PART SIX: BEING

“Be ye therefore perfect, . . .”
Matthew 6:48

 



Ending


Thunderbolts screaming and Yahweh laughing and Coyote wailing in lamentation, the rain falls and strikes unseen, a churning wall of wrath.  I am obliterated, consumed by my own deceits.  The safe shore slips from my grasping hands, and I swim into the belly of the whale where my nose grows long for the lies.  My father has won. In darkness I dream an ark dry with deft creatures, a goddess dangling by a thread.

 
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21.  Grieving

All rise,” Winston Foley called out drowsily.  Winston had been the bailiff in Caledonia County for over thirty years.  A frail man with skin so pale and dry he looked like an old beech leaf, he almost had fallen asleep in the overheated courtroom.  Now as Judge Stone briskly entered the courtroom, Winston fluttered awake, crying out in a flurry:  “District-Court-of-Vermont-Unit-Number-4-Caledonia- Circuit-Honorable-Robert-J.-Stone-presiding.”
      I stood up, my chains rattling in the nearly empty courtroom.  It was a late Friday afternoon in December, and I was an unexpected add-on to an already overcrowded docket.  Late that morning I had been brought straight from Burlington International Airport to the St. Johnsbury Correctional Center, where I’d been fingerprinted and photographed before being transported to the court.  Being escorted in chains as a criminal defendant felt strange, but no stranger than any of the other bizarre events that had transpired since the last time I’d stood inside this building.  It had been on the evening of Lucky’s arraignment seven weeks ago.
      In addition to Judge Stone and the bailiff, there were only a handful of others present.  Walter Brown, the Caledonia State’s Attorney, sat ramrod straight at the plaintiff’s table to my right.  The two sheriffs who had transported me, replacements for the men who had died in the crash, sat directly behind me.  Standing next to me at defense table was a local attorney named Larry Hughes, who was slowly collecting his papers from the previous case.  Normally, Judge Stone would have insisted that counsel clear the table before proceeding to the next case, but Larry was disabled with cerebral palsy, and it was taking him longer than the brief recess that Stone’s re-appearance now ended.
      “Be seated,” the judge said as he took his place at the bench.
      As I sat down my eyes were drawn to the windows of the first floor courtroom.  They were completely whited-out by a snowstorm that had begun only minutes before.  The glass was rattling in its old frames, buffeted by the high winds.  Despite the cold outdoors, the courtroom was stifling.  Yet I felt chilled.
      Judge Stone began reading from a file in front of him.  I could see his eyes darting across the paperwork.  When he had finished, he looked directly at me for the first time.  He frowned when he noticed the handcuffs and anklecuffs and chains.
      I saw him glare at the deputies who sat directly behind me in the front row.  “Get this man out of those chains at once,” he ordered.  His tone was severe, which surprised me, for I’d never known him to object to restraints in his courtroom.
      The deputies jumped out of their front row seats and, reaching over the bar, started to unlock the cuffs.
      “Not here!” Stone shouted at them.  “Take the defendant into the hallway, remove the restraints, then escort Mr. St. John back into the courtroom.”
      One of the new deputies snorted his contempt, but he was careful that the judge didn’t hear.  As they sullenly unlocked my chains, an outside door opened and a blast of snowy air penetrated the hall.
      I shivered, but not from the cold.

      Grief was the heavy cloak I wore to ward off a penetrating chill that had seized me the moment Lucky had been struck down.  During the briefest of time, a mere four days, he had insinuated himself into the innermost chambers of my heart.  Now he was gone, and I regretted that I had never told him how much I loved him.
      It’s not enough to love people in silence.  That’s what Lucky’s death had taught me.  We must tell each other as often and as clearly as we can, You are loved.
      I would never have that chance with Lucky, and I couldn’t get used to the empty place he had left behind.  It was like an open doorway to a frozen world.
      I shivered and drew the cloak of my grief ever closer.
      “I understand, Mr. St. John, that you intend to represent yourself.  Is that correct?”
      I rose to reply, but I didn’t care whether he granted my request or not. I didn’t care about anything.  “That’s correct, Judge Stone.”
      Stone nodded his head as if considering, then said, “I acknowledge that you have formal training as a paralegal, as well as many years’ experience as a defense investigator, which gives you legal skills that most defendants lack.  However, it’s a given within the legal profession, as I’m sure you know, that not even the most experienced lawyer will undertake his or her own representation.”  He waited to see if I would retract my request to proceed pro se.
      Instead I stared out the windows, which rattled even louder in the mounting fury of the storm.
      “These are very serious charges you face, as you obviously understand.  The state claims that prior to being apprehended you assisted a former client  — one who faced murder and kidnapping charges, I might add — in escaping custody and leaving Vermont, driving him in a stolen vehicle across eight states.”  He glanced back at the Information and supporting affidavits, then said, “I can’t tell from this whether Donald Hall was also arrested in Texas.”
      Walter Brown rose noisily from his seat, as if to ensure we all were watching him.  “He apparently is still at large,” he announced in his high whiny voice.  I’d been wondering if they knew about Lucky drowning.  I was glad they didn’t.  Let them keep wondering, I thought.
      Brown sniffed as if smelling something foul.  I wondered if he would say anything about Odysea, but he didn’t.  I had no idea what had happened to her after my arrest.  Apparently they didn’t even know about her.  Relief must have shown on my face, for Brown scowled at me as he sat down.
      “Your Honor,” Larry Hughes said, his voice quavering, “if I may interrupt for a moment . . .”  Larry was standing right next to me, and I turned to him in surprise.
      “Yes, Mr. Hughes?”  Judge Stone replied.
      “I’d be happy to assist — ,” he paused to pull in air.  I think Larry had to make sure his lungs were full in order to speak more intelligibly.  Even so, you had to listen carefully to understand him.  “Um, as I was saying, I’d be honored to assist Mr. St. John in defending himself, if the court permits.”
      I’d known Larry for as long as I’d worked as an investigator.  We weren’t exactly friends, yet clearly we were more than acquaintances.  It often happened that we arrived at the same time in the morning at Anthony’s Diner.  We’d share a booth and eat breakfast together, chatting or reading the morning paper in comfortable silence.  Now under my breath I said, “I can’t pay you Larry.  I just don’t have the money.”
      “I’ll do it pro bono,” Larry insisted, his mouth having to work even harder to achieve a whisper.
      “Why?”  His offer perplexed me, for I doubted he had enough paying clients to justify taking me on for free.  There are always smooth-talking lawyers for hire, even in a small town like St. Johnsbury, and as a “mouthpiece” Larry was at an obvious disadvantage.
      Larry’s head bobbled a few seconds, and I could sense Judge Stone waiting patiently, not his usual modus operandi.  Obviously this was an unexpected turn of events he approved of.  Judges do not like pro se defendants for a number of reasons, including that they tend to slow down the machinery of the court by not knowing the law, especially procedural law — the rules by which the game is played.
      Finally Larry leaned in close to answer my question.  “Let’s just say ‘I don’t like bullies.’”  By the way he said it, I heard the quotation marks around the phrase, which made me stare at him in wonder.
      Then, and I don’t know what made me do it, I turned to look at Walter Brown.  He was smirking.  I knew that smirk, had seen his officious smile too often.  He clearly was gloating at the prospect of running rings around Larry.
      “I accept Mr. Hughes’ offer, your Honor,” I announced to the courtroom.  I even turned around to make sure everyone had heard me.  Larry Hughes was a kind man and a diligent attorney, and I resented any implication that his help was inferior.
      It was then that I spotted Diane sitting in the rear of the courtroom.
      She took my breath away.  Even now.
      I quickly averted my eyes, but not quickly enough.  In that brief moment she surely had seen my longing.  It bothered me, but not as much as what I’d seen in her eyes:  A grief to match my own.
      I didn’t understand.

