Private Screening (23 page)

“That's a complex job, isn't it.”

“Yes.”

“Did you discuss it with him?”

“Yes,” she repeated tonelessly. “I told him the sound was great.”

“Was it?”

“It was perfect.”

Carson bent forward. “Did you say anything else?” DiPalma asked.

Stacy looked away, like someone caught in bitter recall. “I thanked him.”

“What did he say?”

“‘No problem,' he told me.” Her voice had the first tremor of anger. “He seemed almost detached.”

DiPalma moved closer. “At any time, were Mr. Carson's actions in any way less than competent?”

In Stacy's pause, Lord replayed the careful phrasing of the question. “No,” she answered. “He was always competent.”

“Judging from this, did he seem rational?”

A second odd question, Lord thought; he was certain that DiPalma was avoiding something, perhaps something that Stacy might say. “Yes,” she told him. “Very rational.”

DiPalma stood next to her now. “Even at the moment he shot James Kilcannon?”

“Yes.” Turning to Carson, she spoke in a clear, quiet voice. “Especially then.”

The courtroom was silent.

“No further questions,” DiPalma said.

The red car hit a crack on the hardwood floor, spun, and flipped on its back near the sofa.

“That's not very good, Daddy,” Christopher said, and zoomed the car up
The New Yorker
and the shoe box he had made into a ramp. It flew into the air, landing against the coffee table.

“Not bad,” Lord told him. “But the driver's three feet shorter.”

Christopher laughed. “How tall are you, anyhow?”

“Around six feet.”

His son considered this. “I saw you on TV again, before Mommy changed the channel. You were just sitting there.”

Lord smiled. “Some days I like to watch.”

Christopher's look suggested that he knew this was funny, but didn't know why. “You're cuckoo, Daddy.”

“And you're the proof.” Lord picked up the car and rolled it to his son. “I hear you've been making some noise in class.”

Christopher's expression changed with his father's. “I feel funny sometimes.”

“Do you know why?”

Christopher shrugged at the car. “Do you love Mommy?” he asked.

“Sure. What makes you wonder?”

Christopher rolled the car a few inches. “She says you don't do things with her anymore.”

Don't let her start this, Lord thought. “I miss that, too. But it's only till the trial's over.”

“I hope it's soon.”

“So do I.” Suddenly Lord grabbed Christopher and flipped him backward, holding his wriggling, laughing son aloft. “Because you're getting too big to deal with.”

Trying to scowl, Christopher slid down on top of him, nose to nose. “Can we play now?” he demanded in his oldest voice.

“Just let me change into jeans. And no more acting up in school, okay?”

“Okay.”

He found Marcia in bed. “What's wrong?”

“I'm tired,” she answered in a flat voice. “There's a frozen pizza in the icebox.”

Shrugging, he hung up his suit coat. “I'll need the car tomorrow, by the way.”

“What's wrong with yours?”

“Carburetor.” He turned, ready to ask what she had said to Christopher, then heard his son's car in the hallway. She watched him, expectant. “I've been thinking,” he finally told her. “Tomorrow night, let's go out to North Beach.”

She hesitated, testing. “I wouldn't mind tonight, actually.”

He shook his head. “I got the early recess so I can cross Tarrant tomorrow, when the jury's had some time to get over her. I've got to figure out how to keep her from finishing Harry off.”

Marcia's glance turned more oblique. “Because she's so sympathetic?”

“Because she's so smart.” He paused. “Are we on for tomorrow?”

For an instant, they looked at each other. Then her eyes lowered. “That would be nice, Tony.”

“
Daddy!
”

Lord stepped into the hallway. “Here comes,” Christopher called, and the red car raced toward Lord. He bent to catch it.

4

W
ALKING
toward Stacy, Lord could feel the crowd gathered outside, reporters standing to see, the camera following him to her. She waited with a wariness so deep and quiet that he could almost touch what had happened to her. For a fleeting moment he imagined two people, caught in a glass cage.

