Deadliest of Sins (7 page)

Ten

Mary left Victor Galloway's
office with directions to the baseball field. Since she had several hours before the One Way Saints were scheduled to take the field, she ate a quick lunch and drove over to Sligo County. According to Richard Drake, Sligo had indicted someone for the murder of a homosexual, but couldn't get a conviction. Mary wanted to find out as much as she could about the person accused and how they'd managed to walk away from a long stretch in prison. Killing was killing, regardless of whom the victim liked to sleep with.

John Kephart was District Attorney of Sligo County. He seemed more of an old-school politician than the self-important Richard Drake—shaggy gray hair, glasses on the end of his nose. He greeted her in a short-sleeved shirt, with a pencil stuck behind one ear.

“Hello, Ms. Crow,” he said, smiling. “It's nice to finally meet you …
the governor really sings your praises.”

“Thanks,” said Mary. “If you've spoken with the governor, then you must know why I'm here.”

Kephart reached for a thick manila folder lying on the credenza behind his desk. “Alan Bratcher,” he replied, dropping the folder in front of Mary. “A gay kid who made a pass at a guy named Buck Honeycutt. Honeycutt took a very dim view of Bratcher's affections.”

Mary opened the file and looked at the autopsy photo. As in the other case, it looked like a handsome young man had gotten his face caught in a buzz saw.

“It was basically a bar fight that went way overboard,” explained Kephart. “We went after Honeycutt for manslaughter, but the jury wouldn't convict.”

“Was this your case?” asked Mary.

“I gave it to Penny Morse, our new hire out of Carolina.”

Mary frowned. “You gave this case to a rookie?”

“She requested it … she'd done some pro bono work at Chapel Hill for a gay student alliance.”

“Could I get a transcript of the trial?”

“Absolutely.” Kephart reached for the phone, then said, “But wouldn't you rather just talk to Penny? She could give you all the details and you could give her a pep talk—she's been pretty glum over this whole thing.”

Mary remembered her first capital case. A basic slam-dunk, but she'd still lost ten pounds getting her argument together. The fifty-minute jury deliberation had felt like fifty years. “It would be tough to lose your first case.”

“I told her to play it straight—go for simple Man One. Defense opened the gay door, and the jury bought it. Like I told your boss, we can't convict someone of a crime that isn't on the books. Add sexual orientation to the hate crime statute, and we'll start prosecuting accordingly.”

“That's a tough sell in the current legislature,” replied Mary. “The rainbow flag doesn't fly so high in Raleigh.”

“It doesn't fly at all in Sligo County,” said Kephart. “The majority of folks here believe in that old bromide about Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

“Then what do gay people do here?” she asked.

“If they're smart, they leave.” He rose from his chair. “Come on, I'll introduce you to Penny.”

He led her down the hall, knocking once before he opened a closed office door. A thin young blond woman looked up from her desk, startled. She wore a navy jacket and pearls, and reminded Mary of a doe flushed from the underbrush. “Yes sir?” she asked.

“Penny, I'd like you to meet Mary Crow. She's from the governor's judicial task force. She'd like to talk to you about the Alan Bratcher case.”

The new hire from Carolina stood up, the color draining from her face.

“Hi, Penny,” Mary said, wanting to put the young lawyer at ease. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” She stuck out her hand. Penny shook it with icicle fingers.

“I'll let you two talk,” said Kephart. “Ms. Crow, if you need anything more from me, I'll be in my office.”

“Thanks.” Mary smiled as the DA disappeared down the hall. Then she closed Penny Morse's door and sat down across from her. The woman still stood like someone facing a firing squad.

“Mr. Kephart said you were coming to town, to look over the Honeycutt case.” Penny gulped. “I blew it, didn't I?”

“I don't know,” said Mary. “Why don't you sit down and tell me about it?”

Penny sat down, reciting the details of the crime—in a crowded bar, Alan Bratcher had put an arm around Buck Honeycutt's shoulders. The action infuriated Honeycutt, who later beat Bratcher up in the parking lot of the bar. Three eyewitnesses testified to the whole thing; brain-dead Bratcher lived for three days until his parents pulled the plug.