      I was formally charged with grand larceny of Diane’s car and with escape.  Under Vermont law, if you help a person in custody to escape, you can be charged as a principal — as if it were you who had been in custody — which is exactly what Brown did.  Like most prosecutors, he charged maximally, always cognizant of potential plea agreements.
      I entered a not guilty plea, and Stone set bail at $50,000, a not unreasonable amount given our jaunt to Texas.  Even so, it meant that I would sit in jail waiting for trial.  It mattered little to me.
      When I turned to be led out of the courtroom, Diane was gone.  But as the sheriffs led me in chains out the front door of the courthouse, I glanced back over my shoulder.  There was Diane standing in the hall.  As they pulled me through the doorway, I saw her lips mouth the words, “I’m sorry.”
      “I’m awful sorry to wake you, Jimmy, but the judge just called.”  It was Rod standing outside the cell.  I must have been dozing.  When I’d been returned from court, instead of lodging me in population they had put me into one of the holding cells.  I had assumed the jail was overcrowded again.
      No sooner did they build a new jail in Vermont than it was filled to overflowing.  It was part of the lock-em-up mentality that had predominated in America for the past twenty-five years.  At that very moment there were over a million people incarcerated in the United States, despite the fact that most criminologists agreed it didn’t deter crime.  In Vermont the jails were so crowded that they had started shipping inmates out of state.  Almost 300 prisoners were being lodged in other states’ jails — 20% of all inmates, which ranked Vermont number one in the nation for that dubious distinction.  Corrections officials publicly admitted that even when the new prison in Springfield was complete, it would be filled immediately because of the longer sentences being handed down every day of the week.
      “You’re gonna appreciate the news, though,” Rod said, then called into his walkie-talkie to the sally port for the doors to be unlocked.  There was a buzz, and slowly the bars slid to the side.  “Judge says you made bail.  He called especial to make sure you were freed tonight.  Never known him to do that before.  I guess he likes you, Jimmy.”
      I was groggy, and it took a moment for Rod’s news to penetrate.  This was the first I’d seen him, though obviously he was aware of my incarceration.
      “I don’t understand, Rod.  I haven’t posted bail.”
      “Somebody did, or the judge wouldn’t have told me to fill out the paperwork so as you could go.”  Rod looked around to see if anyone could hear him, then said under his breath, “I’m awful sorry about your being here.  I never thought we’d be standing on opposite sides of the bars.  And I’m not the only one feels that way.  So let’s get you out of here as expeditiously as the judge ordered me to do.  Okay, good buddy?”
      “Rod, can I ask you a question?”
      “‘Course.”
      “Do you have any connection with Larry Hughes?”
      “Henh, henh, henh,” Rod chuckled, then winked at me as he nodded his head proudly.  “Larry’s my brother-in-law.”

      It was after seven p.m. when I stepped out of the warm jail into the driving force of the winter storm.  There was over a foot of new snow on the ground.  I had on running shoes and a light jacket.  I was dressed for Texas, not Vermont.  My cabin was seven miles south of the correctional center.  At this time of night in a storm it was unlikely I’d be able to hitch a ride.  I pulled up the collar of the jacket, stuck my un-gloved hands into its thin pockets, and trudged down the snow-covered road that led to the highway.
      I had walked along Route 5 for about twenty minutes when I saw the headlights coming from behind me.  By then my feet were numb, my hair and beard matted with frozen snow, and I was chilled both inside and out.  I turned to face the oncoming vehicle, but was blinded by its lights.  I raised my right thumb in the air, and a Toyota pickup slowed and stopped right next to me.  I hustled to get into the cab and out of the fierce storm.
      “Thanks for stopping,” I tried to say as I pulled shut the door, but the words came out jumbled and indistinct.  A blast of hot air from the defroster hit me in the face, and I could feel the snow that had frozen in my hair and beard begin to melt at once.
      The driver pulled back onto the highway, fishtailing a moment before gaining traction.  Then she spoke.  In the darkness of the cab I hadn’t noticed it was a woman.
      “I’m sorry I was late.”
      As soon as she spoke I realized it was Diane.  Then I looked at the dash filled with screwdrivers and spark plugs, the floor littered with Green Mountain Coffee cups, and realized this was my truck.
      I didn’t understand.  Nor did I know what to say or do.  I sat in silence, shivering and waiting for whatever came next.  The storm battered the Toyota, making driving precarious.  I stared at the swirling snow as it whisked through the narrow tunnel of light from the truck’s high beams.  It was mesmerizing.
      “I meant to pick you up at the correctional center, but it took longer than I thought to arrange bail, and then I got a DWI call just as I was walking out the door.”
      I didn’t know what to say or even if I could speak at all.  I closed my eyes and tried to focus my mind, but all I could see was the blizzard raging in the night.

