“We did.” Frank’s tone became apologetic. “We knew it wasn’t a good time, but we needed to get what information we could before she and Lieutenant McCarran talked to each other. So we went to the D’Abruzzo town house.”
“Did you tell her the captain was dead?”
“Not at first, no. We wanted the best account of what happened.”
“Did she describe the events preceding the shooting?”
Frank nodded. “Her story was essentially the same as Lieutenant McCarran’s—that her husband hit her; that he threatened her with a gun; that the lieutenant took the gun to his apartment; that she admitted this to her husband; that she called to warn Lieutenant McCarran he was coming; that the lieutenant called back; and that they were on the phone when he told her Captain D’Abruzzo was buzzing him.”
Flynn moved closer to the witness, drawing the attention of the members. “Did you also ask Mrs. D’Abruzzo about her relationship with the defendant?”
“Yes, sir.” Frank faced the members of the court, speaking to them directly. “Mrs. D’Abruzzo denied any romantic involvement. In a more controlled way, she seemed almost as offended as Lieutenant McCarran.”
Flynn paused another moment, letting the members absorb this. “Thank you,” he responded in a sober tone. “No further questions.”
five
STANDING, TERRY KNEW THAT HE MUST REARRANGE FLYNN’S carefully wrought narrative, causing the members of the court to question its central premise: that the apparent implausibilities in Brian’s statement were lies calculated to conceal a premeditated murder. Challenging in itself, the task was made more difficult by Frank’s likability. As he walked toward the witness, his manner casual, Terry made a swift decision about his opening thrust.
“How long did you interrogate Mrs. D’Abruzzo, Sergeant Frank?”
“A little over an hour.”
“When did you mention that Captain D’Abruzzo was dead?”
Frank hesitated. In a muted tone, he answered, “At the end.”
Terry gave him a considering look. “So for over an hour, you chose to conceal from Mrs. D’Abruzzo that she had lost her husband.”
The impulse to explain surfaced in Frank’s eyes. Instead he answered tersely, “Yes.”
“Did she ask what had happened at Lieutenant McCarran’s apartment?”
“Yes. She asked if anyone had been hurt.”
Terry kept his face calm, almost conversational. “What was her manner?”
Frank watched him carefully, the speed of his responses slowing with each question. “I’d say she seemed anxious.”
“And what did you tell this anxious woman?”
“That there’d been an altercation, and MPs had been called to the scene.”
“So, quite deliberately, you deceived Mrs. D’Abruzzo.”
Frank opened his palms. “It was a strategic decision, Captain Terry.”
“Would you also call it a lie?”
On the bench, Hollis looked from Terry to Frank. In a defensive tone, Frank answered, “We withheld information in the interests of law enforcement.”
“In other words, Sergeant, you had a good reason to conceal the critical fact that Mrs. D’Abruzzo was now a widow.”
“I believe we did, yes.”
“But that doesn’t make you a liar.”
Frank crossed his arms. “Not the way I look at things.”
“Did it occur to you, Sergeant Frank, that the accused and Kate D’Abruzzo might have had ‘good reason’ for their answers regarding their relationship? For example, shame, or concern for children or family, or even the trauma of the moment?”
Frank paused. “I can’t speculate.”
“In fact, you don’t know why they answered as they did, do you?”
Frank frowned. In a lower voice, he answered, “No, I don’t.”
“All right. Your stated reason for questioning Mrs. D’Abruzzo so quickly was to keep her from comparing notes with Lieutenant McCarran. Was it possible for them to do so?”
The witness shook his head. “No. We had MPs watching the lieutenant.”
“So he couldn’t have told Mrs. D’Abruzzo what he’d said to you.”
“No.”
“And yet,” Terry said, pausing for the jurors, “her account of the events leading up to Captain D’Abruzzo’s death was consistent with Lieutenant McCarran’s.”
“Yes. It was.”
Terry cocked his head. In the same mild tone, he added, “Did you entertain the possibility that they were telling the truth?”
“Of course.”
“In fact, for both of them to be lying would have required them to make up a story, embellish it with considerable detail, and then commit it to memory?”
Briefly, Frank grimaced. “You’d think that. Yes.”
Glancing toward the jury box, Terry saw that Major Wertheimer watched attentively, her expression curious and open. “Among other things,” Terry continued, “Mrs. D’Abruzzo told you that when her husband left, he was inebriated and extremely angry.”
“Yes. She did.”
“Did the medical report on Captain D’Abruzzo address whether he was intoxicated?”
“It did.” Frank hesitated, then added, “His blood alcohol concentration was double the legal limit in Virginia.”
Terry nodded. “Might that have affected the time it took Captain D’Abruzzo to drive to the lieutenant’s apartment?”
Frank seemed surprised by the question. “I can’t really say.”
“All right. Did you confirm that the captain held a black belt in karate?”
“Yes. He did.”
“In short, he had the capacity to kill Lieutenant McCarran with his bare hands.”
“Yes.”
Terry paused, giving the members time to absorb his counternarrative. “On direct examination, Major Flynn stressed Lieutenant McCarran’s inability to recall the events immediately after the initial shot. You also described him as composed. What possible explanations did you consider for his behavior?”
