by Ray Garton
Adam stared out at the oncoming headlights that swept by. It was very clever. More than that, it was devious. He was not sure how he felt about it yet.
“It wasn’t an accident that Melonie Sands was at Chinois the night you went there, either,” Max said.
“Oh, come on. She couldn’t have planned that.”
Max laughed. “We knew she had a problem with drugs and booze. Knew what her testimony was gonna be. Potentially damaging stuff, whether it’s true or not. If she got on the stand and the jury bought her testimony, that could hurt. She was pretty sweet on your dad, y’know. Really fell for him. Rona knew she was gonna be at Chinois that night. There was no way to know exactly how she’d react to seeing you, ’course, but she had a pretty consistent record for making scenes and behaving violently. Rona hoped for the best.”
“The best?”
“Sure enough, she went for the bait.”
“Jesus Christ! What if she’d had a real knife? That crazy bitch could’ve killed me!”
Another laugh from Max. “Her security boys were there. They weren’t gonna let nothin’ serious happen to you. Just enough to make Melonie Sands look crazier’n a wet sack of ferrets. And it made everybody feel bad for you. Worked out nice and fine, don’tcha think?”
Adam did not know whether to feel angry about being so manipulated, or grateful. “How did she know Melonie was going to be there?”
“Wolfgang happened to mention it.”
Adam nodded. “Does she plan to do any more of that during the trial?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Have to wait and see. But don’t worry about it. If she does, it’ll be for the best. We’re all just Rona’s puppets, Adam. Get used to it.”
FORTY-NINE
The trial moved along with the speed of an extraordinarily complicated dental procedure. Sometimes, when it became especially dull, it made Adam’s teeth ache. By the fourth week, he had a splitting headache at the end of each day.
Raymond Lazar called Wally Kirk to the stand. Wally looked uncomfortable, almost as if he were in pain. Lazar asked what kind of merchandise he sold in the Creature Features Book and Video Emporium in Hollywood. Asked if he knew Adam, how long he had been a customer. What kind of things he purchased, what kind of books and movies he favored.
Adam wondered what was going through the heads of the jurors as Wally answered the questions. Wondered what they thought of his fondness for horror movies and novels, of the titles Wally named. Herschell Gordon Lewis movies like Two Thousand Maniacs, Blood Feast, The Wizard of Gore, A Taste of Blood, The Gore-Gore Girls. Low-budget drive-in classics like The Microwave Massacre, Blood Bath, The Corpse Grinders, Maniac, The Toolbox Murders, and others. Movies Adam and Carter had watched repeatedly. They laughed at them, made fun of the garage-sale effects and atrocious acting. There was nothing funny about them now. The titles made Adam wince. They sounded much worse than they were, all of them. But how could the jurors possibly know that?
Once he had extracted from Wally a long list of damning movie and novel titles and a few plot summaries, Lazar returned to his seat. Horowitz went to the lectern.
“Mr. Kirk, if Adam wanted to purchase the comedies of the Marx Brothers, would he find them in your store?”
“No. I don’t carry any Marx Brothers movies.”
“What if he wanted to purchase a drama, or a musical? Would he be able to find either of those in your store?”
“No. I don’t carry any of those, either.”
“Why did Adam purchase only horror films and novels from your store?”
“They’re the only kind of films and novels I carry. Horror and science fiction.”
“Then it’s not at all unusual that Adam purchased only horror films and novels from you?”
“Not at all.”
“Tell me, Mr. Kirk, how many customers come through your store each week?”
“Oh, jeez. I couldn’t tell you exactly.”
“It doesn’t have to be an exact number, just a ballpark figure.”
Wally Kirk tilted his head back, pursed his lips. “I’d say between two and three hundred. More if an author comes in for a signing or a reading.”
“Are all of your customers in their early twenties, like Adam Julian?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Most of my customers are middle-aged or older.”
“What kind of people are they?”
“How do you mean?”
“Do they come from different backgrounds? Different professions? Incomes?”
“Oh, yes. They make up a pretty broad cross section. Everything from the unemployed to doctors and lawyers.” He chuckled. “One of my regular customers is a judge.”
There were a few quiet, cautious titters from the spectators.
“Don’t look at me,” Judge Lester said with a smirk. “I don’t like the scary stuff.”
Horowitz asked, “Do you have customers who regularly make bigger purchases in your store than Adam Julian?”
“Quite a few. They’ll drop a couple thousand dollars or more a visit. I got some big spenders, but I’ve never considered Adam to be one of them.”
“As far as you know, Mr. Kirk, are any of your customers murderers?”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“Have any of your customers committed murder?”
“Well...no. Not that I know of.”
“Are they antisocial? Violent? Psychotic?”
“Objection!” Lazar stood. “Mr. Kirk is not a psychiatrist.”
“Sustained.”
“I will rephrase my question. Are your customers normal people, so to speak? Average people?”
“Oh, yes.”
“They are productive citizens?”
“Yes.”
“They have families?”
“Many of them, yes.”
“Children?”
“Yes. Some of them shop for their kids in my store. Sometimes they bring them along.”
