by D. W. Buffa
He tried to shrug it off, to dismiss by the admission of a minor difference the importance of what I asked.
“He was in a secure facility; he was not in open court.”
“He was not free to leave; though, come to think of it, neither are you. But I think we all understand what you mean. He had just killed the president. He was your prisoner.”
“He was a prisoner.”
I looked straight at him, then lowered my eyes to a spot on the floor and nodded as if this had settled the issue and it was time to move to another line of inquiry.
“And as a prisoner, he had the right to be treated the way we treat anyone arrested for a crime—whatever that crime might be. Is that correct, Mr. Youngblood? Isn’t that the law?”
Youngblood became solemn, subdued, searching my eyes to see how far I was willing to go, to see whether I thought he would really tell the truth.
“There was nothing wrong with the way he was treated.”
My eyes shot wide with wonder and then, shaking my head, I walked to the counsel table and stood behind Fitzgerald, sitting in his chair closest to the jury box.
“These questions you thought so important, so vital, to get answered—what were they about?”
Youngblood knew where I was going, but I was almost certain St. John did not. Youngblood was on his own, with no time to think. He acted on instinct, the way he had been trained.
“The president had just been murdered. A United States senator had killed him. The first question, the only question, was who else was involved? If there was one who wanted him dead, there might have been others. And if they had murdered the president, who were they planning to murder next? We had no idea what we were dealing with. If there was a conspiracy, if Fitzgerald had not acted alone, were they going to stop with the president? What about the vice-president? Would they murder the president just to let the vice-president take over? The first thing I did, after I was told about the murder, before I ever reached the plane, was to direct that the vice-president, the Speaker, everyone in the line of succession, be taken to the secure places that had been set up for use in the case of a terrorist attack on the White House or the Capitol.”
“You thought it might be an attack, not just on the president, but the whole leadership of the government?”
“Yes, exactly; that’s why—”
“Why you did what you did: asked Senator Fitzgerald to tell you what he knew. We understand. And what did he tell you? Did he tell you he was part of a conspiracy?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Did he tell you that there had been anyone else involved, that someone else might have helped him in some way?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you that he had discussed what he was going to do with anyone else, come to them for counsel or advice?”
“No, he said he had never even mentioned the possibility to another person.”
Smiling, I looked over at the jury, and then turned for just a moment to the courtroom crowd.
“Not even when he told the Senate of the United States that the presidency of Walter Bridges was a threat to the country, a remark which, for some reason, Jenny Ann Carruthers insisted was a threat on the president’s life? Never mind,” I said, turning back to the witness. “You don’t have to answer that.”
I had caught a glimpse of a now familiar face sitting in the very last row, and with that glimpse proved myself a liar as I tried without complete success to banish from my conscious mind the thought of her.
“Did he tell you anything that suggested, in any way, the involvement of other people?” I asked with the vanishing remnant of a smile that only made sense to me.
“No, nothing.”
“He told you, in other words, that he had acted alone, didn’t he?”
“That’s what he said.”
“But that wouldn’t have been the end of it, would it? There were other things you wanted to know. You knew he had killed Walter Bridges. He told you no one else was involved. You must have asked him why he did it, what reason could have led him to such a drastic act. He’s a United States senator, his career—his life—all in front of him. What did he tell you when you asked him why he had given all that up to murder Walter Bridges?”
Genuinely puzzled, Youngblood furrowed his brow and slowly shook his head.
“He never really answered that question. He said he did not have a choice. He kept repeating that. He did not have a choice, because he had to stop Bridges from doing what he was about to do, that there was not time to stop him any other way.”
“Did he strike you as in any way demented, delusional, irrational, out of control, someone who did not know what he doing or what he was saying?”
“No, not at all. He was as calm, as collected, as anyone. It surprised me a little.”
“Surprised you?”
“I would have expected more emotion—anger, rage, contrition, sorrow—something by way of reaction to what he had done. The impression I got instead was of someone intensely interested—that’s the only way I can describe it—intensely interested in everything that was going on, as if he wanted to make sure he would remember it all later, every detail, every word. It was as if he was making mental notes, the way someone does when they are planning, first chance they have, to make a written record of everything they had observed.”
I did not doubt he was right. Fitzgerald was playing for the highest stakes imaginable, perhaps the highest stakes any American had ever played for. He had killed a president to become a national savior, killed the president to become the president and maybe even something more than that: the new founder of a new republic. Why would he not be thinking of how to chronicle the importance of his own, historic achievement. Kill the king and wear the crown, or be drawn and quartered for your trouble.
“He answered all the questions you asked, all the questions you asked during those three days in close confinement?”
“He answered what he was asked.”
“He confessed to his crime?”
“He did.”
“That written confession you read into evidence?”
“Yes.”