      When we reached the road that led up Barnet Mountain to Milarepa and my cabin, Diane didn’t hesitate.  She floored the Toyota and barreled up the steep snow-filled track.  The truck’s underbody was snowplowing the whole time, and we made it about half-way before the snow accumulated into a solid wall through which we couldn’t pass.  When the Toyota stopped and stalled, Diane left it in first gear, pulled up the emergency brake as far it would go, then turned off the headlights.
      “I’m sorry you have to walk the rest of the way, but we don’t seem to have any other choice.  I just wish I had been able to take care of everything sooner.  This isn’t how I wanted it to be.”
      She climbed out of the cab and came over to my side.  The snow was up to her knees, and she nearly fell.  Opening my door, she reached in and took me by the hand.  I couldn’t speak or think, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me.  I felt numb all the way through.  I was trembling with cold, and when she noticed she said, “We’d better get you to the cabin right away.”
      She took off her winter coat and wrapped it over my shaking shoulders, though I tried to tell her not to. I don’t know how we managed to climb through the deep snow in the blinding wind.  I slipped and fell twice, and Diane struggled to get me back up.  By the end she was bearing most of my weight.

      Inside the cabin, which surprisingly was warm — someone had started the fire in the wood stove earlier that day — Diane lit the kerosene lamps and put the kettle on top of the stove.  She took off my wet clothing until I was naked, then helped me climb to the loft.  I got under the blankets.  The flannel sheets felt cold to the touch but quickly grew warmer.  She piled on an afghan and an old torn quilt, then went back to the first floor.  I heard her filling the stove with wood as I shook with cold beneath the mound of blankets.  Above me the metal roof rattled in the storm.
      A few minutes later she came back up with a steaming cup in her hand.  “Drink this,” she said, helping me to sit up.  She held the cup to my lips as I sipped.  It wasn’t tea as I had expected, but miso soup with finely diced garlic.
      I finished as much of the soup as I could, then lay back down.  Diane stripped off her own wet clothing until she was naked.  She climbed under the covers and lay directly on top of me.  The wind howled, the roof rattled, the whole cabin creaked and moaned.  I could hear the snow beating against the windowpanes.  I don’t know how long I shivered beneath Diane’s warming flesh, but eventually I must have fallen asleep.

      I felt myself floating on a soft warm sea, rising and falling on its gentle swells as the hot sun baked my salty flesh.  I was sucking something sweet and tangy, getting more and more aroused at its succulent feel on my lips.  I felt myself grow hard, deliciously, erotically hard, and my hips began to undulate in a fluid way.  I heard a moan, a low growl of desire that told me I was not alone.  I heard it, felt it, saw it, sensed it — all the doors of perception flung open at once, yet I couldn’t tell if I were dreaming or if the pliant soft flesh against my lips were real.
      Then I realized a woman was opening her legs to me.  I slipped inside her, or was it that she wrapped herself around me?  No, it was simpler than that:  She was wet and I was dripping, and we met in that moist place.  It was a joining so mutual that it didn’t happen, it just was.  More like magic than sex, we were drawn by something deeper than lust, more profound than eroticism, more mystical than romance.
      I awoke one notch more to find us riding each other, rising and falling, rising and falling.  I felt the slippery world grow firmer until my mind put a name to the body responding to mine:  Diane.  At that moment I also knew we were about to climax together, but just before we did I felt her relax and pull back, waiting for one delirious moment, waiting for me to come to her.  I pulled back too, floating over the edge of a high waterfall.  Suddenly we met, our most vulnerable and naked selves revealed, and I knew her in a way I’d never imagined possible.
      How can I say this so that it makes sense?  It’s very difficult for me to describe mystical feelings.  We were having sex but it was no longer sexual.  I didn’t even care whether she was female.  Or beautiful.  Or desirable in any worldly way.  I cared for one thing and one thing only — the essence of her, the core of who she was and would always be.
      Then the falls sucked us over the edge, and as we poured together, I spilling into her, she into me, I promised aloud I will love you forever.

 
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22.  Loving

In the pale light of dawn the winter storm continued to blast its way across Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.  We were snowed in; that much was clear.  No one would be going anywhere.  The blizzard had put a momentary stop to the routine of everyday existence, insisting that all creatures pause and reflect.
      Over coffee and toast, I began to tell Diane what had transpired since I had fled her house in mid-October.  I told her everything in as much detail as I could.  I started with how I had nearly careened into the state snowplow, which now seemed prophetic.  I even described the way the moon had looked that night rising over the White Mountains as I drove to Barnet.  I told her about finding Lucky in the wreck, about his burns, about my decision not to turn him back over to the police.
      I told her everything in the order that it had happened, including the secret stories of my past.  She listened very carefully and didn’t interrupt to ask questions, though I could see she had many.  It took all morning, and when I was done telling her about my role in the townhouse explosion, we were both spent and drained.  But I wasn’t finished, and I knew I had to tell her everything, no matter how long it took or what it cost emotionally.
      When I described the flash flood that had struck Lucky down unawares, I began to cry and couldn’t stop.  Diane held me close.  “I’m sorry,” she repeated several times.  “I’m sorry for everything.  I wish I had listened to you at the arraignment.  I feel so guilty.  Maybe if I hadn’t insisted on getting him sent to Waterbury, none of this would have happened.”
      I heard the stinging regret in her voice, and it forced me to regain composure.  “I’m not blaming you for what happened.  I’m not blaming anyone, not even myself.  I’ve lost too many years of my life to self-blame, and I don’t want to see you go down that path, too.  It doesn’t lead anywhere, it’s just a vicious maze of dead ends.  Yet I do feel an obligation to Lucky, who never got his chance at being vindicated.  I’m not going to let his death stop me from finding out the truth about Trooper Smalley.”
      Diane sat upright and stared at me.  Her eyes grew wide in astonishment.  “I don’t understand.  Do you think Lucky’s dead?”
      Now it was my turn to be confused.  “Of course.  He drowned in the flood.”
      “He’s not dead!”  She grabbed my hands and started jumping up and down in excitement.  “He survived the flood!  I never guessed you didn’t know that he’s safe and alive!  He and Odysea are on their way back to Vermont from Texas right now!  They’re coming to help defend you against the stupid charges you’re facing.”
      My mind shut down for a few moments.  It simply couldn’t absorb the information; when it started working again, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  So I did both.  Between my relief and joy, my laughter and tears, I blurted out, “Thank god!”
      “Actually, it’s ‘Thank goddess,’” Diane said, laughing with me.  We hugged and did a crazy kind of jig around the table, then finally calmed down enough for her to tell me what had happened.

