Dying Declaration Page 8

  Confidently: “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it true, Officer Thrasher, that you were the one who threatened me? You told me to pack up and go home or I would be in a heap of trouble. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Objection.” Crawford jumped to her feet. “That’s argumentative.”

  “I’ll allow it,” Silverman said.

  Crawford shrugged and sat down.

  “No, that’s not true. It happened just like I said it did.” Thrasher sounded bored, but Charles noticed a slight tightening of the lips, a slight narrowing of the eyes.

  “In fact, sir, you arrested me because I was black and because I was preachin’ the gospel, isn’t that right?” Charles increased his volume but stayed behind his counsel table.

  “Absolutely false, Mr. Arnold. We arrested you because you were violating the noise ordinance and because you tried to incite a riot.”

  Crawford shot her witness a hard look.

  “Was I arrested for inciting a riot?” Charles had noticed the slip as well.

  “No,” Thrasher said. He didn’t look at Crawford.

  But Thrasher did fidget a little and seemed uncomfortable with the silence, so Charles let it linger. He pretended to be searching his notes.

  “Mr. Arnold?” It was Silverman again, trying to keep things moving.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Do you have any more questions?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Charles stared at the witness.

  “You got something against blacks?” Charles asked, never breaking his gaze.

  As soon as the words were out, Crawford jumped to her feet. “Judge, that’s outrageous,” she protested. “There’s no foundation for that.”

  “Objection sustained,” Silverman said curtly. “Watch yourself, Mr. Arnold.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor.” A pause. “Isn’t it true, Mr. Thrasher, that you called me a ‘preacher boy’ and ridiculed my nappy little head’?”

  “That’s ludicrous,” Thrasher responded evenly. “I would never use phrases like that.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Charles noticed the deputy commonwealth’s attorney shoot the officer another look.

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “And why not?” Charles asked.

  “Because those words might be construed as showing prejudice. That’s not who I am, and that’s not the way I talk.” Thrasher looked at the judge, his eyes asking how much longer he had to endure these ridiculous questions.

  “How many more questions do you have for Officer Thrasher?” Silverman asked. “You’ll get your own chance to testify when the officer is done.”

  Of course Charles knew that. And he hated being treated like a first-year law student. But he could take a hint. Silverman wanted this over. And Charles would oblige him. The trap had been set. Thrasher was in knee-deep.

  “Just a few more questions, Your Honor,” Charles promised. He walked out from behind his counsel table for the first time. “May I approach my equipment?”

  “What?”

  “May I approach my equipment?”

  “Sure,” Silverman said, scratching his head.

  Charles walked over to his boom box and knelt down. He popped out a music CD and held it in his right hand.

  “Is this the CD that was in there the night of my arrest?” he asked.

  “The equipment wasn’t touched or altered,” Thrasher said. “I assume that CD was in there the night of your arrest.”

  “Good,” Charles said, as he knelt down again. He punched another button and popped out a cassette. He held it in his hand and walked toward Thrasher.

  “Then I’m assuming you haven’t recorded over this cassette?” Charles asked.

  A light popped on in the witness’s eyes. He shot a “help me” glance at Crawford as the color left his face.

  “Of course not,” the witness managed.

  Standing a few inches from the witness box, Charles turned to the judge. “Then I would like to introduce my CD, labeled WOW Gospel, as Defense Exhibit 1. And I would like to introduce my cassette, labeled Street Sermon, June 3, as Defense Exhibit 2.”

  Charles turned back to the ashen witness. “I take it, Officer Thrasher, that you were not aware that I record my sermons and the other sounds picked up by my microphone during my street preaching?”

  Thrasher shook his head. He seemed to have lost his voice.

  “Then if there’s no objection from your lawyer, I’d like to play this cassette for the court, to see what was really said out there on the night in question.” Charles spun around to see if Crawford had any objections.

  It did not surprise him to see her sitting at the counsel table with her head in her hands.

