Tell No Lies Read online

  A simple yes and a cold glare was all Jack received. He'd expected no more and no less; it was the beauty of cross-examination. He thought back to the written confession, to things Hutchins had told the police but Millie had conveniently skipped. Jack had covered them with other witnesses during the State's case, of course, and the document had already been admitted into evidence, but to elicit the same information from the defendant on the stand would be the coup de grâce.

  "Mr. Hutchins, isn't it true that you picked Cassia out as your intended victim?"

  The defendant tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

  Jack reminded himself of the reason why Earl had declined to make this a capital case, and he started over.

  "You worked as a custodian at Cedar Hill Middle School, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "And you first saw Cassia Barnard at that school?"

  "Yes."

  "She was a student there?"

  "Yes."

  Hutchins was bald but he had a dark moustache, and Jack noticed he kept rubbing at it, smoothing it down with his thumb and forefinger.

  "And you chose her, didn't you, from all the other students?"

  "Yes."

  "And you followed her for several weeks before you actually abducted her, isn't that correct?"

  "Sure." Sure? His voice held no remorse.

  "You knew where she lived?"

  Hutchins nodded, and Jack said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Hutchins, but you have to speak your answer for the court reporter."

  The defendant's eyes narrowed and he reached for his moustache again. "Yes."

  "You knew where her bus picked her up and dropped her off?"

  "Yes."

  "You even knew the exact times of day the bus came, didn't you?"

  "Sure."

  Every time he said "sure," it sounded to Jack like the guy was proud of himself for knowing the information.

  "And you knew, in the afternoons, Cassia was the only child to get off the bus?"

  "Yes."

  "She had a good half mile to walk home, didn't she?" Before Hutchins answered, Jack added, "Alone."

  "Yes." His one-word answers had shifted from a blithe monotone to apparent impatience.

  "And on the seventeenth of January this year, you waited for her to get off her bus, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "You didn't even hide, did you? Isn't it true that you sat on a bench at the entrance to her neighborhood, and even waved to the bus driver as you greeted Cassia, as if you were a relative or family friend who'd come to meet her and take her home?"

  Jack knew this fact was one of the most painful for Cassia's parents. It was that one moment in the whole horrific scenario—and every case had such a moment—that forced all the parties involved, whether it was family, police, investigators, or prosecutors, to think, If only. "If only" the bus driver had confirmed Hutchins's identity as a waiting parent. "If only" Cassia had hesitated, thus perhaps tipping off the bus driver that not only did she not expect this person, she didn't even know him. "If only" it hadn't been thirteen degrees with a light snow, and Hutchins's face had not been obscured by the large parka hood of his jacket, thus enabling him to be identified before the trail to Cassia, slowly freezing in the deep woods, had gone cold.

  Hutchins didn't answer immediately, and Jack worried again that his compound question should have been worded more simply. He was about to rephrase it when the man leaned forward in his seat and said, "She wanted to go with me." He spoke the sentence with the slightest glimmer of a sardonic grin, almost as if he was bragging about the fact.

  Another low buzz grew in the gallery. Jack felt his face grow hotter at Hutchins's smug answers. He looked over at Frank and met his eye, and the anticipation on Frank's face made it clear that he now fully supported Jack's strategy, however ill conceived he believed it to be minutes before.

  Jack glanced at the faces in the jury box, and then, barely hiding the contempt in his voice, said to Hutchins, "Why don't you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury why twelve-year-old Cassia Barnard wanted to go with you?"

  Jack knew the answer to the question, of course, and he wanted the jury to hear it. He wanted them to realize, in the same way he had so despairingly realized upon first reading the confession, that all of a parent's rules, and warnings, and threats, and scare tactics, all of them are so easily forgotten by a child in that "if only" moment.

  But, fueled by the intensity of his desire, he'd disregarded the corollary to the first rule: never ask an open-ended question on cross, or you risk losing control of the witness altogether.

  Jack's question had been wide open.

  Hutchins sat up straighter, obviously enjoying the chance to share his clever plan with the rapt audience. "I told her I found a puppy freezing in the snow, and I asked her to help me find its owner." Jack knew that Hutchins didn't even understand the irony in his scheme; he hoped the jury did. Hutchins tittered a bit, setting of a new reaction from the crowd. Jack could hear appalled commentary and uncomfortable repositioning. Judge Baxter gave one knock of his gavel to settle them.

  "And I did have a puppy. I brought it with me. It was waiting in my truck." He smiled, raised one eyebrow, and added, "I didn't lie to her."

  Jack became incensed. He's having fun up there. He wanted to testify because he wanted to gloat over his crime.

  "No, you didn't lie to her. Instead you tortured and murdered her, didn't you?" His spontaneous remark, which was really more of a snide comment than a genuine question and which he immediately regretted, sparked a loud objection from Millie and a burst of angry chatter from the gallery. A lone voice shouted above the din, "He's a murderer!"

  "Quiet!" the judge ordered, banging his gavel again. He gave it a few more sharp blows until the noise settled to a simmer, and then he turned to the attorneys.

