Terry kept shooting, allowing his subconscious to do its work, until, at last, he hit seven out of ten, the best he could do for the day. When he emerged from the gym, it was dark, and a light dusting of snow whitened the frozen grass.
Terry went to his apartment and poured himself a tumbler of scotch on ice. He sipped it slowly, moodily, reflecting on the past. Even before he had opened his father’s desk drawer, finding the evidence of his crime, the young Paul Terry had known that something was wrong. And something was wrong with Brian’s account.
Perhaps it was his supposed loss of memory. Or perhaps it was something just out of Terry’s sight, like a fleeting image in the slipstream of a car.
His mother’s intentions had been benign, Terry knew—she wished to protect Paul from the secret that had caused his father’s suicide. He wondered why the moment when he opened the drawer seemed so piercing now. Pensive, he thought of them all in turn: Anthony and Mary McCarran; Rose Gallagher; Brian and Meg; Joe and Kate—all the ways that, over time, they had acted on one another, and the death that had resulted. Then, against his will, his doubts coalesced around a lingering question.
Picking up the phone, he called Ben Flournoy. “I hear you did good today,” the investigator said.
“Brian did. Maybe good enough to get himself acquitted.”
“Hope so. Is there anything you need, sir?”
“Just something I’m curious about. Without a lot of fuss, could you get Brian’s cell phone records for the last year?”
“I think so. But why not just ask him?”
“I’m not sure he has them anymore.” Terry hesitated. “I’d appreciate it, Ben, if you’d keep this strictly between us.”
In the silence, Terry imagined Flournoy thinking. Then the investigator asked, “Know the name of Brian’s service provider?”
ten
BEFORE TAKING THE STAND, DR. BLAKE CARSON HAD TRANSformed himself: short haircut, sober gray suit, subdued green tie. His expression was grave, his diction precise, and his manner dispassionate—in the service of Brian McCarran, the irreverent and indignant man had morphed into someone ten years older. Terry saw Flynn’s co-counsel, Captain Pulaski, making copious notes, no doubt preparing for their motion to strike his testimony and, with it, any defense based on PTSD.
Aware of this, Terry swiftly emphasized Carson’s credentials. “Please outline your experience, Dr. Carson, in evaluating post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Carson nodded. “In the last twelve years, I’ve treated over seven hundred veterans who are suffering from PTSD. More recently, I’ve focused on Afghanistan and Iraq and the factors peculiar to those wars that exacerbate combat stress.”
“Can you outline some of these factors?”
Like a teacher, Carson addressed the members. “Among the most important are constant exposure to IEDs and RPGs; the involvement of civilians in combat situations; handling the mutilated bodies of fellow soldiers, particularly close friends; and a feeling of hopelessness or futility regarding the war itself. There are others that bear on Lieutenant McCarran’s particular experience.”
In the jury box, Major Wertheimer leaned forward, plainly receptive to a fellow medical professional. “With respect to Lieutenant McCarran,” Terry asked, “what preparations have allowed you to assess his psychological condition?”
“I interviewed the lieutenant for over twenty hours, and reviewed the record of his military service. I listened to the testimony of his father, his sister, Chaplain Byrne, and Sergeant Whalen, as well as of Lieutenant McCarran himself. I read the testimony of every other witness, with particular attention to Sergeant Frank, Mrs. D’Abruzzo, and the expert in martial arts, Mr. Lee. Finally, I reviewed the extensive literature on PTSD and compared my observations of Lieutenant McCarran with the symptoms and causes of PTSD in veterans of the wars we’re fighting now.”
“Based on that, is it your professional opinion that Brian McCarran is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?”
Turning, Carson gave Brian a long, sober look, which Brian met with a steady gaze. Then Carson answered simply, “I’m quite certain that he is.”
“On what do you base that conclusion?”
