Only the Truth (7 page)

 

 

 

IV

 

 

 

 

January 5th - First day of the trial

 

 

I started checking off the date book I had bought at Ben Franklins when the
trial started. I wanted to know exactly when we started into this part of our
lives and when we would end it. The trial was going to take more than half a
day now that Mr. Green was ready to fight for Charlene's life. I planned to be
in that courtroom every day so Charlene would know I loved her. The prosecutor
gave what they call an opening statement and I just wanted to close my ears
through the whole thing. He said every hurtful thing he could about Charlene
including her being a whore, a liar, and a psychopath
which
he explained was someone who didn't care about nobody but herself.

"That woman," he shouted pointing over at Charlene, "only
looks out for herself. She is a true psychopath in that she either finds
someone useful or she finds them in the way. Mr. Doe, as we must call our
unidentified victim of Ms.
Wiggington's
anger, found
himself among the useful when the defendant came upon him in Bald Eagle. He
gave her money and what he didn't give her, she stole from him. Then she killed
him when he got in her way.”

Mr. Dawson, the prosecutor, was balding and fat. But, he moved quickly and
spun around to point his finger straight at me.

"When Ms.
Wiggington
went on the lam from the
police, she found "this" man to be useful to her. He gave her
shelter; a hiding place far off in the mountains where no one would find her.
Well, at least that is what she thought until John Doe showed up across the
way."

He turned back toward the jury and grandly gestured, his hands stretching
out in large arcs. "And, then? What did she do to this man?" He
pointed back at me. "This man, who loved her, fed her, sheltered her, and
was willing to take the blame for the killing of his neighbor just to save her
from prison?"

He dropped his hands and turned slowly back toward the jury. His arms now
hung limply at his sides.

"This man," he said quietly, "she denied even knowing. When
he came to give her his support, she pretended not to recognize him. Why?
Because she was working on her insanity plea."

Mr. Dawson patted his sides and shook his head.

The prosecutor then pointed again at Charlene. His voice was no longer tired
and weak.

"This woman, this psychopath, this liar, this whore, this user of
people," his voiced boomed out and echoed off the walls. "This woman
was still to play one more card to try to get away with her premeditated murder
of Mr. Doe. She bribed the police guard with sex in order to impregnate herself
by Mr. Hutchins and gain sympathy from a jury; she is trying to play on your
feelings about putting a pregnant woman on death row and leaving a baby
motherless! How cruel and coldhearted it is to use an unborn baby to keep
oneself out of the gas chamber!"

His voice went
on but I lost track of what he said after the part about Charlene using me just
to make a baby. Mr. Green had told me that was what she was doing and that it
would backfire on her in court. But, ever since the
Wiggingtons
had showed up in town, he had changed his tune, telling me maybe Charlene
hadn't really been thinking about the court case when she bribed the jailer to
let me be with her. I tried to think back to see if her wanting to have sex
every night in the jail was anything but her wanting to love me and I can't
remember anything she did to make it seem like she was just using me.
Everything was the same in our lovemaking as it had been at the house except
for the bars surrounding it. I only wished she had called me ‘Sweet Billy Ray’ the
way she used to every time we made love in our bed.

 

********************

 

I asked Mr. Green what he thought when we broke for lunch.

"Why would she tell the police officer she wanted to be with Sweet
Billy Ray but never call me that when we was making love in the cell?"

Mr. Green just shook his head.

"I
ain't
no
psychiatrist, Billy Ray. I can't say why she would do exactly this or
that."

Mr. Green smiled at me.

"Billy Ray, you have to start thinking positively now. We got ourselves
a defense and you have to support Charlene one-hundred percent."

He leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice across my pepperoni pizza
plate.

"The prosecutor has to prove Charlene is a psychopath who planned this
murder with total free will. He has to prove that she knew what she was doing
before she did it and she worked to cover up her crime after she did it because
she knew what she did was wrong. Psychopaths are smart and they know right from
wrong. This is what his argument is going to be."

I could follow that. I had been starting to understand this psychopath stuff
from everyone telling me that Charlene was one of them.

"Now, I have a different thing to prove to the jury. I have to prove to
them that Charlene was crazy at the time of the murder; that something drove
her to do it that she had no control over, and her behavior before and after
the murder only supports that she was out of her mind when she killed Mr.
Doe."

Mr. Green pushed himself back to his upright position and got up from the
table.

"You just watch my opening statement this afternoon. I'll make Mr.
Dawson look like one unfeeling bastard."

I watched Mr. Green as he walked away and wondered if he lied and changed
his tune as much as Charlene. Maybe lawyers weren't so different from the
clients they represented. Now it was hard to know who to trust.

 

********************

 

Mr. Green sure did turn things upside down. Just before lunch I could see
the jury members looking at Charlene like she was some kind of poisonous
insect. By the end of the afternoon, they were looking at her as if she were a
lost puppy they wanted to adopt and take home to their children.

Mr. Green didn't do all that loud yelling and pointing and wild gesturing
that Mr. Dawson did. He talked quietly and firmly and made Mr. Dawson look like
one of those snake oil salesmen trying to fool his audience into buying
something they don't need.

The defense attorney got up quietly from the table and took his glasses off.
He laid them carefully on top of the case files. He walked towards the jury and
looked them over from left to right. He looked into all of their eyes and let
them look into his.

He started with a statement.

"A terrible event has occurred in a place where nothing like this has
happened in the last decades we can remember. No one has been murdered in their
home for reasons unknown and never have we had a woman in this town on the
stand fighting for her life."

He paused.

