Private Screening
Page 14
“What about his father?”
“He didn’t say much. But I could see him watching Harry like he didn’t know him.”
“How was he changed?”
“Every way. He drank and smoked—his room had a smell that made me think it wasn’t always cigarettes. Maybe he took other things. Anyhow, nothing close at hand interested him anymore.”
Near the porch, oaks began rustling in the wind. “Did he talk about the war?” Lord asked.
“Not even to his father. I think he felt like Harry blamed him.” She flicked some paint off the railing. “What hurt was that he loved that boy so much.”
“Did Harry ever write about it?”
“A few letters at first.”
“Do you still have them?”
“I kept some for a while.” She flicked more paint. “After what happened, his father burnt the rest. But there was really nothing from after he volunteered.”
“Volunteered?”
“To extend his tour.”
Lord turned to her. “You said there was something with his father.”
She nodded vaguely. “One morning I went to his room and he’d crumpled newspapers all around his bed. They crackled when I stepped on them—he woke up with a start and was screaming at me to get out.” She recited this like a tired family story which had been told too many times. “That’s when his father came up the stairs.”
The afternoon sky was lowering with the hard gray look of rain. “What did he do?” Lord asked.
“It was like he exploded with all he’d been holding in. He was red-faced—there was this vein that stood out on his forehead when he lost his temper, and then he had Harry by the collar shouting, ‘Don’t you ever treat your mother like that.’
“Harry was shaking. ‘Damn you,’ his father yelled. ‘I went to war for three long years and still came back a man.’
“Harry just stared at him, and then he said the F word.”
Her voice was thick. When Lord looked over she had raised two fingers of each hand to make a quote sign, and she was crying.
“Did they fight?” he asked.
She nodded blindly. “His father swung and missed. Then Harry hit him and was running down the stairs.
“His father’s mouth was bleeding and I dabbed him with Harry’s bed sheets. All the anger was gone—it was like he was helpless. We heard the chain saw then.
“I went to the window, his father behind me. It overlooked a grove of pine trees. Harry had the chain saw and was cutting them down, one after the other.
“Harry—my husband—didn’t say or do anything. Just leaned against the windowpane with his mouth still bleeding, watching our son cut trees. Those pines were special to him.”
“I know.…”
“And then Harry left. Beth Winship took him on.”
Lord did not look at her. Finally, he asked, “Do you know where I can find her?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell where she was.” Her voice grew harsh. “I want to keep seeing my grandchild.”
“It would help me.” More softly, Lord added, “Harry’s not going to visit her now.”
She straightened, hands on the railing. “Why did he do it, Mr. Lord?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She paused a moment. Turning, she said, “My address book’s in the house.” He heard the porch creak with her footsteps, and then the screen door opening.
He stayed there. The air had the fresh smell of ozone, before it rains.
The bleached blonde at the airport coffee shop looked older than Carson had described—that her face seemed to have no bone structure puffed and aged it. But he’d been right about her eyes; they were the clearest green Lord could remember.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want him to know where I live. And I didn’t want Cathy to hear us talking.”
“How is she taking it?”
“Shaky. No one here knows who her father is, at least. But seeing him on television upset her.”
Lord decided to be blunt. “Why exactly did you marry him?”
She smiled with one side of her mouth. “I thought I was Florence Nightingale. You know, if you love someone enough you can change what happened to them, even if they never tell you.”
“What was he like?”
The smile faded. “Sometimes he could be so sweet, just holding my face in his hands, telling me about my eyes. But I guess what I remember most was waking up at night and realizing that he was crying, just sobbing.” She looked past him. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but at first I tried making love to get him out of it, telling him I loved him. He couldn’t do it—when I asked what was wrong, he said, ‘When you tell me that, I want to kill you.’”
Lord drank some coffee. “Did he let on why?”
“‘Because it hurts,’ he said, and I finally caught on that he needed more than me.
“I think the crying was why he’d put paper around his bed—so his parents wouldn’t sneak up and hear him. He kept saying he was fine, but he couldn’t hold jobs—the person he worked for was always an asshole.” She shook her head. “He hated psychiatrists, like his father. What made me finally call one was the picture.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It was of some friend in Vietnam—he had curly, reddish hair, I think. About three days straight Harry stared at it like he was somewhere else. I called the VA.”
“What did they do?”
Her eyes flashed. “Maybe he had a tumor, they said. We’ll give him a brain scan.”
Lord sipped more coffee. “Do you remember when that was?”
“June. I only know that because I started noticing that something always happened the beginning of June.”
“Such as …”
She hesitated. “The fight with his father was then.”
“What else?”
“One year I woke up at night and he’d covered my mouth. ‘Shut up,’ he said, ‘they’ll find us.’” Her voice fell. “He was sleeping with a knife.”
Lord watched her. “Were there other things?”
Another slight pause. “He’d write poetry then like it would save his life.”
“He wrote?”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper. “I kept one.”
“Can I see it?”
She held the poem beneath her fingers a moment, then pushed it across the table.