“There’s a plethora of evidence. The behaviors observed by family members and reluctantly acknowledged by the lieutenant himself: hypervigilance, extreme anxiety in traffic, fear of confinement, inability to communicate his feelings, chronic sleeplessness, and, of course, his recurring nightmares.” Facing the members, Carson continued: “These reflect Lieutenant McCarran’s experiences of war: his own near death; the continuing deaths of men in his platoon; constant exposure to RPGs, IEDs, and sniper fire; handling the mutilated bodies of his translator, Ali, and his driver Corporal Shores; causing the death of civilians; exposure to lethal house-to-house fighting; inability to distinguish enemies from friends; and a mission that too often seemed both murderous and meaningless. Even for Iraq, his exposure to trauma was severe and unrelenting. And he felt absolutely powerless—unable to change anything, trapped in a cycle of death and violence from which he couldn’t protect his men.” Carson slowed his speech for emphasis. “Then there’s guilt. Guilt over the loss of his soldiers. Guilt over having caused—in his mind—the decapitation of Willie Shores. Guilt about running down the Iraqi child. Brian came home carrying a burden of guilt and trauma few people can imagine. The anguish he feels is close to unbearable.”
Brian, Terry saw, again had the determinedly absent look of a man willing himself off the earth. “In your opinion, Doctor, were Lieutenant McCarran’s burdens exacerbated by his return from Iraq?”
“Yes,” Carson said decisively. “His sister was a help. But the lieutenant felt alienated from his father.” Pausing, Carson cast a veiled glance at Anthony McCarran. “To Brian, General McCarran personified two barriers to understanding—institutional and personal. Institutionally, the prevailing ethic in the army is to mask war-related trauma and to see admitting it as a weakness. But his father also represented a family tradition of bravery that felt both oppressive and one-dimensional. No matter how brave Brian proved himself to be, he was overwhelmed by his own feelings.
“He channeled this into concern for his men. In Iraq, he prodded them to seek out mental health support. At Fort Bolton, he sent a survivor from his platoon to the VA, only to see him commit suicide after being put on a six-month waiting list. This tragedy resonated with the suicide of his own mother and deepened his pervasive sense of hopelessness.” After pausing, Carson finished succinctly: “At the time he killed Captain D’Abruzzo, the PTSD suffered by Brian McCarran was six months more profound.”
This was the moment, Terry knew, to start linking Brian’s symptoms to the shooting. “You mentioned Lieutenant McCarran’s hypervigilance. Can you relate that to his experiences in Iraq?”
“Yes. For a year, Brian was bombarded with deadly stimuli. To single out a few, there’s the sniper he risked his life to kill—one false move and it’s Brian who takes a bullet in the head. Or the ambush: another foot, and that RPG decapitates him instead of Shores. Or the two men he killed in house-to-house fighting who could have killed him instead. He’s still alive because he was swift to react—able to move faster, think quicker, and shoot better than highly skilled opponents who could kill him in split seconds.”
Terry paused, drawing the members’ attention. Quietly, he asked, “Do these experiences have a specific common denominator?”
“Yes. Captain D’Abruzzo.”
“Could you explain?”
“Yes. In every case but one, they resulted from Captain D’Abruzzo sending Brian and his platoon on a mission that proved deadly and pointless—guarding the police station. Moreover, the death of Shores and the Iraqi boy followed D’Abruzzo’s refusal to heed Brian’s warning about an ambush, or even take it to Colonel Northrop. The result was mutual guilt and loathing between Brian and D’Abruzzo. What followed was D’Abruzzo’s order that Brian’s platoon undertake dangerous house-to-hous
e searches. In Brian’s mind, that was a deliberate effort to eliminate the one man—Brian himself—who knew of D’Abruzzo’s decision not to go to Northrop.”
“What do you conclude from this, Dr. Carson?”
“That Brian came to see D’Abruzzo as the enemy. A man whose orders caused death.”
Bobby Wade looked troubled; perhaps he understood, as did Terry, that Carson’s opinion could suggest two sides of Brian McCarran: a man who reacted in fear or acted to eliminate an enemy he despised. “That brings us to a critical question,” Terry said to Carson. “Based on your analysis, when Lieutenant McCarran shot Captain D’Abruzzo, were his reactions driven by PTSD?”
“Yes,” Carson said firmly. “But let me preface that by saying that Brian’s actions could have been objectively reasonable in a man not affected by PTSD. By that I mean that a reasonable man, confronted by an angry opponent with lethal skills who threatened to kill him in a confined space from which there was no escape, would have been justified in shooting when his adversary whirled to attack at a distance of four to five feet. In such a case, PTSD is superfluous.
