Absolute Certainty

by Rose Connors

The phone rings. Jeff answers and finds my eyes through the crowd. The room falls silent.

  “You’re needed at the courthouse.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Judge Carroll and Harry both look terrible. I probably don’t look so hot myself. The judge has elected to hear Harry’s motion in chambers, sparing himself the need to don his robe and ascend to his bench at this late hour. Harry wants the judge to excuse the jury for the evening. The stenographer is present to record the argument and its outcome.

  Harry skips the formalities. “Judge, if this jury doesn’t retire for the night, at least some jurors are going to feel real pressure to compromise their views—to just plain cave in to the others—out of sheer desire to bring an end to the day. They’ve already been in there too long.”

  I don’t necessarily disagree with Harry, but Judge Carroll doesn’t even look in my direction. He leans backward in his leather chair and shakes his head. “Harry, your concern is misplaced. These people want to keep working. They told Charlie they’re making progress, and I’m sure as hell not going to stop them. You go on home and get some shut-eye, and we’ll call you if there’s any news.”

  Judge Carroll and I both know that Harry isn’t going anywhere. And there’s not going to be much shut-eye for any of us. Harry is angry, and I don’t blame him. This is the kind of decision a trial judge makes that is never reversed on appeal. The appellate courts have no interest in micromanaging jury deliberations. The defendant either wins this argument at the trial level, or he loses it for good.

  Harry sets up camp in the darkened courtroom. He renews his motion at eleven-thirty and again at twelve forty-five. He shakes me awake at two o’clock and does it all over again. Judge Carroll grows paler through the early morning hours, but he refuses to budge. Charlie is checking on the jurors at regular intervals, he tells us, and they want to keep working.

  At four in the morning, Harry is on his feet and headed toward chambers to continue his crusade. But Judge Carroll emerges in his robe, both hands raised to silence him.

  “They’re done,” he says. “We’ve got a verdict.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Monday, May 31

  Geraldine is the first to arrive, just before five. The Scott family is minutes behind her, hounded by the press. Reporters’ questions and photographers’ flashbulbs engulf them. One boor from the Boston Herald asks how they feel about the verdict being returned on Memorial Day, the anniversary of their son’s death. I would like to have him locked up.

  The Rodriguez family arrives next. His petite wife and her mother, with two small, curly-haired boys in tow. The boys grow animated when their father is ushered through the side door. They wave to him as if it were a happy coincidence that he is here too.

  Like all accused who are imprisoned while on trial, Rodriguez has been issued normal street clothes, minus the belt and shoelaces, to wear in the jury’s presence. His cuffs and shackles are removed before the jury is led in. Extra court officers have been summoned to handle him when the verdict is read. Four of them stand behind his chair, guns on their hips, ready to subdue him if necessary.

  Rob Mendell barely makes it to his seat before Judge Carroll calls for silence. I risk the glare of the flashbulbs to scan the room for the Kydd. After keeping vigil with me all weekend, he is not here for the reading of the verdict. Just as well. Someone from the office should get some sleep.

  The first light of day illuminates the jurors as they file through the side door behind Charlie. Their faces are drawn; their eyes on the floor. Judge Carroll calls the case name and docket number. Normally, Wanda makes that announcement, but she doesn’t work on Memorial Day, and she doesn’t work at dawn on any day.

  Judge Carroll’s voice is thin and exhausted. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

  Juror number seven, the Postmaster from Wellfleet, stands, written verdict slip in hand. “We have, Your Honor.”

  Judge Carroll reaches toward him without comment. Charlie retrieves the folded verdict slip and carries it to the bench. Judge Carroll opens the form and reads, expressionless. Charlie returns the verdict slip to the Postmaster.

  Harry tells his client to stand and face the jurors. Harry stands and faces them too. Rodriguez stares at each of the twelve jurors in turn. Not one of them meets his eyes.

  Finally, Judge Carroll speaks again. “Mister Foreman, what say you?”

