“I am a professional truth-seeker,” Berger describes herself in words I have never heard a prosecutor use. “It is my missionalwaysto find the truth and honor it. That is why I was asked to come here to Richmondto reveal the absolute, certain truth. Now all of you have heard that justice is blind.” She waits, acknowledging nods. “Well, justice is blind in that it is supposed to be supremely nonpartisan, impartial, perfectly fair to all people. But”she scans faces”we aren’t blind to the truth, now are we? We’ve seen what has gone on inside this room. I can tell you understand what has gone on inside this room and are anything but blind. You would have to be blind not to see what is so apparent. This woman”she glances back at me and points”Dr. Kay Scarpetta deserves no more of our inquiries, our doubts, our painful probing. In good conscience, I can’t allow it.”
Berger pauses. The jurors are transfixed, barely blinking as they stare at her. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your decency, your time, your desire to do what is right. You can go back to your jobs now, back to your homes and families. You are dismissed. There is no case. Case dismissed. Good day.”
The lady in the flower-printed dress smiles and sighs. The jurors start clapping. Buford Righter stares down at his hands clasped on top of the table. I get to my feet and the room spins as I open the saloon-type swinging door and leave the witness stand.[“_Toc37098937”]
MINUTES LATER
I FEEL AS IT I AM EMERGING FROM A BROWNOUT AND avoid eye contact with reporters and others who wait beyond the paper-shrouded glass door that hid me from the outside world and now returns me to it.
Berger accompanies me to the small, nearby witness room, and Marino, Lucy and Anna are instantly on their feet, waiting with dread and excitement. They sense what has happened and I simply nod an affirmation and manage to say, “Well, it’s okay. Jaime was masterful.” I finally call Berger by her first name as it vaguely registers that although I have been inside this witness room countless times over the past decade, waiting to explain death to jurors, I never imagined I would one day be in this courthouse to explain myself.
Lucy grabs me, hugging me off my feet and I wince because of my injured arm and laugh at the same time. I hug Anna. I hug Marino. Berger waits in the doorway, for once not intruding. I hug her, too. She begins tucking files, legal pads into her briefcase and puts on her coat. “I’m out of here,” she
announces, all business again but I detect her elation. Goddamn, she is proud of herself and ought to be.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I tell her with a heart full of gratitude and respect. “I don’t even know what to say, Jaime.”
“Amen to that,” Lucy exclaims. My niece is dressed in a sharp dark suit and looks like a gorgeous lawyer or doctor or whatever the hell she wants to be. I can tell by the way her eyes fix on Berger that Lucy recognizes what an attractive, impressive woman Berger is. Lucy won’t stop looking at her and congratulating her. My niece is effusive. Actually, she is flirting. She is flirting with my special prosecutor.
“Got to head back to New York,” Berger tells me. “Remember my big case up there?” she dryly reminds me of Susan Pless. “Well, there’s work to be done. How soon can you come up so we can go over Susan’s case?” Berger is serious, I think.
“Go,” says Marino in his rumpled navy suit, wearing a solid red tie that is too short. Sadness crosses his face. “Go to New York, Doc. Go now. You sure as hell don’t want to be around here for a while. Let the hoopla die down.”
I don’t reply, but he is right. I am rather speechless at the moment.
“You like helicopters?” Lucy asks Berger.
“Never would you get me in that thing,” Anna pipes up. “There is no law in physics that accounts for one of those things being able to fly. Not one.”