Premeditated Murder (35 page)

“Who prepared your remarks?”

“I did.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes,” the President replied. “I haven't been in politics for very long, and I've never been comfortable reading things that others wrote for me. I prefer to write my own speeches.”

Zack was handing the President some papers. “Mr. President, are you familiar with the document that I just handed you, which has been marked ‘T' for identification?”

The President looked at it and then smiled up at Zack. “Yes. This is the speech that I gave after I was sworn in as President.”

“Would you mind reading to the jury the highlighted portion, please?”

The President looked down at the paper and began. “‘Ever since September 11, we have become painfully aware that our country is at war. Ask anyone who lives in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington, D.C… .'”

What the hell did this have to do with his case? Cal grabbed a legal pad, scrawled a question mark on it, and pushed it in front of Terry. Terry glanced at it and then reached into a briefcase on the floor beside him, pulled out a book titled
Superior Court Jury Instructions,
and opened to a page that had been bookmarked. It was headed “Elements of First-Degree Murder.” Then he slid the book over in front of Cal and pointed to a passage that read,
“The first element that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt is that the defendant committed a killing that was unlawful. That is, a killing that was not justified or excusable. A killing is justified, and therefore not murder, if authorized by law, for example, when committed during a battle of war …”

“Go on, please,” Zack was saying to the President.

“‘This is an unusual kind of war, since our adversary aims to kill innocent people rather than to destroy military targets. But the actions of these aggressors constitute warfare, plain and simple.

“‘In that sense, every American citizen is a soldier in this war. Most of us do not wear uniforms, most of us do not have ranks or carry weapons, but we are all at war.'”

Zack was going to argue that Cal was innocent because he was a soldier fighting a war against terrorists?

Now,
that
was interesting.

While Zack asked the President about how he wasn't really a politician, and how he always said what he meant, Cal thought about this idea that he was a soldier in the war against terrorism. Was that what he was? Was that what he was thinking when he was waiting at the apartment door, waiting until it was the right time to walk over there and open fire? Waiting like a machine, until the right button was pushed, before going into action. Did soldiers think what he had been thinking? Was that what it was like for real soldiers just before they began a battle?

And then Cal realized that his opinion about the issue made absolutely no difference. The only opinions that mattered belonged to the fourteen jurors who were sitting in that box.

If only he hadn't shot those people.

It was ironic. Cal knew in his heart that what he had done was wrong. Not that the world wasn't better off now that those people were gone. There was no doubt about it. But no matter what anyone said in this courtroom, he knew what he had done was monstrous, and every time he looked at the jury, he just knew they were going to convict him.

He saw the horror in their eyes when they reviewed the pictures of the crime scene and the grisly autopsy photos. If he had been sitting in the jury box, he would have convicted himself. And when he got up in the judge's face, well, that was the end of it. No doubt.

Even the earring ladies wouldn't meet Cal's eyes now. Zack and Terry could put whoever they wanted to on that witness stand, and sing and dance like Broadway stars from now till the end of time, but Cal knew where he was going after this trial was over. And it wasn't out for a steak dinner.

Now it was the D.A.'s turn. He rose, smoothed down his painfully boring tie, and began his cross-examination.

“Good afternoon, Mr. President.”

“Good afternoon.”

“When you made the statement that every American citizen is a soldier in the war against terrorism, did you expect the people of the United States to start hunting down and shooting suspected terrorists?”

Terry looked like he was going to stand up and object, but before he did, Zack reached over and put his hand on the big man's arm. The two exchanged a look, and both remained silent. But Terry was not happy.

The President answered in a clear and strong voice. “Absolutely not. I do not support vigilante violence, and my statement was never intended to advocate it.”

“I see.” The district attorney could not have been more smug.

“You don't have any personal knowledge of the defendant in this case, do you?”

“No, I don't,” the President replied. He had a good face. He didn't look like he had anything to hide, like so many politicians.

“And you don't have any idea whether Mr. Thompkins is now or ever was a member of the armed services of this country, do you, sir?”

The President looked calmly at the D.A. “No, sir, I don't,” he replied.

The D.A. walked back and forth in front of the jury box. He was putting on a show. He wasn't bad at it. “Mr. President,” he said, “you are the commander in chief of the armed forces of this country, are you not?”

“That is one of my roles, yes,” the President answered.

“And you yourself were, at one time, an active duty officer in the U.S. Army, were you not?”

The President smiled. “Yes,” he said. “I myself was, at one time, an active duty officer in the army.”

The D.A. smiled himself. Whether he picked up the gently mocking tone in the President's answer was not clear. What was clear was that the D.A. was just about everybody's pal.

“In your experience both as an officer and as commander in chief of the army, can you tell me what the army's response would be if an individual who was not a member of the armed services walked onto one of their bases, wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, and asked to see the commanding officer, brandishing an AK-47 and announcing that he was a soldier in the war against terrorism?”

Terry and Zack shot up as one. “Objection!” they both said at once.

“I'll withdraw the question,” the D.A. said serenely, walking back to his seat. “I have nothing further for the witness. Thank you, Mr. President.”

TERRY WATCHED AS ZACK GAVE THE CLOSING argument.

Zack was really good at this. If Cal was to have any chance, he was going to have to be.

Terry still couldn't believe that Zack had chosen to go forward with the trial in front of Cottonwood, with this jury. Not only did that assure them of every disadvantage when it came to any rulings the judge might make from now till the end of the trial, but it also squandered their opportunity to start fresh before a new jury, with a whole set of bright, shiny law enforcement witnesses on their side.

