“Belinda! I promise you, it isn’t—” “But I couldn’t let it go. I just couldn’t. Maybe you can bury all your feelings. But I can’t.”
“Belinda—” He gazed across the desk at her. Her eyes were wide and sparkling. “It isn’t that at all. It isn’t anything to do with you. It’s all me. All my problem.”
“Then let’s at least talk about it!”
Ben reached out and took her hand. “We don’t have to. I’m over it. I’ve decided. I’m not going to allow myself to wallow in the past forever. I’m over it.”
“Are you hoping that if you say it often enough it will be true?”
“No. It is true.”
Belinda closed her eyes. “I was afraid I had done something wrong. I was afraid I was too aggressive, or too … I don’t know. Strident. I was afraid I had done something that … changed how you feel about me.”
“I can’t conceive of anything that could make me feel differently about you.”
“Really?”
Outside, the red neon Coors sign in the front window of the Bluebell cast colored shadows across the street and through the undraped office window. The faint echo of Mary-Chapin Carpenter seeped through the doors and flowed down Main. Her voice was like the wind whispering in Ben’s ear. Come on, come on. … it’s getting late now. …
Ben pulled Belinda closer. “I love you,” he said, in the instant before their lips met.
Twenty minutes passed before either of them thought to pull the drapes.
55.
BEN SPENT THREE HOURS the next morning preparing Vick to take the stand. He wasn’t nearly as concerned about what Vick would say as how he would say it. His demeanor was critical. If the jury detected any hesitance, or uncertainty, or equivocation, they would assume the prosecution’s version of the facts was correct.
As the jury filed back into the courtroom Ben patted Vick reassuringly on the shoulder. “Try not to worry,” he murmured. “You’ll be fine.”
Vick smiled, but the smile was unconvincing in the extreme.
Judge Tyler breezed through the preliminaries with unaccustomed dispatch. He appeared as anxious as everyone else to proceed with the day’s programming.
Ben called Donald Vick to the witness stand.
“Would you state your name for the jury?”
“Donald Allan Vick.” He spoke in calm, clear tones. Confident, but not cocky. Honest, but not like he was working at it. Just as Ben had instructed him.
Ben guided him through a general description of his background in Alabama: his childhood, his education, his family life.
“When did you become a member of ASP?”
“When I was eighteen.”
“Why did you join?”
Vick tilted his head to one side. “All the Vick men have been ASP members since the Organization was first formed a hundred and twenty years ago.”
“Sort of a family tradition, then?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Did your father expect you to join ASP?”
Vick nodded. “He insisted on it. If I hadn’t, he would’ve booted me out of the house.”
“Do you remember when you joined?”
“Oh, yes. The first day I was able. On my eighteenth birthday. ASP makes a big ceremony of it—putting on uniforms and lighting torches. They talked about how I was making the transition from boyhood to manhood.”
“It’s sort of a rite of passage for the Vick men, then?”
“Exactly.”
“Your honor, I object.” Swain rose to his feet. “We’ve been very patient with this line of questioning, but I don’t see what it has to do with this murder case.”
He did, of course. He understood its purpose just as well as Ben did. The purpose was for the jury to get to know Donald Vick, the person. For him to become a human being, rather than a cardboard villain.
“Your honor,” Ben said. “I needn’t remind the court that my client is charged with a capital offense. The jury should have the opportunity to learn all they can about the man whose fate they will determine. I ask for the widest possible latitude.”
Judge Tyler frowned, but he overruled Swain’s objection.
“How often were you involved in ASP activities?” Ben continued.
“New members are expected to spend their first two years in what amounts to an apprenticeship for ASP.” Vick looked at the jury from time to time, establishing an easy rapport. He was so fresh-faced and clean-cut, after all; it was just possible he might turn the jury around. “Personally I had hoped to go to college, but …” He shrugged. “My father and ASP had other plans.”
“What did you do during this … apprenticeship?”
“At first I handled clerical tasks in the Montgomery office. Busywork, mostly. Then, a few months ago, after this new camp was set up outside Silver Springs, I was transferred here.”
“Did your responsibilities change?”
“No. I still handled the clerical chores. Requisitions. Food, supplies. For some reason, Mr. Dunagan never assigned me more challenging duties.”
“Did your clerical chores include ordering weaponry?”
“Yes. I did all the ordering and the picking up. Not just on those crossbow bolts.”
Ben checked the jury reaction. They made the connection. His testimony cast a different light on the evidence.
“Why did you take a room in town? Couldn’t you have stayed in the barracks at the ASP camp?”
“Oh, yeah. But—I don’t know. I preferred to have some privacy from time to time. I didn’t get on all that well with the rest of the ASP guys.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know. I guess we didn’t share that many interests.”
“What did the ASP members like to do?”
“Oh, drink. Lots of drinking. And talking about women like they were … well, you know. In a manner I don’t find appropriate. And they talked about what they were going to do to those Vietnamese people. Most of them never did anything to any of them and never would. But they loved to talk about it.”
Ben stood beside the jury box so Vick could easily look from him to them. “How did you feel when they talked about the Vietnamese?”
“I didn’t care much for it.”
“Why not? You’re a member of ASP, aren’t you?”
“Yes … I’m a member. …”
“And you believe in the superiority of the Caucasian race, don’t you?”
“I guess. But that doesn’t mean we have to go around beating up on all the other races. On the contrary, it seems to me that if we’re really all that superior, we should be able to live peacefully with other people.”
Ben paused, leaving plenty of time for Vick’s words to sink in. The alleged hatemonger was much more the philosopher than anyone the jury had heard from thus far.
“Donald, did you participate in the car bombing on Maple Street several months ago?”
“No. It’s true I requisitioned the materials that must have been used, but I didn’t know that was going to happen when I ordered them. I was just doing what I was told.”
“Told by whom?”
Vick hesitated. “By Mr. Dunagan. He controlled all supply orders. I only made purchases on his instruction.”
“Donald, do you remember what you were doing the night of July twenty-fifth?”
“Yes. After dinner, around ten, I went out for a walk.”
“That seems odd.”
“No, I walked almost every night. It was my habit. Mary Sue could’ve confirmed that. If anyone had asked her.”
Sure, Ben thought, rub it in. “Why did you walk at night?”
“Do I need a reason? It’s beautiful country out here, and especially beautiful at night.” Good answer; jurors tended to be civic-minded. “Gave me a chance to get away from all the swearing and chanting and plotting. Gave me a chance to think.”