Naked Justice

Chapter 40

“THE STATE CALLS MR. Arthur Prentiss to the stand.”

As Mr. Prentiss strode forward and was sworn in and introduced, Ben made a silent prayer of thanks to the great gods of the judiciary for pretrial discovery and Grady v. Wisconsin. If the prosecution hadn’t been required to identify their witnesses in advance of trial, he wouldn’t’ve had a clue who this witness was or what he was about to say.

“Mr. Prentiss,” Bullock asked, after the witness was settled, “where do you work?”

Prentiss was a tall thin man with a scraggly black mustache and beard. He was in his mid-thirties, although he looked younger. Despite the beard, he had a clean, fresh-faced look. Basically, he looked like an honest man, which worried Ben no end.

“I work at the Baskin-Robbins over on Fifty-first, near Harvard. You know, next to Novel Idea.”

“What do you do there?”

“Well, I scoop ice cream, for the most part.” He grinned. “I’m the assistant manager, but we have a very small staff. There’s never more than two of us on-site at once. So I usually end up doing a little of everything. Stocking, scooping. Ringing up the cash register.”

“I see.” Bullock turned a page in his trial notebook, usually his subconscious signal to the jury that he was about to get to the good parts. “Let me ask you, Mr. Prentiss, if you’ve ever had occasion to know the defendant, Wallace Barrett.”

“Sure. Of course.” He shrugged. “He’s the mayor. I’ve seen him in the papers, on TV. And he used to come into the store.”

“Really. That’s interesting. I’d like to talk about that.” Ben knew better than to trust Bullock’s feigned surprise. Something was in the offing. “Did he by any chance come into the store on the afternoon of March 11?”

As if you didn’t know. “Yes, he did.”

“Was he alone?”

“No, he was with his wife and kids.” He glanced awkwardly at Barrett. “Er … late wife and kids.”

“Would you please describe that encounter for the jury in your own words?”

Prentiss shifted his angle slightly so that he faced the jury and could speak directly to them. “Well, at first it was no different from any other visit. Mayor Barrett greeted me by name, asked about my kids. He was that kind of guy, you know—always remembered your wife’s and children’s names and always remembered to ask after them. A good politician, I guess. We shot the breeze a little bit, like we always did. They’d just come from that press conference he gave. Where he announced he was running for reelection.”

Bullock nodded. “What was different about their visit on this particular occasion?”

“Well, it’s hard to describe. There was some kind of tension in the air, particularly between Wallace and his wife. Something was going on between them, but I wasn’t sure what.”

“What was the first … manifestation of this tension you’re describing?”

“It was the strangest thing. Those two little girls of his had their noses pressed up against the glass counter—you know, picking out their flavors. Mayor Barrett asked them what they wanted, and told them they could have any kind they wanted. And—”

Bullock leaned forward. “Yes?”

“And …” Prentiss seemed to be struggling for words. “And … the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. So thick I thought it was going to strangle them. Or her, anyway.”

“Her being?”

“Mrs. Barrett. Caroline. She told the girls they couldn’t have chocolate. The mayor apparently disapproved of this limitation. They started to argue.”

“Did the defendant become … angry? Agitated?”

“Actually, I thought he showed a remarkable amount of self-control. She was coming on pretty strong, but he kept calm. He told her she was creating a scene, and he was right, she was. Everyone in the store was watching them.”

“Did the defendant’s attitude ever change?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I don’t know what triggered it. I don’t think it was anything she said. It was just as if something inside of him snapped, as if he decided he’d had enough—”

“Objection.” Ben decided to interject. This account was becoming a bit too colorful. “The witness has gone beyond recounting what he saw and heard and is … interpreting.”

Judge Hart nodded. “Sustained. I’ll caution the witness to stick to what he saw and heard.”

Bullock stepped in to retake control. “You were telling the jury when the defendant’s attitude changed.”

Prentiss nodded. “Right, right. All of a sudden, his face got real solid and serious, and his eyes shrunk down to two tiny little slits. And he told her to shut up.”

“How did he say it?”

“The first time, he whispered it. Unfortunately, she kept right on talking. That’s when he went into a rage.”

“What did he do?”

Prentiss looked directly into the jurors’ eyes. “This time he shouted it: ‘Shut up!’ After that, the whole place got real quiet. I think we were all holding our breath, afraid of what might happen next. He snapped his arm back like this”—Prentiss demonstrated—“like he was getting ready to throw a forward pass. Then, like a rocket, he brought his clenched first forward. Toward his wife’s face.”

There was an audible gasp from the courtroom gallery. The cynic in Ben wanted to imagine that Bullock had planted someone to do it, but he knew that even Bullock was probably not that shabby. The truth was, Prentiss was doing a good job of recreating a horrific incident.

“And did Mr. Barrett strike his wife?”

“No,” Prentiss said. “Well, not then, anyway. His fist stopped maybe half an inch from her face. I was amazed he could stop in time.”

“And what was Mrs. Barrett’s reaction?”

“Well, she was horrified, of course. Her eyes were wide as moons. And the funny thing was, she hadn’t had that much time to react. It was as if she instantly realized what was about to happen.” He paused. “I had the distinct impression that this had happened before.”

“Objection,” Ben said. “Speculation.”

“Sustained.”

Ben sat back down, unable to savor this Pyrrhic victory. It was a petty objection in the face of devastating testimony, and he knew it. He wanted to turn to Barrett and shake him by the shoulders, to say What the hell did you think you were doing? But he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t even risk turning to look at his client. The slightest glance might be misinterpreted by a juror as concern over the testimony or, worse, an admission of its truth.

“Did the Barretts get their ice cream?” Bullock asked, breaking the silence.

“No. He told the girls they were leaving.”

“Did they comply?”

“The little one, Annabelle, the four-year-old, whined. She wanted her ice cream.”

“So what did the defendant do?”

“He … swatted her. On the backside.”

Bullock blinked twice. “Do I understand you correctly? He hit his daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Hard?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Hard enough that she didn’t give him any more trouble.”

Ben simply closed his eyes. It was just too much. All through Cynthia’s testimony, in fact, all through the case, he’d told himself, Yeah, but there’s no proof that he would ever harm his daughters. If nothing else, I can convince the jury that he would never harm them. Except now that was all ruined. Shattered. An eyewitness who had no reason to lie told the jury that Barrett hit his daughter. And Ben knew they would believe him.

He knew they would because he knew he did.

“Did anything else unusual occur?”

“No. Barrett gathered together his family and they left hurriedly. Believe me, I was relieved.”

“Did he say anything else before he left?”

“Yes.” Prentiss’s voice lowered. “Just after he almost hit her. He dropped his hands, but his eyes were still glaring at her, still drilling her so hard I thought they’d leave a mark. He looked at her like that and he said, in a low, growling voice, ‘You’ll regret this.’ ”

Bullock paused to let the import of that statement sink in. “And this was on the afternoon of March 11? About two-thirty in the afternoon?”

“Right.”

Bullock nodded. “Four hours later, all three of them would be dead.”

There was a great and heavy sense of weight in the courtroom. Heads turned and nodded, eyes widened. And for good reason. Now the prosecution had established not only a motive, but an expression of intent. And all of that before the first lunch break.

Bullock glanced up at the judge. “No more questions.”