Instead, the evidence that the victims were terrorists was read to the jury from that dumb-ass stipulation, that insignificant scrap of paper.

And Zack was gambling that that scrap of paper, with the President's testimony, was enough to overcome their client's admission that he had been responsible for some of the bloodiest carnage that Terry had ever seen in a murder trial, not to mention Cal's ugly little outburst in which he all but punched out the judge.

It was one pretty big freakin' gamble, especially the way this jury looked. Maybe their faces were a little less implacable today, but they were a long way from not guilty. In fact, they looked shell-shocked. Which was hardly surprising, considering this morning's free-for-all and today's special guest star from Washington. The older earring lady kept looking out toward the courtroom doors, as if any minute someone else was going to burst in and turn the place upside down.

In the end, given the nature of this case, the bloody photos, Cal's confession, and his confrontation with the judge, the jury was likely to blame the defendant for everything. He was the reason they were here. He did this. He sure didn't look like he deserved any favors. And the jury sure didn't look like they were going to give him any.

Zack began to wrap it up.

“The decision is yours, and yours alone, ladies and gentlemen. You heard the evidence. The President of the United States, the commander in chief of the armed forces of this country, told us months ago from the White House, and he came into this courtroom and told us again today, that we are at war with terrorists and that we are all soldiers in that war. And as Judge Cottonwood will instruct, a soldier who kills an adversary in a battle is not guilty of murder.

“Calvin Thompkins isn't asking for a medal. He isn't asking for sympathy, or understanding, or even an acknowledgment of the unimaginable loss he suffered when terrorists took the lives of his innocent wife and young son. He is asking only that you do your sworn job, and that is to follow the instructions the judge gives you, and come to the inevitable conclusion that Cal Thompkins is not guilty of the crime of murder. Thank you.”

Massachusetts followed one of the more blatantly pro-conviction traditions in criminal justice, allowing the prosecutor to have the last word. The D.A. stood up and began to speak.

And this was where O'Neill was superb. He wasn't a brilliant lawyer, but he had rapport with juries, and this jury definitely seemed to like him more than Zack and Terry. Possibly because he wasn't representing the big, scary black guy who shot a bunch of people and who then screamed at the judge right before getting into a fight with four court officers.

O'Neill was naturally long-winded, but he had enough common sense to keep this argument short. The issues weren't complicated at all. He was making a great impression, damn him. And closing strong.

“We all know what's going on here,” he told the jury. “No one believes that Calvin Thompkins was a soldier, regardless of whatever rhetoric his excellent attorneys were able to dig up from President Ferguson's old speeches. You know Calvin Thompkins isn't a soldier, and I know he isn't a soldier. He knows he isn't a soldier. The evidence is clear. He was angry because his family, in a horrible tragedy, was taken from him. But that anger doesn't give him or anybody the right to shoot his way into an apartment and murder six people, whoever they were—good, bad, or otherwise.

“Our country is governed by laws, not by angry people who have enough money to go around getting illegally altered machine guns and lying in wait until an apartment fills up with their prey before spraying over a hundred bullets into victims and the walls and the ceilings and the windows and the streets below.

“You know what the evidence has told you. The defendant knows what the evidence has told you. Put aside the shouting, and the fighting, and the fancy arguments that in the end don't make any sense at all, and you will see that there is only one just verdict in this case.

“That verdict, ladies and gentlemen, is guilty.”

AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, TERRY AND ZACK sat at the defense table. A court officer and a few people in the gallery were still in the courtroom. Otherwise, it was empty.

As soon as the closing arguments were made, Judge Cottonwood gave his final instructions to the jury, and at five minutes to four, they had begun their deliberations.

Because the following day was July 4, the judge explained that deliberations would continue only through five that evening, at which time they'd break for the long weekend.

“You going to tell me what you saw in this jury that made you decide to roll the dice with them?” Terry asked Zack. Normally he had absolute faith in Zack's judgment. But this time, he really believed Zack had screwed up. What were they doing here? They should have been celebrating the final exit of Judge Asshole, starting a long holiday weekend, and beginning to think about preparing for a brand-new trial in which Cal actually had a chance to win. Instead, they were waiting for the judge to come out at five o'clock and say have a nice weekend, and then come back next week, and sit around until the jury said, “Guilty.”

Zack was quieter than usual. “I was playing a hunch,” he said. The part of Terry that treasured their twenty-year friendship knew not to reply.

The other part of him wanted to jump up and down on the table, screaming, “You don't play hunches in a capital murder trial, you idiot! This isn't a freakin' game show! We had a chance to disappear Cottonhead, and instead you decide to spin the verdict wheel with a bunch of people who clearly think Cal might open fire on
them
!”

Instead, he got up to go to the bathroom, only to hear the court officer's phone ring. The officer spoke briefly, then hung up the phone. He turned to Zack and Terry. It was 4:37. The jury had been deliberating for forty-two minutes.

“They've got a verdict,” the officer said.

CALVIN HAD BARELY GOTTEN SETTLED BACK IN the holding cell before the officers came back and unlocked his door. “C'mon, Thompkins,” the bald one said.

Ever since his outburst, the judge had insisted that Calvin be handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, so he had to shuffle into the courtroom, an officer on each arm. They settled him into the chair beside Zack and Terry. “What's going on?” he asked.