“You lyin’ bitch!” he bellowed. “Try to kill me …”
The jurors lurched back almost in unison, shocked by the sudden burst of violence.
Stampler moved so quickly that the guards and the bailiff were caught off guard.
Stampler landed two feet in front of Venable, reached out, grabbed her by the hair and twisted her around sharply as he pulled her to him. He wrapped one arm around her throat while his other hand grabbed her under the chin and twisted her head. She shrieked with pain.
The courtroom seemed to explode. Many of the spectators screamed, others rushed for the doors and tumbled out into the hall. The room was in pandemonium.
Shoat, startled and speechless, did not even bang his gavel.
Stampler backed away from the spectators, toward the bench, dragging Venable by the neck.
“Jesus,” Vail said, half aloud, and yelled, “Roy, let her go!”
“I’ll kill her,” he screamed. “I’ll break her fucking neck!”
Vail ran to within a few feet of him and stopped. Venable, her eyes bulging with fear, her tongue half out of her mouth, grabbed Stampler’s arm with both hands. She looked at Vail with a combination of fear and pleading. Stampler twisted her neck slightly. “Back off,” he ordered.
All traces of accent and humanity were gone. Only Roy’s hate remained.
“Easy, Roy,” Vail said, holding both palms out toward him. “Let her go, for God’s sake. Let her go!”
“Why? So you can all kill me? Didn’t even mention me, just gonna ignore me, were you? You were gonna let the bitch here crucify me!”
As Stampler backed away, a marshal stepped through a doorway behind him and, drawing his gun, crept toward him. The attention of everyone in the room was immediately drawn to this new player behind Stampler. Stampler whirled and lashed out with the hand that had been twisting Venable’s neck. His elbow smacked into the marshal’s face, shattered his nose, sent him reeling backward. The gun roared and the bullet thunked harmlessly into a beam. The rest of the audience either bolted, screaming, toward the door, bursting out into the hallway, or dropped to the floor. Vail continued his plea.
“Give it up, Roy. Nobody’s trying to harm you.”
“You’re all lying! You’re the murderers, you’re the ones who’re gonna do the killing.”
Vail suddenly leaped forward and thrust an arm between Stampler’s arm and Venable’s throat. A second marshal and the bailiff bounded across the room and grabbed him from behind, snapping him sharply backward as Vail broke his hold on Venable. She collapsed and scurried on her hands and knees away from the melee. Clutching her throat, she looked back astonished at the scene behind her. Stampler seemed superhuman. He tossed the bailiff away from him with one arm, sending the heavyset man reeling across the prosecution’s table, which crashed over with him. Papers, briefcases, notes, cascaded to the floor or fluttered through the air.
Shoat regained his composure long enough to yell for order. His demand was lost in the chaos.
As the marshal and Vail struggled to subdue Stampler, another court officer led the jury hurriedly out of the room. Stampler was jerking back and forth, trying to throw Vail and the marshal off. Then a third officer jumped in, locking Stampler’s arms behind him, pressing him forward as Vail lost his footing and fell to the floor. Above him he saw Aaron Stampler’s face—Roy’s face—contorted with rage, hissing down at him.
“Aaron!” Vail said. “Aaron, can you hear me?”
He scrambled to his feet and stood inches away from the struggling defendant. Then, almost as quickly as he had attacked them, Stampler’s body went limp. He began to shake and then he collapsed as the bailiff and marshal rushed him from the room with Vail close behind.
“Order! Order in this courtroom!” Shoat demanded as the spectators turned into a babbling mob. Finally Shoat slammed down his gavel.
“This court is in recess,” he roared, and headed for his chambers.
THIRTY-SIX
By the time the officers got Aaron handcuffed and back in the holding room adjacent to the courtroom, he was completely subdued. He looked confused and frightened as they half dragged him to a chair in one comer and sat him down. Vail knelt in front of him, taking Stampler’s face in his hands and staring into his eyes.
“Aaron?” he said.
Stampler’s eyes roved the room for a moment.
