"In addition, he suffered from a temporary psychotic reaction brought about by prolonged stress."
"Can you describe that for us?"
"It's a short period of time during which a person behaves in a way that is clearly strange and clearly different from his usual lifestyle. It often includes memory loss, periods of amnesia, and distortions of reality. In other words, a person might not be aware of what is happening, even if he's the one making it happen."
"In your professional opinion, Doctor, is Jamie aware of the difference between right and wrong today?"
"Yes."
"And at the time of his wife's death?" "No."
"Why not?"
Harding crossed his legs. "Jamie was suffering from tremendous amounts of pressure, which impaired his ability to think clearly and to objectively weigh a statement made to him by his wife. People who live with a deteriorating spouse are often struck by prolonged grief that can lead to a more severe depression and a blurring of judgment. In layman's terms, Jamie went over the edge. In my opinion, he was consciously aware of the scope of his actions on the night of his wife's death."
Graham thanked Dr. Harding and turned the witness over to Audra Campbell. She stood up, put her finger to her lips, and then peered at him a little more closely. Then a smile broke across her face. "Dr. Harding!" she cried, as if she were seeing an old friend. "Haven't I seen your name before? In Time magazine? The Kevorkian case?"
Harding puffed up visibly, his shoulders becoming three inches taller and his chest expanding with a deep, indrawn breath. "That's right," he said. "November 1995."
Audra nodded at him like she was clearly impressed. "Isn't it true, Dr. Harding, that you've testified at numerous cases advocating the right to die?"
"Yes, I have."
"Isn't it possible that your interpretation of the defendant's understanding of right and wrong is actually your own personal justification for his act?"
Graham watched the wind sink out of Harding's sails. "No, of course not."
"Nothing further."
Audra sat down and shot Graham a smug glance. He stood up wearily, his hand on Jamie's shoulder, unsure if he was giving or asking for support. "The defense rests," he said.
Cam brought Allie a cup of coffee. She was speaking to his mother with her back to him, so there was no possible way she could see that he was coming, but when he placed his hand on her arm, she stiffened.
Ellen glanced up at her son, finished her sentence, and said she was going to the ladies' room.
"I missed you this morning," Cam said. He felt ridiculous, nervous. His hands were shaking.
Allie nodded. She took a sip of the coffee, mentally noting that Cam had added sugar, and she never took sugar.
"So," he said, cutting with his eyes to the door of the courtroom. "Almost over."
"It may be some time. Graham says the State will put up a rebuttal witness. Their own psychologist."
Cam nodded. He felt bad for Jamie, but he didn't want to talk about him right now. He lowered his voice. "Any regrets?" he asked.
Allie looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and clear, the color of oak. "I love you, Cam," she said frankly. "But I still don't like you very much."
The State called Roanoke Martin to the stand Graham watched him mount the stairs and place his palm over the Bible. It was clear from the set of his head and the slouch in his walk that he wanted to be somewhere else.
Audra walked the psychologist through his credentials. Then, all business, she stood squarely in front of him, blocking him from Graham's view. "When did you meet with the defendant?" "On December nineteenth, last year." "And can you give us your evaluation?"
"The defendant clearly understood right from wrong, and suffered no break from reality."
Audra nodded shortly. "Doctor, on the night of the killing, in your expert opinion, did the defendant know that holding a pillow to someone's face would lead to asphyxiation?"
"Yes."
"Did he know that asphyxiation would lead to death?" "Yes."
Audra glanced at the jury. "Based on your conversation with the defendant, on the night of the killing, do you feel that he was insane?"
"No," Martin said firmly. "I do not."
"Your witness." Audra marched back to the prosecution table and began to close folders and files as if she had the case all wrapped up.
Graham stood slowly. "Do you recall what time Jamie arrived at your office?"
Martin furrowed his brow, exhibiting enormous concentration. "I'm not sure. I can look it up in my notes." "Please."
Graham paced while Dr. Martin flipped through a black leatherbound book he had pulled from his breast pocket. "12:05 p.m.," he said.
"Can you tell me without looking at your notes how long the meeting lasted?"
The psychologist blinked owlishly at Graham. "I can't recall," he said.
"Would it help you to check your notes?" Graham said, indulgent.
Martin scanned several pages. "It concluded at 12:23 p.m." "You had eighteen minutes with Jamie." "Yes, apparently."
"Did you discuss the night in question?" "Yes."
"Did you discuss his wife's illness?" "Briefly."
"Did you cover the prospects for her recovery?" "I can't recall."
By this point, Graham had advanced on the witness so that he was bent back under the force of the attorney's questions. "Did you explore their relationship?"
"Possibly," the doctor said, somewhat faintly.
Graham let out a long whistle through his front teeth. He stuck his hands deep into his pockets. "You mean to tell me you did all this in eighteen minutes? And based on this no doubt thorough conversation with Jamie, you feel qualified to judge his mental state?"
Roanoke Martin tipped his chin up. "Yes," he said.
"Isn't it true that you listened to Jamie that day, and took into consideration his answers and his affect on that day, and reached a conclusion about his mental state based on what was right before your eyes?"