  “No objection,” she muttered without looking up.

  Silverman announced a ten-minute break after dismissing the charges against Charles. In the hallway outside the courtroom, Charles became a mini celebrity, especially to the other defendants.

  “Have you got a card, man?” one asked. “I need a good lawyer.”

  “No, I didn’t bring any cards.”

  “Will that Chinese laundry case work for a DUI? The cops let everyone else go but me. Just like that case you mentioned, pure and simple.”

  “I don’t handle DUIs.”

  Charles looked past the other desperate defendants who had crowded around him for some free legal advice and spotted Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Rebecca Crawford talking to some cops across the hallway. He pushed his way through the crowd and walked up to her, extending his hand.

  “No hard feelings,” he said.

  She looked down at his hand and then back at his eyes. Her face was taut. She didn’t extend her hand to shake.

  “It doesn’t really work that way,” she said. Then she turned a cold shoulder and resumed her conversation with the officers.

  14

  THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD.

  It was her only guidance. Her only job as special advocate. Determine what was in the best interest of the child and make a recommendation to the court.

  Easy in theory; hard in practice.

  And it had never been harder for Nikki Moreno than right now, with the Hammond family and their complex mix of love and abuse, faith and neglect.

  The parents needed counsel. She was clear on that. And turning these kids back over to an abusive father was not the answer.

  In many ways Thomas Hammond was everything Nikki detested about the American male. A control freak. Domineering. Long on discipline, short on mercy. A simple view of life dominated by simple solutions. The kids get out of line; you whack them around a little bit. They’ll learn. Nikki knew the type all too well. Add alcohol to the mix, and you would have her own birth father, dark memories from an early childhood.

  But there was also something different about Thomas Hammond, something at war with the image of father as master. She saw it now as she watched him at the defense counsel table. He would reach under the table and gently touch his wife’s hand. He would put his daughter on his lap and, with his enormous hand, wipe some blonde curls away from her eyes. He would reach back over the chair and tickle his little boy’s ribs, then exchange ornery glances with the child.

  He was not just father as master. He was also father as friend. And that image, mixed with thoughts of her own adoptive father, the only man who had ever loved Nikki unconditionally, made this case incredibly difficult. She felt herself being drawn in on this one, losing that sense of emotional detachment that was so important. She somehow felt the warmth of her own adoptive father’s love wash over her every time that Thomas Hammond reached out for his kids.

  She had lost him seven years ago, when she was nineteen, and she had been alone in the world ever since. He had been a single parent. And when his heart gave out, Nikki felt like she had lost both a father and a mother, the only real parent she had ever known. On days like today, when the memories came flooding back with such vivid force, she wond
ered if she would ever get over it.

  There was good-natured banter going on all around Nikki, some of it directed at her. But she was not listening. In a few moments she would be asked to make her call. And the one person in the courtroom burdened with the responsibility of recommending what was in the best interest of the children had no earthly idea what she was going to say.

  “All rise,” the clerk cried as Silverman shuffled out to the bench. “General District Court, City of Virginia Beach, is again in session. The Honorable Franklin Silverman Jr. presiding.”

  During the break Crawford had figured out exactly where to stand to generate the best camera angle—a head-on shot—and avoid a profile of her somewhat angular nose. She stood on that precise spot now, looking very grave and prosecutorial for the evening news. Lots of viewers, lots of votes.

  “Judge, I request that we sequester the children for the next several minutes. I’ll be discussing their testimony, and it would be in the best interest of the children if they’re not present.”

  “Does the special advocate agree, Ms. Moreno?” Judge Silverman asked.

  “Certainly, Your Honor.”

  “Very well then. Bailiff, please escort the children out into the hall.”