  "I'm going to overrule the objection." He fixed his gaze on Jack, who understood the look. The last question wasn't objectionable, technically, but Jack knew they were thinking the same thing: This wasn't how Jack Hilliard treated witnesses; this wasn't how he conducted himself in a trial. While other lawyers enjoyed courtroom theatrics with their clever turns of phrases and over-the-top sarcasm, Jack had built his reputation on maintaining decorum, on being respectful. He nodded contritely and was about to resume with a more properly phrased question when Hutchins decided to answer the last one.

  "Of course I murdered her. What choice did I have? She kept crying and screaming. She wouldn't shut up."

  Millie shot out of her chair. "You can stop, Mr. Hutchins; you've answered the question."

  Hutchins looked at her but gave no sign of having heard her. "The bitch scratched me and bit me. I still have scars to prove it." He jerked his arm up and shoved it forward. He made as if to show Jack, and then Millie, and then finally the jury, as if he believed they'd share his disgust. "That's why I used the rope. She wouldn't sit still." He made a scoffing noise from his throat. "The bitch."

  Jack heard wailing from the row behind his and Frank's table and knew it was Cassia's mother. He heard Millie begging the judge to put a stop to her client's narrative, but her voice was lost in the cacophony of even louder voices that had exploded in the courtroom. He heard the shuffling of feet as the crowd rose from their seats and many began to shout invectives at Hutchins: Murderer! Scum! Devil! Fuckin' retard! White trash! He heard the pounding of the gavel grow harder with each blow, and Judge Baxter shouting, "Order in the court! Order! Quiet down immediately or I will have the bailiff remove each and every one of you!" He heard Hutchins's continued rant about Cassia, though no one was listening to him anymore.

  And like a wind that changes direction, the crowd's anger shifted ever so slightly, and Jack realized some of them were angry not only at Hutchins, they were angry at him. The ones who had shouted at him on his way into the courthouse that morning were now shouting at him as he made his way back to his table. He heard "He should have been gassed!" come from the row behind Cassia's parent
s, and when he looked in the direction of the voice, his eyes were drawn to the hunched-over figure sobbing in the front row: Cassia's mother.

  Within moments, sheriffs came in to assist the bailiff, and the courtroom was cleared. Jack watched the jury being led out, too, and he knew from the looks on their faces that closing arguments weren't even necessary. The State had just won the case.

  Later, after the lawyers had been called back to chambers and Millie had made a motion for mistrial, which the judge had denied, they waited quietly at their tables for the trial to resume. The courtroom was empty except for the court personnel, the attorneys, the defendant and his family, Cassia's family, and a smattering of reporters.

  "Mr. Hilliard?"

  Jack turned at the sound of the soft voice behind him and rose quickly to meet Mrs. Barnard at the bar. Though she wasn't much older than Jack, the past year had obviously taken its toll. She spoke with her eyes down, and he had to strain to hear her.

  "I wanted you to know . . ." She hesitated, and Jack waited. "I was pleased when Mr. Scanlon told me you were going to handle the trial, even though, you know, it would mean . . . I had accepted that maybe he would suffer more if he sat in prison for the rest of his life, thinking about what he did. But after hearing that" —she made a small motion in Hutchins's direction— "I do think he should die for what he did to Cassia." She began to sob gently. "But—"

  "Mrs. Barnard, I'm so sorry, I—"

  She touched his hand where it rested on the bar. "No, no, I know it's too late for that now. What I'm trying to say is . . . you've done a good job. You showed him for what he truly is—a monster."

  She turned to join her husband, as Jack whispered an inadequate "Thank you."

  He felt Frank studying him when he took his seat. After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Frank mumbled, "They're right, you know." His arms were crossed in front of him and his eyes monitored the door where the jury would be brought back in. "We should have asked for his ass to be fried."

  Jack looked at him but didn't respond. He wasn't sure if Frank was goading him or just making small talk.

  "Earl crapped out on this one," Frank continued. "He wanted you to try the case so badly that he forgot who his client was."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "Oh, come on, don't give me that bull. You know as well as I do that if the election wasn't weeks away, Earl would have tried this case and he would have sent this asshole to death row." Frank finished his sentence with a disgusted grunt.

  "The guy's got an IQ of sixty-eight, in case you hadn't noticed. That's why Earl's not sending him to death row."

  "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Maybe it'll make it true." He laughed derisively. "Whose side are you on?"

  Jack was still staring at Frank in disbelief when Judge Baxter returned to his bench and asked the bailiff to bring in the jury. The room was silent except for the sound of their shoes marching solemnly across the wooden floor of the jury box. One by one, they took their seats, each stealing a glance at Jack as they made themselves comfortable in the small black chairs.

  "Mr. Hilliard?"

  Jack looked up at the judge. The judge nodded in the direction of the witness stand. "He's still your witness. Any more questions?"

  Jack glanced at Frank once more as he considered whether to continue with Hutchins. He wanted to ask the defendant about his mental disabilities. Somehow, he wanted everyone in the courtroom to understand why the State had not made this a capital case. Millie had covered her client's mild retardation on direct, and earlier in her case she'd had a mental health expert testify about it, too. But there'd been no useful testimony about how it affected his personality and whether it might have been responsible for the complete lack of remorse they'd witnessed moments before. Jack wanted to believe it was; he wanted the jury and Mrs. Barnard to believe it was. Because otherwise, maybe the crowd was right, maybe Frank was right, and if so, Jack had had no business trying the case.