"Well," Martin said, "of course that entered into it--"
"Nothing further."
Graham went back to his seat.
It was Friday, and everyone in the legal community knew Juno Roarke liked to get out as early as he could Friday and go to the dog track, so it was no surprise when the judge dismissed the jury and announced that summations would begin on Monday morning. No surprise, but simply a disappointment.
Graham loaded his file into his briefcase. Jamie was still sitting beside him. "That's the end of the show?" he asked.
"That's it," Graham said. Summations didn't count. The prosecution had the last word then, anyway. "I just wish he hadn't broken off today. It means another weekend of waiting for you."
Jamie shrugged. He didn't say anything, but Graham knew what he was thinking. Another weekend you're still free. "You've got a ride?" Graham asked.
Jamie nodded. He told Graham to have a nice weekend. Then he turned around. Most of the spectators had filed out the door a few minutes before. Allie and Cam were gone. Ellen was sitting by herself on the bench behind him.
"I didn't know you were still here," he said, smiling at her.
"I'm trying to get a feel for the courtroom without the noise. You know, is it a positive place or a negative one."
Jamie swung one leg over the separating railing. "I guess that depends on if you're the prosecutor or the defendant."
"So," Ellen said, laying a hand on his knee. "What are you going to do when this is all over?"
She looked up at him with such fierce expectation that Jamie almost laughed. "I'm going to Disney World!" he crowed, spinning over the railing to land beside Ellen. Then he sank into the seat next to her and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know," he said. "I really don't know."
"Well, what would you like to do?"
He considered this. He didn't want to work; he didn't think he'd be able to program computers very well when he couldn't even master his own mind. He didn't much feel like going back to Cu
mmington either. The point of killing Maggie in Wheelock was so that he wouldn't attach the memories to their hometown; funny how at the time he had actually thought he'd be able to outrun them.
"I'd like to drive through all fifty states," he said, surprising himself. "Or maybe move to the West Coast and get a fresh start." He found himself listing one idea after another, the images tumbling out of him. Ellen put a hand on his shoulder.
Jamie spoke for over an hour, his eyes straight ahead, Ellen beside him. As the pictures developed in his mind, they were more and more real, until he could truly see himself hiking through the Black Hills and taming lions and bowling a perfect 300. He blew his future farther and farther out of proportion. He never considered how much he began to sound like a child, who built foundations on the hopes of being the president, an actor, or a famous quarterback, and who stubbornly refused to believe it wouldn't come true.
On Sunday night Graham called Jamie at Angus's house. Jamie had been reading the paper on the living room floor. "Hello?" Graham cleared his throat before saying anything. "How are you doing?"
"Good. What's up?" Jamie grinned. "Did they declare a mistrial?"
"In my dreams." Graham hesitated. "Jamie, there's not an easy way to say this, but I don't know if you've thought it out for yourself."
Jamie felt the walls caving in around him. He lay down on his stomach, his chin propped on the floor. "What?"
"Don't bring your car on Monday. I'll give you a ride." Jamie closed his eyes and hung up the phone.
On Monday, the courtroom was packed. The reporters who had been present for the past two weeks seemed to have spawned another fifty of themselves, so they spilled from the rows into standing-room-only at the back. Some Wheelock residents were there, some Cummington families. There was a space by the door where the armed guards would soon stand.
Graham stood and adjusted his tie. He had dressed in an olive suit today, like Jamie's, a silent show of support. He wondered if any of the jurors would notice. At nine-thirty, he began to speak. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "you have been listening to a love story. A star-crossed one at that, but still a love story. This case is about a woman named Maggie, who fell for a man named Jamie, and both were supposed to live happily ever after."
He turned around and stared at Jamie. "But that didn't happen. Unfortunately, this story is about a love that didn't last, because of the physical destruction of Maggie and the psychological destruction of Jamie.
"The law is not only about right and wrong. It also makes a distinction between people who are bad, and people who are sick. That's why you've heard from several psychiatric professionals during this trial. In this case, the State's psychologist offered a judgment on Jamie's mental state based on eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes. He concluded whether or not a man was capable of taking someone else's life and knowing the consequences in less time than it takes me to shower in the morning."
Juror Number 6 smiled.
"The State's psychologist did not talk at length to Jamie about the person he loved most in this world, more than himself. He did not talk to Jamie about her illness, about her chances for recovery, about the strain that the absence of hope had placed on them. And still he thinks he can offer an expert opinion."
Graham crossed to the jury. "We know that when a bone is placed under too much strain, it will break. So will the mind. You have heard testimony that at the time of his wife's death, Jamie was not able to think clearly, to consider a statement she'd made and to judge it rationally.
"You've heard proof that at his wife's funeral, Jamie was overwhelmed with grief. Is this the way a murderer would act? You've heard how Maggie and Jamie spent their last few days alone. Would a man callous enough to plan a murder take his wife to watch the sunrise in the Berkshires, make love to her repeatedly, take her out to dinner and dancing? You've heard proof from Maggie's best friend that Maggie was going to ask Jamie to kill her, and this woman, Maggie's best friend, does not harbor any grudge against Jamie. Even the police chief who arrested him admitted that Jamie's case could not be considered plainly in black or white."