  The Barracuda glanced over and looked at Mr. Hammond. She saw him force a tight-lipped smile for the kids and nod. Then she watched as the children reluctantly followed the bailiff out of the courtroom. Tiger kept glancing over his shoulder and then glancing at the bailiff ’s gun holster, as if the little boy was trying to figure out whether to make a dash for it. In the end, he apparently decided to go along.

  “What we learned this morning was shocking,” the Barracuda claimed as soon as the doors had closed behind the kids. No preliminaries, no beating around the bush, straight for the jugular.

  “Both parents are guilty of mental and physical abuse. During my questioning of the kids, I asked the court reporter to mark certain aspects of the transcript, and if there’s any doubt about my summation of the testimony of the children, it can be read.” The Barracuda paused and looked over at the defense counsel table. Harry Pursifull was sitting with his head propped on his left hand, elbow on the table. He had an empty legal pad in front of him, his clients sitting beside him, and Nikki Moreno sitting directly behind him.

  Not exactly the dream team, Crawford thought.

  “Both parents would humiliate and abuse these children based on the smallest offenses. Mrs. Hammond would inflict her punishment with a wooden spoon; Mr. Hammond would use his belt. If little John Paul didn’t come in for dinner as soon as he was called, he’d get what he called a whup-pin’ from his dad. Talking back by either of the children would result in numerous blows from the spoon, the belt, or some other object. Their father would use his bare hand if nothing else was handy.”

  The Barracuda started pacing the courtroom, forgetting about camera angles, feeding her own anger at the abusive parents. Her voice took on a hard edge, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor as she lectured the court.

  “The kids would endure humiliating lengths of time in solitary confinement, or time-out, as the parents called it. The kids would be forced to sit in a chair in the corner of the room, facing the wall for hours on end. And if they spoke, the punishment would escalate from time-out to a beating. They would be humiliated in public as well as private. And even today, when I talked with these children, I could sense the fear of their parents. They were absolutely terrified that they might do something wrong.”

  She watched Silverman as he took notes. He would not look her in the eye, which irritated her. She could not tell what he was thinking, if she was even getting through, having an impact. So she stopped, immediately in front of the bench, and paused. She waited for him to stop writing; then she lowered her voice melodramatically and continued.

  “Judge, if we treated animals this way, the SPCA would be all over this court screaming ‘cruelty to animals.’ They would demand that the animals be removed from their masters. Are children entitled to less protection than our pets?

  “These parents,” she sneered, “who have themselves showed no mercy, now have the audacity to ask the commonwealth for mercy, the audacity to claim that the children will be harmed if we put them in foster care. Well, Your Honor, the commonwealth is not buying it. We don’t believe that parents who abuse a child and neglect seeking medical care deserve a chance to put their other children at risk pending trial.”

  She paused and took a deep breath. She glared at Thomas and Theresa Hammond with the same look of contempt she visited on every defendant.

  Theresa Hammond cried quietly, tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes red and puffy. She slumped forward, staring down at the table—the look of humiliation and shame. And, Crawford thought, the look of guilt.

  Her husband stared stoically ahead, the color of hot anger rising in his ears and on the back of his neck. He held his wife’s hand tightly under the table.

  The Barracuda felt no sympathy for either of them. They were killers. Sympathy and mercy were out of the question. Joshua called for justice.

  “The commonwealth emphatically requests that bail for Mr. Hammond be set at two hundred thousand and bail for Mrs. Hammond be set at fifty thousand. And we also strongly request that, even if the defendants can post bond, the court condition their release on a protective order that would place the children in foster care and prohibit the parents from contacting them pending trial.”

  She turned to take her seat, her heels clicking loudly, her movements precise and confident. Her job, for the moment, finished.

  “Yer Honor,” Harry Pursifull began, rising slowly to his feet, “this is a bond hearing, not a trial, and not a custody case. And we therefore, um, believe, that this court should focus on the issues relevant to risk of flight. The fact is that both parents are here today and brought their children as well, I might add, of their own volition. If they were going to flee with their children, they, uh . . . they would have already done so.”