      When I had run to the car to call for help on the cell phone, Odysea had started scanning the flood waters for any sign of Lucky.  What she saw terrified her:  The entire river valley was raging with yellow and gray and brown water that tore at trees and ripped up cacti as if they were dead blades of grass.  She knew no one could survive long in that thrashing maelstrom.
      Then she thought she saw something waffling in the waters above the flooded ridge a short way down river.  At that point the flood had reached up the side of the ridge until it covered a low tree with thick branches.  Somehow Lucky had latched onto one of those branches, from which the driving force of the flood kept trying to snatch him.  Yet he held on.  Odysea ran along the top of the ridge until she had reached the spot above the tree.  Fortunately by then the flood had started to ebb, or she herself would have been sucked into it.
      She stood frozen for a moment, unsure what to do.  Slowly the flood began to recede.  This gave her the chance she needed.  There was a long branch that lay on the ground along the ridge. She dragged it to the water’s edge.  Immediately the current sucked it towards the tree from which Lucky dangled.  Odysea held on to one end and shouted, “Grab the other end!”
      She had no idea whether he could hear her, and for a few moments she thought he couldn’t.  She yelled again, then saw him reach one hand out to the dead limb.  Yet with his other hand he wouldn’t let go of the branch of the live tree.
      “Let go, Lucky!”
      Still he held on.
      “Let go!”
      Then she saw him raise the arm that held onto the tree in a shaking motion, as if trying to dislodge something.  He did it two, three times more until finally whatever it was came free, and he grabbed the dead limb with both hands.
      It was at this point that the real danger set in, for now not only was he at risk of washing down river, but it was possible that Odysea could be pulled into the flood waters with him.  The flood was subsiding, yet it was far from safe.
      She felt Lucky’s weight yank the tree limb with enough force to knock her off her feet.  She was being dragged straight towards the water when she pulled her knees up to her chest and heaved with her feet, regaining an upright position.  Later she would say it was like roping a young bull.
      As soon as she was upright again, she began running as fast as she could along the ridge, angling uphill and away from the river.  It took her longer than she’d hoped, and by the end her jeans and the skin on her legs were cut and torn from running over and through the cacti, but finally she dragged Lucky to the edge of the flood waters.
      She dropped the limb and ran straight to where he lay half-in, half-out of the now calming river.  He was nearly drowned, but alive.  She rolled him on his back, and as he opened his eyes he held up his right hand.  Laying upon his now-open palm was the red clay goddess.
      It was then that Odysea realized what saved him:  The pregnant goddess.  Its thong had caught in a branch of that tree, and it had stayed caught until he had managed to shake it free.
      As Lucky handed the goddess to her, Odysea saw the sun split the storm clouds to the west and a perfect rainbow appear upriver.  She said that when she saw the rainbow, she knew firsthand the absolute perfection of life.  It was a blissful moment of pure samadhi.

      Odysea and Lucky lay on the quickly drying ridge for a long time, slowly regaining their strength.  When at last they were strong enough to hike back to the parking lot, Odysea finally started wondering what had become of me.
      It took them a long time to reach the lot.  They both needed to rest often, especially since Odysea had to support Lucky most of the way.  He was young and strong, but he had been tested to the very limits of his endurance.
      Just as they gained the lot, a tow truck was hitching up the Audi.  Odysea approached the man operating the winch and asked him what had happened.  He didn’t know much, only that the driver had been arrested and that he was supposed to impound the vehicle.  It was enough for Odysea.  She and Lucky quickly returned to the riverbank and waited until dark to hike out of the park.  She wouldn’t risk either of them being seen.
      It took them hours to walk to Henly, then hitch a ride towards Lone Woman Mountain and Salina’s ranch.  But they made it.
      In the weeks that followed Odysea kept trying to find out what had happened to me.  She called all the jails and detention centers in central Texas, but none of them claimed to have me incarcerated.  Finally she put out the word through the lesbian community that she needed help from anyone who had connections with law enforcement or corrections.  A woman named Lilith responded.  Lilith worked in communications at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in San Antonio, and after Odysea told her about searching for me, she found who she thought must be me listed as a John Doe.  Lilith said this John Doe had been shuffled back and forth between several different jails, though she couldn’t imagine why.
      When Odysea tried to visit me that night, she was told that I had been returned to Vermont that afternoon.
      That’s when she called the St. Johnsbury Public Defender Office and got Diane.
      