“I did it, didn’t I? Oh, Lord, I did it right up thair in front of ever’body.”
“It’s okay,” Vail said. “Just take it easy.”
“What happened? What’d I do?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vail said. “I sent for Molly, she’ll be here in a minute.”
Stampler closed his eyes, let his head fall back and sighed. The door opened and Vail turned to face Venable.
“What the hell’re you pulling?” she snapped.
Before he could answer, a court officer appeared behind her.
“Judge wants you both in chambers, pronto,” he said.
“Vail…” Venable started, but he stepped around her and smiled.
“Judge says pronto,” he said.
As they left the room, Molly Arrington rushed up.
“What happened?” she cried.
“Aaron was on the stand and he switched.”
“On the stand!” she said with surprise.
“I’ll explain later. Just go in and talk to him. Calm him down. The judge wants to have a chat.”
As Venable and Vail entered Shoat’s chambers, he was pulling off his robe. He slammed it angrily into his desk chair.
“All right,” Shoat demanded, his face red with anger. “Will somebody kindly tell me just what in hell is going on?”
“This is a scam, Your Honor,” Venable snarled. “He rigged this whole scheme.”
“Your Honor, we had decided not to use this defense because we thought it would be too difficult for the jury to accept. I had no idea she’d trigger Roy to come out.”
“Roy! Oh God, that’s outrageous. I didn’t trigger Roy to do anything. Your Honor, it’s tricks. Nobody puts the defendant on the stand right off the bat. That’s suicide. It was all a setup.”
“Who the hell is Roy?” Shoat demanded.
“Your Honor,” Vail said, “we discovered recently—and this was after Ms. Venable took Dr. Arrington’s deposition—that Aaron Stampler is suffering from what is known as dissociative multiple personality disorder.”
“Explain, please,” Shoat said with a scowl.
“He has a split personality.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Shoat said, rolling his eyes. “What next!”
“This is not a joke, Your Honor. Aaron Stampler is suffering from a severe form of dissociative behavior. He enters a fugue state and adopts another personality. The other personality is psychopathic and commits acts of which Aaron is totally unaware. There is already testimony on record in this trial which identifies MPD as a mental disease.”
“That’s bullshit,” Venable snarled.
“Easy, Ms. Venable,” Shoat said.
“Judge,” Vail said, “we have several tapes of Aaron switching personalities. No question about it, you can see it happen before your eyes, just like you did a few minutes ago in the courtroom.”
“We asked for those tapes and you denied them to us,” Venable said.
“The tapes were not evidential because we had no plans to use them in trial—until now. Hell, we don’t know when Roy is going to come out. Jane triggered him, not me. Besides, our tapes are privileged. These tapes constitute a privileged communication between the defendant and his psychiatrist. They are not public domain unless we choose to use them in court and Stampler agrees. Until now, our decision was not to introduce them.”
“Will you please explain to me who in hell Roy is?” Shoat said angrily.
“Aaron’s alternate personality.”
“So you were aware of this, Counselor?” Shoat asked with suspicion.
“Yes sir, b
ut there was no way to prove it unless he actually made the switch, which, I repeat, I had nothing to do with.”
“It’s tricks, Your Honor,” Venable pleaded. “Nobody puts the defendant on the stand straight out of the barrel…”
“I beg to disagree,” said Vail with a smile.
Venable glared at him, her face red with humiliation. “It was all a setup,” she repeated.
“And this is all semantics,” Vail said. “The point is, you introduced this line of questioning and I have a right to pursue it.”
The judge made a steeple with his fingers and stared across them at Venable with a raised eyebrow. “Your turn, Ms. Prosecutor. He’s got a point. I’m not sure I’m going to buy this dual personality pitch, but we definitely must pursue it now.”
“I think he tricked me into turning Stampler around, Your Honor.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I have a right to at least look at this goddamn tape if he’s going to try and show it in court.”
“I have no problem with that,” Vail said. “She can look at it as much as she wants. But we will object if she has some shrink come in and analyze my client from the television picture.”
