Show of Evil

Twelve

The felony and misdemeanour history of the county was stored in canyons of documents in an enormous warehouse that covered a square block near the criminal courts building. Row after row and tier upon tier of trial transcripts, bound between uniform brown covers, filled the enormous warehouse with faded and fading files. Many more had been misplaced, lost, destroyed, or misfiled; simply transposing the numbers in the index could send a record into file oblivion. Physical evidence was harder to come by. Returned to owners, lost, or destroyed, it was hardly worth the effort to track it down. St Claire signed in and quickly found the registration number of the trial transcript: 'Case Number 83-45976432, the State versus Aaron Stampler. Murder in the first degree. Martin Vail for defence. Jane Venable for prosecution.' He was pointed down through the narrow passageways. Dust seemed to be suspended in shafts of lights from skylights. It took fifteen minutes before he found a cardbox box with STAMPLER, A. 83-45976432 scrawled on the side with a Magic Marker. He carried the box containing the transcript, three volumes of it, to a steel-framed table in the centre of the place and sat down to study Vail's most famous case.

Something had triggered St Claire's phenomenal memory, but he had yet to finger exactly what was gnawing at him: an abstract memory just beyond his grasp. But in that box St Claire was certain he would find what he was looking for, just as he now knew it would have nothing to do with the bodies in the landfill.

He started reading through the first volume but realized quickly that he would have to categorize the material in some way. He leafed through the jury selection and the mundane business of preparing the court for the trial; scanned ahead, looking for key words, piecing together bits and pieces of testimony; and made numerous trips to the copy machine. Then he began his own peculiar version of link analysis, categorizing them and working through the trial in logical rather than chronological order.

But St Claire was also interested in how Vail had conducted a defence that almost everyone believed was hopeless. And also the adversarial cross-examination of Stenner, who was the homicide detective in charge of the investigation. The fireworks began in the opening minutes of the trial.

JUDGE SHOAT. Mr Vail, to the charge of murder in the first degree, you have previously entered a plea of not guilty. Do you now wish

to change that plea?

VAIL: Yes sir.

JUDGE SHOAT: And how does the defendant now plead?

VAIL: Guilty but insane.

JUDGE SHOAT. Mr Vail, I'm sure you're aware that three professional psychiatrists have concluded that your client is sane.

VAIL:… they screwed up.

That started what St Claire realized was ultimately a battle of titans - Venable versus Vail - both at the top of their game, both keen strategists and intractable jugular artists. Venable's opening statement to the jury was short, to the point, and almost arrogantly confident. Obviously, she figured the case was in the bag.

VENABLE: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'll be brief. During the course of this trial, you will see pictures and they will shock you. You will see overwhelming physical evidence. You will hear expert witnesses testify that Aaron Stampler - and only Aaron Stampler - could have committed this vicious and senselessly brutal murder of a revered community leader. Aaron Stampler is guilty of coldly, premeditatedly killing Archbishop Richard Rushman. In the end, I am sure you will agree with the state that anything less than the death penalty would be as great a miscarriage of justice as the murder itself.

Vail, in sharp contrast, set up his entire defence in a complex and obviously impassioned plea to the jury.

VAIL: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Martin Vail. I have been charged by the court to represent the defendant, Aaron Stampler. Now, we are here to determine whether the defendant who sits before you is guilty of the loathsome and premeditated murder of one of this city's most admired and respected citizens, Archbishop Richard Rushtnan. In criminal law there are two types of criminals. The worst is known as malum in se, which means wrong by the very nature of the crime. Murder, rape, grievous bodily harm, crippling injuries - purposeful, planned, premeditated crimes against the person's body, if you will. This is such a crime. The murder of Bishop Rushman is obviously a case of malum in se. The accused does not deny that. You will see photographs of this crime that will sicken you. And you will be asked to believe that a sane person committed that crime. And you will be asked to render judgement on what is known as mens rea, which means did the accused intend to cause bodily harm - in other words, did Aaron Stampler intentionally commit the murder of Archbishop Rushman? Aaron Stampler does deny that he is guilty of mens rea in this murder case… The extenuating circumstances in the case of the State versus Aaron Stampler are of an unusual nature because they involve mental disorders. And so you will be made privy to a great deal of psychological information during the course of this trial. We ask only that you listen carefully so that you can make a fair judgement on mens rea, for in order to make that judgement you will be asked to fudge his conduct. Did Aaron Stampler suffer a defect of reason? Did he act on an irresistible impulse?… These and many more questions will hinge on the state of Aaron Stampler's mental health at the time the crime was committed. And as you make these judgements, I would ask also that you keep one important fact in the back of your mind at all times: If Aaron Stampler was in full command of his faculties at the time of this crime, why did he do it? What was his motivation for committing such a desperate and horrifying act? And if he did, was he mentally responsible at the time? In the final analysis, that may be the most important question of all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, your responsibility will be to rule on the believability of the evidence the prosecutor and I present to you. Whom do you believe? What do you believe? And most important of all, do you accept the evidence as truth 'beyond a reasonable doubt'?… In the end, when you have heard all the evidence, I sincerely believe that you will find on behalf of my client, Aaron Stampler.

