They all needed sleep. And yet Ben could not make himself call it a day. Or a night, he supposed, since it was well after dark. The normal human diurnal cycles had little meaning during a trial. All the usual daily habits and procedures became meaningless. There was only the trial, omnipresent and all-absorbing. And a client who desperately needed him to succeed.
He stared out the window of their seventh-floor conference room at the slumbering city. Tulsa was lovely at night. He liked it during the day, too, but the day gave you not only the rolling hills and long lines of trees but also refineries and dirt and far too much pavement. At night all that faded away. The lights winked at you. The traffic moved slowly, oozing down Yale like neon gas in a very long tube.
A dramatic contrast to the turmoil roiling in his brain. No amount of visual tranquility was going to calm that, much as he might wish it would.
“We have to make a decision,” Christina said, trying once again to drag them back on topic. “Preferably before we all pass out from exhaustion.”
“We may have to spend the night at the office,” Ben remarked.
“I am not wearing this skirt to court again tomorrow.”
“I doubt anyone would notice.”
“I would notice.” She paused. “And you should notice.” She flipped a pencil into the air. “I hate trials.”
Dennis looked back at her with the same sad eyes he’d had all day. “Then why do you do it?”
“Because we’re making a difference,” Ben answered.
“Because we’re making a living,” Christina answered.
Dennis almost smiled. “And you two live together?”
Christina nodded. “We thrive on conflict.”
“That explains a great deal.”
Ben returned to the conference table. He looked at Dennis squarely. “Here’s the main problem with putting you on the witness stand. It’s not that I don’t think you can handle yourself. I’m sure you can, probably better than most. But Guillerman is very good. He will score points at your expense. And there will be nothing I can do to stop him.”
“I get that,” Dennis said earnestly. “But surely the potential benefits outweigh the harms.”
“Honestly, that’s something we can never gauge until it’s all over. But this is something I know for certain. He’ll ask you what happened in that hotel room. So far as we know, you’re the only person alive who can tell him.”
“I don’t remember.”
“And that answer is not one that will please the jury.”
“But it’s true!”
“I know, Dennis. But the jury really wants to know who pulled that trigger. Do you blame them? I can’t answer that question for them. I can’t even put anyone else in the room other than Sentz himself. And I don’t have anything to support that suicide theory.”
“It’s grounds for doubt,” Dennis said.
“Yes, but is it reasonable doubt? I don’t know. I can’t show that he was suicidal, because no one I’ve talked to thinks he was. And I can’t produce a motive for anyone else to kill him, even if they were in the room.”
“What about Loving’s investigation?”
“I haven’t heard from him lately. Last I heard he had a lead at the hospital where your wife worked.”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. Mike is all tied up, too. Neither of them is going to help us, at least not before tomorrow morning. I have to either call a witness or rest my case. And I don’t like either possibility.”
Christina slid in beside Dennis. “Don’t you remember anything about what happened at the hotel?”
He thought for a moment. “I remember driving to the Marriott. I remember going inside, riding up the elevator. I even vaguely remember him letting me in. I think we talked about… something. And then-it’s all a blank.”
Ben gave Christina a searching look. This just wasn’t good enough. The chances were too great that the jury would think he was hiding something.
“But what happens if I don’t testify?” Dennis asked. “That DA told everyone that I have this raging temper, like the Incredible Hulk of English professors.”
“The jury will make their decision based on their own observations.”
“But if I don’t take the stand, they don’t have much to observe.”
Ben sighed. Dennis was right, of course.
“I want to set the record straight. Yes, of course Joslyn and I had problems occasionally. Who doesn’t? But I loved her dearly. And I wasn’t on any anti-cop rampage, either.”
“I don’t think anybody bought that shot in the dark,” Christina said, “and I was watching the jury closely.”
“Thank goodness.”
“But they might think it predisposed you to anger, given what happened later.”
“That’s not good.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Dennis drew himself up. “Ben. Christina. Put me on the stand. Let them see me. They’ll realize I’m not violent, not an anger management case.”
“I don’t even know if that would be a good thing!” Ben said, exasperated. “Our whole case depends on them thinking you were temporarily insane. If you come across too normal, we lose.”
“But it was just the extreme circumstances of the moment, right? It passed.”
“Yeah, that’s the argument. But the jury is going to be leery of that now that our witness has explained that temporary insanity is just a device to allow jurors to show mercy to sympathetic defendants. They don’t want to be accused of doing anything inappropriate. Guillerman will hammer them in his closing, reminding them of their oaths and insisting that they apply the law.”
“Let him do his worst,” Dennis said defiantly. “He still can’t prove I pulled the trigger. And I don’t believe the jury will convict me if they like me and sympathize with me. I don’t care what Guillerman says.”
“I wish I shared your certainty,” Ben said. “But I don’t.”
“What do you think, Christina?”
She contemplated a long time before responding. “I think the jurors do sympathize with you, Dennis. And they always will. But most also think you killed a police officer, and they will be concerned that showing any kind of leniency, regardless of your circumstances, sends the wrong message.”
“So you think they’ll convict me?”
She laid her head on the table. “I think that ultimately juries are unfathomable, and none of us will know what the jurors are thinking until the foreman tells us.”
Dennis fell back in his chair. “So this is why you guys get the big bucks?”
Christina rolled her eyes. “Show me the big bucks. I’ve been waiting a long time. Instead, Ben keeps bringing home stray cats.”
“What?”
She averted her eyes. “Never mind.”
“Look,” Dennis said, “I researched this whole trial six ways to Sunday. But even I can’t pretend I know the answer to this question. I know this: I do not want to spend the rest of my life in prison. And I don’t want to be executed.”
Ben shrugged. “I know that, but-”
Dennis held up a hand to cut him off. “I just don’t see any way I get out of this unless the jury likes me. I mean really genuinely sympathizes with me. And I don’t think that can happen unless I take the stand.”
Ben pressed his palms against his brow. “I hate to say it-because this is so fraught with risk-but I think you’re right.”
“So you’re putting me on the stand?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“Do you want me to cry?”
“No!” Ben shouted, too loudly. “I want no showmanship. No histrionics.”
“I can do it.”
“I know you can. But juries are smarter than you think. And as I said before, if they detect any falseness in you-”
“I’m history.”
“Exactly. So I will put you on the stand, and you will tell them what happened. How hard you tried to find your wife. How hard you tried to get the police to help. And you can tell them as much as you remember about what happened the day Sentz died. But that’s it. No irrelevant digressions. No big emotional plays. No Helen Hayes moments.”
“Okay. Got it.”
“Christina, I want you to watch the jury every second. If you think they’re hearing something they don’t like, you signal me immediately.”
“Got it.”
“Send me a note. Tell the judge there’s an emergency. Whatever. Better that we stop and regroup than go on with something the jury doesn’t like or believe.”
“You got it, tiger.”
“This is a very dodgy business we’re undertaking. We have to be careful.”
“Understood. We’re skiing the black diamonds.”
“But I still have one question,” Dennis said. “What do I do during cross? That man will try to rip me to shreds.”
“Answer every question directly and succinctly. Don’t say any more than you have to say to be responsive. At the same time, don’t let him walk all over you. He will try to suggest that this was a premeditated murder and that you concocted the insanity plea to get yourself off. Don’t let him get away with it.”
“I-I’ll do my best.”
“Good.” Ben felt so weary he wasn’t sure he could make it to the parking lot. “Let’s all go home and get a little rest. Because tomorrow is the day when we determine how this thing ends.”
Tomorrow is the day, Ben thought but did not say, when we determine how Dennis lives the rest of his life. Or whether he lives at all.