Chapter 16

“Our first witness is Chief Fitzpatrick, Your Honor, of the Chatham Police Department.” Stanley looks uneasy. He glances quickly around the room, then stares at the floor as if he just dropped something precious.

“Bring him in, then.”

“I can’t, Your Honor.”

“You can’t?”

“He’s not here.”

“He’s not here?” The judge glares at Stanley. “He’s not in the building?”

“He’s not in the building.”

Harry leans in front of Buck. “Is there an echo in this room?”

“Your lead-off witness in this first-degree murder trial is not here, Mr. Ed-gar-ton the Third?” Judge Long looks as if he thinks Stanley might be joking. One look at Stanley tells me he’s not.

“I didn’t think we’d need him today, Your Honor. I never dreamed we’d finish both jury selection and opening statements before the end of the first day.”

“You never dreamed?” The judge’s eyes are protruding. “You never dreamed?”

Stanley isn’t dreaming now, either; he’s having a nightmare.

Once again, I cover my mouth and swallow a laugh. Once again, Buck Hammond looks confused. I don’t dare look at Harry.

Stanley’s assumption wasn’t unreasonable. We didn’t begin the afternoon session until after two, and Judge Long always adjourns promptly at four, reserving the last hour of his courtroom day for pending cases. Of course Stanley didn’t think he’d need a witness today.

He did his part. He talked at the jurors for a full hour, and apparently assumed I’d do likewise. But my aborted opening took just twenty minutes, even with Stanley’s tiresome objections. We have forty minutes of trial time left, and Judge Leon Long doesn’t waste trial time. “It’s the taxpayers’ nickel,” he always says. “It’s not ours to squander.”

Stanley’s expression brightens, and he raises an index finger in the air. “Perhaps the defense could call one of its witnesses, Your Honor. Several of the defense witnesses are here in the courtroom. We can take one out of order.” Stanley looks from the judge to me, pleased with his proposal, happy to have solved the problem.

Harry jumps up like a man who’s just heard gunfire. “No way, Judge.”

Judge Long laughs and removes his half glasses, leaning forward on the bench. “Mr. Madigan, how well do you know Mr. Ed-gar-ton the Third?”

Harry doesn’t miss a beat. “We’re pretty close, Judge. He’s Mr. Third to me.”

The jurors chuckle yet again, and Stanley reddens. The judge continues to address Harry. “Then you must know he’s joking. He can’t possibly mean what he just said.”

Harry sits, but he’s perched on the edge of the chair, neck muscles taut and fists on the table. He’s ready to shoot up again in an instant. The seasoned defense lawyer’s instincts, I realize, are fueled by adrenaline. I don’t know that I’ll ever acquire them.

Judge Leon Long turns back to Stanley. “Mr. Ed-gar-ton the Third,” he says, chin down, half glasses back on the edge of his nose, “surely you don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Hammond should begin defending himself before the Commonwealth has offered a shred of evidence against him.”

“Well, Your Honor…” Stanley gestures toward the TV as if it’s his star witness, and it’s already testified.

Harry stands again, but says nothing.

The judge’s composure is slipping. He takes a red bandanna from the pocket of his robe and mops his brow. “Mr. Ed-gar-ton the Third, opening statement is not evidence. Were you not listening when I instructed the jurors?”

The blue vein erupts across Stanley’s forehead. He lifts his hands in the air, palms up, helpless. He’s out of ideas. The crowd in the gallery grows noisy. The judge is about to lose it.

“Chief Thomas Fitzpatrick is here, Your Honor. He’s ready to be sworn in.”

Judge Long bolts upright. Everyone else in the courtroom wheels around. It’s Geraldine, with the Chief in full uniform at her side, hurrying up the center aisle.

J. Stanley Edgarton the Third looks like a man newly delivered from the fires of hell.

Harry leans down toward Buck and me. “She saved his sorry ass.”

“What’s that, Mr. Madigan?” the judge asks.

“He got here awfully fast, Your Honor, awfully fast.” Harry gives the judge a meaningful nod, as if he’s genuinely impressed with the Chief’s velocity.

Geraldine whispers to Stanley, then takes a seat beside him as Tommy Fitzpatrick strides to the front of the room. An ordinary witness might be rattled by this abrupt call to the stand, but not Tommy. He has participated in more trials than most lawyers. He’s composed and confident. And he’s the consummate straight shooter.

Wanda Morgan, the courtroom clerk, approaches the witness box and holds a Bible in front of the Chief. He smiles at her, sets his hat on the box’s railing, then stands at attention. He puts his left hand on the Good Book, raises his right in the air.

“Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give in this court will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

“You may be seated,” Judge Long tells him.

The Chief settles into the witness box, hat on his lap, and faces the jurors.

Stanley is up. “Would you state your full name for the record, please.”

“Thomas Francis Fitzpatrick.”

“And your occupation?”

“Chief of Police, Chatham, Massachusetts.”

“Were you on duty in that capacity during the early-morning hours of September twenty-first?”

Stanley isn’t wasting time with preliminaries. There’s little more than half an hour left in the trial day. He wants to end day one with Tommy Fitzpatrick’s most damning testimony. Let those words echo in the jurors’ minds throughout the night.

“I was,” the Chief says.

“Tell us, if you would, sir, where you were at approximately four o’clock that morning.”

“At the Chatham Municipal Airport.”

“Were you alone at the airport, sir?”

“I was not.”

“Who was with you?”

“A half dozen of my own officers and four from the state barracks; two more from a neighboring town, canine handlers.”

“Anyone else?”

“Just the press. I’m not sure how many reporters and photographers were there.”

“More than ten?”

“Yes.”

“More than twenty?”

The Chief shakes his head. “Probably not.”

“Why was it, sir, that so many law enforcement officers converged on the Chatham Municipal Airport that morning?”

“We were there to receive Hector Monteros. He was coming in on a military chopper. He’d been picked up at the North Carolina border just before midnight. Federal authorities were escorting him back to Chatham at our request.”

“And why did you make that request, sir?”

Stanley pivots and looks at me. He wants to be sure I realize he’s raising the issue first-diffusing, to some extent, the impact of this testimony.

“Hector Monteros was the chief suspect in the disappearance of Billy Hammond, a seven-year-old boy from South Chatham.”

“The boy was the son of the defendant, is that correct, sir?”

The Chief looks across the room at Buck before he answers. There is, I think, genuine sympathy in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“And you wanted Monteros for questioning?”

“Well, yes, and initially, we were hoping he’d lead us to the boy-or, at least, to his remains.”

Again, a sympathetic glance in Buck’s direction.

“Did you ever get a chance to question Hector Monteros, sir?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He was shot as soon as he deplaned. He died on the runway.”

“Who shot him?”

The Chief looks toward Buck, not unkindly. “Mr. Hammond.”

“Are you certain?”

He nods. “Yes.”

Stanley pauses to make eye contact with the jurors. They’re with him.

“Were you aware, sir, prior to the shooting, that the defendant was present at the airport that morning?”

“No.”