“I'm sorry we have to do this,” he said.

She looked surprised. “So am I.”

The jury's silence was like breathing suspended. “You're a graduate of Berkeley, aren't you?”

“That's right.”

“With honors in music and a drama minor?”

“Yes.”

“What did your drama studies emphasize?”

She paused briefly, as if to tell him that she had been warned. “Acting.”

“Did you take any psychology?”

“Not formally.”

The perfect prosecution witness, Lord thought, coached to give minimum answers. He kept his tone soft. “You mentioned that you and Senator Kilcannon were ‘close.' In what sense?”

She gave him a long, level gaze. “We were lovers.”

“For over two years, I think.”

“Almost that.”

“I imagine you were in love with him.”

Her brief hesitance had a self-questioning quality. Lord watched the decision form in her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I was in love with him.”

“His death must have been devastating, then.”

The offended look she gave him vanished in her answer, close to inaudible. “It still is.”

“You mentioned that you haven't performed since then.”

“No.”

“Nor for a year before?”

Her eyes never left his. “It may have been that long.”

“Because of stage fright, I understand.”

As she flicked back her hair, Lord saw that the gesture had an absent quality; she was thinking as she did it. “It's harder now,” she said simply.

DiPalma had not stood to help her, Lord realized, because she did not need it. Quietly, he asked, “How does that make you feel about Harry Carson?”

There was the slight hesitation again. But her look and answer were direct. “I hate him, for what he did to Jamie.”

“Do you have a preference as to the jury's verdict?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn't that affect your testimony?”

“It can't.” Her toneless voice underscored the words. “Nothing can affect what happened, now.”

Lord nodded in sympathy. “For the record, we've met before, haven't we.”

It seemed to startle her. “I saw you,” she amended.

“At a party for supporters of Senator Kilcannon?”

Lord watched the comprehension surface in her eyes. For the jurors, he was suddenly a fellow mourner, defending Harry Carson because he believed in him, forced to question her despite their empathy. The choice he had left her was to disclose the reason he had been there, seeming hostile to the jury, or put the party behind her.

“Yes,” she answered coolly.

“When had that party been arranged?”

“Once I decided to do the concert.”

“At what point did you decide that?”

“Jamie asked a week or so before.”

“And when did you first tell anyone else?”

“The next day I called my manager.” She hesitated. “To book the Arena.”

For a reason Lord could not discern, her eyes seemed to widen at the answer. “So if Mr. Carson purchased a Mauser three weeks before that, he couldn't possibly have known that he'd be anywhere near Senator Kilcannon. Because no one knew—not you, the senator, or Mr. Damone.”

She looked away. “I suppose not,” she said at length.

“Yet you're certain that Carson's behavior on the day of Senator Kilcannon's death was rational.”

Her voice grew stronger. “Yes. I am.”

“What do you know about Vietnam stress syndrome?”

She resumed watching him. “Very little.”

“Are you close to anyone who served there?”

A slight hesitance. “Only John Damone.”

“Has he described any of his experiences?”

She shook her head. “I think he wants to forget it.”

“But he did remember Harry Carson.”

She paused. “That's why he hired him, yes.”

“Did you ever discuss how the Vietnam War affected Mr. Carson?”

Stacy brushed back her hair. A long moment later, she answered, “Once.”

In his surprise, Lord was suddenly certain why DiPalma had not called Damone, and why his final questions to Stacy were so carefully phrased. He paused a moment, planning his next questions.

Quite softly, he asked, “When was that discussion?”

The look she gave him was wounded, close to angry. “The day of the concert.”

In the silence, Kleist reached for his notebook; tension made the rest of the jury look oddly alike. “Because he seemed so ‘detached'?” Lord asked.

Her nod was slight, reluctant. “Yes.”

“How did the subject arise?”

She seemed to steel herself. “I mentioned it to John.”

“What did he say?”

“That maybe it was Vietnam.”

Lord tilted his head. “Before today, have you mentioned this to anyone?”

