Private Screening (25 page)

“Your Honor, the question falls within two exceptions to the hearsay rule. First, a pattern of violence would indicate Mr. Carson's persistent intent to commit violent acts. Second, it would negate the Vietnam stress defense advanced by Mr. Lord.”

Rainey nodded. “Objection overruled. You may answer, Miss Winship.”

“He wrote me about it.” She hesitated. “But the sergeant tried to make him buy savings bonds.”

“So he
hit
him?” DiPalma asked. “Tell me, was this before or after he went to Vietnam?”

Beth stared at her lap. “Before.”

DiPalma drew himself up. In a tone of pity which underscored her crestfallen answer, he said, “No further questions.”

“Mr. Lord?”

As Lord hesitated, Carson took his pen and wrote “Cathy,” and then his lips formed “Please.”

Lord stood. “Did Harry also write you that he'd seen this sergeant skin a rabbit alive and throw its entrails into an audience of recruits?”

“Yes.” Her voice firmed. “Harry hated animals being mistreated.”

Recalling Kilcannon's autopsy photos, Lord mentally winced. “Would you call him a good father?” he asked.

“A gentle father.” She glanced toward Carson. “Even with his problems, he tried to listen to Cathy.”

Lord paused. “How is she taking this, now?”

“Objection. Irrelevant.”

Lord gave DiPalma a weary look. “You mean harmless.”

Rainey frowned a moment. “I'll allow it.”

“Miss Winship?”

“For Cathy's sake, I wish this weren't on television.” She faced Carson again, finishing softly. “But I think she'll be all right.”

“Thank you, Miss Winship.”

Lord lay on the bed, motionless. Marcia did not look at him.

“It's coming down to Damone,” he finally said. “He's the only one who knows what happened to Harry up to June. And DiPalma may have put him there in front of me, knowing he can devastate our defense, until I'm desperate enough to risk that.”

He heard Marcia flip a page. “What does it matter,” she answered evenly, “as long as it's the truth about him.”

“I wonder if we'll hear the truth.” He stared at the ceiling. “Today reminds me of what an old defense lawyer said before my first case: ‘A trial isn't about truth—it's where twelve people vote for who constructs the best story.'”

“I thought this was what you wanted, Tony. The big case, where people can see how good you are.”

Lord turned to her. “I'm getting killed,” he said softly.

“And
I've
given up security, a career.…” She closed the book. “Everything.”

He watched her, silent. Since the incident of the woman, she had withheld herself in small, clear ways—silence, a certain space between them, a book on her knees, as now. There would always be a reason, he was suddenly sure, for what she did or had not done. But it would never be her.

“I'd better say good night to Christopher,” he said.

His son's room had the warm musky smell of a child and the stuffed animals he slept with. Each night last year, he recalled, when Christopher still believed they had feelings, he would place a different animal near his pillow.

“Daddy?”

His son's voice, sleepy in the dark. Lord kissed the top of his head.

“Good night,” he murmured, “don't let the bedbugs bite.” Said this to reassure himself, because his father had said this to him. Said it in his father's tone of voice.

It scared him not to care if they made love.

He stopped in the hallway.

What he had told her about law, he had lived by for years. But it was painful now to watch as each piece of Carson's life was sifted by rules and divorced from context, to become another building block of someone's self-serving hindsight. A lie, like the lies he and Marcia spoke to each other, telling two stories of a single life.

He entered their room, and took his keys from the dresser.

“Preparing another witness?” she asked coldly.

“A good one, I hope. Named Bramley.”

2

T
HE
witness was stocky and round-shouldered, with curly brown hair and a wide-eyed way of looking, as if fearful he would sound like a fool. Glancing at Damone, Lord put both hands in his pockets and turned away.

“Would you state your full name?” he asked.

“Robert Lee Bramley.”

“And what is your occupation?”

“I'm an accountant.” Though his voice was light and quite young, he had forced it into a monotone. “In Chicago.”

“Are you also a veteran of Vietnam?”

