Beyond Justice (50 page)

"If he is sincere, then yes.  God would forgive him."

"Do
you
forgive him?"

"Objection!" said Walden.

"Withdrawn.  During one of your visits, did you or did you not say to my client—and I quote, 'I forgive you.'"

"Yes.  I did."

"Nothing further."

Already on his feet, Walden buttoned his jacket and approached the stand for his redirect.  He strode right past Jodi, brushing shoulders.

"Religious convictions aside, do you actually believe that the defendant should, if found guilty, be allowed any reduction of his sentence?  In light of all the women and young girls he's raped and murdered, all the innocent men like yourself, who he's framed and whose lives are forever marred?"  Walden said, stabbing his index finger in Brent's direction.

It was dawning upon me that as a witness, I was no more than a marionette, both attorneys fighting for control of the strings.  "Reduce his sentence?" I said.  "I'm not even sure if
Brent
himself believes that."

"The question is, do
you
?"

"Objection," Bauer droned.  "The witness' opinion on verdict or sentencing is irrelevant."

Walden smirked at her.  "This is your line of questioning."

"Overruled," said the judge.

"Again, do you, Samuel Hudson, one of the many victims of this psychopathic killer and rapist, believe that he, the defendant, should receive any reduction in his sentence?"

I could admit that God would forgive Brent.  But for him not pay with his life?  I hadn't ever thought that through.  If it were based solely on emotion, I'd answer negatively, without hesitation.  "I'm not sure."

"Yes or no," Walden said, growing impatient.

"Give me a minute."  I didn't know the Bible well enough.  Never discussed Christian perspectives on capital punishment with Pastor Dave.  "I think he should pay for his crimes.  But I'm not sure the solution to murder is necessarily killing the killer."

Before I had a chance to consider what I had just said, a cold, yet familiar voice arose from the gallery and said, "
I
object."  The crowd stirred.

"Order," said Judge Cunningham.

"You of all people, Hudson," the voice said.  "You're trying to get him off the death penalty?  You've been conspiring with him from the beginning!  You, Kingsley, all of you!"  Gasps and murmurs rose up as everyone now recognized that it was Detective Anita Pearson.  Dark circles rimmed her bloodshot eyes. 

"Order!" Cunningham shouted and rapped her gavel.  "Detective, take a seat!"

Her gaze vacant, the Detective stood from her chair and approached the front of the courtroom.  "You deserve to die every bit as he does," she said to me, and opened the wooden gate to cross the bar and enter the well of the courtroom.  The court clerk lifted his head and turned back, regarding the judge with confusion.  Was she about to make a speech?

"Detective, you are in contempt of court," Cunningham said.  "Bailiff, escort her out!"   The bailiff began to approach Pearson, who was now standing in front of the clerk's desk.   An armed deputy also came forward from the back of the courtroom.

Just then, Pearson reached behind her back and pulled out her gun, aimed it straight at me.  With an ominous click, the hammer cocked.

Rachel cried out to me with deathly inevitability.

I was going to die.

"No!" Brent shouted, and leaped up from his chair.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Chairs hit the ground.

Sleeves and pant legs shuffled.

Then, a thunderous gunshot.

I tensed up, anticipating a bullet entering my forehead.

Another shot.

More screams.

The sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground.

I opened my eyes.  The bailiff and another deputy had wrestled Anita to the floor.  Her gun fell to the ground as the deputy twisted her wrist back.  "It's justice!" Pearson cried through clenched teeth, her eyes feral, hair flailing as her head thrashed about.  "Justice, God Dammit!"

Before her, Brent Stringer lay on his side, a crimson pool expanding on the floor by his chest.  Two scarlet stains on his white shirt revealed that he'd put himself between me and Anita's gun.  I went over to him.

He looked up with a faint smile.  I knelt, unable to comprehend how I could possibly be feeling sorrow for him. "Do you really think..." he coughed and grimaced.  "... God will forgive me?"

I reached out, grabbed his hand.  Cold, trembling.  "Remember that criminal, crucified next to Christ?  Jesus told him,
Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise
."

He smiled.  Coughed and winced.  "Mercy."  A tranquil smile came over his face, like that of a child, asleep and secure in the arms of a loving father.

Chapter One Hundred and Six

Anita Pearson was taken into custody and would later face murder charges.  Her attorney, a partner from Jodi Bauer's firm, planned to argue temporary insanity, pending a psychiatric evaluation for trial competency.  In the meantime she had been committed to Patton State Psychiatric Hospital, where Diana Napolis was sent for stalking and threatening Jennifer Love Hewitt, after a judge declared her incompetent to stand trial.

Brent's death troubled me more than I could have imagined.  Had I answered in haste when I assured him that God would forgive him?  Had he truly changed and found redemption?  Or was this more of his psychopath games?  I'd never know for sure.  But one thing I did know and have held onto since:

A tree is known by the fruit it bears.

The fruit we bear from our hearts is not our words and attitudes, so much as they are our actions.  And Christ said,
Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
   Brent never meant to escape punishment for his crimes. 

And his final act can only be judged by God.

Chapter One Hundred and Seven

The Stringer case ground to an abrupt halt.
Rachel and I spent the next day in civil court arguing an eleventh hour appeal with a judge who was apparently deaf.

And dumb perhaps, but not mute.

His vociferous condemnation of my cruelty towards my son caused the hairs on my neck to prickle.  It fueled more than a few juicy headlines.  But I'd grown accustomed to such nonsense.  Any thought for my own reputation had  long since been eclipsed by my concern for Aaron.