Frank gave him a look of veiled suspicion. “How do you mean?”
“What did you mean, Sergeant? Did you mean to imply to this court-martial that Lieutenant McCarran’s gap in memory was a calculated lie?”
Frank pursed his lips, his look of openness vanishing altogether. “It’s certainly a possibility.”
“You’re not trained in psychology, correct?”
“I’m not.”
“So you have no opinion as to whether the lieutenant could have been suffering from shock?”
“I can’t say.”
Terry paused. “Or,” he said slowly, “from post-traumatic stress disorder based on harsh combat experience in Iraq.”
As Terry had anticipated, Randi Wertheimer, a doctor, was watching Frank with a critical eye. “No,” he answered.
“Did you, personally, ever consult an expert concerning potential causes for the lieutenant’s demeanor or gap in memory?”
“I did not.”
Terry gave him a thoughtful look. “You also emphasized that Lieutenant McCarran called his sister. But you only knew that because he told you, right?”
“That’s true.”
“When you interrogated him, did he ask for a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him that he was entitled to one?”
“We did, yes.”
“How did he respond?”
“That he didn’t need a lawyer.”
“Did he answer all of your questions?”
Frank hesitated. “He couldn’t remember crucial details, he said.”
“But he never refused to answer any of your questions?”
“No.”
“All right. On the night of Captain D’Abruzzo’s death, did you search Lieutenant McCarran’s apartment for weapons?”
“Yes. We found none.”
“Is there any evidence that Lieutenant McCarran owned a gun at any time since returning to Fort Bolto
n?”
“No.”
Terry gave Frank a puzzled look. “In other words, until Lieutenant McCarran removed the Luger from the captain’s home, he had no weapon with which to shoot anyone.”
“As far as we can tell, no.”
“So for the lieutenant to ‘plan’ to shoot Captain D’Abruzzo, he would also have had to ‘plan’ taking the captain’s own gun.”
The witness frowned. “I can’t say that.”
“Is there any evidence to contradict the lieutenant’s statement that the gun he took was already loaded?”
“No.”
“The crime lab didn’t find his fingerprints on any of the bullet casings?”
“No.”
Terry cocked his head. “By the way, Sergeant, where were you when the MPs called to report the shooting?”
“In my office.”
“What phone did you answer?”
“The one on my desk.”
“And the sergeant who took the call from Lieutenant McCarran called you from his office?”
“Yes.”
Terry smiled a little. “Is there any record of that call?”
Catching Terry’s point, Frank gave him a grim smile of his own. “I don’t think so, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because both phones are on landlines.”
Innocently, Terry asked, “Then how do we know the call ever happened?”
On the bench, Hollis seemed to repress the impulse to smile. Slowly, Frank said, “You could confirm that with the desk sergeant.”
“In other words,” Terry said, “we know that call happened because you and the desk sergeant say so.”
Caught, Frank hesitated, then said, “Added proof is that I went to the lieutenant’s apartment.”
“By that logic, Sergeant, isn’t the ‘proof’ that Mrs. D’Abruzzo left a message for Lieutenant McCarran the fact that he called her back on his cell phone?”
Frank shook his head. “All I know is that he placed the call.”
“And all we know is that you drove to his apartment. So let me ask you this: Aside from the tape you played, is there evidence of Lieutenant McCarran’s call to the MPs?”
“Yes.” Again Frank hesitated. “There’s a record of the call.”
Terry smiled again. “Why is that, Sergeant?”
Frank shrugged his concession. “Because he called on his cell phone.”
Judging from the members’ faces, uniform in their attention and doubt, Terry had done enough. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said amiably. “I have nothing more.”
THE DAY’S REMAINING WITNESS, Karen Dahl, was Brian McCarran’s neighbor. A major in the supply corps with short hair and an efficient manner, Dahl made an obvious effort to be precise. Just as Jeopardy ended, Dahl confirmed, she had heard a series of percussive pops through the common wall of the two apartments.
“I take it,” Flynn said, “that the wall is pretty thin.”
“It certainly is.”
“Did you ever hear voices coming from the lieutenant’s apartment?”
Dahl glanced at Brian, seemingly unhappy with her position as prosecution witness. “I could often hear his television. That’s how I can tell you that Brian watches CNN and the History Channel.”
Flynn nodded. “Prior to these popping sounds, did you hear any voices?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Or men shouting, or threatening each other?”
Dahl shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
“So you heard nothing prior to the popping sounds to suggest an altercation.”
“No.”
Flynn nodded his satisfaction. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
Standing, Terry was aware that the members eyed him with anticipation. “Let’s talk about those popping sounds, Major. Did they occur in rapid succession?”
Dahl’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I’d say yes. Except maybe for the last.”
“So you remember a delay before the last pop?”
“Yes.”
It was the answer Terry wanted, though he could not make that clear through this witness. Instead, he asked, “Have you ever been inside Brian’s apartment?”
“Yes. Sometimes we borrowed things from each other. We’d also collect each other’s mail if one of us was gone.”
“Did you happen to notice where his television was?”
“Yes. It was mounted on the wall between our apartments.”
