Of course it isn’t true!
“Billy may have resented Nicholas.”
“Indeed he may have! In William Hamlin’s paranoid, drug-warped mind, Nicholas Handemeyer wasn’t an innocent, seven-year-old child at all, was he? He was a threat. Just like you.”
“Maybe.” Charles shook his head, as if willing it not to be so.
“A threat that needed to be disposed of. Neutralized. Annihilated.”
“I hope not.” Charles shuddered, as if the idea had never occurred to him. “Good God, I hope not.”
Bastard! Toni thought. Billy would never have hurt Nicholas and Charles knows it. He’s just trying to get back at Billy for coming on to me.
“Billy’s a good guy.” Charles twisted the knife. “But he was out of his depth at Camp Williams.”
“In what way?”
“In every way. Socially, economically, educationally. The truth is, I felt sorry for him. We all did. He couldn’t stand the fact that Toni chose me over him.”
This was too much for Billy.
“Liar!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. His face was red with anger and the veins on his forehead and neck protruded as if they were about to explode. “Toni loves me, and I love her!”
The jury was not impressed. Billy looked like a madman, his hair a mess, arms gesticulating wildly, the flames of his obsession with Toni burning in his eyes. Toni felt like crying. Charles had provoked him, and Billy had fallen right into his trap. Worse, his lawyer had fallen with him.
“And that’s without drugs in his system,” the prosecutor said, sotto voce, accurately voicing the jurors’ thoughts. “Thank you, Mr. Braemar Murphy. No further questions.”
THE NEXT TWO DAYS WERE ABOUT damage control.
Leslie Lose wheeled out various witnesses from Billy’s former life to attest to his good character: teachers, coaches, neighbors. The consensus was that the Billy Hamlin they knew would not knowingly have hurt a fly.
Jeff Hamlin pleaded to be allowed to take the stand, but Leslie Lose wouldn’t allow it.
“You’re too emotional. It won’t help.”
“Then let Billy speak for himself. He needs a chance to show people what he’s really like.”
That had been the original plan—for Billy to be his own secret weapon, for his affable charm and natural humility to change hearts and minds. But after Charles Braemar Murphy’s evidence, that ship hadn’t so much sailed as sunk without trace.
“The less Billy says the better,” said Leslie. “From now on we focus on facts.”
The facts were still in Billy’s favor.
Had Billy Hamlin been negligent in taking his eye off a seven-year-old boy at the beach? Yes, he had.
Was he wrong to have used drugs and alcohol while working as a camp counselor responsible for young children?
Of course he was.
But had William Hamlin murdered Nicholas Handemeyer? Had he willfully caused the boy’s death? Notwithstanding his disastrous outburst of jealous rage earlier, there was no proof that he had. There wasn’t even any compelling evidence to suggest it.
Leslie Lose finished his summing-up with the words:
“Billy Hamlin isn’t a murderer. Nor is he a monster. He’s a normal teenage boy and a loving son. Let’s not allow one family’s tragedy to become two.”
As he sat down, the lawyer was aware of Senator Handemeyer staring at him. His skin prickled uncomfortably beneath his wool suit.
He prayed it was enough.
THE COURT ADJOURNED FOR THE NIGHT. Walter Gilletti spoke to his attorney outside the courtroom.
“What do you think?”
“Acquittal. No question. He didn’t help himself with his outburst, but the prosecution hasn’t proved a thing.”
Listening in from a few feet away, Toni exhaled with relief. Her father’s attorney was the best money could buy. Billy would be a free man by tomorrow. Of course, once he got out she’d have to talk to him about this marriage nonsense. Toni was fond of Billy and she owed him a lot, but matrimony was distinctly not on her agenda. Still, these would be good problems to have.
Her father was still talking.
“Good.” Walter Gilletti’s voice reverberated with authority. “If it’s a done deal then I’d like to leave tonight. The sooner we’re out of this circus the better.”
“I can’t leave, Daddy,” Toni blurted. “I have to stay for the verdict. Billy needs me here.”
Walter Gilletti turned on his daughter like a snake about to strike. “I don’t give a damn what Billy Hamlin needs. We go when I say we go,” he snarled.
IN THE END, THE GILLETTIS STAYED another night in Alfred.
On balance, Walter Gilletti decided it might look bad for business if they didn’t.
SUPERIOR-COURT JUSTICE DEVON WILLIAMS TOOK HIS seat, surveying the sea of faces in front of him. A big man in his early seventies with a neatly clipped white beard and a snowy ring of hair around the tonsurelike bald spot on the crown of his head, Judge Williams had presided over many difficult cases. Thefts. Assaults. Arson. Murders. But few were as harrowing as this one. Or, in the end, as futile.
Nicholas Handemeyer’s death was a tragedy. But it was plain to Judge Williams that no murder had been committed. Here, clearly, was an example of a case where public hysteria and outrage, fueled by one family’s private grief, had gotten the better of common sense. Senator Handemeyer wanted heads to roll—the Hamlin boy’s head in particular—and truth be damned. Once the emotion was stripped away, however, what mattered in this case—in every case—was the law. And the law was clear: if Billy Hamlin was guilty of murder, Judge Devon Williams was a monkey’s uncle.
Of course, the law could not be taken in the abstract. It must be interpreted by the twelve men and women of the jury. Judge Williams watched them now as they filed back into court two. Ordinary men and women: ten white, two black, mostly middle-aged, mostly overweight, a snapshot of the great American public. And yet today these ordinary people bore an extraordinary responsibility.
Normally Judge Williams enjoyed the challenge of predicting a jury’s verdict. How would this juror respond to that witness, or that piece of evidence. Who would react emotionally and who rationally. Whose prejudices or personality would carry the day. But as he called on the foreman to address the court, he felt none of the usual excitement or tension, only sadness.
A little boy had died. Nothing could