St Claire had spent hours copying parts of the testimony and inventing his own chronology of the trial. The method would eventually guide him to the elusive clues he was pursuing. The initial skirmishes came quickly, during the first cross by Vail. The witness was the state's psychiatric expert, Dr Harcourt D. Bascott.

VAIL: Are you familiar with Aaron Stampler's hometown: Crikside, Kentucky?

BASCOTT: It has been described to me, sir.

VAIL: You haven't been there?

BASCOTT: No, I have not.

VAIL: From what you understand, Doctor, is it possible that environmental factors in Crikside might contribute to schizophrenia?

VENABLE: Objection, Your Honour. Hearsay. And what is the relevance of this testimony?

VAIL: Your Honour, we're dealing with a homicide which we contend is the result of a specific mental disorder. I'm simply laying groundwork here.

VENABLE: Are we going to get a course in psychiatry, too?

VAIL: Is that an objection?

VENABLE: If you like.

JUDGE SHOAT. Excuse me. Would you like a recess so you can carry on this private discussion, or would you two like to address the court?

So, in the opening interrogation, the tone and pace of the game was set. Stampler, St Claire learned from several witnesses, had been a physically abused, religiously disoriented, twenty-year-old Appalachian kid with a genius IQ and illiterate parents. He had been stifled in a narrow niche of a village in the Kentucky mountains, forced into the coal mines where the future was a slow death by black lung or a quick demise by explosion or poisonous gases. The thing he had feared the most was the hole, a deep mine shaft that, in his words, 'was worse than all my nightmares. I didn't know a hole could be that deep. At the bottom, the shaft was only four feet high. We had to work on our knees. The darkness swallowed up our lights.'

Forced on his ninth birthday to begin working in the hole, he had finally escaped the confines of Crikside, Kentucky, when he was eighteen, urged by Miss Rebecca, the town's one-room-school teacher, who had nurtured his thirst for knowledge since his first day in school. In Chicago, he had been rescued by Archbishop Richard Rushman, founder of a home for runaways called Saviour House. It had been Stampler's home until he and his girlfriend decided to live together. It had turned out to be a disastrous idea. She had left and returned to her home in Ohio. Stampler had ended up in a sordid and lightless hades for the homeless called the Hollows.

VAIL: Aaron, did you blame Bishop Rushman for that, for having to live in that awful place?

STAMPLER: He never said a thing about it, one way or the other.

VAIL: Aaron, did you ever have a serious fight with Archbishop Rushman?

STAMPLER: No, sir, I never had any kind of fight with the bishop. We talked a lot, mostly about things I read in books, ideas and such.

But we were always friends.

VAIL: So the bishop did not order you out of Saviour House and you were still friends after you left?

STAMPLER: Yes, sir.

St Claire next studied the testimony relating to the murder itself. There were two versions of what happened: Aaron's, which had no details, and Medical Examiner William Danielson's, which was almost pornographic in its specifics.

VAIL: Now I want to talk about the night Bishop Rushman was murdered. There was an altar boy meeting scheduled, wasn't there?

STAMPLER: Yes, suh.

VAIL: Did any of the altar boys show up?

STAMPLER: No.

VAIL: Nobody else?

STAMPLER: No, sir.

VAIL: Was the bishop upset?

STAMPLER: No. He said he were tired anyway and we could meet another time.

VAIL: What did you do when you left?