“And he didn’t say anything, nothing that was written in that confession, about the reasons why he did it? Even though, as you just testified, he kept telling you that he had to do it, that it was the only way to save the country?”
“He didn’t include it in his written statement.”
“Or you didn’t include it when you had that statement typed up.”
“Are you saying that—”
“The reasons weren’t that important, were they?” I asked, my voice harsh, demanding, insistent. “What was important was finding out, as quickly as possible, whether anyone else was involved, if there was a conspiracy, if other people were at risk. Isn’t that what you told us just a few moments ago, that you had to take him into custody, had to take him to a place where no one could interrupt what you were doing? Isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, there wasn’t any choice. We had to—”
“Had to find out, whatever you had to do. You asked him questions, he answered them, correct?”
“Yes, he answered them.”
“And you believed him, believed he was telling the truth when he said he had acted alone, that no one else was involved.”
“Yes, I believed him, believed he had acted alone.”
I cocked my head, and with a broad, knowing smile told him he was a liar.
“No, you didn’t; you didn’t believe him at all—not at first. It was only after you had tortured him, over and over again, and he kept telling you the same thing, that what he did, he did alone, that you finally decided he was telling the truth. Isn’t that right, Mr. Youngblood? You tortured him, because it was the only way you could be sure that someone else the Secret Service was sworn to protect did not get murdered as well!”
“That isn’t true!” he cried, sitting bolt upright. “That’s a damn lie!”
/> “Is it?” I asked as I quickly moved across to the clerk’s table and picked up an exhibit of my own. “This photograph was taken by someone from quite a distance away, but perhaps you can identify the man being led by two other men to a plane, the plane in which you had just landed.”
I handed him the photograph. he glanced at it and handed it right back.
“The defendant, Kevin Fitzgerald.”
“Are you sure? Do you want to look again? You can’t really see his face in this picture. He’s wearing a black bag over his head.”
“He had just murdered the president! Did you think we were just going to walk him to the plane?”
“No, but I would have thought, as willing as he was to talk about what he had done, and the reasons why he had done it, that you might not have subjected him to sleep deprivation in a windowless cement cell in which there was no furniture of any kind, and with lights so bright that even with your eyes shut tight it was never dark.”
Youngblood denied it.
“That isn’t where he was kept. He had a bed, he was allowed to sleep.”
“And after he told you what he knew, gave you answers to your questions, told you no one else was involved, you had his head covered again, didn’t you?”
He just looked at me. It was his word against the word of a confessed assassin.
“You had to know if he was telling the truth, so you used that technique that serves a double purpose: it gives you the information you want, and it doesn’t leave behind any evidence of what you did. Kevin Fitzgerald was waterboarded, wasn’t he—over and over again, and always the same question: was anyone else involved, was he part of a conspiracy. And each time, over and over again, the same answer, screamed so often that, finally, you believed him. Isn’t that right, Mr. Youngblood; isn’t that exactly what you did: tortured Kevin Fitzgerald until he almost died? What would you have done then, dropped him in the ocean from your plane and called it accidental death by drowning? That’s all, Mr. Youngblood, your time as a witness is over. Your time as a fit subject for investigation is, I hope, only beginning!”
EVERY DAY, FROM the moment the doors to the courtroom opened until Evelyn Patterson ended the proceedings with a caution to the jury not to discuss the case with anyone, Tricia Fitzgerald sat in the first row, directly behind her husband. It was a lawyer’s trick, by now become a habit, to put there the wife, the husband, the mother, the child, anyone who proved by their presence that the defendant was not entirely without redeemable qualities. She played her part as well as anyone ever had. She never wore the same thing twice, but always came dressed in conventional, conservative clothing. Her hair, her makeup, everything was done to give an impression of middle-class normality. She was, she seemed to say with every careful breath she took, just like everyone else. Or rather, what everyone else placed in her unenviable position would like to be: a woman loyal to a fault, who, whatever her husband might have done, would never think of anything but how she could make easier whatever road he might now have to travel. She was a charming, accomplished fraud.
“That photograph. We want it.”
She was sitting on the other side of my desk. There was a brittle edge to her voice.
“What photograph? What are you talking about?”
It was nearly six o’clock. I had been in trial all day, and had barely had time to loosen my tie when she walked in.
“The one you introduced into evidence, the one where Kevin is being led away by those two thugs, the one with his head covered in that black hood. That photograph!”
She said this as if it were somehow my fault that her husband had been treated like someone who had just assassinated the president.
“It’s in evidence. It doesn’t belong to you.”
“You must have copies.”
“It’s in evidence. It will stay in the court file.”
“We’re going to need it!” she persisted. “After the trial is over, after Kevin is acquitted. We need it to show how far these people were willing to go, what Kevin was fighting against.”
I was too tired to put up with this, too tired of her constant intrusion into what I was trying to do, the endless questioning, the endless complaints.