That night over dinner Diane told me that she had left Bob.  “When you hung up after I’d told you about having been an erotic dancer, I was totally distraught.  I’d never in my life been so hurt by anyone.  Bob came home and insisted I tell him why I was sobbing.  He was very sweet to me and very angry at you.”
      “Now it’s my turn to apologize,” I said.  I took her hand in mine and looked directly into her green eyes.  “I want you to know that I love you.  I’m sorry I couldn’t say it that night.  There are so many things I haven’t been able to say to people.  I’ve been held hostage by my own secrets.  For thirty years all my energy has gone into protecting myself.  I want to do things differently now.”
      She looked at me and said, “So do I.”  Then she leaned over and kissed me, a tender kiss that was over too soon.  I tried to pull her back but she said, “Wait, I have to finish telling you what happened.  The next morning without my permission or knowledge, Bob met with Walter Brown and revealed everything.  About your taking the car, about Lucky being with you, about my ordering you to turn him over to the police.  That’s when they started tracking calls made from the cell phone, which of course is how they found you in Texas.
      “When I got home that night Bob told me what he’d done.  I was furious with him.  He had no right to do it!  I know he was trying to protect me, but it was wrong.  I walked out on him and came here to your cabin.  I didn’t know where else to go, and I needed to be with you, even if only to stay in your empty home.
      “As the weeks passed and I didn’t hear from you, I felt lonely for the first time in my life.  I missed your company terribly.  You’d been there for me every day for a year, and during that time I’d come to count on you in ways I was only beginning to realize.  Why didn’t you love me?  I had tried to be the woman I thought you wanted — a savvy street lawyer who fought tooth and nail for our clients — and still you rejected me.  Was it Little Lori you couldn’t accept?  I began to doubt myself in ways I never had.  That and the loneliness forced me to start looking at my life, to examine how I had lived and why.  The first thing I saw was the multiple layers of subterfuge.
      “I was living a lie by being married to Bob.  Bob is one of the finest men I’ve ever known.  He’s decent, strong, very stable and self-assured.  And he’s safe for me because he’ll never force me to be anything other than what I already am.
      “I understand why both of us created this phony marriage, but it hasn’t been good for either of us.  I’m filing for divorce.  Of course Bob feels very threatened by my decision — it means he has to make some hard choices, too — but it’s time for me to stop hiding.  I’m not Little Lori and I’m not his wife.  I’m not even a good lawyer.  I put my own interest above those of my client.  I know now that’s what you were trying to tell me about Lucky.  I hate to admit it, but he scared me.  I wanted to get rid of him and the horrifying charges he faced and his inability to communicate with me.  It was just too hard.”
      “You’re right, it was hard, and I wish I had convinced you to ask for help instead of confronting you the way I did.  The Defender General would have found co-counsel for you as a matter of course.  I should have reassured you.”  Then I remembered something.  “I’m curious whether you ever talked to Robert when I asked you to give me and Lucky another 72 hours?”  Robert was the Defender General, our boss, or at least hers since I’d given verbal notice of quitting.
      “I called him right away, and he confirmed what I already knew.  He told me that by failing to report you I was implicating myself in criminal activity, which automatically dissolves the protections of the attorney-client privilege.  But I wanted you to have that 72 hours even though I didn’t know why you needed it.  In the end when I balanced what I wanted and what the law demanded, I understood that I was no longer willing to be an attorney.”  She turned to me and smiled.  “Yesterday was my last day as the Caledonia Public Defender.”
      I was shocked.  “You love legal defense work.”
      “It’s true, I do love it.  But I love you more, and I couldn’t turn you in.  Besides, there’s something wrong about the law and lawyering.  I feel like it’s just another way of controlling and manipulating people, something the culture encourages and rewards.  I don’t know who I am, but I do know that I want to stop being manipulative, and if that means giving up the law, then that’s what I’m willing to do.”
      “I guess it’s no accident that we arrived at the same place, though for different reasons.  I decided to leave the law not because it brought out the worst in me, but because I don’t want to pretend that my work makes a difference.  All I ever accomplished was to make a bad system look fair when it isn’t.”
      “I understand what you’re saying, Jimmy, but I think you did much more than that.  First and last, you treated our clients with respect.  For some of them, it was the only time anyone afforded them personal dignity.  It’s what made me fall in love with you.”
      “I don’t know how to say this, but . . . it’s hard for me to believe that you do love me.”
      “Why do you still doubt yourself?  Or is it me you doubt?”
      “It isn’t you.  I stopped doubting you last night when I saw into you, into who you really are.  You’re right about not being Little Lori or Bob’s wife or a public defender.  Those are things you’ve done, not who you are.”  I grew silent, considering what I’d just heard myself say.  “No, it’s not you I doubt, it’s me.  I’ve always felt inadequate.  I’ve never quite belonged.  And when I compare myself to other men, men like Bob who are handsome and accomplished and sophisticated, I feel totally inadequate.”
      “Look at me, Jimmy.”  I must have had my head downcast, for she lifted my chin until I was looking right into her eyes.  They were wonderful eyes, clear and sparkling with life.  She smiled, then said slowly and deliberately, “You are the most beautiful man I have ever known.”  I thought my heart would burst with gratitude, yet at the same time I felt humbler than I ever have.  “You have a gentle heart that inspires me.  Your mind is open and accepting of others, their faults and their gifts.  You are faithful to those you love.  And I am so grateful to be among them.”
      She put a hand on either side of my face and kissed me.  It was the sweetest kiss I could imagine.  I felt loved, truly loved.  It was a new feeling, one I very much wanted to keep in my life for as long as I lived.