  The Postmaster opens the verdict slip to read from it. His hands are shaking. “We, the jury, in the matter of Commonwealth versus Rodriguez, on the charge of murder in the first degree of one Michael Vincent Scott, do find the defendant, Manuel Rodriguez”

  Suspended animation.

  “Guilty.”

  Bedlam.

  My stomach knows what’s happening long before my brain does. The smack of my skull against the counsel table is a noise I hear, but not a sensation I feel. I feel only his hands, callused, with jagged nails, around my neck. The photos of Michael Scott’s smashed skull appear in my mind’s eye.

  I’m out of air. I can’t swallow or blink. The tin codfish stares down at me. It is the only thing in the room, and it’s spinning wildly.

  Water everywhere. I’m soaked. I slide off the table and onto the floor. Air fills my lungs. Harry is beside me, lifting me, propping me up to a sitting position against the jury box. He is soaked too.

  Rodriguez is cuffed and shackled on the carpeted floor. He, too, is drenched. Two court officers are on top of him. He forces his twisted face toward the photographers, pressing against the weight of an officer’s shoulder, and shouts toward the reporters. “Hey, Madigan, way to go, man. I didn’t kill that kid. But you damn near killed me. Attack your own goddamn client. Goddamn knocked me out. My own lawyer, man. Knocked me out.”

  The room is back in focus. An empty metal water pitcher is on the carpet in front of the judge’s bench. Harry used it, I realize, on Rodriguez. Somehow, Harry got to him before the court officers did.

  Judge Carroll is on his feet issuing directions, but I can’t hear him above the ruckus from the gallery. Rodriguez’s kids are crying; people are yelling. But Rodriguez is louder than anybody. “You got the wrong guy,” he’s shouting at the Scotts. “You got the wrong god-damn guy.”

  The court officers are staring up at the judge, shaking their heads, disgusted. They will have to transport Rodriguez to Cape Cod Hospital for evaluation. Since he claims he lost consciousness, they don’t have a choice. He knows the system better than any of us.

  The court officers drag Rodriguez toward the side door and he lets them, smiling at the members of the press as if he were enjoying the ride. As he passes the jury box, he looks down at me and laughs. “You’ll get yours, bitch,” he says.

  The cameras get it all.

  CHAPTER 11

  Rob Mendell could have been President of the United States. The DA has the dark good looks of a film star; he is a polished public speaker, and he knows how to manipulate the media. Thirty minutes into the press conference on the front steps of the Superior Courthouse, he answers each repetitious question as if the reporter asking it had shown keen insight. Woody Timmons, the regular courthouse reporter for the Cape Cod Times, has written Rob’s words—“small town triumphs over big crime”—across his notepad. It will probably be tomorrow morning’s headline.

  The reporters don’t yet know that Rob has accepted a partnership offer from a high-powered criminal defense firm in Hyannis, the “big city” of Cape Cod. He’ll leave his position as Barnstable County’s District Attorney when his current term expires in December. That’s when Geraldine Schilling hopes to take over as Barnstable County’s first female District Attorney. She has dedicated her entire adult life to that cause, forsaking all aspects of private life for a carefully calculated public persona.

  Geraldine is aglow. The Rodriguez conviction is one she can point to again and again in her upcoming campaign. She will be the candidate whose small Cape Cod office has proven it can handle big-tim
e crime. Earlier in this press conference, she all but announced her candidacy, even referred to me at one point as the next First Assistant. I had always assumed Geraldine would bring someone in from the outside to fill that post. Someone more politically savvy. Someone more like herself.

  My adrenaline is beginning to wane. My briefcase is heavy and my knees are weak. Any strength I had left this morning was sapped by my final moments with Manuel Rodriguez. And my neck is suddenly out-throbbing my head.

  A small crowd is gathering behind the press corps, despite the early hour. A squad car pulls up behind the crowd, lights flashing but siren mute. My stomach knots when the Kydd emerges from the passenger side. He removes his sunglasses and squints up the hill, directly at me. No grin.

