There was an audible gasp from the courtroom gallery. The cynic in Ben wanted to imagine that Bullock had planted someone to do it, but he knew that even Bullock was probably not that shabby. The truth was, Prentiss was doing a good job of recreating a horrific incident.
“And did Mr. Barrett strike his wife?”
“No,” Prentiss said. “Well, not then, anyway. His fist stopped maybe half an inch from her face. I was amazed he could stop in time.”
“And what was Mrs. Barrett’s reaction?”
“Well, she was horrified, of course. Her eyes were wide as moons. And the funny thing was, she hadn’t had that much time to react. It was as if she instantly realized what was about to happen.” He paused. “I had the distinct impression that this had happened before.”
“Objection,” Ben said. “Speculation.”
“Sustained.”
Ben sat back down, unable to savor this Pyrrhic victory. It was a petty objection in the face of devastating testimony, and he knew it. He wanted to turn to Barrett and shake him by the shoulders, to say What the hell did you think you were doing? But he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t even risk turning to look at his client. The slightest glance might be misinterpreted by a juror as concern over the testimony or, worse, an admission of its truth.
“Did the Barretts get their ice cream?” Bullock asked, breaking the silence.
“No. He told the girls they were leaving.”
“Did they comply?”
“The little one, Annabelle, the four-year-old, whined. She wanted her ice cream.”
“So what did the defendant do?”
“He … swatted her. On the backside.”
Bullock blinked twice. “Do I understand you correctly? He hit his daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Hard?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Hard enough that she didn’t give him any more trouble.”
Ben simply closed his eyes. It was just too much. All through Cynthia’s testimony, in fact, all through the case, he’d told himself, Yeah, but there’s no proof that he would ever harm his daughters. If nothing else, I can convince the jury that he would never harm them. Except now that was all ruined. Shattered. An eyewitness who had no reason to lie told the jury that Barrett hit his daughter. And Ben knew they would believe him.
He knew they would because he knew he did.
“Did anything else unusual occur?”
“No. Barrett gathered together his family and they left hurriedly. Believe me, I was relieved.”
“Did he say anything else before he left?”
“Yes.” Prentiss’s voice lowered. “Just after he almost hit her. He dropped his hands, but his eyes were still glaring at her, still drilling her so hard I thought they’d leave a mark. He looked at her like that and he said, in a low, growling voice, ‘You’ll regret this.’ ”
Bullock paused to let the import of that statement sink in. “And this was on the afternoon of March 11? About two-thirty in the afternoon?”
“Right.”
Bullock nodded. “Four hours later, all three of them would be dead.”
There was a great and heavy sense of weight in the courtroom. Heads turned and nodded, eyes widened. And for good reason. Now the prosecution had established not only a motive, but an expression of intent. And all of that before the first lunch break.
Bullock glanced up at the judge. “No more questions.”
Chapter 41
ORDINARILY, BEN WOULD’VE PREFERRED to start with the easy stuff and build to the hard, but in this instance, he knew he had to go straight to the heart of the matter, to undermine the impact of that last bit of testimony before it had a chance to make a permanent impression on the jurors’ perceptions.
“Let’s talk about Wallace’s last statement, Mr. Prentiss. He said, ‘You’ll regret this.’ Did he explain what he meant?”
“Well, no, but I had the definite impression—”
Ben stopped him cold. “Mr. Prentiss, I didn’t ask for your impressions. The judge has instructed you to stick to the facts. Please do so.”
Prentiss took in a deep breath. “All right. No, he didn’t explain what he meant.”
“So, he could’ve meant, say, ‘You’ll be sorry you didn’t get the girls ice cream, ’cause now they’ll be whiny all afternoon.’ ”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“Or he could’ve meant, ‘You’ll be sorry you raised your voice in public, because now your approval rating will go down in the polls.’ ”
“If you say so.”
“The truth is, sir, you don’t know what he meant.”
Prentiss chose his words carefully. “Based upon everything I witnessed, I had the definite impression that he was threatening her.”
“Threatening what?”
“Threatening bodily harm.”
“That’s your guess, and I emphasize the word guess, based on what you know or think you know happened later. But in fact, as you testified, he had a chance to hit her—and he didn’t.”
“Well … not in public, no.”
“You don’t know for a fact whether he ever hit her at all, do you?”
“I heard the—”
“Once again, sir, I must ask you to stick to the things you have actually seen or heard. Did you ever see Wallace Barrett strike his wife?”
“No.”
“ ‘You’ll regret this.’ Did your guess about what this remark meant occur at the time, or only after you’d read in the papers that Barrett’s family had been killed?”
“Well, after I read what happened it seemed clear—”
“After you read the incredibly biased reportage suggesting that Wallace Barrett was guilty, which came before any evidence had been gathered or presented, you decided to jump on the bandwagon and reinterpret what you saw to cast him as a killer making a threat.”
“That’s not true. I saw what I saw.”
“The truth is, sir, you saw next to nothing. But to listen to you testify, you’d think you’d witnessed the murders themselves.”
“Objection!” Bullock shouted.
“Sustained. Mr. Kincaid, please control yourself.”
“Sorry, your honor.” Ben flipped to the next page of his notes. He was getting carried away, and he knew that always led to sloppy lawyering. It was just so frustrating. Barrett was being hung on a circumstantial mass of innuendo, supposition, and media bias. “Let’s talk about the incident you described involving Wallace’s daughter Annabelle.”
“All right.”
“Despite your best efforts to turn it into some hideous public child abuse, basically, what you witnessed was a mild spanking, right?”
“I wouldn’t use those words.”
“Well, was the contact intended as a punishment?”
Prentiss tossed his head to one side. “I suppose it was.”
“And where did he touch her?”
“On her little bottom.”
“Sounds like a spanking to me.”
Prentiss straightened in his chair. “Look, I don’t think you can write something like this off by calling it a spanking. When you hit a kid, it’s abuse, whatever your supposed motivation.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“Damn straight.”
“You don’t believe in corporal punishment.”
“No, I don’t.”
“But you must realize that many people, particularly people older than you, do. They believe it’s necessary to discipline a child.”
“Discipline.” He snorted. “That’s what parents always say to justify hitting their kids. Most of the time it’s just plain uncontrolled anger. Venting their temper on their children.”