by Rose Connors
That was more than eight years ago. Geraldine filled out the application for my permit to carry. She told me the permit would issue immediately, no questions asked, because of my profession. She told me she would chat with the guards at the county complex, after which they would routinely wave me around the metal detectors. She was right on both counts.
Geraldine went with me to buy the gun. She criticized my selection. My .32-caliber Lady Smith was a “sissy gun” she said, compared to her nine-millimeter Walther PPK. Nevertheless, she took me and my sissy gun to the firing range a dozen times for training. In the end, she said my shot wasn’t half bad, a far better rating than I’d ever expected.
Geraldine said I should carry my gun with me at all times, just as she does. And I should visit the firing range at least once a month, just as she does. But, she said, if I chose instead to lock the Lady Smith in a closet, where it would do me no good, then so be it. She’d done what she could.
I carried it with me for a solid year. It fit easily into the interior pockets of my suit jackets. I got used to the small weight of it against my body. And I went faithfully to the firing range every month, just as Geraldine directed. I followed all of her directions that year. But then the Erickson matter came to our office.
Gordon Erickson was a tuna broker who lived in Truro. His refrigerated truck could be seen at harbors all over Cape Cod during tuna season. He would buy the large fish—many weighing more than six hundred pounds—directly from the boats of tuna fishermen. Then he’d truck them to Boston, where they’d be crated on ice and airlifted to Japan. Fresh tuna fetches a shockingly high price on the sushi market.
The commercial end of the fishing industry is dirty from top to bottom. Truro’s Chief of Police didn’t hesitate in approving Gordon Erickson’s application for a permit to carry. Gordon was a lifelong Truro resident with nothing more than a few minor traffic infractions on his record. His permit remained in good standing for years, until one terrible morning in September, almost seven years ago.
It was a banner tuna season that year, and Gordon was driving to Boston daily. He drove back to Cape Cod late one September night in a pelting rainstorm. He’d been awake since before dawn that day. When he got home, he hung his jacket on a hook in the mud room, and went straight to bed.
The shots woke Gordon and his wife early the next morning. Their ten-year-old son had been looking for bubble gum in his dad’s jacket pocket and found the loaded revolver instead. He pointed it at his seven-year-old sister and pulled the trigger twice. She was dead before the second shot hit her.
Luke had turned ten just two months earlier.
When I left work that day, I went straight to an office supply store and bought a metal strongbox with a secure lock. When I got home, I put the unloaded gun into the box, locked it, and stored it in the back of my closet. I put the ammunition in another strongbox, one already holding Luke’s birth certificate, the deed to the Windmill Lane cottage, and the single insurance policy I purchased to provide for Luke if anything ever happens to me. I locked that one and stored it in the bottom of a dresser drawer.
I put the key to the first strongbox on the top shelf of the bathroom medicine cabinet. The key to the second box I stored on a top shelf in the pantry. Geraldine was right. The gun would do no good in the closet. But it would do no harm either.
Geraldine made the decision to charge Gordon Erickson with involuntary manslaughter. Rob was reluctant. After all, he told Geraldine, the man had already paid dearly for his carelessness. Ultimately, though, Rob acquiesced, the charge was issued, and trial was scheduled for the following February. But on Christmas Eve, after writing a long letter to his wife and son, Gordon Erickson went into the back of his refrigerated truck with his hunting rifle, the only firearm the Truro police had missed when they confiscated the rest. He put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
I still go to the firing range a few times a year. And I keep up with routine maintenance on the Lady Smith. But I haven’t carried it with me since the day the little Erickson girl died. Until today.
Manuel Rodriguez will be sentenced in an hour. I am no longer certain that he killed Michael Scott. But there is no doubt in my mind that he would have killed me if he could have. I can still feel his large, callused hands around my neck, preventing me from taking even the smallest sip of air. The Lady Smith probably wouldn’t have made any difference in that incident. But it might if there’s a next one.