Hudson vs. California was dismissed with prejudice.  My legal rights had been determined and lost, and the case could not be brought to action again.  An appeal was possible, but that process took a couple of weeks just to schedule on the already distended dockets of every potential judge.  Aaron's court ordered termination date was slated for tomorrow.

I consider myself a strong man.  Certainly toughened by three and a half years in a Supermax Prison.  But that night, I clutched a photo album with all Aaron's pictures from birth until the last one we took of him, to my chest and cried myself to sleep at his bedside.

Chapter One Hundred and Eight

It's like running a
marathon, blisters bursting, skin peeling, only to arrive at the end and learn that you've been on the wrong track altogether.  I'm sitting by Aaron's bed holding his hand, the warmth of which makes this even more difficult to accept.  My tears moisten his frail hand. 

I don't want to let go.

But I must.  Jim O'Brien and another deputy are posted outside with the unenviable task of making sure that the law is upheld.

"I'll be right outside," Rachel says, bending down to kiss me.

They're doing it by the clock mounted on the wall.  When the minute hand reaches the twelve, it will be over.  My son will stop breathing.

"My precious boy," I whisper, a lump lodges in my throat.
"Daddy did everything he could to fight for you." 
You've got a purpose, don't You, God?
  I suck in an anguished breath through my teeth. 
Don't You
?

Aaron's chest rises and falls.  He hears me, I know he does, and it twists like a jagged blade in my heart.  Sinking my face in his hands, I am haunted by the images of my child, his first single-toothed smile, learning to walk, the way his big, green eyes transform into tiny slits whenever he laughs.  The first time he looked at me and with purpose, said, "Da-da."  Flying in my arms like an airplane down the hallway.

"You know I love you, Aaron."  I am overcome with grief and anger and desperation and too many indescribable feelings.  A natural death would be difficult enough.  But to willingly and knowingly deprive my son of breath?  It's like standing by and watching someone kill him, and not doing a thing about  it.  Goes against everything that makes me a father, a human being.

I want to curl up into a corner and disappear. I want to smash something—destroy it and myself in the process.  I want to run out into the middle of the freeway, dragging the whole accursed court and state legislature with me.

God!  You said it was going to be fine!  What kind of sick, cruel joke is this?

I'm cursing myself.

Did Abraham feel this way when he was commanded to take his beloved son Isaac up the mountain and sacrifice him?  And is this how Mary felt when Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross? 
I am the resurrection, and the life.  He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.
  Hold on to that.  Claim it.

Taking long, deep breaths, I calm myself.  I don't want to say good-bye in this condition.  I've got to be strong for him, reassuring. 
You've held on so long, Aaron.

Why, God?  After all those miracles?  Why this?  I fall to my knees by his bed and wring the tears from my eyes.  A hand alights upon my shoulder.

"Sam." Rachel touches my shoulder.  I reach back and put my hand over hers and rise.  "It's almost time."

"I know."  I turn around and through the blur of my tears I see the backlit outline of the nurse standing by the door.  Lieutenant  O'Brien is standing in the doorway as well, holding his hat in both of his hands.

I nod.

Jim looks at me and nods back.  Steps outside.

Pastor Dave comes in, says a quick prayer, committing Aaron into the bosom of the Almighty.  Rachel is weeping.  "Good-bye, sweetie."  She kisses him on the head, touches his face tenderly and then turns to me burying her sobs into my chest.

The minute hand has reached twelve.  The nurse looks to me with sympathy.  She's done this before.  So many times I suppose, she doesn't allow it to affect her professional demeanor.

Releasing Rachel, I move closer to my boy.  Rachel's fingers hang on then reluctant to let go.  I kneel by Aaron's side and run my hand over his forehead, through his cornsilk hair.  Never have I been so aware of the steady hissing emanating from the ventilator.  Breathing for him.  Giving him life.  Albeit artificial.  Isn't that Your job, Lord?

"Aaron."  My voice breaks.  "It's time to go now."

His chest rises and falls.

I take his hand, squeeze it twice. 
Love-you
.

His fingers twitch.

All those nights he fought not to go to bed. 
Just one more story, Daddy.  Just one more, please?
  What I wouldn't give now. "It's time to go, buddy.  It's okay."

Rachel sobs softly.

"Go ahead, son.  You go on and fly, now.  All the way into the sky, past the moon and into the heavens.  To infinity—" my words are arrested by a sharp sob.  "They're waiting for you."  Not even trying to hold back the tears, I regard the nurse.  We're ready.  "Aaron, Daddy loves you so much."

The nurse reaches behind the ventilator.

She clicks the machine off.  I gasp. 

I won't let go of Aaron's hand until the very end.  Maybe not even then.  His chest rises and falls.  A deep and final breath.

Then a long and peaceful sigh.

"Good-bye," I whisper, pressing my lips to his hand.

The room has become a vacuum.  In tears, Rachel leaves the room with Pastor Dave and the nurse.  And though the silence is deafening, my soul reverberates with Aaron's laughter, Jenn's voice calling us to dinner, Bethie humming passages from a Mozart concerto.  It doesn't seem possible that I could miss them any more than I have, heretofore.  But now, I realize just how utterly profound and dark this pit is.

I kiss Aaron's head one last time, reluctant to go.

Sounds of the past fade.

His hand begins to slip.

All the miraculous things I've experienced are insignificant now, even as I now hear that divine voice which I haven't heard for so long.  One last time, He says,
It's going to be fine
.  For the first time in months, an undeniable vision appears before me.