“That's horrible.” Mary grimaced at the viciousness of the crime. “And the jury still wouldn't convict? Even for Man One?”

“I was feeling pretty good about it. Then the defense counsel got up and claimed that Bratcher had made a pass at Honeycutt.”

“And the jury went sour?”

“No, I figured the defense would go there. So I entered testimony that established Honeycutt as a homophobe with anger-management issues. I subpoenaed witnesses who testified Honeycutt had made similar gestures to them.” Penny's eyes grew moist. “I even showed an old video of a Sligo County High football game where Honeycutt had patted several of his teammates on their butts—far more intimate touching than Bratcher's arm around his shoulders.”

“That's terrific work,” Mary told the girl. “I'm truly impressed.”

“I felt like I was doing okay,” Penny said. “Then Honeycutt took the stand.”

“Defense counsel let the accused testify?” Mary asked, surprised.

Penny nodded. “Wayne Snodgrass just turned Honeycutt loose. Under oath he admitted he'd had way too many beers, that Bratcher had scared him.”

“Scared him?” Mary checked the case file in her lap. Bratcher was slightly built, boyish. Honeycutt had shoulders like Man Mountain Dean.

“That's right. Honeycutt claimed he was a born-again Christian. He quoted some Bible verse that said if you were even touched by a homosexual, you'd go to hell just the same as the homosexual would.”

“So he bashed Bratcher's head in to keep from going to hell?”

Penny nodded. “Honeycutt swore he never meant to kill Bratcher, just to teach him a lesson. He cried as he apologized to the poor guy's parents. In his summation, Snodgrass said Honeycutt had a moment of ‘gay panic' and simply defended himself to save his immortal soul.”

“That sounds as idiotic as the Twinkie defense,” said Mary.

“Yeah, but it worked. The jury deliberated less than an hour,” said Penny. “I polled them; each one said
not guilty.”

“What was the jury makeup?”

“Six men, six women. I thought I'd done a good
voire dire
—weeded out all the homophobes.”

“But twelve snuck in anyway?”

“I guess so. I just feel so bad for Mr. and Mrs. Bratcher. Alan was their only son—an ophthalmologist, in Charlotte.” She looked at Mary, her pale brows drawn. “Is this going under judicial review?”

“Not at all. It sounds like you ran an excellent case. The governor is just concerned that in certain counties, gay people are not getting equal protection under the law. Could I ask you a few more questions?”

“Sure.” Penny brightened now that the threat of judicial review had been lifted.

Mary pulled a notepad from her purse. “Do you know if this Buck Honeycutt belonged to the One Way Church, in Campbell County?”

“Reverend Trull's church?” Penny shook her head. “I can't remember his having any particular religious affiliation, other than rabid fundamentalism.”

“Any minister visit him in jail?”

“I don't think so. Most of the guys sign up for Sunday church service just to get out of their cells for half an hour. I don't recall Honeycutt's name on that list.”

Mary made a note on her pad. “Has he got any family here?”

“He and his girlfriend live with his mother.”

“Does he have a job?”

“As far as I know, he still works as a tree topper for the Douglas nursery.” Penny sighed. “Other than six months in jail, not too much bad happened to Buck Honeycutt.”

Mary clicked her pen, pondering her notes. “Did he seem sincere when he apologized to the boy's parents?”

“He squeezed out a couple tears on the stand. I heard some snickers from the back of the courtroom. I noticed he walked back to the defense table red-faced, with his head down.”

Mary took another look at Honeycutt's mug shot in the case file. His eyes were defiant, the curve of his mouth arrogant. Nothing about his features indicated any capacity for sympathy at all. She closed the file and gave it back to Penny Morse.

“I've got to tell you, Penny, defense counsel must have eaten his Wheaties during this case. That ‘gay panic' thing was a stroke.”

“He sure had an answer for everything I brought up.”

“Don't beat yourself up about it. You just ran into a jury with concealed prejudice. It isn't fair and it isn't right, but sometimes it happens.”

Penny frowned. “There was one weird thing about Buck Honey-
cutt.”