  Rob is entertaining the reporters with a war story, an anecdote from a case he tried years ago. No one pays any attention when I slip away. I take the granite steps two at a time, and I am winded when I reach the street. The Kydd leans close to me. There are beads of sweat on his brow. His hands are shaking and he is panting, as if he just finished running a marathon.

  “Marty, they couldn’t reach you. They couldn’t reach anybody. Not Rob. Not Geraldine. So they got me.”

  “Who got you?”

  “Chatham P.D.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s another one.”

  “Another one what?”

  “Another murder. In Chatham. Body found on Harding’s Beach at sunrise. Young white male. Slashed.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Jeff Skinner has called a crew of medical technicians in on the holiday, and they are hard at work when I reach Harding’s Beach. They have already identified the victim; no forensics were necessary. It’s Skippy Eldridge, a nineteen-year-old local kid home on leave from the Air Force Radar Station at Otis Air National Guard Base on the Upper Cape. His Otis Air cap is blood-soaked, wedged between the back of his head and the beach.

  Skippy’s parents, Chuck and Emily, run a market at the Chatham Fish Pier. They keep an outboard in Oyster River and a few dozen lobster pots offshore. Skippy was probably on his way to check the pots this morning when he pulled off at Harding’s Beach to enjoy his morning coffee and newspaper. Both items were found undisturbed on the dashboard of his pickup. Chief of Police Tommy Fitzpatrick is on his way to the Fish Pier to break the news to Skippy’s folks.

  It’s clear to me at once that the only evidence to be gathered from this scene is on the ravaged corpse. The wind and the tide have claimed whatever information might have been left on the beach. Jeff’s technicians are ready to bag the body, but they pause so that I can study it. I diagram the bloody remains of Skippy Eldridge in my notepad, careful to detail the position of each limb, the angle of the bloody torso, neck, and head, the narrow slice in his throat.

  Skippy Eldridge. He’ll always be nineteen now.

  “Go ahead,” I say. “You can take him.”

  There is a small shanty about the size of a tollbooth at the entrance to the Harding’s Beach parking lot. It’s used to collect parking fees during the summer season. It was scheduled to open today for the first time this year, but it won’t. Instead, Chatham police are using it as part of a blockade, stopping the townspeople as well as the tourists from approaching the crime scene. Cars and trucks are backing up on Harding’s Beach Road. Word is out.

  The police clear a path for the county van carrying Skippy’s remains. I ease the Thunderbird in behind it and head back to the office.

  Rob and Geraldine are holding their second press conference of the day when I turn in to the Barnstable County Complex. This time they are standing on the front steps of the District Courthouse. I can hear Rob’s voice from my reserved space in the parking lot, assuring the press that there is no connection between last year’s murder and this one, that the police have multiple leads and are pursuing all of them, that his office will see to it that the perpetrator of this heinous crime is brought to justice.

  Standing with Rob and Geraldine on the steps of the District Courthouse is Norman Richardson, the Executive Director of the Chatham Chamber of Commerce. Norman is visibly agitated, shifting from one foot to the other, shaking his head, and running his hands through his thinning hair every two minutes or so. Homicides wreak havoc with the tourist industry.

  When Geraldine spots me, she pulls herself away from the cameras, a sure sign that whatever she’s about to tell me is important. She catches up with me at the side entrance to the courthouse and lights a cigarette. “Martha, we need you at that autopsy.”

  This is Geraldine the politician speaking. I roll my eyes at her. “Geraldine, no one needs a prosecutor at an autopsy.”

  “We sure as hell do, Martha. You need to be there. Our office needs firsthand knowledge of this thing every step of the way.”

  “We’ll know all there is to know when we get Jeff Skinner’s report, Geraldine. I never understand what I’m looking at during those things anyway.”