“However, what you asked me to consider is not whether Brian’s actions were objectively reasonable, but whether Brian believed that they were once D’Abruzzo confronted him. For example, let’s assume that D’Abruzzo was ten feet away, or even fifteen. Let’s further assume that D’Abruzzo whirled and raised his hands out of fear, not to utilize his potentially deadly skills. In those circumstances, a skeptic could argue that Brian was not in mortal danger. Then the question becomes whether PTSD caused Brian to believe that he was, causing him to pull the trigger.”
“What’s your answer?”
“That whether or not the danger was as great as Brian feared, killing D’Abruzzo was a reflex. Because of PTSD, Brian could not stop himself.”
Glancing at the members, Terry saw them digest the nature of Brian’s defense: that even if the forensic evidence contradicted Brian’s account of an imminent threat, PTSD could have caused him to believe that the threat was imminent. Or, as Flynn had sourly remarked, “Once you have PTSD, the facts no longer matter—all the evidence is locked inside your head.” In a dispassionate tenor, Terry asked Carson, “Could you set out the basis for that conclusion?”
“It’s implicit in what I’ve already said,” Carson answered. “Brian saw D’Abruzzo as the enemy. He believed that D’Abruzzo wanted to kill him. He experienced following D’Abruzzo’s orders as lethal. Those orders included forcing Brian to confront armed opponents in small spaces from which there was no escape. Brian further knew that D’Abruzzo struck his wife repeatedly and had held a gun to her head.” Facing the members, Carson spoke succinctly and persuasively. “D’Abruzzo came to Brian’s small apartment. He stood in Brian’s living room, blocking the exit. He told—ordered—Brian to give him the gun.
“Perhaps D’Abruzzo threatened him, or started moving forward. It doesn’t really matter. At that instant, every synapse in Brian McCarran told him he was in mortal danger. To reach for the gun and fire was a reflex—the difference between death and survival. Brian learned that from D’Abruzzo, in Iraq.”
From the bench, Hollis considered the psychiatrist gravely, his forehead furrowed in thought. As at other such moments, Terry experienced the courtroom as unusually still. “What about the shots that followed?” Terry asked.
Carson folded his hands, settling them in his lap. “That’s entirely consistent with Brian’s military training and experience: you keep shooting until you eliminate the enemy and, therefore, any threat to your own life. As to that, the incident you raised with the county medical examiner is relevant: the case where an armed robber, though mortally wounded, kept shooting until he killed a policeman.”
Terry nodded. “In that context, Dr. Carson, are shootings of civilians by police relevant to the shooting of Captain D’Abruzzo by Lieutenant McCarran?”
“They can be.” Carson faced the members of the court. “As part of my practice, I’ve done detailed studies of officer-involved shootings in response to a perceived threat, as well as shootings of Iraqi civilians by American soldiers.”
“What did you learn from that?”
“First, an officer can fire every quarter of a second. Second, he will keep shooting until he believes the threat is over. Third, even with a fatal wound, the victim won’t instantly start falling. Finally, even if the perceived threat ceases, it takes a second for the officer to register that fact—enough time to shoot four more bullets. Therefore, the number of rounds fired can look like overkill when it isn’t.” Carson paused, glancing at Flynn. “Anyone who’s been in combat knows that. But someone who hasn’t been can mistake a justified shooting for an execution.”
“Can you relate these studies to Lieutenant McCarran’s actions?”
“They’re certainly instructive. Take the question of where Captain D’Abruzzo was standing when he was shot. We know that bullets don’t stop movement—indeed, in a half a second, D’Abruzzo could have taken two steps, moving five feet from where he’d been a split second before. Lieutenant McCarran could have shot him three times at different distances and in different parts of the room.”
“What about the bullet in D’Abruzzo’s back?”
Carson spread his hands. “The same principles apply. In addition, according to Major Flynn’s ballistics expert, D’Abruzzo’s Luger had a hair trigger. Anyone in a state of extreme tension could cause such a gun to fire without thinking.”