“What attracts them to the books and films you sell?”
Wally shrugged. “They like their entertainment to be a little more imaginative and exotic than the mainstream. That’s all.”
“What about you, Mr. Kirk? What interest do you have in the things you sell?”
“Me? Oh, I’ve been a fan of horror and science fiction since I was—well, as far back as I can remember.”
“Even as a child?”
“Oh, yeah. I never missed a monster movie at the Cascade Theater in the town where I grew up. Watched them on TV. Learned to read on horror and science fiction stories.”
“Are you a violent man, Mr. Kirk?”
Lazar stood. “Objection, relevance.”
“Overruled,” Judge Lester said.
Wally shook his head. “No, can’t say that I am.”
“Have you ever physically harmed anyone?”
He paused a moment, shrugged. “Only when Uncle Sam told me to.”
“You are a veteran?”
“Yep. Vietnam. Left my legs there.”
“Outside of your time spent in Vietnam, have you ever physically harmed anyone?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been arrested?”
“Once.”
“What was that for?”
“Protesting the war after I got home from it.”
“Did you enjoy the war, Mr. Kirk?”
Lazar stood. “Again, Your Honor, what is the relevance of this line of questioning?”
Horowitz turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I am trying to determine the effect horror films and literature have had on Mr. Kirk’s life.”
“Mr. Kirk is not on trial,” Lazar said.
To Lazar, Horowitz said, “No, but you are suggesting the person who is on trial was influenced to commit murder by horror films and literature, and I am simply following up on that.”
“Objection overruled,” Judge Lester said.
Looking at Wally, Horowitz asked again, “Did you enjoy the war, Mr. Kirk?”
; The usual twinkle left Wally’s eyes. “No. I did not.”
“Did you see a lot of violence and bloodshed in Vietnam?”
“Oh, yeah. A lot.”
“Aren’t violence and bloodshed staples of the horror genre?”
“Yes. Well, not always. But usually.”
“And you love the horror genre, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You love the horror genre, which is, by its very nature, bloody, gory, filled with killing. But when given the opportunity to do those things you so love to watch in movies and read about in novels...you did not enjoy it?”
“No, I did not.”
“Why is that?”
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Those books and movies...they’re fantasy. I read those books and watch those movies for entertainment, because I like a good scare, I like the weird stuff, that’s just how I am. They’re like...I don’t know, an imagination massage. Vietnam was real. It was bloody and scary, but there was nothing entertaining about it. I killed people there because I had to. But I didn’t enjoy it. No more than I enjoyed watching people die all around me.”
“So you recognize a distinct difference between the fantasy of horror movies and the reality of war, of life.”
He chuckled coldly. “Of course I do.”
“What about your customers? Do they recognize that difference?”
“Of course they do.”
“Including Adam Julian?”
“Objection,” Lazar said, standing. “Mr. Kirk is not a psychiatric—”
“I’ll allow it,” Judge Lester said.
“Yes, including Adam,” Wally said, turning to Adam at the defense table. “He’s a smart kid. So was Carter. Both good guys. One of the things Adam likes so much is the special effects in the movies, so he has to know the difference. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know they were special effects.”
“So, to the best of your knowledge, Mr. Kirk, neither you nor your customers have been adversely affected by regular exposure to the merchandise you sell?”
“No, of course not.”
“No further questions.”
* * *
Lazar brought in his first expert witness next. Dr. Barton Goodman, a psychiatrist who specialized in the effect of the media on children. According to Dr. Goodman, constant exposure to the kind of movies and books Adam loved so much could conceivably blur the line between fantasy and reality, as well as the one between right and wrong.
When Horowitz took her turn at the doctor, she made sure the jury knew he had never spoken with Adam, nor did he know Adam personally. She asked if he had ever treated anyone who had been so transformed by violence in movies and television. He said he had not. She asked if he had ever met anyone who had been so transformed by violence in movies and television. He said he had not. She asked if there was any fact—any hard, cold, solid fact—in the things he had told Mr. Lazar. Dr. Goodman stammered and stuttered and glanced a few times at the deputy district attorney. Finally, he admitted there was no fact in it, no. Horowitz asked what it was, if not fact. With the same reluctance he had exhibited in answering the previous question, he said it was theory.
“Nothing more than theory,” Horowitz said quietly before returning to her seat.
* * *
The next witness, Albert Haas, was an explosives expert. A burly, balding man in his fifties, Haas was quite proud of his work in movies and television. He beamed as he told Lazar he had supervised the pyrotechnics on twenty-three features and over a dozen television series.
Haas had examined—“With great care,” he assured the jury—photographs of Money Shot taken by Michael Julian and photographs of the remains of Money Shot taken by a Coast Guard photographer at the scene of the explosion. He used what he had learned to create a computer animation approximating the explosion. The animation had been transferred to videotape. A television was wheeled in on a cart, and the animated explosion was played for the jury.
“The red dots indicate the placement of the explosives,” Haas said as it was played again.