STAMPLER:… I decided to go to the bishop's office and borrow a book to read. When I got there, I heard some noise - like people shouting - up in the bishop's bedroom, so I went up to see if everything was all right. When I got to the top of the stairs I took my shoes off and stuck them in my jacket pockets. The bishop was in the bathroom and then I realized what I heard was him singing. Then… I felt like there was somebody else there, beside the bishop, and that's when I lost time.

VAIL: You blacked out?

STAMPLER: Yes, sir.

VAIL: You didn't actually see anyone else?

STAMPLER: No, sir.

VAIL: Did you see the bishop?

STAMPLER: No, sir. But I could hear him. He was singing in the bathroom.

VAIL: You fust sensed that somebody else was in the room?

STAMPLER: Yes, sir.

VAIL: Then what happened?

STAMPLER: Next thing I knew, I was outside, at the bottom of the wooden staircase up to the kitchen, and I saw a police car and the… there was a flashlight flicking around, then I looked down… and uh, there was blood all over… my hands… and the knife… And… and then, I fust ran… don't know why, I just ran into the church and another police car was pulling up front and I ducked into the confessional.

VAIL: Aaron, did you have any reason to kill Bishop Rushman?

STAMPLER: No, sir.

VAIL: Did you plan his murder?

STAMPLER: No, sir.

VAIL: To your knowledge did you kill Bishop Rushman?

STAMPLER: No, sir.

Vail had started early in the trial introducing evidence and testimony implying that Stampler was not alone in the room at the time of the murder. He maintained that his client had blacked out and did not know who the mystery guest was, a contention that was hard to prove but even harder to disprove. William Danielson, the ME, filled in the blanks in his version of the killing, guided by Venable.

VENABLE: Dr Danielson, based on the physical evidence at the scene of the homicide, what is your assessment of this crime?

DANIELSON: That Stampler entered through the kitchen, took off his shoes, removed the nine-inch carving knife from the tray, leaving fibres from his gloves when he did it, went down the hallway to the bedroom, and attacked the bishop. Bishop Rushman fought for his life, as witness the wounds in his hands. He was stabbed, cut, punctured, and sliced seventy-seven times. He had less than a pint of blood in his body after the attack, which is one-twelfth of the normal blood supply in the body.

The first major battle came when Vail tried to keep photographs of the crime scene out of the testimony as prejudicial. He was overruled. The original photographs, unfortunately, were part of the physical evidence that had been misplaced or lost years before, and the copies of the pictures, which were attached with other documents at the end of the transcript, were of poor quality and told St Claire nothing. On the witness stand, Danielson went into detail of all the gruesome aspects of the crime, using a combination of photographs, physical evidence, fibre samples, bloodstains, fingerprints, the number of stab wounds and their locations, the results of certain kinds of wounds, the difference between a stab, a puncture, and an incision, and so on. Venable was painting a mural of horror.

VENABLE: So, Dr Danielson, did you conclude that death can be attributed to several different factors?

DANIELSON: Yes. Body trauma, aeroembolism, cadaveric spasm, several of the stab wounds, exsanguination - that's loss of blood. All could have caused death.

VENABLE: Can you identify which you think was the primary cause?

DANIELSON: I believe it was the throat wound.

VENABLE: Why?

DANIELSON: Because it caused aeroembolism, which is the sudden exit of air from the lungs. This kind of wound is always fatal; in fact, death is usually instantaneous. And this wound was profound. Exsanguination was also a factor.

VENABLE: Loss of blood?

DANIELSON: Yes.

As St Claire read the description, his mind flashed back to the coroner's description of Linda Balfour's body. '… victim was stabbed, cut, and incised 56 times… evidence of cadaver spasm, trauma, and aeroembolism… significant exsanguination from stab wounds… throat wound caused aeroembolism… evidence of mutilation… accomplished by a person or persons with some surgical knowledge…' St Claire's nudge was really kicking in, promoted further by Vail's clarification.

VAIL: The knife entered here, just under the right ear, slashed to just under the left ear, cut through to the spinal column, severed the jugular, all the arteries and veins in his neck, the windpipe, and all muscle and tissue.

Then Vail attacked Danielson's assertion that this throat wound was the one that killed Rushman, once again pursuing the possibility that someone else was in the room with Stampler when the bishop was killed.

VAIL: So… if two of the fatal chest wounds could have been struck by one person and the rest of the wounds by another, it is also possible that one person actually struck the death wound and someone else then stabbed and cut the bishop after he was dead, right?