“So it must have been easier for you to hear.”
She smiled. “That’s how I know the channels Brian liked.”
“Back to those popping sounds, Major Dahl—was your TV on when you heard them?”
Dahl shook her head. “No. I hit the remote when the credits started. Seconds later I heard the pops.”
Noting the members’ attentiveness, Terry asked, “Given the thin walls, could you hear the buzzer in Brian’s apartment when someone came to visit?”
“If I was in the living room.”
“That night, did you hear the sound of his buzzer?”
Dahl paused. “I don’t think so. In fact, I’m sure I didn’t.”
“Any idea why?”
“Yes. My television was on.”
“So you might not have heard voices, either.”
“Objection,” Flynn called out. “Calls for speculation.”
Terry faced Hollis. “Major Flynn made a point that the witness heard no voices. I’m merely suggesting a possible reason.”
Hollis nodded. “Objection overruled.”
“That could have been a reason,” Dahl affirmed. “I was going back and forth from the kitchen, so I had the volume on loud.”
Terry placed a finger to his lips. “When your television is on, can you hear Brian’s TV through the wall?”
“No. I can’t.”
“Even though, when it’s off, you can hear the voices of anchors on CNN?”
“Yes.”
“So it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that you might not hear the raised voice of a visitor who wasn’t standing near the wall.”
Flynn, Terry saw, regarded the witness with an expression of veiled displeasure. But he had not learned, as Terry had, how much Karen Dahl liked Brian McCarran. “When my television was on,” she answered firmly, “I never heard anything in Brian’s apartment.”
In a throwaway tone, Terry said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”
When Terry walked back to the defense table, Meg hinted at a smile with her eyes, the only emotion she dared show. As Terry sat, he saw that his client had written in bold letters “killer,” then scribbled, “Only a metaphor, Paul.”
THAT NIGHT, SPENT, MEG soaked in the tub. Terry sat on the edge, sharing a modest portion of scotch on ice. Meg had forgotten to remove her eyeliner, and it had begun to run in the steam and dampness.
“Great body,” Terry told her. “But you look like a raccoon.”
“I don’t care,” she said, then added seriously, “You were really good today.”
Terry squeezed her hand. “Thanks. But every day is opening day. We’re going to have some hard ones.”
“I know,” Meg answered softly. “But every day we’re keeping Brian alive.”
six
AS MEG SLEPT, TERRY ROSE BEFORE DAWN AND SAT AT THE kitchen table, sipping a steaming cup of black coffee as a chill November rain spattered the windows of his apartment.
Bleak weather depressed him; surely the enveloping signs of winter deepened his dark mood. But at moments of quiet, he faced doubts he did not share with Meg. One involved Brian, whose depths—for all his spurts of candor and even charm—remained disturbingly elusive. Another was that the gaps in Brian’s story were forcing Terry, day after day, to find new shafts of doubt to plant amid Flynn’s narrative. Then there was Terry’s interrupted life; since turning down his job on Wall Street, he had no clear vision of the future, no time to form one, no deadline by which he could count on being free. The world of this trial�
�the world of the McCarrans—had become his own.
At times he wondered why. The only explanation he could find was that the congruence of their lives had brought Terry and Meg, prone to solitude and self-protection, together in an effort to save her brother while hoping to find a future in each other. He had no idea how this would end, only what he wished for.
Enough, he told himself. In less than three hours, he must reenter the courtroom a picture of confidence, impervious to the reporters, the gawkers, the bitter presence of the dead man’s parents, their loss graven on sagging, pallid faces. He made a note to call his mother, and reviewed his notes for the cross-examination of Dr. Henry Goode.
THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER, Henry Goode, was a short, soft-looking man with a southern drawl, thinning light brown hair, and small features—pursed mouth, snub nose, the heavy-lidded eyes of a turtle—that seemed to disappear in a large, fleshy face framed by a wide double chin. In a joking mood Terry might have cast him as the result of too much inbreeding, the dim-witted progeny of a Scots-Irish gene pool turned in upon itself. But the alertness in his pale blue eyes, and the precision of his answers, established him as a cautious but thorough professional.
Flynn and Goode had worked on their choreography. Within ten minutes, Flynn had placed Goode at the crime scene and moved on to the autopsy, drawing the rapt attention of the members and, though his expression was more guarded, Brian McCarran. To gauge Goode’s impact, Terry kept watching Major Randi Wertheimer—it was here that she, a doctor, could most likely influence the others. As she leaned forward to listen more closely, Flynn asked Goode, “Could you describe the bullet wounds suffered by Captain D’Abruzzo?”
“There were four,” the pathologist answered promptly. “In the left upper arm, the palm of his right hand, the chest, and the back.”
“The back,” Flynn repeated.
“Yes.”
“In your opinion, which would have caused Captain D’Abruzzo’s death?”
“The chest wound.”
“Why is that?”
“The bullet punctured the pulmonary artery running from the heart to the lungs.” Turning, Goode spoke to the members in the helpful manner of a lecturer in class. “Absent medical attention, such a wound is certain to be fatal. As it was for Captain D’Abruzzo.”
In the Name of Honor Page 24