Carson’s writing was a slantwise scrawl that took Lord a moment to decipher:
So that I can live with you
I pretend that you’re the woman I saw die
In one bright flash of steel
Brought back to life, because I cry
“Poor Harry,” she said in a flat voice.
“Can I keep this?”
She looked away before nodding. “The funny thing is, Harry loved Cathy too—more than me, I think. But he couldn’t support either of us.”
“Did that bother him?”
“He was ashamed of it.” She turned to him. “Did his mother say how Harry senior died?”
“No.”
“He flipped a tractor, dragging fence posts by himself. Harry was a wreck—I think he felt guilty about not being there. But all he said was, ‘Still trying to make it go.’”
“I don’t understand.”
“The farm. Because Harry couldn’t go to college, he went to Vietnam. That’s what made it worse when he couldn’t take care of Cathy.”
“Did he say so?”
She stared into his empty cup. “I’d get these calls after we broke up. His friend Damone was helping him, Harry was going to take care of us. But by then I was too scared.”
“Of what?”
She lit a thin-smelling ladies’ cigarette; the gesture, absentminded yet tense, reminded Lord of Carson. “The day he left, Harry was sulking around the house. I told him to stop it, please just stop. He didn’t hear—just went vague.
“‘Stop it,’ I screamed.
“Cathy was crying in the door of her bedroom. I was so scared—I just wanted him gone. ‘Get out,’ I told him. ‘You’re no husband, no father, you’ve given us nothing but hell.’
“He blinked, like his eyes were clearing. He walked past me, kissed Cathy on the forehead when she was still crying, and left without a word.”
Lord watched her cigarette burn in the ashtray. “When was that?” he asked.
“Last year.” She stubbed the cigarette. “June.”
5
“TELL me about Marcia,” Rachel said.
Light and airy, the restaurant created privacy through smaller, separate levels. Sipping his martini, Lord answered cautiously, “We’ve been married seven years now.”
“How did you meet?”
“One of my first prosecutions was a child abuse case. Marcia wrote a paper on it—she was a sociology major then.”
“And Christopher’s …”
“Six.” Lord saw the unspoken question surface in the disturbing hazel eyes. “Frankly, Marcia and I don’t see our marriage as newsworthy.”
“People are interested, Tony. After all, you’re young, attractive—and Harry Carson murdered another young, attractive man who might have become president.”
It bothered Lord to have a symbiotic relationship to Kilcannon’s perceived martyrdom. “Some days,” he answered, “I can’t believe my luck.”
Rachel touched one finger to her lips; Lord caught a flash of red nail, the scent of perfume. “It’s not luck—it’s necessity. Ralph DiPalma’s using the media for all it’s worth, right down to Kilcannon’s last words to Stacy. You’ve got to keep them from burying Carson before he’s dead.” Flashing a cocky, funny smile, she added, “And I can help.”
Lord put down his martini. “What do you have in mind?”
She swirled her wine. “For Carson?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Dodging all those interviews has been a mistake. I’d like to give your perspective to the public.”
“And you get …”
“Everybody to watch me. ’Cause I’ve got you.”
Her smile had an amusing child’s jauntiness that made Lord wary. “Without throwing in my family?”
“Oh,” she said innocently, “I just wanted to know you better.” When Lord laughed, her eyes danced. “What else would you like to talk about?”
Lord feigned reluctance. “A little background that might help Harry.…”
“Yes?”
“Actually, there’s something with DiPalma.”
Lord sat holding Carson’s diary.
“What his wife and mother were telling you,” Shriver said, “is quite common among veterans. It’s called the anniversary reaction.”
“It’s hard to believe he celebrates some unknown trauma every June.”
Shriver frowned. “It’s not voluntary. Look, do you ever associate songs on the radio to making love?”
“Sure.”
“Okay—try to think of some other associations.”
Lord riffled the diary. “It didn’t happen to me, really, but I thought of it when you mentioned Bobby Kennedy. My girlfriend and I campaigned for him—we were watching the night he was shot after winning the primary out here. It was the last time I believed in politics or politicians.” He paused. “I realize now that each June I still get angry.”
Shriver gave him a look of irony. “How old were you?”
Lord smiled a little. “Eighteen.”
“All right,” Shriver went on, “let me try one on you where there’s a known personal trauma. The children of suicides often kill themselves on the anniversary of their parent’s death. In Carson’s case, it raises the possibility of flashbacks—reliving some traumatic Vietnam experience as if he’s still there.”
“It’s odd that Carson would have an intense reaction to leaving Vietnam.”
“If leaving is what it was. You say he seems to have left ahead of schedule?”
“Yes. But Carson says he doesn’t remember leaving at all—or what happened right before that. And we still can’t find records for those last few months.”
“Swell.” Shriver glanced at the diary. “What’s this you wanted me to read?”
“It’s a poem in Carson’s diary. I had to pry it loose from DiPalma—he thinks that poems still rhyme.”
“That’s another thing I should have mentioned—a lot of vets write poetry to try and deal with what happened.” Putting on glasses, Shriver spoke the title aloud, “Golden Anniversary.”