DANIELSON: I suppose… yes, that's true… but unlikely.

St Claire frequently stopped to scribble notes to himself. He wrote, 'Was another person in the room? Ask Vail? Stenner?' And why was Vail making this point if Stampler was pleading guilty? Was the insanity plea a ploy of some kind? St Claire kept ploughing through the encyclopedia-sized transcripts, skipping occasional exchanges.

VAIL: Aaron, are you familiar with the term 'fugue' or 'fugue state'?

STAMPLER: Yes, sir.

VAIL: What does it mean?

STAMPLER: Means forgetting things for a while.

VAIL: Do you have a term for it?

STAMPLER: Yes, sir. Call it losing time.

VAIL: And did you ever lose time?

STAMPLEK Yes, sir.

VAIL: Often?

STAMPLER: Yes, sir.

VAIL: When?

STAMPLER: Well, I'm not perfectly sure. At first you don't know it's happening. Then after a while, you know when you lose time.

VAIL: How do you know?

STAMPLER: Well, one minute I'd be sitting here, a second later - just a snap of a finger - I'd be sitting over there, or walking outside. Once I was in the movies with a girl and just an instant later we were walking outside the movie. I don't know how the picture ended, I was just outside on the street.

VAIL: Did you tell anyone about this?

STAMPLER: No, sir.

VAIL: Why not?

STAMPLER: I didn't think they'd believe me. Thought they'd make fun of me or maybe put me away.

It was the question of Stampler's blackout and the 'fugue state' that stirred the liveliest cross-examination of the trial, ironically between Vail and Stenner, who was then city detective in charge of the investigation.

VAIL: Are you familiar with the medical term 'fugue state' or hysterical amnesia?

STENNER: Yes, I discussed it with Dr Bascott.

VAIL: As a matter of fact, you don't believe in the fugue theory, do you, Lieutenant Stenner?

STENNER: I have no firm opinion.

VAIL: It is a scientific fact, Lieutenant.

STENNER: As I said, I have no firm opinion.

VAIL: Do you believe that two plus two equals four?

STENNER: Of course.

VAIL: Do you believe the earth revolves around the sun?

STENNER: Yes.

VAIL: Are you a Christian, Lieutenant?

STENNER: Yes.

VAIL: Do you believe in the Resurrection?

STENNER: Yes, I do.

VAIL: Is the Resurrection a matter of fact or a theory?

VENABLE: Objection, Your Honour. Lieutenant Stenner's religious beliefs have nothing to do with this case.

VAIL: On the contrary, Your Honour. If I may proceed, I think I can show the relevance.

JUDGE SHOAT. Overruled. Read the last question, please, Ms Blanchard.

BLANCHARD: 'Is the Resurrection a matter of fact or theory?'

VAIL: Lieutenant?

STENNER: It is a matter of faith, sir.

VAIL: So you believe in scientific fact and you believe in religious faith, but you question the scientific reality of a psychiatric disorder which all psychologists agree exists and which is included in DSM , which is the standard by which all psychiatric disturbances are identified, isn't that a fact, sir?

STENNER: It can be faked. You can't fake two plus two, but you could sure fake a fugue state.

VAIL: I see. And how many people do you know for a certainty have faked a fugue state?

STENNER: None.

VAIL: How many people do you know who have had experiences with faked fugue states?

STENNER: None.

VAIL: Read a lot of examples of faking a fugue state?

STENNER: No.

VAIL: So you're guessing, right?

STENNER: It's logical. If there is such a thing, it could certainly be faked.

VAIL: Have you asked a psychiatrist if it's possible?

STENNER: No.

VAIL: So you're guessing, Lieutenant, yes or no?

STENNER: Yes.

VAIL: Ah, so your reason for doubting Aaron Stampler's statement is that you guessed he was faking - or lying, right?

STENNER: That is correct.

VAIL: So you assumed that Aaron was lying and that he killed Bishop Rushman, correct?

STENNER: It was a very logical assumption.

VAIL: I'm not questioning the logic of your assumption, just that it existed. You assumed Stampler was guilty, right?

STENNER: Yes.

VAIL: At what point, Lieutenant, were you positive from reviewing the evidence that Aaron Stampler acted alone?

There it is again, St Claire thought. Christ, had there been someone else in the room?

STENNER: From the very beginning.

