“Why would she be afraid he would kill her?”
“He’d come close several times already. Beating her into unconsciousness, till she had to go to the hospital for emergency treatment. Or humiliating her in public, like the time he locked her out of the house in her underwear. Things that made her want to die. He was destroying her. Bit by bit he was draining everything away from her, including her will to live.”
“Did you report any of these incidents to the police?”
“No. I wish to God I had. But she begged me not to, for the sake of the children, she said, and I didn’t. I was a fool. I might’ve … might’ve …”
“Don’t blame yourself, Doctor. We all understand the circumstances. Tell me, given the enormous abuse Caroline Barrett was suffering, why didn’t she leave him?”
Fisher grimaced. “It’s the classic battered-woman syndrome. She hated the man but she couldn’t separate herself. Plus there were the children to think about. How would she care for them without him? How would she live? Certainly not in the manner to which she had become accustomed. She’d signed a prenuptial agreement before marrying Barrett. In the event of divorce or separation, she got nothing.” He shook his head gravely. “She often said the children were all she had, the only weapon she could use against him. If it hadn’t been for them, she was sure she would’ve been dead already.”
Bullock moved through his questions slow and easily, letting these devastating words hang heavy in the hearts of the jurors. “What would trigger these irrational bursts of fury?”
Fisher shrugged. “It varied. Sometimes it was his chauvinistic, piggish attitudes about what a wife should do. Sometimes it was his irrational jealousy. She couldn’t breathe on another man without him going ballistic.”
“How did this affect her?”
“I’m sure you can imagine. What would be the effect of living in constant fear for yourself and your children? Of being constantly battered and abused, verbally and physically? She was on the edge, if she hadn’t gone over already. I have to say, I was afraid for her mental health. I tried to get her to seek professional help, or better yet, to get away from him. But she never did. I mean, when she told me about her pregnancy, she was practically in hysterics.”
Ben sensed Barrett straightening beside him. “That son of a bitch knew,” Barrett muttered under his breath. “I didn’t know, but he did.”
Bullock raised an eyebrow. “Dr. Fisher, you knew about her pregnancy?”
“Of course. As I’ve said, we saw each other frequently.”
“Do you know if she told her husband she was pregnant?”
“I know that she did not, unless perhaps she did it on the day she died, which might in fact explain what happened.”
The hubbub in the courtroom swelled. “What do you mean?” Bullock asked.
“Your honor,” Ben said, “I’m going to object to any speculation by the witness.”
Judge Hart nodded. “Dr. Fisher, you may tell the jury what you know, but please refrain from speculating about what you do not know but think might have happened.”
Dr. Fisher nodded his understanding. “Caroline told me on several occasions that her husband hated her when she was pregnant. He belittled her and made fun of her, told her she was an ugly pig—charming statements like that. He flew off the handle once and hit her. Can you imagine? Punching a pregnant woman? Your own wife? She’d been pregnant three times—for their two children and one miscarriage, which may have been induced by violence from her husband—and he had made her life a misery each time. She knew as soon as she told him she was pregnant again, the abuse would escalate. That’s why she refrained from telling him.”
“But she had to tell him sometime.”
“Yes,” Fisher agreed, “she did. Which makes me wonder if she didn’t tell him the night he killed—I mean, the night she was killed.”
“I would’ve thought she might’ve thought the pregnancy was a blessing. Surely the man wouldn’t intentionally kill his own child. So long as she carried the child, she would be safe.”
Fisher shook his head grimly. “Nothing could make her think she was safe from him. Not after the incident with the baseball bat.”
A deadly hush fell over the courtroom. No one twitched; no lips moved.
“The incident with the baseball bat?” Bullock asked finally.
“You heard right.” Fisher shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“When was this?”
“Two days before she was killed. Another one of his jealous fits. He ran into the house, screaming at the top of his lungs, calling her a bitch, a whore. Accusing her of things”—he shook his head—“horrible things. Unmentionable. Of course, both children were at home the whole time this was going on. She tried to protect them, but—”
He brushed his hand across his face, then continued. “The worst of it, she told me the next day, was that she realized how powerless she was against him. Powerless to help herself or her children.”
“You mentioned … a baseball bat?”
“That’s right. According to Caroline, he was swinging a baseball bat, one of those modern aluminum jobs. And he had a mean swing, too. He kept swishing that thing through the air at deadly speeds, shouting at the top of his lungs, ‘I’m gonna kill you, you fucking bitch! I’m gonna kill you, you filthy whore!’ Over and over again. ‘I’m gonna kill you!’ ”
Bullock spoke softly but audibly. “And two days later …”
Fisher nodded. “Two days later, she was dead. Killed. In a horrible, violent, brutal way.”
Bullock closed his notebook and turned slowly to face the bench. “No more questions, your honor.”
Judge Hart turned toward Ben. “Cross-examination?”
Ben nodded, then leaned into his client’s ear. “Wallace, tell me about this guy. ”
“Tell you about what?”
“About what he said! All those stories about you beating and mistreating your wife! Tell me how to prove he’s lying.”
Barrett’s voice seemed broken and emotionless. “I … can’t.”
“Mr. Kincaid, do you intend to cross-examine?”
Ben’s brain kicked into warp drive. He hated to leave the jury with this image of Wallace Barrett swinging a baseball bat through the air like a crazed maniac. But there wasn’t much to cross-examine Fisher about. None of his testimony actually went toward proving Barrett was the murderer. But the overall effect left by this testimony, on top of all that went before, was devastating.
“No questions, your honor.”
She did not look surprised. Apparently she saw the difficulties as clearly as Ben did.
“The prosecution rests,” Bullock said, wearing his usual graveside countenance. He must be relishing it—going out on a bang, letting the jurors return to their rooms with the image of Mayor Wallace Barrett and his baseball bat, swinging at his pregnant wife, to haunt their sleep.
Judge Hart pounded her gavel, gave the jury the usual instructions, and recessed the court for the day.
Ben made his way toward the judge’s chambers. He had to make the usual motions that came at the conclusion of the prosecution’s case—motions to dismiss, motions for mistrial, reurging motions in limine. But he knew it was futile. The prosecution had done its job. They had made the jury believe that this respected, educated, prosperous member of the community could be the coldhearted murderer of his own family. He knew it, and he could see it— could see it in the expression of each and every juror as they filed out of the courtroom.
The prosecution had done its job, all right. And unless he did his, unless he did something extraordinary when the defense put on its case, Wallace Barrett was going to get the death sentence.