I decided to tell Luke about the Lady Smith. I showed it to him this morning before I dropped him off at school. I explained my reasons for owning it as well as my decision to resume carrying it. I asked him to promise me that he will never touch it when I’m not around. He’s sixteen now, almost seventeen. And he is mature beyond his years. I can rely on his word.
I used to worry that Luke seemed more mature than his peers. I worried that he lost too much of his childhood when Ralph and I divorced, that he was forced into the “man of the house” role far too soon. But in recent years that worry has left me, replaced by a genuine admiration for the fine young man he has become. His observations about the world around him and the people in it are thoughtful and kind. He is true and loyal to his friends.
Luke was surprised to learn that I own a gun. He was astonished to hear that I actually know how to use it. Without hesitation, he promised he’ll never touch it. When I tucked it into my jacket pocket, he smiled at me.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, shaking his head as if he were the parent, “stay safe.”
CHAPTER 27
The sentencing itself is a nonevent. Rodriguez will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence is mandated by statute for all those convicted of first-degree murder. The judge has no discretion.
The proceedings, on the other hand, promise to be dramatic.
Students and professors from Boston University fill the courtroom and the hallway. Michael Scott’s roommates set an enlarged photograph of Michael—smiling in his baseball uniform—on an easel in front of the judge’s bench. The entire college baseball team, in uniform, lines the back of the room. Players and coaches alike stand at attention, black bands on their upper right arms, caps held over their hearts. The press is salivating.
One of Michael Scott’s parents will deliver a victim impact statement before Rodriguez is sentenced. I expect it will be his father. During the year that I have known the Scotts, Sally has been unable to complete a sentence about her murdered son. She broke down so often during questioning in my office, I relied solely on her husband for testimony during trial.
It is because of the victim impact statement that the Superior Courtroom and its loft are filled to capacity. An overflow crowd is in a first-floor conference room, where the proceedings will be broadcast on a closed-circuit monitor.
The Scott family is seated in the usual spot, with the Rodriguez family directly across the aisle, the two little curly-haired boys watching the side door for their father. Geraldine and Rob are side by side in two of the chairs reserved for attorneys, against a waist-high bar that separates them from the general public. The Kydd got stuck handling the docket alone in District Court this morning, but he arrives in Superior Court just in time. I signal for him to join me at the counsel table.
Harry is already at the defense table when the side door opens and Manuel Rodriguez comes in, cuffs and shackles in place and locked. Charlie told me when I arrived that Judge Carroll had directed the guards to keep Rodriguez restrained throughout sentencing, a precaution against the kind of outburst we saw when the verdict was returned. Even so, I am glad I decided to bring the Lady Smith along. The weight of it against my side is reassuring, though I would never fire it in this crowded courtroom.
Charlie calls for quiet and directs the crowd to stand. Judge Carroll emerges from chambers. Wanda calls the case name and docket number. When the rest of us sit down, Rodriguez and Harry remain standing.
Judge Carroll stares at Harry. Harry gl
ares back at him. It’s the first time the two men have faced each other since the judge threw Harry in jail. The photographers can’t click fast enough. Minutes pass before Judge Carroll speaks.
“Mr. Madigan, you are entitled, of course, to make a statement on behalf of your client. But before you do, we are going to hear from a member of the Scott family.”
Harry sits down without a word. Rodriguez sits too. The judge adjusts his bifocals, squints at a small piece of notepaper, and looks toward the courtroom’s front row. “Mrs. Sally Scott, we will hear from you now.”
There is a general stir in the room as Sally Scott rises from her seat and walks to the front of the courtroom. Instinctively, I stand when she reaches the counsel table. She takes my hands in hers. When I look in her eyes, I understand that she is about to do the most difficult thing she has ever done—speak in public about her slain son. I also understand that, for her, silence is not an option.
“Thank you, Attorney Nickerson,” she says simply.
I feel a twinge of guilt, as if I double-crossed her somehow, but I say nothing. She walks calmly toward the judge’s bench and stands beside Michael’s photograph.