“Drawing from your thirty-eight years of experience with and study of explosives, Mr. Haas,” Lazar said, “what kind of explosive do you believe was used to blow up Money Shot?”
“My educated guess would be C-4,” Haas said.
“And why is that?”
“Any other kind of explosive,” Haas said, “in the amount that would be needed to do this kind of damage, would be difficult to hide. It probably would have been plainly visible to someone—probably everyone—on board. On the other hand, C-4 is easy to conceal and you don’t need as much.”
Horowitz took her notes to the lectern when Lazar was finished.
“Mr. Haas, are the red dots in your computer animation the exact—the precise—locations of the explosives on the yacht?”
“Well, they aren’t precise, no,” Haas said. “But the reconstruction of the explosion and placement of the explosives is as precise as I could make it using the material we have.”
“So you are not one hundred percent certain that the explosives were in those exact places, correct?”
“Not a hundred percent, no. But I can say that—”
“They could have been, say...in the front of the yacht?”
“Well, they could have been, but it’s not—”
“Yes or no will do, Mr. Haas. So they could have been anywhere on the boat, correct?”
“Well, not if they—er, um...yes.”
“But you are one hundred percent certain that explosives were planted on the yacht and were the cause of the explosion?”
Haas tilted his head to one side as slices of concern slowly cut across his forehead. “That is the assumption I was working under, yes.”
Horowitz’s back straightened and surprise widened her eyes. “What? I’m sorry, did you say...assumption?”
An expression crossed Haas’s face. It was the kind of expression that might cross a man’s face just before he checks the soles of his shoes to see if that unpleasant odor was coming from something he had stepped in. He looked at Lazar uncertainly for a moment.
“Mr. Haas?” Horowitz prodded. “Is that what you said? That you were working under the assumption that there were explosives on Money Shot?”
“Well...yes.”
“So you do not know for sure if the explosives were even there, correct?”
“Yachts don’t just explode for no reason, there had to be—”
“Answer my question, Mr. Haas, yes or no.”
He closed his eyes a moment, sighed. “Yes. But there’s more to it than—”
“Mr. Haas, is it possible that the explosion that killed the six people on that yacht was not intentional at all? That it was an accident?”
Lazar again: “Objection, Your Honor, Mr. Haas is an explosives expert, he is not a psychic.”
“I’d like to hear his answer. Go ahead, Mr. Haas.”
He licked his lips. “Look, anything is possible, okay? But based on the evidence, it’s my opinion that—”
“You are not answering my question, Mr. Haas. You have told us your opinion. I would like to know if it is possible that the explosion was accidental. Yes or no.”
“Yes. It’s possible.”
“I have no further—”
“But not likely!” Haas said. “Given the trajectory of the—”
“That’s all, Mr. Haas,” Judge Lester said firmly.
Horowitz smiled. “Thank you, Your Honor.” Then returned to the table.
* * *
As the days turned into weeks and the first month gave way to the second, Adam began to worry again. It all seemed too easy. Watching Horowitz work in the courtroom was like watching someone engaged in a leisurely round of skeet shooting. Raymond Lazar saying, “No further questions,” was the equivalent of shouting, “Pull!” as Horowitz stepped in front of the lectern, quickly lifted her rifle, and blew the clay pigeon into scattering pieces.
Adam wondered if it was killi
ng the suspense for the television viewers. Most of all, he wondered when it would turn. Things seemed to be going too well not to turn around and head in the opposite direction. He shared his concern with Horowitz one evening in the car.
“It looks that way to you,” she said, “because you know the truth. All of this happened to you, not to the judge or the jury or anyone else. Right now, it looks to you like everything is working in your favor. But your perception is distorted. The biggest mistake you could possibly make now would be to get overly confident. Do not think things are going well. Anything can happen. At any time. And when it is all over, there is still the jury to consider.”
“I thought you and the blonde had the jury stacked with people on our side,” Adam said.
“We did the best we could with what we had, which is all anyone can do. I guarantee you the prosecution felt the same way when jury selection was over. But ultimately, a jury is unreadable. Unpredictable. In the end, they could put you away for life. There is no way to know for certain one way or the other until the trial is over.”
“Then...why did you bother with the blonde?”
“I think it would be irresponsible of me to fail to take advantage of every resource at my disposal on your behalf. Agreed? And that blonde—”
“Yeah, I know, I know. She’s the best in the country.”
“That blonde, as you call her, has been watching the jury from day one, and her read is that they like you.”
“You just said juries are unreadable.”
“They are. All of them. But her record is very good.”
“Very good compared to what?”
“Compared to everyone else in the field of jury consultation, of course.”
“Which is a pretty useless field if juries are unreadable.”
“As I have told you so many times before, Adam, do not concern yourself with it. Everything is in hand.”
“Yeah. That’s what George Michael said to the cop just before he got arrested in the men’s room.”
As exhausting as the trial was, Adam tried to stay up as late as he could at night to spend time with Alyssa. His building had an indoor pool, and when Adam’s muscles felt achy from sitting for long periods in the courtroom, they went swimming in the middle of the night. But usually, they watched TV or a movie and had a lot of sex.