 
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23.  Girding

Part of my job as a criminal investigator had been to assist at trials, but I never had looked forward to it.  I’ve always found trials to be tedious because there are never any surprises.  What the jurors hear is a re-hash of information that’s been pored over and sifted through so many times that the only surprise is that the parties don’t fall asleep out of boredom.  This is especially true in Vermont, which has an extensive discovery process that affords both sides the right to learn beforehand which cards are being held and in what order they’ll be played.  There’s no such thing as a wild card, nor is there any possibility of slipping a card up one’s sleeve.
      The State’s Attorney is under particular obligation to reveal all.  There’s even specific language that describes a prosecutor’s duty to serve justice and truth, not just to convict.  Heavy sanctions, including outright dismissal of the charges, can and will be levied against a prosecutor who fails to reveal information that could aid the defense.  Similarly, the defendant has a duty to ensure that the prosecutor knows which witnesses he or she may call, as well as what special defenses will be pursued.
      The actual trial is like a highly choreographed dance whose outcome is fairly predictable given whatever has occurred during pretrial hearings.  It’s common strategy for the defense to skirmish for months before trial in an attempt either to get the charges dismissed or reduced, or to harass the state into a better plea agreement.
      This latter strategy rarely succeeded with Walter Brown.  He was a hardass when it came to plea bargaining.  He made one offer, take it or leave it.  In my case he offered to throw out the larceny of the car if I would plead guilty to the escape charge, on which he would recommend a sentence of five -to-seven years (on a ten-year maximum).  Since it was unlikely he could prove I’d stolen the vehicle — Diane would testify that she had implied consent when she’d told me she didn’t care about the car — his offer was absurd.  I had absolutely nothing to lose by going to trial and everything to gain.
      The offer was typical of Brown, which is why Caledonia Public Defenders quickly became seasoned trial lawyers.  This was not the case in other Vermont counties, especially in the more urban areas like Burlington where most cases were disposed of through plea bargaining.  But St. Johnsbury was in the Northeast Kingdom where justice was equated with stern and swift punishment.
      If things had been different, Larry and Diane and I might have followed the normal scenario of pretrial motions and lengthy depositions of the State’s witnesses.  Instead, we wanted to go to trial as soon as possible.  Every day Larry or Diane pressured Lucy Miller, the Caledonia District Court Clerk, to set an earlier date for trial.  Normally the quickest one could get a trial date in Caledonia was six weeks after arraignment.  That happened rarely, and then only when neither side filed motions and other cases didn’t take precedence.  To complicate matters for us, the winter holidays were approaching, which meant the entire system would come to a grinding halt, causing additional delay.
      We couldn’t wait six weeks or more.  Odysea and Lucky were in hiding in a cabin in the northeastern-most corner of Vermont.  They were surrounded by miles of forest, moose and black bear, and few people.  Even so, every day they were at risk of being discovered.  Our only hope was to expedite the trial, which we planned to use to expose Trooper Smalley, thereby saving me and Lucky both.
      Did we know how to do that?  Not really.
      We were taking an enormous risk, one that lawyers never take going into trial.  The golden rule of trial practice is “Do unto others what they already expect you to do,” not “Go fish!”
      We couldn’t get at Smalley any other way.  I had tried every way I knew to discover what he had been doing on Barnet Mountain the night he had burned Lucky.  I had tried and failed.  Two of the potential witnesses had died in the crash, and Lucky didn’t know what was behind the torture.  The Masonic lead that Big Rod had offered wasn’t going anywhere.  The Masons in Vermont were just what they appeared to be — law abiding, hard-working men who served the community and occasionally yukked it up at the lodge.  Though we talked with Lucky at length about his having snatched the baby at the mini-mart, he seemed unable to explain any more to us than he already had.  It was obvious that he was terrified.  Smalley had a hold on him that we couldn’t break or penetrate.
      We could have deposed Smalley, dragged him into Larry’s office, put him under oath, and gone fishing.  But he was a seasoned law enforcement officer who’d been deposed in countless cases.  He knew the law, he knew lawyers, and he knew how to respond in ways that sounded reasonable and revealed nothing.  All we would have accomplished would have been to alert him to our suspicions.
      Surprise was our only ally, which is why we didn’t give notice of intent to rely on a defense of necessity.  In a necessity defense, also called the defense of justification, the accused admits to the facts but claims there were extenuating circumstances that compelled the illegal activity.  In my case, I would admit to helping Lucky escape but claim that I had no choice given the imminent danger he faced had I returned him to custody.
      Diane and Larry and I argued over whether to pursue that defense.  Larry believed it was our only option, Diane was on the fence, and I was opposed.  “The necessity defense rarely works,” I pointed out.  “Usually you can’t even get a judge to instruct the jury on it.  And without great instructions, a jury will never buy it.”
      “There was a case in Burlington,” Larry countered, “where protestors against U.S. policy in Central America were charged with trespass when they refused to leave a Senator’s office.  They claimed necessity and were acquitted.”
      “That was the one exception, and I think it was because of Judge Mahady.”  Mahady, now deceased, had been a firebrand on the bench, an avid defender against the excesses of the state.  “I did the research yesterday at the law library in Montpelier and found dozens of cases nationwide involving activists that went the other way.  In State v. Warshow the Vermont Supreme Court established a multi-pronged test, one prong being that there isn’t any other legal option by which to avoid the harm.  All Brown has to say to the jury is, ‘If the defendant seriously believed local law enforcement was corrupt, he should have taken his client to the FBI for protection.’”
      “Jimmy,” Diane said, “I think you’re too close to this to see it clearly.  A necessity defense works not because the perpetrator acted logically at the time, but because circumstances were such that anyone would have reacted in the same way.  You have to put the jury in your shoes when you found Lucky.  If we can do that, they’ll acquit.”
      “Maybe I am too close to this, Diane, but the fact is that the only successful use of this defense in Vermont happened in Burlington, not St. Johnsbury.  How can we seriously suggest to a Caledonia jury that they nullify the law?  And Judge Stone is no Mahady.”
      “I think you’re underestimating people,” Larry said, “and that’s a serious mistake to make.  Still, you’re the one who has to do the time.”
      Diane shook her head, “I don’t know, I just don’t know.  We should be able to come up with something better.  It feels like we’re going in naked and asking the jury to pretend we’re wearing the righteous armor of St. Joan.”
      “Not St. Joan,” I quipped, “St. John.”  Neither of them laughed, but finally they agreed that a surprise attack might shake loose the truth, whatever the truth was.
      “Thanks,” I said to both of them.  I knew it was a terrible trial strategy, the worst I’d ever seen.  I also knew it was all we had.

      We finally got a break the week before Christmas.  There was a trial scheduled that would have lasted right up until the 24th, but the defendant got cold feet and decided to accept Brown’s plea offer.
      As it happened, Diane and I were in Larry’s office when Lucy called.  Larry took the call, listened a moment, then said, “Yes, I know I’ve been after you to expedite the trial date, but one day’s notice is simply not enough.”  Diane and I stared at him in disbelief.  Both of us made frantic gestures that proclaimed loudly, Take it!  Larry hemmed and hawed some more, and just as I was sure Lucy would hang up in exasperation, he said, “Okay, we’ll do it.”  As he hung up the phone, he turned to us with a wicked gleam in his eye, “You can’t let these court clerks run you ragged!”  Then he winked and said, “Get out your Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes!  Tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. we draw a jury.”