VAIL:… Aaron Stampler tells you that he blacked out when he entered the bishop's room, correct?

STENNER: Yes.

VAIL: What did you do to disprove his allegation? In other words, sir, what evidence or witnesses can you produce that will verify your contention that he was alone in the room and that he acted alone?

STENNER: Porensics evidence, physical evidence, just plain logic…

VAIL:… I have a problem with some of these logical assumptions that have been made during this trial. Do you understand why?

STENNER: Most of the time -

VAIL: Lieutenant, my client's life is at stake here. 'Most of the time' won't do. And so much for logic and a preponderance of evidence. Dr Danielson says he cannot say for sure that Aaron was alone in the room, cannot say for sure that only one person actually stabbed the bishop, and cannot prove evidentially that Aaron even came in the back door or brought the knife to the murder scene, yet you assumed Aaron Stampler lied to you because it wasn't logical, right?

STENNER: (No response.)

VAIL: The fact is, Lieutenant, that you are willing to accept on faith that Christ was crucified and died, that he arose from the dead, and went to heaven. But you don't choose to believe the fact that a person, under extreme stress or shock, can black out and enter a scientifically described limbo called a fugue state. So you never actually tried to prove that Aaron Stampler was lying, did you?

STENNER: It's not my job to prove the defendant is innocent, it's yours.

VAIL: On the contrary, Lieutenant, it's your job to prove he's guilty.

Next St Claire got the testimony about symbols. His nudge became a reality.

VAIL: I'd like to go back to symbols for a moment. Doctor, will you explain very simply for the jury the significance of symbols. What they are, for instance?

BASCOTT. Symbolic language is the use of drawings, symbols, uh, recognizable signs, to communicate. For instance, the cross is a symbol for Christianity while the numbers 666 are a universal symbol for the devil. Or to be more current, the symbols for something that is prohibited is a red circle with a slash through it. That symbol is recognized both here and in Europe. As a sign along the road, for instance.

VAIL: Could a symbol come in the form of words? A message, for instance?

BASCOTT. Possibly. Yes.

VAIL: So symbols can come in many forms, not just drawings or pictures?

BASCOTT. Yes, that is true.

VAIL: Now, Doctor, you have testified that you have seen the photographs of the victim in this case, Bishop Rushman?

BASCOTT: Yes, I have.

VAIL: Studied them closely?

BASCOTT. Yes.

VAIU Were there any symbols on the body?

BASCOTT. Uhh…

VAIL: Let me put it more directly. Do you think the killer left a message in the form of a symbol on the victim's body?

BASCOTT. I can't say for sure. It appears that the killer was indicating something but we never figured that out and Stampler was no help.

VAIL. Doctor, we are talking about the letter and numbers on the back of the victim's head, correct?

BASCOTT. I assumed that is what you meant. Yes.

VAIL: Do you recall what the sequence was?

BASCOTT: I believe it said 'B32.146.'

VAIL: Actually, 'B32.156.'

BASCOTT: I'm sorry. Correction, 156.

VAIL: And do you believe that this was a symbol left by the killer?

BASCOTT. Uh. Well, yes, I think we all made that assumption.

'Yeah!' St Claire said aloud. There it was. Maybe the folks in Gideon weren't too far from the truth. It was the same combination of letter and numbers that the killer had put on Linda Balfour's head. St Claire frantically read ahead. What does it mean? he wondered. Did they ever figure it out?

VAIL And that is as far as you took it, correct? BASCOTT. It takes years, sometimes, to break through, to decipher all these subtleties.

VAIL In other words, you really didn't have time to examine all the facts of Mr Stampler's problems, did you?

VENABLE: Objection, Your Honour. Defence is trying to muddle the issue here. The doctor has stated that it might take years to decipher this symbol, as the counsellor calls it. We are here to determine this case on the best evidence available. This line of questioning is completely irrelevant. The numbers could mean anything - maybe even an insignificant phone number.

VAIL Then let the doctor say so.

JUDGE SHOAT. Rephrase, Counsellor.

VAIL Doctor, do you think this symbol is relevant?

BASCOTT. Anything is possible.

But St Claire found the answer to his question in another skirmish between Stenner and Vail.

VAIL … I have only one more question, Lieutenant Stenner. You stated a few minutes ago that this crime was premeditated. You said it unequivocally, as a statement of fact. Isn't that just another one of your unsupported allegations, sir?