She hesitated. “Mr. DiPalma.”

“Anyone else?”

She was silent for a moment. “Jamie.”

Startled, Lord's question was almost involuntary. “When?”

“On the way to the concert.” She paused, finishing softly, “Before I saw what Harry Carson had been thinking.”

The answer, and the way she said it, were devastating.

Lord forced himself to sound incredulous. “So the shooting resolved your question about his state of mind?”

“The shooting,” she answered quietly, “and the way he did it.”

“But that happened quite quickly.”

Her voice was softer yet. “It didn't seem to.”

Lord gave her a pensive, puzzled look. “By any chance, has Mr. DiPalma shown you a film of what happened?”

She hesitated, surprised. “Yes.”

“And did the film refresh your recollection of how Harry Carson behaved?”

“It's not something I can forget.” She paused briefly. “The film preserved it, that's all.”

DiPalma had risen; Lord saw that he understood what was coming. “For the record, Ralph, was that the film to which you stipulated, or the one you chose as evidence?”

DiPalma flushed. “It was Exhibit Thirty-three.”

Lord turned to Rainey. “Your Honor, Mr. DiPalma has asked Miss Tarrant to characterize Mr. Carson's behavior after watching his chosen view of what happened. He forces me to ask that she and the jury view a second version.”

“Objection,” DiPalma snapped. “Mr. Lord may reinvent reality when he presents his own case.”

“But by then,” Lord retorted, “Miss Tarrant won't be here to ask about it.”

Rainey gave Lord a long, unhappy look. “Objection overruled.”

Lord turned to Stacy. Her mouth parted.

DiPalma's fault, Lord told her silently. He took you a step too far.

She said nothing.

On the screen, she spoke Kilcannon's name.

The crowd responded. “Kil-cannon.”

From the witness stand, Stacy watched herself with a look of appalled fascination. Her recorded voice grew more insistent. “Kilcannon.”

In the dark arena, fists appeared, pumping like pistons on some strange machine. Above them, Stacy smiled as the chant rose higher, “Kill-
cannon
.”

He stood next to her now. As their hands touched, the cry became hypnotic, each repetition echoing in the smoke and haze and light.

“Kill-
cannon
.…”

As if drawn forward, Carson moved toward them, gun extended.

Suddenly, he stopped; his last step before firing was like a trance being broken.

Kilcannon fell. In the courtroom, Stacy flinched.

The camera followed Carson.

He moved as if from muscle memory. A film camera rose from the side; seeing it seemed to change him. He came to a jerky stop, knelt, and fired three times. With the last shot, he dropped the gun, looking toward Kilcannon in dumb amazement, and then at his hands.

“Now,” Lord said.

The technician froze the image for Stacy and the jury. Behind them, Damone had stood, staring through the glass.

The lights came on.

In the courtroom, Carson was staring at himself. Stacy did not move; her stunned, sick look was an odd reflection of Carson's.

“Miss Tarrant?”

Slowly, she turned to Lord.

He was standing a respectful distance back. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You hadn't seen the rest of what he did, had you?”

Her voice sounded parched. “No.”

“Does his behavior still seem rational?”

Facing Carson, she seemed to reach for some reserve. “Yes.”

“But how can you ever know that?” Lord asked softly. “Or is it that you want to?”

“Objection!”

Lord turned to DiPalma, as though to remind the jurors that he had opened this.

“Overruled,” Rainey said, and then looked back to Stacy.

Her shoulders raised, and then her face, waiting.

Lord shook his head. “No further questions.”

He sat down. Stacy walked from the courtroom without looking at him, and was gone.

Entering the New Pisa, Lord had felt glad to be in the kind of public place with bright pictures on the wall and couples smiling at each other, heedless of him or Harry Carson. Then he realized that he had chosen a booth with a clear view of the door.

“See someone we know?” Marcia asked.

He smiled automatically. “Just ravenous strangers, waiting for our booth.”

“You look tired.”