“Yes.”

“How did that come about?”

“I was drafted.”

“At what age?”

“Eighteen.”

“How long were you in combat?”

Bramley eyed the ceiling. “Two hundred and thirty-four days.”

“Did your tour end early?”

A small shrug. “When I was wounded, they sent me back to the States.”

“Can you describe your return?”

“We landed in Oakland.” He paused. “Some demonstrators were chanting ‘Babykillers.'”

He could have been reading a repair manual, Lord thought. “After Vietnam, did you receive any counseling from the Army to help you readjust?”

A second, fractional shrug. “They discharged me.”

“Could you have used some help?”

“I still have nightmares.” An embarrassed pause. “I get angry for no reason.”

“Are you in counseling now?”

“Yes.”

“For what problem?”

“My wife left me.” There was a faint echo of surprise. “I could never talk to her—explain what happened to me.”

“But you'll try to tell the jury.”

“Yes.”

“Why is that?”

Turned to Carson, the wide-eyed look registered disbelief that they were there. “Harry saved my life.”

As Kleist leaned forward, Carson glanced away. “He served with you then,” Lord asked.

“In the Hundred and First.” Bramley began to watch the ceiling again. “We were near Khanh Duong, walking up and down these hills with three-foot grass. It was rainy and cold—there were leeches and red ants, jungle rot, hepatitis, parasites—” He shrugged, cutting himself off. “Harry came in to replace a guy who'd been booby-trapped.”

“Did you strike up a friendship?”

“Replacements got you killed—my only friends, Stillman and Cook, had been there long as me. And Harry came in with a picture of his girlfriend, all spooked about some body bag breaking open.” When he shrugged again, Lord recognized it as a kind of tic. “It might have been the guy he replaced.”

“At first, how did he do?”

“For five days, I think it was, he stumbled around while we tried to find some VC.” He seemed to count mentally. “Sixth day, they found us.”

“Objection. Unresponsive.”

“Sustained.”

When Bramley looked confused, Lord knew that DiPalma would start trying to rattle him, making his account lifeless and fragmented. Stepping between them, he asked, “What happened when they found you?”

“We were in triple canopy jungle.” Pausing, Bramley retrieved his monotone. “A thirty-caliber machine gun opened up from somewhere—you could never see where it came from 'cause it sent up this echo all around. So you watched for bullets splitting the foliage.” His speech became so careful that Lord imagined him repressing a shrug. “I saw the jungle splitting in a straight line toward me.”

“What happened?”

“I froze. Someone hit me. Falling back, I saw the grass fly up from where I'd been.” An odd, inappropriate smile. “Harry was on top of me.”

“After that, how did you feel toward him?”

“I wanted to keep him alive—Cook and Stillman did, too.” He gave a furtive glance at Carson. “We began calling ourselves ‘brothers.'”

“Cook and Stillman—what were they like?”

“Objection. Irrelevant.”

It was time, Lord thought, turning to Rainey. “Mr. DiPalma and I can either go through this piece by piece, Your Honor, or let the witness put Harry Carson's introduction to the Vietnam War in context.”

Rainey pursed his lips. “I'll allow it—provisionally.”

“Cook …” Bramley seemed to blank out, start again. “He was from Kentucky, with glasses, big ears. Stillman was funny, from New York.”

“Who was your battalion commander?”

“Colonel Bast.” The witness nodded to himself. “First day he chewed Harry's ass 'cause his hair was too long. He was wanting to find us a firefight.”

“Did he?”

“Uh-huh. One night he put us on top of some hill about five hundred feet high—with helicopters, so Charlie would know we were there.”

His voice still showed no emotion. “What happened?” Lord asked.

“It was dark—first we heard them shouting, ‘Kill GI, kill GI.' We dug trenches. It was drizzling—the choppers dropped our reserve ammo in the wrong place. Charlie got it.…”

“Objection. Unresponsive.”

“Sustained.”