“How come?” the judge asked.
“The best evidence in this case would be Aaron himself. We’ll agree to let them examine him right on the stand.”
“Bullshit!” Venable snapped. “That’s a no-win situation. If we switch him around, you win. If we don’t, you blame my psychiatrist.”
“Seems to me we have three choices,” said Vail. “Our prosecutor can continue her cross-examination and I’ll reexam, or we can try to work out a settlement … or she can move for mistrial—”
“Settlement! Not on your life,” Venable snapped.
“Excuse me, Judge, did I miss a meeting somewhere? She brought him out, I didn’t.”
“You tricked the court,” she said.
“Not quite accurate,” Vail said.
“Just a minute,” Shoat said. “I didn’t come in here to listen to you two squabble. I want to know what the hell’s going on.” He stroked his jaw and stared at Vail. It was true. Vail had not tricked the court, he had tricked her. But now the problem was about to fall in Shoat’s lap.
“Your experts have qualified Stampler as sane, Madam Prosecutor,” Vail said. “Did he look sane to you just now? Did it feel sane when he damn near broke your neck?”
“You want me to declare a mistrial so you can go back in and have him reexamined, Madam Prosecutor, is that where you’re heading at this point?” Shoat asked.
“I, uh…”
Vail said, “Look, her contention is that Stampler is sane. We agree. It’s Roy who’s the killer. When she brought Roy out, she destroyed her own experts. I insist we finish this trial and let the jury decide whether he’s sane or crazy as a jumping bean.”
“Why didn’t you bring this up before, Counselor?” the judge asked.
“I repeat: There was nothing to bring up. I didn’t know the kid was going to lose it on the witness stand. This other character comes and goes. It would have been irresponsible of me to go in with that contention not knowing whether I could prove it or not.”
“So what’s your plea now?”
“That Stampler didn’t commit the crime, Roy did.”
“Oh sweet Jesus!” Venable cried.
“You want to fry him or cure him, Counselor?” Vail asked.
“Cure him, my ass!”
“Now, now, Counselor, control please,” Shoat said.
“I say we go on with it. She’s had her day, now it’s my turn,” Vail said.
Shoat was beginning to feel trapped by this development. What he had assumed would be a noisy but fairly cut-and-dried court case had turned into a bizarre headline maker. His safest stance would be to distance himself from them both.
“I have to go along with that, Ms. Venable,” Shoat said finally. “Seems to me you’ve got a whole new ball game on your hands. In effect you introduced this new… person, whatever the hell you call him, Vail didn’t. Anyway, you can’t ask for a mistrial—you created the problem.”
“I don’t believe this,” she shrieked. “I don’t goddamn believe it. He’s been contending all along that Stampler was insane. Now he says he’s not!”
“No, what I’m saying is, Roy committed the murder, Stampler didn’t. And Roy is nuts. Certifiable psychotic schizophrenic.”
“What do you want us to do,” she snarled sarcastically, “let Stampler go and electrocute Roy?”
Vail shrugged. “It’s okay with me if you can figure out how to do it,” he said.
“Well, if Roy did do it, Aaron’s an accomplice,” Venable said, trying to conceal her desperation.
“Wrong again,” Vail said. “Stampler didn’t even know what happened just now until Molly told him. He doesn’t know for sure that Roy even exists.”
“Is Stampler capable of understanding the charges brought against him or not?” Shoat demanded.
“Stampler’s as sane as Bascott says he is, but Roy doesn’t truly understand the concept of law because he doesn’t accept the difference between good and evil. He’s psychopathic, Judge. Totally amoral. He simply does not think the laws apply to him. That’s part of his psychosis.”
“Can … whoever … be treated successfully?” Shoat asked.
“I can’t answer that,” Vail said. “Arrington or Bascott would be the best judge of that.”
“But you are saying he doesn’t think murder is wrong?”
“I am saying that he doesn’t think it is wrong for him to commit murder. In his mind, his only law is what he thinks and feels. He’s judge, jury and executioner, and he performs all three functions.”
