs, neck, face—even one eye.”
Ben saw two of the jurors wince.
“The wounds punctured several critical arteries and caused excessive bleeding, which resulted in the victim’s eventual death.”
“Would this have been a quick death, Dr. Barkley?”
“Probably not. There were no fatal blows to vital organs, although, of course, the penis was severed. Neither the jugular vein nor the carotid artery were slashed. The process of bleeding to death could have taken anywhere from half an hour to two hours.”
“And would the victim have been conscious while bleeding to death?”
“For most of it, yes. Conscious, and in extraordinary pain.”
This portion of the testimony was totally irrelevant to the question of who murdered McNaughton, but it was keenly relevant to LaBelle’s desire to whip the jury into such a frenzy that they would convict anyone he told them to convict.
“Is there any way of … quantifying the pain McNaughton would’ve experienced? Before his death?”
Barkley pondered a moment. “Have you ever cut your finger?” he asked, to the jury, not LaBelle. “Maybe the knife slipped while you were chopping vegetables? Maybe even just a paper cut. It hurts like heck, doesn’t it? For a brief moment, the pain is so intense you can’t think of anything else. But with those minor injuries, the pain passes, because the body’s healing agents take over. Seratonin is released; the wound reseals; the blood coagulates. But with Joe McNaughton, with injuries of such extraordinary number and degree, there was no hope of healing before his body had drained itself dry. That intense, unbearable pain stayed with him till the moment he died.”
The courtroom fell quiet for a moment, as all present contemplated something that was, in fact, too horrible to contemplate.
When he was ready to proceed again, LaBelle held up a knife in a plastic evidence bag. During Matthews’s turn on the stand, it had been admitted and labeled Exhibit Fourteen.
“I’m holding an exhibit that has been previously identified as a knife found in the file cabinet of an attorney working for the defendant, Keri Dalcanton. Have you seen this knife before?”
“I have.”
“And have you had an opportunity to examine this knife in conjunction with your autopsy of Joe McNaughton?”
“I didn’t have the knife when I performed my autopsy. But when I did receive the knife, I compared it to the notes I had made previously regarding the cause and instrumentality of death.”
“And did you reach any conclusions regarding the knife?” LaBelle was being more than usually careful not to lead the witness, Ben noticed. Presumably he thought he was on a roll and didn’t want it interrupted by objections from the defense.
“I did.”
“Dr. Barkley, in your expert opinion, is this knife consistent with the wounds you examined on Joe McNaughton?”
“It is.”