“What he was fighting against? You think what Youngblood did was bad? You think your husband was mistreated? If I had been in Youngblood’s shoes, I would have done exactly the same thing he did.”
She did not believe me. It was obvious that, for whatever reason, I was lying. She was certain of it.
“You spent all day destroying him, you took him apart. There isn’t anyone who believes he was telling the truth after what you did to him on cross-examination. Everyone knows what he did, how he had Kevin tortured!”
Leaning back, I searched for wisdom in the ceiling.
“Do you know how easy it is to change the meaning of things? Everything would have been different if he had not lied, if he had just admitted what he had done, that faced with the possibility that others might be targets, he had to do whatever was necessary to find out. And if that meant waterboarding, it’s a small enough price to pay. I would have done exactly what Youngblood did, and so would your husband.”
I kept watching her, wondering when there would be some change in that impassive face she wore like a shield to her emotions; I wondered if she had any real feeling at all. It was all too analytical, the way she listened, waiting to respond. Her eyes never moved.
“You’re wrong; Kevin would never have done anything like what they did to him.”
It was almost predictable—maddening, but predictable—how she could ignore whatever might contradict her interpretation of events. Her husband would never countenance torture for the same reason Youngblood had lied about it. Among civilized people that sort of thing was never done. I was not in a mood to indulge her sensibilities.
“Youngblood, though he won’t admit it, did what he thought was necessary to save the government, the duly elected government, of the country. But you think it wrong?”
“Torture,” she replied, with complete moral certainty, “is never right.”
“If necessity is never an excuse for torture, it’s a good thing you’re not on your husband’s jury.”
“Why? I don’t—”
“Necessity is no excuse for torture, but it is for murder? You see no inconsistency, no hypocrisy, in that?”
She thought she better teach me law.
“The law of necessity: kill someone because it is the only way to save others. The mountain climbers on a rope, remember? There aren’t any cases where torture is allowed.”
“There aren’t any cases where murder is allowed when necessity isn’t imminent.”
“But it was imminent, the threat to the country Kevin stopped.”
“Maybe, if Bridges had his finger on the nuclear trigger and Kevin had to stop him. Haven’t you wondered why he doesn’t really talk about what it was that was so awful, so terrible in its consequences, that he had to do what he did?” I searched her eyes for the answer to the question I had not been able to get Fitzgerald to address. “Every time I ask him, he says it will all come out when he testifies.”
“He’s probably just protecting both of us. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Kevin knows things. Bridges is dead, but his people—some of them testified in court—were involved, whatever he was doing. Kevin can’t tell anyone, not until he’s on the witness stand. Then the whole world will know.”
My eyes started for the ceiling again, but I was now too angry to search for reason.
“That’s what he says. But how exactly does that protect you or me? If they grab you off the streets, how are they supposed to know he never told you? After you’ve been tortured? He isn’t protecting you, and he isn’t protecting me. He’s protecting himself.”
She did not protest; she did not even disagree. She seemed puzzled, not by anything that had been said, but by her own failure to have grasped this simple fact. Her loyalty had betrayed her, made her accept at face
value what, as it turned out, was false coin. Her husband was holding something back from her. She was not as much interested in what it was than in why he might have done it. The look on her face asked the question for her. I was not much help.
“I told him at the beginning, I told you both, that I had to know everything, that I expected answers to any question I asked. But he won’t tell me anything about the reason why he did it, why he thought he had to do it, nothing beyond vague assurances that there was not any choice. Sometimes, I have to tell you, I almost think he isn’t sure himself, that he’s still trying to come up with an excuse, an explanation that he can use to argue what he did was a selfless act of a hero, a patriot. It makes my job almost impossible. He gets on the stand, tells his story, and then, hearing that story for the first time, I have to somehow come up with the kind of corroborating evidence that will convince the jury that he is telling the truth, and that it isn’t something he made up.”
“He isn’t making anything up. Whatever happened, whatever he found out, it’s the truth,” she insisted, a little too forcefully.
She was struggling to maintain the confidence of her belief that her husband would never lie to her. She felt even more compelled to prove that what he had done was on a level higher than what his enemies were capable of attaining.
“The law of necessity. Even if you were right and torture was in some circumstances the only choice, it was not the case here. They knew, or should have known, that Kevin acted alone. Remember what the first witness for the prosecution said: they only decided when they landed in San Francisco to invite Kevin aboard the plane. There could not be a conspiracy, because no one else could have known when Kevin would have any contact with Walter Bridges.”
Unless the conspirators had agreed in advance to act whenever they heard that the president had been killed. But there was no point in mentioning this to her. It was useless speculation about things that had not happened. Better to leave her what was left of the certainty of her belief that her husband had done nothing, not the part of ancient heroes, the men who had conquered kingdoms and brought new prosperity and glory to the lands they now ruled. Not every fairy tale was false.