“Stampler, you mean?” said Shoat.
“Well, physically, yes. But we aren’t necessarily talking about Aaron Stampler. I’ve got some tapes here. I think if you look at them…”
“Not on your life.” Shoat sighed, slipping on his coat.’ “This is your problem—both of you—and you can work it out. But let me make it clear, there will be no goddamn mistrial in my court. We’re in it and we’re going to finish it and if I hear another word about mistrial, off comes somebody’s head. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Perfectly, Your Honor.”
“It’s almost noon. I’m going to lunch. I’ll send my assistant in here to take your lunch orders. We’ll reconvene at two. I trust you two will stay in this room and work something out by then. And I go with Vail on the interrogation. Stampler live on the stand or forget it. No TV analysis, understood?” He left the room.
Venable stood up and walked to the window, where she stood with her back to Vail. “You’ll do anything to win, you son of a bitch.”
“Now wait a minute, Janey—”
She spun on him and said viciously, “Do not call me Janey!”
“We can wrap this up very easily, Counselor,” he said calmly.
“Oh, I’ll bet.”
“Look, Jane, Bascott sat up there under oath and testified that Stampler does not suffer from any dysfunctional mental disorder. Hell, now his whole testimony is dead in the water and you know it. He and his two pals screwed up.”
“You ambushed him.”
“No, he shot himself in the foot.”
Two marshals entered the chambers carrying a TV set and a video tape deck.
“What the hell’s this?” Venable growled.
“I think you better look at a couple of things.”
Vail and Venable ordered sandwiches while Vail plugged in the TV and connected the VCR. He put in the first tape of Aaron alternating with Roy. They watched as they ate lunch. Venable was at first angry and skeptical, then her skepticism turned to intense fascination, and finally a look almost of horror. When the tape was finished, Vail pulled it out and put in his cross-examination—his practice tape—of Molly Arrington. Venable leaned back, puffing Bette Davis fashion on one cigarette afte
r another as she listened to Molly explain, in medical terms and under Vail’s questioning, exactly what had happened to Aaron Stampler.
“He’s faking!” she said as he turned off the machine.
“Fine. Let’s just go back inside and you prove that.”
“We’ve got a mistrial here and you know it!”
“You brought him out, Counselor. You can’t move for a mistrial and you know it.”
“Don’t miss a trick, do you?” she said bitterly.
“I can’t afford to, lady. Tough competition.”
“Goddammit, you don’t even have a case! If we do go into a new trial, I’ll have twenty experts eat Stampler and Miss Freud alive.”
“Which you can’t do—and even if you can, it’ll take another year, year and a half. I don’t think your new partners-in-law will like that.”
“Fuck you!” she spat, jerking to her feet and turning her back on him again. She stared out the window.
“Goddamn,” she whispered.
“Y’know, you’re also going to have to deal with Bishop Rushman’s little hobby. And that’s something you’ll bring out in your cross.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“C’mon, Jane,” Vail said, taking a chance. “You found that altar boys tape and I know it. You’re smart enough to know it’s too hot to handle. Whoever introduces it is on dangerous ground because you can’t prove it except by Roy’s admission, and right now you’ve opened that door.”
“Once it’s out, it gives me a perfect motive,” she said.
“Except that Aaron’s crazier than a waltzing mule. Whether he’s motivated or not is moot. In the meantime, you’re not only gonna bring down Rushman, you’re gonna bring down the whole foundation.”
“You’re trying this case in chambers, you son of a bitch,” she snapped. “That’s why you were so loose with the jury selection. You knew this was going to happen.”
“You really think I’m that devious?”
“Hah! You invented the goddamn word.”
“Well, we can stop it right now,” said Vail. “Let the prosecution agree to accept Roy’s insanity plea. We’ll agree that Aaron Stampler and Roy will be institutionalized and treated. If Roy is purged, cured, whatever you call it, then Aaron Stampler will be freed.”