  Geraldine actually blocks my entrance to the building. “I don’t care if you understand what the hell you’re looking at, Martha. Rob’s got all he can handle with the press. I’m fielding phone calls from every goddamned hotel on Cape Cod. They’re all reporting unexplained cancellations. Tourists are fleeing. This office has got to do something. And we’ve got to do it now.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Jeff Skinner runs a tight ship. Two of the technicians who were on Harding’s Beach earlier—one male, one female—are here to assist him with the autopsy. Both look too young—too innocent—to be so at ease in the presence of violent death. They move quietly and methodically about the spotless room, arranging instruments and documenting a chart with Skippy’s name on it. It’s business as usual, Memorial Day or not.

  At precisely high noon, the male technician wheels the draped remains of Skippy Eldridge into the autopsy room. All living bodies in the room are dressed in green surgical suits, even mine. Jeff issues quiet directives to his two young assistants. I do my best to stay out of the way.

  Just about everything in this room is made of polished stainless steel. The surgical instruments gleam. Bright fluorescent overheads beam down on the draped corpse. The antiseptic glare makes my eyes ache so much that I actually forget about my sore neck for a while.

  It occurs to me as I watch Jeff scrub his arms up to the elbows that this is the second consecutive Memorial Day he has spent this way. Last year, when Michael Scott was killed, Jeff had been scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Memorial Day ceremonies held annually at Chatham’s single traffic rotary, Veterans’ Circle. Hundreds of Chatham citizens attend those ceremonies each year, including dozens of veterans in uniform. The participants assemble at the rotary and walk in reverent procession to four downtown memorials honoring those Chatham natives who died in our nation’s wars.

  Chief of Police Tommy Fitzpatrick always leads the procession on motorcycle. Following behind him are the uniformed veterans, the color guards from the Chatham VFW Post, the U.S. Coast Guard Station Chatham, the 25th Battalion of the U.S. Marines, and all of the boys and girls who are Chatham Scouts. The civilians bring up the rear.

  Last year, when the selectmen chose Jeff Skinner as the speaker, it was the first time a Vietnam veteran had been selected for the honor. But when Michael Scott’s body was found, Jeff bowed out and came in to do the autopsy instead. A World War II veteran filled in for him.

  Jeff finishes washing, moves to the gurney, and nods to one of his assistants, who presses the “record” button on a small tape recorder. Jeff identifies himself, gives the date and time, and identifies the other three of us in the room. He tells the little black box that he is about to begin the autopsy of Steven “Skippy” Eldridge. He adjusts the overhead lamp above the corpse and removes the drape with one practiced, fluid motion.

  I am the only one in the room who gasps. Surely the others see it too. Skippy’s body has been cleaned. The blood that covered his torso this morning is gone, and the knife wounds are clear. He is sliced
open from his right shoulder to his left, from his right hip to his left, with two long incisions running vertically from shoulders to hips.

  The knife wounds on Skippy Eldridge’s chest form the Roman numeral II.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Of course you told them. Who the hell tries a murder-one case without describing the knife wounds?”

  Geraldine is pacing around Rob Mendell’s office, blowing smoke at the ceiling.

  Rob’s office is spacious, at least by Barnstable County standards, and he has decorated it handsomely. The walls are lined with framed photographs of Rob shaking hands and smiling with state legislators, judges, news anchors, and even a handful of movie stars. A soft leather couch, burgundy, sits against the far wall, with two matching chairs facing it. The same burgundy dominates the Oriental rug covering most of the old wooden floor.

  At the opposite end of the room, Rob sits in the tall leather chair behind his great mahogany desk, holding his glasses in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. His suit coat hangs on the back of his chair and his starched white sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. I am slumped in one of the two chairs that face him. Geraldine, of course, won’t sit down.

  I have been awake—and wearing the same dark blue suit—for about thirty hours. I’m no match for her now. “Geraldine, I know I described the knife wounds. But I’m almost certain I never compared them to a Roman numeral. I didn’t think that comparison was very clear from the photographs we had in evidence.”

  “But you probably mentioned it at some point during the week. And some copycat nut got wind of it. It’s no more complicated than that.”

  “I don’t think so, Geraldine.” I’m getting nowhere here, and I need to go home. I need to hug Luke. I need to sleep.