      The trial was as boring as any I’d ever witnessed, despite the fact that it was my fate that hung in the balance.  Larry and I shared the voir dire of the jury, disagreeing on only one potential juror.  I didn’t like the way she looked at my pony tail, as if I were some kind of alien.  Larry insisted I was overreacting, but the judge removed her for cause when she admitted that she didn’t believe in the presumption of innocence.
      Her honesty was rare.  Most jurors automatically nod their heads when asked that question.  It’s like being asked in church, do you believe in God the Almighty?  Everyone nods their heads, though secretly many have grave doubts.
      We picked the jury that morning, and right after lunch Walter Brown delivered his standard opening statement.  As Brown would be the first to admit, he is a creature of habit.  He follows precise patterns that never vary.  For his opening, he first walks back and forth in front of the jury, then takes two steps back, folds his arms across his chest, and begins.  He always recites the basic facts, then strikes a bargain with the jury: “I will do my job to provide you with credible evidence if you will do yours to convict on both counts.”
      I think I groaned aloud.  I’d heard his spiel too many times, and Larry had to shush me.  “And please stop scowling,” he hissed.
      When it was our turn, we waived our opening until the start of our own case.  It was not standard practice, but we wanted to see what was up before trying to influence the jury’s perception of the facts.
      Brown called four witnesses:  Trooper Derrick Smalley, to establish that Lucky had been arrested on felony charges; Sheriff Don George, to describe the wreck of the transporting vehicle and Lucky’s disappearance; Robert Ashley-Warner, to confirm that I had stolen the Audi; and Diane Ashley-Warner, to prove Lucky’s presence when she and I had conversed via the cell phone.  Brown also produced phone records to establish the location of the Audi during our calls.
      It was as cut-and-dry a case as any I’d ever seen.  Had I been a juror, I would have told the judge to dispense with the defense because it didn’t matter what they said, I was voting for conviction.
      Larry did a credible job with Trooper Smalley.  He poked, he jabbed, he politely insinuated.  It made no difference.  Smalley didn’t give away anything.
      “Did you know Donald Hall before you arrested him?”
      “I did not.”
      “You never had any connection, official or otherwise?”
      “No.”
      “When you arrested Donald Hall, did he have any unusual marks on his body?”
      “One half of his face is discolored with a birth mark.”
      “I mean other than that.”
      “If he did, I didn’t notice at the time.”
      And on and on it went.
      As Smalley stepped off the witness stand, I looked at the jury.  All seven women and five men were smiling at him as if they wanted to shake his hand for protecting them from vicious criminals like Lucky and me.
      I tried to shake up the Sheriff about how odd it was for his deputies to be driving down the back side of Barnet Mountain in a snow storm when they should have been heading to Waterbury.
      “I’m embarrassed,” he readily admitted.  “They were derelict in their duty, and if they had survived the accident, I would have fired them.”
      “But what were they doing on Barnet Mountain?”
      “One of the men lived in Barnet Village and obviously had wanted to stop at home.”
      “Is that standard operating procedure in your department?”
      “Definitely not.”
      There wasn’t a lot I could do to counter his testimony, though I kept trying until Brown objected.
      “Sheriff George has already answered that question several times!”
      Stone sustained.
      Larry kept his cross-examination of Bob brief and to the point:  “Isn’t it true that title to the Audi is in your wife’s name as well as your own?”
      “Yes.”
      “Thank you, Mr. Ashley-Warner.”
      Before Diane testified, we skirmished with Brown over whether she was protected by her attorney-client relationship with Lucky.  As we expected, Judge Stone ruled that she would have to answer Brown’s questions on the narrow issue of Lucky’s presence in the car because she had failed to report my illegal actions, thereby waiving the privilege.  Larry formally objected and preserved the issue for appeal.
      Diane did a great job of trying to save me on the larceny charge, but Brown skillfully got her to admit to our “liaison,” as he called it.  Even I could see that she would lie to save me.  It didn’t matter that she actually was telling the truth, what mattered was the look in her eyes whenever she glanced my way from the witness stand.  It was pure and unadulterated love, the kind that you can’t hide no matter how much you might like to.
      So much for beating the larceny conviction.
      That was day one.

      The next morning we began with Larry asking Judge Stone to dismiss the case because the State had failed to meet its burden of proof.  It’s one of those ritual motions one must make or forfeit certain appellate rights.
      Stone automatically said, “The defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal is denied,” then he told Winston Foley, the bailiff, “Please bring the jury up.”
      We were using the upstairs courtroom, a large and airy space with high ceilings and ornate scroll-work.  There always were a few spectators for major felony trials, but today the courtroom was packed.  The local legal community had turned out in record numbers to see their own do battle.  Plus David Rintell, a tall man with sensual lips who was the local crime reporter, had written a dramatic piece that had gotten picked up by a wire-service.  It had drawn the attention of the national print media, mostly because of the connection with Lucky’s alleged crime, which had been front-page news.
      Linda Penniman, the public defender office manager, kept coming in whenever she could get away from the office.  She wanted to be sure I knew she was there.  “I believe in you, Jimmy,” she told me as we waited for the jury to come up the front stairs.
      She gave me a hug, which I appreciated.  “Thanks, Linda,” I said as I hugged her back.  It was then that I glanced into the rear of the room.  There was a middle-aged woman who was huddled on the back bench.  She looked ghostly, so thin as to be emaciated.  Her skin had the pallor of the seriously ill or dying, and though the courtroom already was too hot, she kept her heavy winter coat buttoned to the top.  Even so, she was shaking with cold.
      When she saw me studying her, she quickly got up and walked out the back door.  There was something about her, something I recognized but couldn’t define.
      “Do you know that woman who’s leaving the courtroom?” I asked Linda.  Linda had a great memory for faces and names.  I thought the woman might have been a former client.
      “Never seen her before,” Linda answered.
      As the woman opened the door to leave, Diane was entering from the stairs.  They nearly collided, and Diane reached out a hand to steady the frail woman.  As she did, the woman flinched.  I’d seen that flinch before, and in a flash of memory I realized where — Lucky!  The woman looked exactly like Lucky when he pulled back in fear.
      “Wait!”  I called out to her.
      She looked at me in alarm and quickly shoved by Diane.  I watched as the woman started to descend the stairs, then bolted after her.
      The jurors were entering the front of the courtroom, taking their seats in the jury box.
      As I reached Diane, she said, “Jimmy, stop, the jury is almost seated.”
      “Hold them off anyway you can,” I said.  “That woman is Lucky’s mother!”