  The Barracuda eyed Harry skeptically as he spoke. He was gaining momentum, hitting his stride. He would steer the court away from the abuse issues. That was Harry’s style. Unusual for a trial lawyer, he would avoid confrontation whenever possible.

  As he warmed to his task and got used to the television cameras, his voice returned from a higher pitch to its normal nasal tone. His breathing became less labored, and his phrases no longer came in bursts. “Ms. Crawford seems to conveniently forget that these parents did take their child to the hospital.” He licked his dry lips. “They did seek medical care, and they would do so for the other children if necessary. Sure, some of their discipline might have been inappropriate—”

  “Inappropriate!”” the Barracuda interrupted, jumping to her feet. The outburst stopped Harry in his tracks as she knew it would. He was a familiar adversary with familiar weaknesses. He turned to her with his mouth open, speechless.

  “Putting them on time-out for hours might be inappropriate. Humiliating them in public might be inappropriate.” Crawford glared at Harry, as if he were the guilty one, lecturing him like an angry parent. “But beating your children with a belt for the tiniest offense is not inappropriate. It’s abuse, Counsel. Let’s at least call it what it is.”

  She sat down and crossed her arms before the judge could scold her.

  Harry opened his palms to the court. “Judge, I didn’t interrupt Ms. Crawford when she was speaking.”

  “I know,” Judge Silverman said evenly. Then he turned to Crawford. “I’d appreciate it if you’d grant Mr. Pursifull the same latitude he granted you.”

  “Sure, Judge.” She allowed her voice to register her disgust.

  But Silverman ignored it. He was a grizzled old warhorse and had seen it all before. He turned back to Harry. “Now, Mr. Pursifull, were there any marks or bruises on these children that were discernable today?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Harry said proudly.

  “But, Judge—” the Barracuda was
on her feet again, a calculated risk—“nobody is saying these beatings didn’t occur. And the little girl testified that sometimes, after the spankings, there would be marks left by the spoon, the belt, or the imprint of her father’s hand.”

  “What did the little boy say?” Silverman asked.

  “He gave his favorite answer,” the Barracuda replied. “He said he didn’t know.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Crawford,” Silverman said with a tone of exaggerated patience. He leveled his gaze at her until she again took her seat.

  “Ms. Moreno—” the judge turned to Nikki—“does the special advocate have a recommendation for the court?”

  All eyes turned to Nikki Moreno. She stood straight and poised—her television pose. Disgusting, Crawford thought.

  Nikki furrowed her brow, shook her head slightly, and wrinkled her face. “It’s a tough one, Judge,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m not usually one to hesitate on making a call, but this one’s not easy.”

  The Barracuda rolled her eyes and propped her forehead on her palm. “Gimme a break,” she mumbled loud enough for her friends in the press row to hear.

  But Nikki ignored her, annoying her all the more.

  “Ms. Crawford is dead right about the abuse suffered by these children and about the three days of neglect that preceded young Joshua’s death,” Nikki said. “But strangely enough, there also seems to be an enormous amount of love in this family. I would agree that Mr. and Mrs. Hammond need counseling on how to discipline, and I would be concerned about whether they are willing to seek medical help when it’s needed, but let me tell the court what concerns me even more.

  “These children are scared. Ms. Crawford is right about that. But I think their real fear is that they will be torn from their mom and dad at a very vulnerable emotional point in their young lives. And to make matters worse, they will probably think that their testimony is what caused it, that they said something wrong to send their parents to jail.

  “I’m no psychologist, Judge, and this is certainly your call, but it seems to me that the emotional trauma would be intense. I would recommend that Mrs. Hammond be released on a PR bond and that the children be given back to her on two conditions. First, that she agrees to a restraining order preventing her from physically hitting the children. And second, that a caseworker from the Department of Child Protective Services perform a comprehensive evaluation of the home and recommend whether the children should stay or be removed pending trial.”