Graham scanned the faces of the jury. They weren't giving anything away. "You know," he said softly, "I understand what makes you nervous. It's unsettling to hear about a man who loved his wife so much that he'd be capable of doing this. It makes us all feel a little guilty, because we probably wouldn't go to such an extreme. Admitting that Jamie had the courage to do such a thing also forces us to admit that we wouldn't. That we don't have the same kind of strength, or the same depth of emotion for our husbands and wives and lovers.
"It's very strange to talk about love at a trial like this. More often, you hear about hate. Hate drove him to take out a rifle and gun down all the people on the Long Island Railroad. Hate drove him to set a bomb in a London pub. It's clearly believable to us that hate can spur a person to action. Why not love?
"After all, if hate can steal our sanity, so can love. Love can rob a person of his power of reason. We've heard it all before: Oh, what can you expect from him, he's in love. Or, Love is blind. Or, Love conquers all. Think of the strength we attribute to love in our cliches. Is there any doubt that we're vulnerable to it?"
Graham walked back toward his client, so that when the jury followed him with their eyes they'd see Jamie as well. "If I had a way to enter love into the evidence like the arrest report, I would have. But that isn't an option. What I ask you to keep in mind is this: Jamie is a big man. Six foot four, and in good physical condition. He's strong. But he couldn't defend himself against love. It worked its way past his judgment, past what he'd been brought up to consider right and wrong, through the heavy burden of stress he'd been suffering with for months. If Jamie committed a crime, it was that he loved his wife too much. But is that something for which he should be punished?"
Graham sat down. It was 9:52.
Audra Campbell faced Jamie. "If we could have made Maggie MacDonald hale and healthy again, I'm sure every one of us would have wanted to." She turned to the jury. "There has been so much grief and sympathy in this courtroom over the past two weeks that it's easy to let your heart get carried away in the flow and to forget the real issues. What this case has to be decided on, however, is not emotional but fact. And when you clear away all the pathos, what's left is the evidence."
She began to pace in front of the jury box, making eye contact with one juror or another from time to time. "Mr. MacDonald has no criminal record. He is well-spoken and intelligent and he's been a good American citizen. Mr. MacPhee would have you believe that because of these things, his client shouldn't have to be judged within the framework of the criminal system. However, the law does not say that if you've lived an exemplary life up to that point, you can go over the edge and break the rules just once and get away with it."
She paused with her hand in front of the juror with the red hair. "When you sift through all the extenuating circumstances that Mr. MacPhee has brought into this courtroom, you'll find that the evidence is still there, clear and indisputable. On September 19, 1995, after a period of planning and deliberation, Mr. MacDonald took the law into his own hands and killed his wife."
Audra paused for effect. A juror to her right coughed into his hand. Graham watched the jurors look at Audra, into their laps, at Jamie. He could no longer guess what they thought of Audra or himself. "I'm sure everyone in this courtroom has watched someone close to them suffer. It may have been for a shorter period of time than Maggie MacDonalds illness; it may have been longer. I'm sure you have all experienced some degree of stress in this sort of situation. But none of you broke the law.
"I hope you will remember this when you look at the facts. The facts, not the emotions and the grief and the horror. Because although these things have a place, they must be considered separate from the evidence, and the evidence can lead to nothing but a conviction."
She sat down, and beside Graham, Jamie let out the long breath he'd been holding.
TWENTY-THR
EE
Responsibility makes a man taller. Women too. Jamie scanned the faces of the jury as they listened to Judge Roarke's final instructions before they disappeared to deliberate the case. Every one of them--even the wizened old guy who looked like a turtle and the round-shouldered woman with the bad dye job--seemed to have grown three inches. Every one of them had his or her attention fixed on the judge's booming voice; and like chrysalises emerging from their spun shells, Jamie realized, the men and women sitting before him were not at all the same men and women he thought he had come to know and understand over the past two weeks.
Not a single juror looked at him. He wondered if this was done out of guilt, or revulsion, or simply because they did not want to give anything away. He wondered how many of the twelve already knew the way they would vote, how many of them felt that retiring for discussion was nothing but a technicality.
Judge Juno Roarke thanked them for their time and patience during the trial. Then he cleared his throat, moving his eyes down the line of men and women as he outlined their duties to the court. "In this state," he said, "the crime of murder in the first degree is defined as murder with malice aforethought." He paused, let it sink in. "In order to reach this verdict, the prosecution must have proved that the defendant's act was premeditated, willful, and deliberate. The prosecution has the legal burden to prove that the defendant exhibited all of these characteristics, beyond a reasonable doubt." The judge explained in detail the meaning of the legal term. "If, after you have heard all of the evidence and applied it to the directions and rules of law on which I've instructed you, you have a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the offense with which he is charged, then you must acquit him of that charge. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied that guilt has been proved and no such reasonable doubt remains, your verdict must be guilty." He took a deep breath. "Alternately, if that charge doesn't seem to fit, you might find the defendant guilty of the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree, which is defined as intentionally causing the death of a person while acting under extreme emotional disturbance."