He read silently, quickly. “Kilcannon wasn’t blond,” he said when he had finished.
“He won’t explain his reference to a camera, either. Won’t say anything, really—it’s just a poem. But I think DiPalma may use this to help beat insanity.”
“How?”
“Because it reads like Carson planned to shoot someone—maybe over politics.” Lord watched him. “He finished it the day he shot Kilcannon.”
Shriver folded his glasses and returned them to their case. “I guess it’s time I saw him,” he said.
“Harry Carson,” Rachel began, “poses an enigma.”
Filmed at the Hall of Justice, she looked grave and intent. Her lips glistened with a faint gloss.
“Defense sources portray a rural youngster so shockingly different from the man who murdered James Kilcannon that there seems to be no connection between them. The break point—how those missing months in Vietnam affected Carson—is the central question defense attorney Anthony Lord faces in deciding whether to enter a plea of guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity.…”
“At least,” Cass told Lord, “someone’s being decent for a change.…”
“A second puzzle,” Rachel went on, “is whether the FBI is conducting surveillance of Lord himself. Though TV–6 has obtained the license numbers of agents allegedly involved, Prosecutor Ralph DiPalma declines comment. In an exclusive interview, Lord had this response.…”
Lord’s tie was loosened and his desk covered with paper; he looked much younger than thirty-four. “In law school,” he said earnestly, “they taught me that cases are to be tried in the courtroom. That’s why, unlike the Soviets, we have a free and open jury system. That’s the system Mr. Carson went to Vietnam for. I wish the prosecution showed a similar commitment …”
“Oh, Tony.” Cass shook her head, half-laughing. “I don’t believe it.…”
Lord turned, stung. “DiPalma was screwing us.…”
“This is Rachel Messer, TV–6,” she finished, and then Lord switched off the television.
Cass was no longer laughing. “He’ll screw you back,” she said.
“It can’t get much worse, Cassie.”
When Lord’s telephone rang, he answered.
“Tony?” a male voice boomed.
“Uh-huh.”
“This is Hart Taylor.” Chairman of SNI, he didn’t need to add. “I’ve just been watching you. I think it’s time we met.”
Taylor’s private dining room topped the SNI building, overlooking the bay. It was lined with photographs of Taylor on a polo pony, at the crest of Mount Whitney, with two ex-presidents, a film actress, and his football team. In every shot he grinned like Errol Flynn’s kid brother.
He grinned the exact same grin at Lord. “Sure tucked it to DiPalma, Tony. That was shrewd PR.”
Lord finished his Bloody Mary. “I’m just trying to catch up.”
“Still a ways to go, what with Kilcannon dead and Tarrant in seclusion.” His grin narrowed in rueful sympathy. “It’s the first time since Jehovah that someone’s made such an impression by not being seen.”
Lord swirled his drink straw. “I doubt she’s given that much thought.”
“Don’t be sure. Can you imagine Stacy’s impact when DiPalma calls her as his final witness?”
Where, Lord wondered, was this going
? “It’s crossed my mind,” he answered dryly. “Once or twice.”
“And that’s exactly why I asked you here.” Leaning forward, Taylor said in a caressing drawl, “We can put that moment in perspective, Tony.”
“How?”
The grin returned full force. “By televising the entire trial, nationwide.”
Lord felt like a fool. “You’d need the judge’s approval.”
“I think we’ll get it, Tony—if both sides agree. And you lost your virginity last night.” He grinned again. “This morning, Ralph DiPalma signed on.”
Lord fought to control his anger. “That’s because it helps him. Imagine you’re a juror, Hart, with cameras watching. How easy would it be to return an unpopular verdict in front of the entire country?”
“It’s your chance to tell them Carson’s story.”
“All I want is twelve people I might get to understand. Whatever else Harry is, he’s not very promising for television.”
Taylor shrugged. “Gary Gilmore was no charm boy either, and look what they did with him.”
“Those were actors,” Lord retorted. “Gilmore’s dead.”
Taylor stopped grinning. “What other problems do you see?”
“Witnesses. Cameras will encourage theirs and intimidate mine. DiPalma knows all this.”
“He knows a whole lot else, too.” Taylor stood, extending one arm to the window. “I don’t want to sound cynical, Tony, but do you know what moves America in the nineteen-eighties? Fame.” His voice took on a rolling cadence. “Once you’re famous, you can go from being a football player to actor to broadcaster and even to the White House. If you’re a mass murderer, they time the paperback of your life story to come out with the miniseries; if you’re a famous young lawyer, you might become a senator, even more. DiPalma,” he repeated, “knows all that.”
“He also knows the judge is up for reelection.” Lord’s voice softened. “He may even know that you lost money last year. Because of low ratings.”
Taylor scowled. “The way I look at it, the bigger audience the better—for us, Carson, and the judge. The Dan White verdict was unpopular because people didn’t understand it.”
“If you televise, there won’t be an unpopular verdict.” Lord paused a moment. “What I’m telling you, Hart, is that you’ll be throwing the switch.”