  "The people are waiting," Frank said under his breath, and Jack understood. Earl might have forgotten who the client was, but Jack wouldn't make the same mistake.

  He stood and addressed the court. "No, Your Honor. No more questions."

  PART 3

  LATE FALL

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JACK WOKE ON Election Day expecting to feel different, but everything seemed the same. It was still dark outside when he went downstairs to search for his running shoes. After stretching in the kitchen, he turned to grab his sweatshirt from the stair railing and started when he saw Claire sitting on the fifth step up, her chin propped on her hands, her elbows on her knees. She wore a slight smile—the smile she sometimes had when she caught Jack or the kids sneaking raw dough from the cookie sheet before she put it in the oven.

  "Were you having trouble sleeping?" she whispered.

  "I slept well, actually. I just wanted to run."

  "At four in the morning?"

  He turned to look at the clock above the stove. Sure enough, the green digital numbers shone brightly against the black glass front of the microwave: 4:06. Maybe things were starting to feel a little bit different.

  He sat next to her on the step and rested his hand on her knee. "I'm wide awake," he said. "I thought it was six."

  "Are you nervous?"

  "I didn't think so."

  "You know Schafer isn't even a factor."

  "I know. It's not the election. It's that . . . I don't know."

  She touched his face. The furnace in the basement cycled off and the house seemed to sigh in the silence that followed.

  He pulled her closer. "Have I disappointed you?"

  She leaned away to see him better, her brow furrowed. "Of course not."

  "I shouldn't have tried that case."

  "Why not? Because some people thought Earl made the wrong decision? You didn't have anything to do with that. Your job was to get the conviction and you did. You put a bad man away for a long time. For good."

  He could have argued the point—of course he'd had something to do with the decision, just not in the way she'd meant—but instead he just nodded. "I know you would have liked me to have handled the whole campaign differently."

  "Jack, no." She sighed. "I know I'm too idealistic. I'm sorry if I made you feel that way. I understand you needed to play by their rules if you wanted to be in the game."

  He moved some hair away from her face and kissed her lightly on the lips. She might not have realized it, but she'd finally given him the blessing that he'd wanted so badly.

  The small ballroom was packed and hot by the time Jack and Claire arrived at close to seven that evening. They already knew, thanks to a brief call from Dunne, that early reports showed Jack was ahead at the polls, but nevertheless the roar of cheers and applause that greeted them was overwhelming. He couldn't deny that he enjoyed the reaction, but it made him feel self-conscious in a way he'd never felt as the main event in the courtroom.

  The crowd split to form a path as he and Claire walked forward. It was slow going; arms stretched out from all sides waiting to shake hands. He recognized many faces but others he didn't. Dunne hadn't advised him on protocol so he just did what felt right, shaking every hand and stopping to talk.

  When the time came, Earl insisted on the honor of announcing the result. Jack was so focused on mentally rehearsing his acceptance speech that he barely heard a word Earl said. He knew Earl was finished and it was his turn to take the mike only because of the applause and cheers from the decreasingly sober crowd.

  He'd spent numerous hours over the past few days writing and revising his speech. As recently as that afternoon, on the way to the polls with Claire, he'd tweaked phrases here and there in his head. So when he stepped up to the mike, the words that started to come out of his mouth were the ones he'd actually planned to say.

  But then something happened. He became aware that his mind was taking him to a different place. Although he heard his voice over the mike,
it was the new speech forming quietly inside his head that commanded his attention.

  "You know," he said, "I've just decided to say something other than what I originally intended."

  Silent confusion worked its way through the warm room. He was aware of it, but it didn't deter him. Mark, who stood between Claire and Jenny, leaned toward Claire's ear and she shrugged her shoulders. Jenny seemed oblivious to Mark and Claire's exchange; she stared at Jack, her eyes lit with anticipation.

  "I know my prepared speech might have been more what you expected to hear, but I think I'd rather use this unique opportunity to say something unique, too." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and smiled. "After all, it's not every day you get to stand in front of such a large, captive audience and say whatever strikes your fancy."

  The crowd laughed, and it spurred him on.

  "When I started law school a little over fourteen years ago, I couldn't possibly foresee that one day I would be standing up here giving an acceptance speech after winning the election for District Attorney. I'd be lying if I told you I'd ever thought about running back then, or about working in the DA's office. The truth is, when I started law school I had no idea what I intended to do with the degree I'd earn three years later; no idea even of the type of law I wanted to practice. Even once I graduated, I didn't have any specific goals with respect to my legal career." He grinned. "Unless, of course, you count getting my student loans paid off." He paused to let the laughter die down.

  "I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes the best things in life, the things that are the most satisfying both professionally and personally, are the things you least expect to happen. Life sometimes takes you places you didn't expect to go, yet when you get there you realize just how right it is for you. That's how I feel about this position you've entrusted to me. It feels right. It feels like a job I was meant to do, even if I didn't know it fourteen years ago.