“Mr. Rodriguez, you are a coward.” Sally’s voice is surprisingly strong. She appears composed and steady. She is an attractive forty-eight-year-old, with thick auburn hair cropped extremely short. Her cheeks are flushed. She keeps her deep brown eyes on Rodriguez, though he refuses to look back at her.
“You attacked my son from behind, you coward. You smashed his skull before he ever saw you. You knifed him, and he was unarmed. And now, you won’t look at his mother. You are a small, cowardly excuse for a man.”
The chains on Rodriguez’s cuffs bang the back of his chair as he shifts in his seat and glowers at the empty jury box.
“If you weren’t such a coward, Mr. Rodriguez, Michael would be alive today. He was stronger and smarter than you will ever be. If you had faced him like a man, instead of ambushing him from behind, he would have broken you in two. And the world would be a far better place, Mr. Rodriguez, if Michael were still in it.”
Sally Scott picks up the large photograph of Michael and carries it toward the jury box, trying to put it in Rodriguez’s line of vision. I am more than a little surprised by her moxie.
“This is the young man you murdered, Mr. Rodriguez. You probably didn’t know how handsome he was. You didn’t look at his face, did you? I suppose that’s one advantage to being a coward. Attack from behind and you don’t have to look your victim in the eye.
“You didn’t know anything about Michael, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? You didn’t know that he would have graduated from college this year; that he majored in American history.”
I look over at the Kydd, a fellow student of American history. He is watching Sally closely, shaking his head and swallowing hard. He is genuinely choked up.
“You didn’t know that Michael was a member of the campus ROTC program, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? That’s the Reserve Officers Training Corps. He hoped to become a Navy SEAL. He was wearing his U.S. Navy windbreaker the night you murdered him, but you probably didn’t notice. Michael would have served his country well, Mr. Rodriguez, if you hadn’t taken him from us.”
Sally steps closer to Rodriguez, daring him to meet her eyes. He doesn’t.
“You didn’t know that Michael was slated to cocaptain the baseball team this year, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? You didn’t know that he was on the dean’s list, that he planned to pursue a master’s degree in secondary education, that he dreamed of returning to his own small high school in Connecticut after completing his military career. He wanted to teach history there. He wanted to organize a debate team, coach the baseball team. You didn’t know any of that, did you?”
I jump a little when Sally moves even closer to Rodriguez. The Kydd puts a steady hand on my arm. Sally points toward a young woman who is seated with Mr. Scott and the boys. The young woman has delicate features; her cheeks are soaked.
“You didn’t know he was wild about his college sweetheart, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? You didn’t know he was saving his money—the money you murdered him for—to buy her a ring. You didn’t know he planned to give it to her this past Christmas.
“And you didn’t know what a fine human being Michael was, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? You didn’t know that he played baseball with his younger brothers and their friends whenever he was home on break. You didn’t know that he spent hours helping his dad with projects around the house. You didn’t know that he sent me a single yellow rose every year on my birthday.
“You didn’t know that Michael was a funny person, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? That he loved animals. That he secretly listened to country music, and sang along when he thought no one could hear.”
The Kydd laughs quietly at this. I look over at him again; there are tears in his eyes.
Sally continues. “You didn’t know that Michael was a peace-maker, did you, Mr. Rodriguez? That he hated confrontation. That he always settled the disputes that arose between his younger brothers. That he always told them never to forget they are each other’s best friends.
“But I know all of these things about Michael, Mr. Rodriguez. And because I know these things, I know what he wants me to do right now.
“You see, Mr. Rodriguez, Michael is at peace now. We are the ones who are tormented, the ones who love Michael, the ones who are left behind. We are tormented by what you did to him, by what you took from us.
“When Michael’s heart stopped beating, my heart broke in two, Mr. Rodriguez. And it will never heal. Like you, I will serve a life sentence.