STENNER: No, sir, it is not.

VAIL: Well, will you please tell the court upon what evidence you base that supposition?

STENNER: Several factors.

VAIL: Such as?

STENNER: The symbols on the back of the bishop's head.

VAIL: And what about the symbols, Lieutenant?

STENNER: They refer to a quote from a book in the bishop's library. The passage was marked in the book. We found similar markings in a book retrieved from Stampler's quarters in the Hollows. Some highlighter was used and we can identify the handwriting in both books as Stampler's.

VAIL: Lieutenant, why do you believe these markings on the victim's head prove premeditation?

STENNER: Because he planned it. He wrote in blood, on the victim's head, the symbol B32.156. B32.156 is the way this book is identified, it's a method for cataloguing the books in the bishop's library.

VAIL: And what does it mean?

STENNER: It is a quote from the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 'No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.'

VAIL: What is the significance of that quote?

STENNER: It is our belief that Stampler felt betrayed by Bishop Rushman, who made him leave Saviour House. His girlfriend left him, he was living in a hellhole. He felt the bishop was two-faced. So he put this symbol in blood on the victim's head to add insult to injury.

VAIL: I think you're reaching, Lieutenant…

STENNER: We proved it to my satisfaction.

VAIL: Well, I guess we should thank our lucky stars you're not on the jury, sir…

St Claire's pause was doing double time. He wrote on his pad: 'What happened to the bishop's books?' But he kept reading until the trial came to its startling conclusion.

VENABLE: You have quite a memory for quotations and sayings that appeal to you, don't you, Mr Stampler?

STAMPLER: I have a good memory, yes, ma'am.

VENABLE: Are you familiar with Nathaniel Hawthorne's book The Scarlet Letter?

STAMPLER: Yes, ma'am, I know the book.

VENABLE: And does the phrase 'B32.156' meaning anything to you?

STAMPLER: (No response.)

JUDGE SHOAT. Mr Stampler, do you understand the question?

STAMPLER: Uh, I believe those are the numbers that were on the back of the bishop's head, in the pictures.

VENABLE: Is that the first time you ever saw them?

STAMPLER: I reckon.

VENABLE: And you don't know what the numbers mean?

STAMPLER: I'm not sure.

VENABLE: You mark passages in books that appeal to you, do you not?

STAMPLER: Sometimes.

VENABLE: You marked passages in the books in the bishop's library, didn't you?

STAMPLER: Sometimes.

VENABLE: Your Honour, I'd like this marked as state's exhibit thirty-two, please. State's 32, a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter from Bishop Rushman's library, was so marked.

VAIL: No objection.

VENABLE: Recognize this book, Mr Stampler?

STAMPLER: I reckon that's from the bishop's library.

VENABLE: Mr Stampler, I ask you, did you or did you not mark a passage on pate 156 of this copy of The Scarlet Letter - indexed by the number B32?

STAMPLER: Uh.

VENABLE: I'll be a little more direct, Mr Stampler. Are you familiar with this quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter: 'No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true'? Do you recognize that, Mr Stampler?

STAMPLER: Uh.

VENABLE: Do you recognize it? B32.156. Doesn't that strike a bell, Mr Stampler?

STAMPLER: I don't.

VENABLE: Mr Stampler, did you memorize that passage and print those numbers on the back of the bishop's head when you killed him?

VAIL: Objection.

The defendant Stampler suddenly screamed and jumped over the railing separating witness from examiner, attacking Ms Venable.

STAMPLER: You lying bitch! Try to kill me.

At this point, defendant Stampler has to be overpowered by guards and the bailiff. There was general disorder in the courtroom.

JUDGE SHOAT. Order! Order in this courtroom!

So it was the symbol on the back of Rushman's head that had set Stampler off on the witness stand. The case had obviously been settled in the judge's chambers. When the trial reconvened, Shoat had announced that an agreement had been reached between the state and Vail. Aaron Stampler was sent to the state mental hospital at Daisyland until such time as the state rules that he is capable of returning to society.'

What was settled in chambers and why? St Claire wondered as he started to gather up his notes. A methodical man, he arranged them in order, scanning each of the pages as he put them in a file folder. Then he stopped for a moment, staring down at a section from early in the testimony. Suddenly his mouth went dry.

My God, he thought, how could I have missed that!

And where the hell is Aaron Stampler now?