Buck nods again, but Harry isn’t satisfied. “In particular,” he says, “you know nothing-less than nothing-about the insanity defense.”
For a few moments all three of us are quiet. Finally, Buck breaks the silence. “I know it’s a crock.”
“Goddammit!” Harry slams both fists on the table and an overloaded ashtray jumps into the air, three butts slipping over its sides. Its dark green beveled glass is chipped in about a half dozen places. This table has been slammed before.
Harry leans close enough to Buck to whisper, but he’s almost shouting. “Do you think maybe that enlightened opinion of yours is something you shouldn’t mention in the courtroom?”
Buck rubs his eyes, then leans forward on his elbows toward both of us. “I’m sorry. Really. I know you’re trying to do your job. And I’m grateful. It’s just…”
He swallows hard, drops his head and stares at the table. “I won’t say that tomorrow. I swear.”
“If you do, you’ll regret it. Your wife needs you. Remember that.” Harry waits until Buck looks up at him, then leans forward and lowers his voice. “Maybe-just maybe-these jurors want to let you walk. And maybe they see the temporary insanity defense as the only way they can do that. Take it away from them, pal, and you might throw out your only shot.”
Unlike me, Harry has always thought the temporary insanity plea was Buck’s best bet. True jury nullification, he says, is rare. And he’s right. For our jurors to return an outright acquittal, they’ll have to be willing to say that the law in this particular case is just plain wrong.
Rare is the juror willing to adopt that notion. Rarer yet is the juror willing to say so. The odds of an entire panel taking that route are slim. Even I have to admit that.
If the jurors accept the temporary insanity plea, on the other hand, they can have it both ways. They can send Buck home, spare him an eternity at Walpole, even though they acknowledge he committed the crime. They know he’s not innocent, but they can find him not guilty-the law allows that.
There is an important distinction between the word innocent and the phrase not guilty. Innocent means they’ve got the wrong guy; the accused didn’t do it. Not guilty is broader than that. It may mean the accused did it but has a legally recognizable excuse. Despite the media’s insistence to the contrary, there is no such verdict as innocent by reason of insanity. Not guilty is as good as it gets.
“I understand,” Buck says, dropping his hands to his sides.
“Honest to God. I do.” He leans back in his chair, looks exhausted.
“Are we finished?”
“No,” Harry says, “but almost. There’s one more thing I want to talk about.”
“What’s that?” Buck looks as if he can’t believe there’s a topic we haven’t covered.
“Your hunting rifle,” Harry says.
Buck nods. “The rifle…”
Harry jumps up from his chair, both hands held out toward Buck to silence him. “I said I want to talk about it.”
Buck looks surprised. I’m not. I know exactly what Harry’s doing.
“I want to tell you about a client of mine,” Harry says.
Buck turns to me, question marks in his eyes.
“Listen,” I tell him. “This is important.”
And it is. There are probably a hundred reasons why I wanted Harry here tonight, a hundred points Harry knows how to cover that I don’t. This one, by far, is the most important.
“My client,” Harry says, walking toward the wall, “is a two-bit hood. He’s got a record his mother isn’t proud of, but it’s all pretty low-level stuff.”
Harry turns and pauses to make sure Buck’s listening. He is.
“Then one night he shoots a guy-kills him. Says it was self-defense. Swears it was. The guy came out of nowhere, he says, with a knife. Mad as hell about a woman. Tried to slit my client’s throat.”
Harry walks slowly toward our table again, hands thrust into his pants pockets. Buck watches, his expression blank.
“The Commonwealth-in the person of Attorney Geraldine Schilling-doesn’t buy it. My client’s no stranger to the system, don’t forget. She doesn’t buy much of what he says. So she charges him with first-degree. Premeditated.
“The arresting officers take him to the station and book him, then lead him to the interview room. The cop asking the questions wants to know about the handgun, where it came from.
“What my guy should do is keep quiet. He shouldn’t say a word until I get there. But he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He talks. He tells them he had the gun in his pocket, in the inside pocket of his jacket.”
Harry pulls his chair out from the table and flips it backward before he sits.
“The next question the cop asks is important. Everybody in the room-except my guy-knows how important it is.”
Buck shifts in his seat and looks my way for a moment before turning back to Harry. He’s wondering what any of this has to do with him, I’m sure.
“The question the cop asks is: Do you always carry the handgun? Or did you just happen to have it with you on that particular night?
“Remember,” Harry says, “I know this guy. He probably isn’t a murderer, but he’s a hell of a good liar. He thinks it over. He decides the cops-not to mention the judge and jury-probably don’t like guys who carry guns. Especially guys who aren’t licensed. So he tells them he almost never carries it. It was a fluke. He just happened to have it in his jacket pocket that night.”
Buck shrugs. “So?”
“So,” Harry says, “the Commonwealth’s case just got a hell of a lot easier. My two-bit hood just handed them premeditation.”
Buck’s gaze lingers a moment on Harry, then moves to me. He’s still, silent.
“So,” Harry continues, “I thought you might find that interesting.”
Buck’s eyes leave mine and return to Harry. He nods, slowly. He gets it.
“On June twenty-first, where did the hunting rifle come from? Where did you get it?”
Buck shakes his head. “Do you think…?”
“I don’t think anything.” Harry leans over the seat back, his eyes holding Buck’s. “I’m asking a question.”
For a moment, no one speaks. The room is still.
“From my rack,” Buck says. “I have a rack in the truck. I keep it there.” He leans back on two legs of the chair. “Always.”
Harry stands and bangs on the metal door. “You’re ready,” he says. “Get out of here. Go to sleep. You need to be clearheaded tomorrow.”
The guard appears instantly and ushers Buck out the door, leaving it open for Harry and me.
I lean in the doorway and watch them walk down the brightly lit corridor while Harry packs up his old schoolbag. The guard’s head is turned upward toward Buck, the two of them exchanging comments as if they’re buddies, on their way to a ball game, maybe.
Harry and I have known from the beginning that Buck should testify. In this particular case, it’s critical that the jury hear from him. If he had opted to keep quiet, we would have done our level best to change his mind. But that wasn’t necessary. From day one, Buck insisted he would take the stand, insisted he would tell the jurors what happened that morning, from where he stood in the shadow of the airport hangar. And he never wavered from that decision, never needed a push from us.
I’m glad. Glad it’s Buck’s decision. Glad he’s so sure about it. It’s Buck, after all, who will live with the outcome.
Chapter 34
It’s almost ten o’clock by the time Harry and I reach Cape Cod Hospital. Neither one of us has had dinner, and we’re both soaking wet. Snow melts on our hair and eyelashes and trickles like little rivers down our faces as soon as we enter the building. We stomp our feet and bang our briefcases on the inside mat, hoping to leave at least some of the slush and snow in the lobby.