When Buck lifts his brimming eyes, they settle on the photo tucked under my arm, the autopsy shot. He can see only its blank back, but the look on his face tells me he knows what it is. And he doesn’t want it here. He turns to the jury, still clutching the arms of his chair.
We practiced this testimony. Not because we doctored the answer, but because Buck couldn’t address the question at all, at first. He couldn’t say it out loud. Even now, he has to say the words quickly, or he won’t get through the answer.
“He bound Billy with metal cables…” Buck lets go of the chair arms and presses his wrists together. “At the wrists and ankles. And he smothered him.”
Buck drops his hands to his lap. That’s all he can say on that topic. He’s reached his limit.
“And what did you do, Buck, to Hector Monteros?”
“Your Honor, please, these jurors watched the videotape, they heard from the Chief of Police. They know what the defendant did.”
Stanley knows better. His objection is nothing more than a ploy, a manufactured opportunity to make a speech.
Beatrice stares at me-grimaces-when I look up. I’m tempted to smile. She won’t dare prevent Buck Hammond from telling the jury what he did. There isn’t an appellate panel in the country that would uphold that ruling. Stanley knows that. And Beatrice does too.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, “I remind you of the limiting instruction you were given on the first day of this trial. I caution you now-that instruction is still in full force and effect.”
Funny, that’s the only ruling of Judge Long’s that Beatrice has acknowledged. The jurors nod, though, almost as one.
Stanley acts as if he isn’t satisfied. He folds his arms across his chest and stamps one foot ever so slightly on the worn carpeting. Yet another temper tantrum, this one stifled.
“Buck, what did you do to Hector Monteros?”
“I tried to stop him.” Buck shifts in his chair so he can face the jurors. “I shot him.”
“Were you able to stop him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He closes his eyes, still facing the panel. “I tried. But I failed. I was too late.”
I move to the easel and set the photo-Billy beaming with his striped bass-to one side. Next to it I position the other one.
Buck keeps his face averted, toward the jury box, his eyes still closed. The jurors, though, look first at me, then at the easel. One by one, their gazes settle on the photo. The awful one.
It’s a close-up of Billy, from the chest up, on the autopsy table. His arms are bent at the elbows, hands open, palms up, on either side of his head. His eyes are closed and his freckled face looks as if he might be sleeping. But on his wrists the ligature marks are plain.
Finally, Buck follows the jurors’ gazes and stares at the autopsy shot. “You see?” he asks them through clenched teeth. “I couldn’t stop him. I was too late.”
Chapter 42
“Too late?” Stanley scrutinizes Buck Hammond as if he’s a still life about to be auctioned.
Buck’s expression is blank. Seated in the witness box, he’s the same height as Stanley on his feet.
“That was your testimony, was it not, sir? That you were too late?”
Buck leans forward in his chair and nods. “Yes.”
“You were too late long before you fired the shot that killed Hector Monteros, weren’t you, Mr. Hammond?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Buck shakes his head, but his expression doesn’t change.
“Your boy was already dead, was he not, sir, when you pulled the trigger?”
Buck nods, agreeing. “He was.”
“And you knew that to be the case, didn’t you?”
“I know it now.”
“And you knew it then!”
I’m tempted to get up, but I don’t. Stanley shouldn’t testify, shouldn’t act like a witness. But I shouldn’t act like Stanley, either. Besides, we’ve got a long way to go. Stanley’s just getting started.
He waits for a response, but he won’t get one. Buck and I went over this a thousand times in the past few weeks. If there’s no question pending, Buck’s not to say a word. And he’s good at not saying a word.
A moment of silence. And then Stanley gets it. “You knew your son was dead, didn’t you, Mr. Hammond, when you fired that fatal shot?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Not sure?”
Stanley moves the easel to the wall, tosses the photos of Billy on our table. He walks toward the jury, hands clasped behind his back, a slight smile on his lips. For a moment, his footsteps are the only sounds in the room. A well-planned dramatic pause.
“You were in the courtroom, were you not, sir, when Chief Thomas Fitzpatrick testified?”
“Yes.”
“And you listened to his testimony, I presume?”
“I did. Yes.”
“You heard him tell us, then, that you identified your son’s body at the morgue?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember doing that, sir?”
“Do I remember…?”
“Identifying the body.”
Buck looks as if he thinks Stanley might be temporarily insane.
“Of course I do.”
“No memory problems, then?”
Buck shakes his head. “No.”
“And you did that, Mr. Hammond-identified your son’s body-more than two hours before the chopper transporting Monteros reached Chatham. Isn’t that correct?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you hear Chief Fitzpatrick tell us exactly that?”
“I did.”
“Is it your testimony, then, that Chief Fitzpatrick was lying?”
The question is improper, but it’s not worth an objection. Cheap shots say more about the questioner than anyone else. And we anticipated a few from Stanley. Buck is as well prepared to deflect them as any witness can be.
“No,” Buck says evenly, “that’s not my testimony.”
“You agree, then, that you identified the body more than two hours before killing Monteros?”
Buck takes a deep breath and answers the panel. “The Chief said more than two hours, so it must have been.”
“But you don’t have personal knowledge of that fact, is that your testimony, Mr. Hammond?”
Buck faces Stanley again. “Yes.”
“You don’t remember?”
“That’s right.”
Stanley lets out a short, sarcastic hiccup, not quite a laugh. He strides to the side wall, flips off the overhead lights, then makes a beeline for his star witness.
He holds the videotape in front of Buck for a moment-yet another dramatic pause-before popping it into the VCR. “Let’s find out, Mr. Hammond, what you do remember.”
Harry and I exchange surprised glances. We were certain Stanley would save his second run of the video for closing, certain he’d want the bloody runway to be the final scene emblazoned on the jurors’ minds.
The glow from the TV screen illuminates Stanley’s silhouette and Buck’s profile. The rest of us sit in inky blackness. This is the advantage to a windowless courtroom: easy video viewing. It’s the only plus, as far as I can tell.
Stanley retrieves a long wooden stick from his table. It has a white rubber tip, like the ones pointed at blackboards by teachers in elementary school. He waits patiently while the military chopper comes into view on-screen. He watches silently as the chopper descends to the runway. Then he presses a controller, freezes the frame.
I leave my chair and walk quietly across the room to lean against the wall beside the jury box. I want to keep an eye on Stanley’s pointer.
“You’ve seen this helicopter before, have you not, Mr. Hammond?”
Buck nods. “Yes. I’ve seen this tape.”
“I’m not asking about the tape. I’m asking about the military helicopter, the real one. U.S. ARMY printed on its sides. You saw it on June twenty-first, did you not?”