“In life, Michael never harbored a grudge. He was quick to understand and quick to forgive. I pay tribute to him now, by emulating him as best I can.
“I will never understand, Mr. Rodriguez. I will never understand why you did what you did. But—in honor of Michael—I forgive. I forgive you. And I pray that God will forgive you as well.”
Forgiveness is more than Manuel Rodriguez can bear. He looks like a wild animal as he rears up on his shackled feet. I jump up too, and instinctively I reach for the Lady Smith. Rodriguez is too close to Sally Scott, shackled or not. The Kydd stiffens beside me when he sees my finger on the trigger.
Rodriguez screams into Sally’s terrified face. “I didn’t kill your kid, lady. I didn’t kill him. I took his goddamned money. I took his watch. But I didn’t kill him.”
The court officers form a tight circle around Rodriguez and begin dragging him toward the side door. Sally moves deftly out of their path. I drop the Lady Smith back into my pocket. The Kydd exhales.
Rodriguez pokes his head and neck out between two guards. He juts his chin toward the other Scott boys but keeps his eyes focused on Sally. He is a savage.
“Better keep an eye on them, missus. Whoever killed your kid is still out there. So you better keep an eye on the two you got left. He’s still out there, missu—”
Taking a signal from Judge Carroll, the guards gag Rodriguez, causing his words to come to an unnatural halt. In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Criminal Procedure Rule 45 gives the trial judge authority to remove a disruptive defendant from the courtroom at any time during the proceedings. The rule specifically authorizes gagging the defendant if the trial judge believes that’s necessary to maintain order. Constitutional challenges to the rule have consistently failed.
Rodriguez is gone. The room is silent. Sally faces Judge Carroll, hugging the photograph of Michael. She’s not crying yet, but she is beginning to shake. She looks up at the judge and sighs. “Lock him up, Your Honor. Please. Lock him up.”
Sally returns to her seat. Judge Carroll turns toward Harry but doesn’t look at him. Instead, the judge fusses with papers on his bench as he speaks. “Mr. Madigan, in light of your client’s inability to control himself, which he’s demonstrated twice now, I intend to sentence him in his absence. If you wish to say anything on his behalf, even though he’s not present to hear it, you may do so now.”
&nb
sp; Harry stands, crosses the room, and hands me a new document. The Kydd leans over my shoulder to read. It’s a Notice of Appeal. Harry is asking for a new trial for Rodriguez, and his request is based on two separate issues.
First, Harry challenges Judge Carroll’s refusal to send the jurors back to their hotel rooms on the night of May 30, before the allnighter that resulted in the verdict. Second, Harry challenges Judge Carroll’s denial of the motion to set aside the verdict. In support of his argument on the second issue, Harry includes the photographs of the torsos of Michael Scott and Skippy Eldridge. And the whole package is copied to Woody Timmons at the Cape Cod Times.
This petition will go initially to a single justice of the Court of Appeals. If that justice believes Judge Carroll committed an error of law in making either of these rulings, he will recommend that the matter be reviewed by the full appellate panel.
Harry walks to the front of the courtroom and hands the same Notice of Appeal to Judge Carroll. He stands like a statue in front of the judge and looks him squarely in the eyes. He doesn’t speak until the silence in the room is deafening. “I’ve got nothing to say in this courtroom, Judge. Nothing.”
When Harry turns back toward the defense table, his expression says it all. He just burned a bridge, and he knows it.
CHAPTER 28
Wednesday, June 9
Cedar Junction is one of only two maximum security prisons in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It’s a massive and forbidding place, housing 850 inmates, all male. For the past thirty-six hours, Manuel Rodriguez has been one of them.
The penitentiary was originally named Walpole, after the town that is stuck with it. The citizens of Walpole grew tired of having their hometown confused with a maximum security prison and in the mid 1980s they petitioned for a change of the prison’s name. As a result, the Commonwealth’s legislature renamed the facility Cedar Junction, after an old railroad station in the town.