“Lieutenant McCarran says that he can’t remember the last three shots and, therefore, can’t explain what happened. Does that surprise you?”
“Not at all. While most shooters in these situations don’t suffer total memory deficit, they often experience confusion, distorting their recall of the event. We call this phenomenon inattentional blindness. Essentially, someone whose life is threatened experiences tunnel vision. Human eye movement is not like the panning of a camera, where the lens records a total picture. If you look from right to left—especially quickly—you get isolated images. You can’t retrieve a clear and fluid memory of events occurring in split seconds.” Once again, Carson faced the members. “Inattentional blindness could distort what memory Brian has. As to his failure to recall the last three shots, that could stem from another symptom of PTSD: dissociative amnesia.”
Terry noticed Dr. Wertheimer briefly nodding to herself. “Could you explain dissociative amnesia, Dr. Carson?”
“It’s a gap in memory caused by abnormal stress. It can last for seconds or minutes. During this time, the person is in a kind of fugue state.” Carson glanced at Brian. “Lieutenant McCarran describes realizing that Captain D’Abruzzo was lying on the floor, then struggling to appreciate the nature of what happened. That’s consistent with dissociative amnesia. The aftermath feels like being in shock—which I think he was. Shooting a man who’d been part of his extended family would feel more traumatic than shooting a stranger.”
Terry glanced toward Meg and saw her tight, expectant look. Turning back to Carson, he asked, “How do you explain Brian’s call to his sister?”
Carson’s own expression was somber. “Given his disorientation, placing that call was logical. That she’s a lawyer is irrelevant. Meg was the person who’d tried to help him cope with PTSD. Equally significant, Brian had depended on her since their mother killed herself. In his confusion, reaching out to her was second nature.”
“During this period, how would Brian experience the passage of time?”
“His sense of time would be distorted. The period between calling Meg and calling the MPs might not have seemed long at all.”
Satisfied, Terry nodded. “A final question. Sergeant Frank stressed Brian’s ‘detachment.’ What do you take from that?”
“That it’s part of Brian’s identity. Witness after witness has testified to his uncanny self-possession. To me, it’s not surprising at all.” Carson regarded Brian with compassion. “Deep in his psyche, Brian is an infantry officer
, and a McCarran. So he pulled himself together, called the MPs, and did his duty by answering questions as best he could. That’s what officers do. That’s what McCarrans do.”
This was the image Terry wished to leave. “No further questions,” he said, confident that Carson had done all he could.
FROM HIS EXPRESSION, FLYNN thought so, too. Brusquely, he said, “The basis for your opinion includes the stories told by the accused and Mrs. D’Abruzzo, correct?”
Carefully, Carson considered the question. “Only to a point. For example, in framing my opinion with respect to PTSD, I assumed that the threat posed by Captain D’Abruzzo to be less than Brian believed.”
“That’s different than assuming he was lying, correct?”
“True. I was talking about a difference in perception.”
“So that if Lieutenant McCarran, in a wholly lucid state, lied about what Captain D’Abruzzo said or did in that apartment, would that affect your opinion?”
“It could, yes. I’d have to know the specifics.”
“I’ll give you two. Suppose that Captain D’Abruzzo did not ask for the gun, or threaten the life of the accused. Would that affect your opinion?”
“Again, it could.”
“But, of course, only Lieutenant McCarran knows if he deliberately lied, true?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re aware of at least one instance, their affair, where the accused and Mrs. D’Abruzzo did lie.”
Carson paused, breaking Flynn’s rhythm. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I’m also aware that that has nothing to do with whether Brian McCarran was suffering from PTSD when he shot Captain D’Abruzzo. My opinion is based on the traumatic nature of Lieutenant McCarran’s combat experience, not on whether the lieutenant concealed an affair.”
Terry felt himself tense, worried Carson’s inherent antipathy toward Flynn would become too visible. “But it’s also based,” Flynn said sharply, “on what supposedly happened here at Fort Bolton: that Captain D’Abruzzo hit his wife; that he held a gun to her head; that he went to the lieutenant’s apartment to claim his gun; and that the accused—despite the terrible stress you describe—decided to let him in. If the accused and Mrs. D’Abruzzo were also lying about all that, would your opinion change?”
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