Читать книгу Sidney Sheldon’s The Tides of Memory - Сидни Шелдон, Sidney Sheldon - Страница 13

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 bring him back. And now the unedifying spectacle of a murder trial that should never have made it to court was about to come to an end. It was obvious which way the coin would fall.

“Have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, your honor.”

RUTH HANDEMEYER SQUEEZED HER DAUGHTER’S HAND. She was so tense she was barely breathing. Beside her she could feel her husband’s anger and hatred coiled inside him like a spring. She had no idea how to defuse it, or what to say to comfort him. Since Nicko’s death, they’d become strangers, separated by an ocean of grief.

The teenage girl squeezed back.

“Whatever happens, Mommy, we’ll always love him.”

Ruth Handemeyer stifled a sob.

JEFF HAMLIN LOOKED TO HIS RIGHT. Leslie Lose gave him an encouraging smile.

It’s going to be okay, Jeff told himself for the hundredth time. He blamed himself for sending Billy to Camp Williams in the first place. How foolish he’d been, thinking his son would be able to make connections there to better himself! When the chips were down, the rich, educated classes stuck together. Old Mrs. Kramer, the Gilletti girl’s family, even the Handemeyers, were all birds of a feather, looking for a sacrificial lamb to atone for a child’s death. And who better than a carpenter’s son?

Billy’s in that dock because he’s not one of them.

FROM THE DOCK, BILLY HAMLIN LOOKED at Toni Gilletti with eyes full of love.

Tonight he would be a free man.

Tonight it would all begin.

TONI’S STOMACH WAS CHURNING. SHE FELT guilty thinking it, after everything Billy had done for her, but the way he looked at her was starting to creep her out.

I have to talk to him right away. I can’t let him leave here thinking we have a future together.

Whatever Toni Gilletti had once found attractive and exciting about Billy Hamlin had died along with poor Nicholas Handemeyer. From now on Toni would always associate Billy with that day. With terror and anguish. With tragedy and regret. With blood and with water. With death.

There could be no going back.

JUDGE DEVON WILLIAMS’S POWERFUL BARITONE CUT through the tension in the room like a power drill.

“And on the charge of second-degree murder, how do you find the defendant?”

Billy Hamlin closed his eyes. It was over at last.

“Guilty.”