"We find ourselves at quite a loss. We want justice done for this
victim and we want to have mercy for this woman if we find any reason for it.
But, we are about to tread into the most confusing arena of our lives. We do
not have to decide if a homicide occurred. Ms.
Wiggington
does not deny it occurred. We do not have to decide who committed this homicide
because Ms.
Wiggington
does not deny she is the one
who killed Mr. Doe. But we must solve a very unusual puzzle in order to be able
to say that justice for one death demands the death of another. We don't know
what drove Mr. Doe to take up residence directly across from someone the
prosecutor, Mr. Dawson, claims robbed him of his money, and we don't know what
drove Ms.
Wiggington
to become so desperate to be
free of this man's presence that she would be driven to kill him to achieve
that freedom."

I could see right here that Mr. Green was making the jury think that maybe
it wasn't as simple as Mr. Dawson told them it was.

Mr. Green looked over the jury again.

"Mr. Dawson says Ms.
Wiggington
is a liar and
that makes her a psychopath."

He laughed.

"I hope what he says is not true and that he is a very poor specimen of
a psychiatrist because if what he says is so, then you," and he paused to
let his eyes roll over each and every jury member, "You and I and the
judge here…"

The judge raised an eyebrow of warning at him.

"Sorry, Your Honor," apologized Mr. Green, "But all of us
here would be labeled psychopaths for telling a lie now and then to keep our
wives or husbands from killing us and to keep our bosses from firing us."
The jury laughed.

Mr. Green looked very serious again.

"Yes, Ms.
Wiggington
has lied. She has lied
quite a lot. Sometimes she didn't lie but she just didn't offer the truth. In
spite of these failings, Mr. Hutchins lived happily with this woman for two
years, never feeling misled, never feeling abused. In fact," Mr. Green
gently waved in my direction, "Mr. Hutchins thought so highly of his
companion that he was willing to go to jail for her because he believed she
could not have killed without reason; that she could not have been so
coldhearted and therefore he could not be so coldhearted as to believe her to
be so."

I didn't know until now that was why I was willing to go to jail for
Charlene but he put it so nicely and it made so much sense that I felt good
about what I did and I felt good about Charlene.

Mr. Green nailed Mr. Dawson again.

"Mr. Dawson must prove to you that Ms.
Wiggington
had a clear motive to kill Mr. Doe that was purely for selfish interests and
that she was entirely in her right mind when she decided to do so. He cannot
merely make up stories about Ms.
Wiggington
that he
'guesses' might be why she killed Mr. Doe; he must have proof of her exact
state of mind and irrefutable evidence that she knew why she shot Mr. Doe on
that fateful morning when Mr. Hutchins left her alone to go into town for his
cigarettes and some candy for his lady."

Mr. Green finally raised his voice, but he didn't shout. He just raised it
so there was no way to ignore what he would say next.

"Why, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the only question which must
be answered fully and satisfactorily. Let Mr. Dawson prove why Ms.
Wiggington
took Mr. Doe's life and after he has proven why,
you can decide if that answer to this riddle is evil enough to put Ms.
Wiggington
to death."

Mr. Green walked back to his desk and put his glasses back on. He glanced
down at his case file and tapped it with his forefinger.

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is my exploration into Ms.
Wiggington's
life. By the time this trial is over, you will
understand exactly what caused Ms.
Wiggington
to risk
all the good things she finally had in her life - a home, a loving man - why
she would risk losing all those beautiful things to rid herself of the man
across the street, a man who represented another who had taken her from her
family, a man she thought was that man who had destroyed her life. When you
finally understand what made her commit such a horrible crime as the taking of
another human's life, you will find Ms.
Wiggington
not guilty by reason of insanity."

I got it and I hoped the jury did to. Charlene killed that man because that
PTSD made her confuse him with another bad man. I felt relief wash over me.

The afternoon was over and when I went to sleep that night, I dreamed
Charlene was back where she belonged in our bed and Big Dog was panting quietly
nearby on the floor. I hoped she was dreaming the same thing.

 

 

January 6 - Day Two

 

 

It was so darn cold today I wished my truck would start. I put gas back in
it but now I think the battery has gone dead. I hope I can get Mr. Green to
come up here and jumpstart it with his truck, but for now I have to get
dressed, so I can meet the
Wiggingtons
in town and I
can get into the courtroom.

I almost wished I hadn't made it to court today. The room was filled with
lots of curious people, maybe everyone who lived in town who could get off work
and those who didn't have to work. Nothing bad happened but then nothing good
happened either. I fell asleep a dozen times and when I woke up I saw the jury
was napping too. What the lawyers was talking about today was some legal stuff
that didn't make too much sense to me at all. I guess the spectators were
disappointed as well because they looked pretty bored. The only part that made
me pay attention real good was when the doctor took the stand for the
prosecution. Mrs.
Wiggington
was sitting next to me
at that time and she squeezed my hand real hard and woke me up.

Mr. Dawson asked the doctor questions about Charlene's health, like did she
have any serious illnesses, was she dying of anything, and was there any
medical issues that would do harm to her mind.

The doctor shook his head.

"No, sir, Ms.
Wiggington
is in good health.
She has normal blood pressure, normal pulse, a normal blood cell count, no
sugar; nothing unusual or unexpected presented itself in her exam. She is a
healthy young woman of twenty-two."

Mr. Dawson nodded in agreement.

"Did you do an internal exam as well?
A female
exam?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Can you tell us what your findings were?"

The doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Mrs.
Wiggington
tightened her grip on my hand.

"Well, sir, it was clear from scars from
perineal
tears that she had birthed at least couple of babies vaginally." At that,
the jury exchanged looks.

"Go on, doctor."