“What?”

“You know how most defendants, when they're acquitted, show some emotion?”

“I do.”

“Honeycutt just stood there, fists clenched, looking mad as hell. When the judge dismissed the case, he just turned and stalked out the door. Didn't even bother to shake counsel's hand.”

Mary chuckled. “Maybe he thought shaking a lawyer's hand would send him to hell too.”

Mary left Penny Morse reassured that she'd done a fine job, that Mary herself could have done no better. The two women exchanged cards, Penny telling Mary she could call anytime if she had further questions about the Bratcher case. As Mary drove back to Campbell County, she wondered if Penny could have gotten a conviction even if homosexuality had been in the hate crime statute. Somehow, she doubted it. The injunction against homosexuality was Scriptural; not even Ann Chandler could rewrite the Bible just to bring more jobs to North Carolina.

She drove back to her motel. If she was going to this baseball game as Victor Galloway's girlfriend, she needed to change clothes. Showing up in the One Way stands dressed in a skirt and heels would cause more notice than she wanted. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, then checked her messages. One frantic one from Ann Chandler's aide Jake McKenna, wondering what she'd found out. Nothing from the little boy who was so concerned about his sister. Nothing from Jonathan Walkingstick, of course. Nothing from Walkingstick in nearly two years.

“No surprises there,” she whispered, running a comb through her hair, wondering if she would check her messages for the rest of her life, always hoping for a call from him. Putting that thought out of her mind, she laced up her running shoes and headed for the door. She had a ball game to attend and a rookie right fielder to cheer for.

By the time she found the ball park, the game was in the fifth inning. The One Way Saints were at bat, going up against the Asbury United Methodist Circuit Riders. Mary knew immediately that the Saints were far more into baseball than the Methodists. The Saints wore tight black uniforms, their letters and last names emblazoned across the back. The Methodists just played in jeans and seemingly whatever T-shirts they'd grabbed from their closets. The score reflected the differing attitudes—the Saints led the Circuit Riders 12–0. Mary took a seat in the One Way bleachers and looked for Galloway. She found him, sitting at the end of the bench, intently watching one player who was walking up to bat. She followed his gaze, then caught her breath. The young man who was digging into his stance over the plate wore the number eleven and the name
honeycutt
on the back of his jersey.

She craned her neck, tried to see if it was the same man in Penny Morse's case file, but the batting helmet hid all but the lower half of the man's face. Still, Mary could see he took his sport seriously. As the Methodist pitcher laughed at some joke from his catcher, Honeycutt just hunkered over the plate, not cracking a smile.

Finally, the pitcher got serious. As he began his windup, two girls several rows down from Mary stood up and yelled, “Come on, Buck! Kick some butt!” The One Way crowd laughed as the pitcher threw a fast ball. It looked like Honeycutt was going to let the thing pass, then, at the last possible second, he lowered his shoulder and swung. The bat cracked as the ball flew just inches over the pitcher's head. Everyone leapt up and cheered as the ball flew past the pudgy Methodist short stop and ripped up center field. Honeycutt raced for first base, then went for second. By the time the hapless Methodists had gotten the ball back to the infield, Honeycutt was standing on third base, his right arm lifted, his index finger pointing toward heaven. Everyone around Mary mirrored his gesture, lifting their arms and pointing their fingers upward. Instead of lifting her arm, Mary touched the smart phone in her pocket. I
should send Ann Chandler a picture of this
, she thought.

The rest of the game went quickly. The One Way team fielded as well as they hit, dispatching the Methodists with a murderous efficiency. Galloway played a credible right field but struck out in the ninth inning. By then, it didn't matter—the Saints were ahead 20–0. After the game ended, Mary again kept her eyes on Honeycutt. Though he bumped fists with the Methodists, his face remained stern. Only when he turned to greet his other teammates did he display any exuberance—leaping onto the catcher's back, again pointing his finger at the heavens. The team trotted off the field together, finally dispersing among the people in the bleachers. Victor Galloway came up to her, sweatier from his chest-bumping celebration than his efforts on the field.