Bramley's mouth remained open; it gave him the look of a runner, tired and a little detached, deep in the thoughts he ran with. “I … it started with mortars, was all. The four of us were together—like brothers, Stillman said. Dumb—there were bodies flying up around us, then pieces of bodies. People screaming.…”

“After the mortars, did they attack?”

“Used a human wave, around oh-one-hundred.” The shrug was like a spasm. “All around us—you could see them in the tracer bullets.”

“Did you take casualties?”

“Most of us died. Stillman got it through the eye.” Bramley paused, scratching one side of his face. “I couldn't stop looking at that. Then they got Cook in the calf—”

“And Harry?”

“He pulled Stillman on top of Cook.” He paused, as if recalling something. “When the VC overran you, they bayoneted the bodies to make sure you were dead.”

“Were you overrun?”

“No.” Another shrug. “Bast called artillery in on our position.”

“What happened to Cook?”

“They medevaced him out.”

“At the time, where was Colonel Bast?”

“Battalion HQ. He came later, with five choppers for security and a combat photographer.”

“What did he do?”

“Had his picture taken with one foot on top of a dead VC.” To Lord the words seemed to come, one at a time, without emphasis or inflection. “By the time he got there, there were flies crawling in the eyes and ears of the VC. Like on Stillman.”

“Where was Harry?”

“Next to Stillman, staring at the colonel.” He paused, looking down. “When Bast saw him, his face kind of changed. He told someone to put Stillman in a bag, and went back to his chopper.”

“What did you do?”

“We evacuated the hill—went back to the base camp.”

“And Cook?”

“He got back three weeks later.”

“Did you have further contact with Colonel Bast?”

A nod. “There was another operation—a hill, like before.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing—they never came.” He looked past Lord with the inexplicable smile. “One dumb VC stuck his head up and Harry shot it from about two hundred feet. Fell right back in the grass and disappeared, like at a shooting gallery.”

“Dead?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you know?”

“Bast showed up later, wanting a recon patrol to confirm the dead VC for his body count.” A glance at Carson. “So he picked Harry.”

“What did you do?”

“Cook and me—we knew they'd be waiting.…”

“You went with Harry.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you count the body?”

“Uh-huh. There were four live ones next to it.”

“What happened?”

“They gut-shot Cook—he was holding in his stomach with both hands.” The monotone was softer. “Harry shot two VC and then I got one. The fourth got me in the knee.”

“Who shot him?”

“Harry. When he fell, the VC's bayonet was sticking in Cook's brain. It was weird—I don't think I'd seen him without his glasses before.”

Lord paused a moment. “How did you get back?”

“Harry got me in a fireman's carry and then a sniper hit my arm.” Bramley examined his left wrist. “He was running zigzag— I could feel the pulse in his neck and hear the bullets ping. It seemed like forever till we got to the perimeter.”

He hadn't shrugged, Lord noticed. “What happened then?”

“He went back for Cook.

“It was crazy, what with him so hung up on Beth. I screamed after him, ‘He's dead, man.' Then some other guys laid down covering fire—there were VC bullets all around him, like a movie. Bast just watching.

“Harry made it back with Cook.

“With his eyes closed, Cook looked like a baby except for the blood. That was how Harry held him, standing in front of Bast.

“Nobody said anything, just waited for Harry to catch his breath. When he did, his face was still wild but his voice was real soft. ‘Here's your body, sir,' he said, and laid Cook at the colonel's feet. So gentle, the way he did that.

“Bast was still staring down at Cook when Harry butt-stroked him in the mouth.…”

Bramley's voice didn't change, just stopped. As Lord waited, tears began running down his face, and then he shrugged.

“See,” he explained, “I would have killed him.”

Carson put a thumb and finger to his eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Bramley.” Turning, Lord checked the jury.

Kleist's pen had frozen above his notepad. “We'll take a ten-minute recess,” Rainey said.

“In the last ten years,” DiPalma asked Bramley, “have you held the same job?”

Composed again, Bramley nodded. “Yes.”

“Ever shoot at anyone?”