 
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24.  Fighting

When I returned to the courtroom ten minutes later, I knew exactly what I had to do.  My mind, which had been spinning wildly as Lucky’s mother filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle, was now calm and lucid.  I saw the whole picture for the first time and knew I was the only one in the courtroom who did.  I understood exactly what I had to do and how to do it.  I didn’t know if it would work, but when are there are any guarantees in life?
      With its endless rules and precedents, a courtroom should be a thoroughly predictable setting in which to effect justice and resolve human conflict.  It isn’t.  There are wild cards that even the broadest discovery and pre-trial procedures can’t stop the players from slipping up their sleeves.  Life is inherently too chaotic to be controlled so easily.  I knew that now in a way I never had because I was holding the wildest card of all — the truth about Trooper Smalley.
      “Please approach the bench, Mr. St. John,” Judge Stone said, the anger in his voice poorly concealed.
      The entire courtroom stared at me as I walked up the center aisle and approached Judge Stone.  He leaned over the high bench and said with exaggerated politeness, “Are you ready to proceed this morning, or do you need to make us sit here silently waiting for another ten minutes?”
      “I’m sorry, your Honor, the delay was unavoidable.  It won’t happen again.”
      “I know it won’t,” he said grimly, “because if it does I will find you in contempt of this court.”
      I nodded but didn’t worry about his threat.  I had other things on my mind.
      He sat back in his swivel chair and turned to address the jury.  “Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.  The defense informs me that they are ready to proceed.  As I explained to you yesterday, the State’s case has been concluded and this morning the defense will be presenting their witnesses.  They will begin with an opening statement that I believe Mr. St. John will deliver.  Is that correct?”
      “Yes, your Honor,” Larry answered from defense table.
      “Very well.  You have our attention, Mr. St. John.”
      Before beginning to speak I took a deep breath and looked around the courtroom.  I saw Diane sitting in the front row, just behind Larry.  Yesterday,  as a sequestered witness, she’d been forced to wait in one of the attorney’s rooms outside the courtroom.  Now that her testimony was over, she was free to observe.  When she saw me looking at her, she gave me a loving, encouraging smile.  At the same time, Larry gave the thumbs-up sign.
      Across the aisle from Diane sat Trooper Smalley and Sheriff George.  Normally the cops get out of the courtroom and back to duty as soon as they can.  I was relieved to see that Smalley had returned for day two.  I needed him there, needed him to hear what I was about to say.
      I looked into the rear of the crowded courtroom where I spotted Linda.  She was sitting next to Lucky’s mother as I had asked.  Because Linda herself was calm, she had a calming effect on others.  Right now Lucky’s mother, whose name was Marion, desperately needed Linda’s help.
      I turned to face Walter Brown, who sat rigidly tall as usual.  When our eyes met, he glared at me as if to say, “Get it over with, I have more important things to do than to stare back at you.”  I wanted to tell him it wasn’t a contest, that I merely wanted one last look at the players in this real-life drama.
      Then I turned to face the jury.  Their eyes were focused directly on me, waiting attentively for me to begin.  I looked back, meeting their gaze one-by-one.  I wanted to connect with them as individuals, to let them see I had nothing to hide.  Some smiled, others stared back uncomfortably.
      There were seven women and five men, all of them white because Vermont is over 98% Euro-American.  They ranged in age from 23 to 67.  Six were married, two single, one widowed, and three divorced.  Their occupations varied from sales clerk to logger, English teacher to retiree.  It might have felt strange to be looking at twelve strangers in whose hands one’s fate rested.  It didn’t because I felt as if I knew each one of them, had known them my whole life.  In their faces I saw my childhood friends, close relatives, former teachers.  I knew these people, knew them and cherished them, and because of that I no longer underestimated them.  Larry had been right about that — it was a dangerous thing to do — and I was relieved  to be free of that self-defeating doubt.  They would do the right thing as long as I gave them the means with which to do it.  Put them in your shoes, Diane had said.  That’s exactly what I intended to do.
      “I’m not a religious person,” I began.  “But perhaps like some of you, when I’m troubled I turn to the god I first met as a child.
      “I’m troubled now, and so naturally I’m thinking about Jesus.  In particular I’m remembering a section of the Gospels where he advises us to agree with our adversaries when we’re in the way with them, or else they might turn upon us and deliver us to the authorities.  I don’t recall the exact words, but it’s something like, lest they take thee before a judge, who delivers you to the officer, who casts you into prison from which you will not escape until you have paid the highest price.
      “This morning I stand before a judge.  And I am ready to pay whatever price I must for what I have done.  But before you decide my fate, and clearly that is what you are here to do, I want you to look inside yourself and consider the meaning of Good and Evil.
      “Too often we think we know what those words mean.  Too soon we judge those who appear evil without giving ourselves a chance to see the good inside them.  We’re also quick to assume that those who wear the mantle of Good are therefore incapable of doing Evil.  Today I am asking you to put aside those easy preconceptions and do the hard work of finding the deeper truth about who is Good and what is Evil.”
      I paused for a moment to let them ponder what I’d just asked them to do.  I had been standing in front of the judge’s bench.  I now took a few steps closer to the jury box, stopped in front of the prosecutor’s table, and turned to look at Walter Brown.
      “As you heard from the State’s Attorney, I was until recently a criminal defense investigator.  Mr. Brown made special mention of my knowledge of criminal law, pointing out that I could not have acted in innocence when I helped a former client escape from custody.
      “He’s both right and wrong about that.”
      I turned back to face the jury.
      “Yes, I knew I was breaking the law.  Yet I did so in complete innocence.
      “The law as I understand it is a very rigid thing.  It insists on clarity under cloudy circumstances, on precision when a rule of thumb is the best we can do, on decisions in black-and-white terms when shades of gray are more fitting.  Perhaps you, like me, understand that the choices we must make in life are rarely as cut and dried as the law would have them be.
      “The law wants to know Who, What, When, and Where, but rarely if ever Why.
      “It is the Why that I am asking you to consider today.
      “The basic facts in this case are so simple that they require little of your attention.  They can be reduced to a few direct questions.  Namely, did I take without permission the car belonging to the Ashley-Warners?
      “The answer is clear:  No, I did not.  Diane, my former boss and a married woman whom I have loved since the first moment I saw her, has already testified that she gave implied consent.
      “What she didn’t tell you is that even if she hadn’t, I would have taken the car.  I let her know that in no uncertain terms.
      “I know I’m not supposed to admit such a thing, that my co-counsel Larry Hughes is probably squirming in his seat right now.”
      I turned to look at Larry, who was indeed squirming.  Most of the jurors chuckled at that, which was good.  It helped to break the tension I felt was getting too intense.
      Walter Brown didn’t laugh.  He was frowning at me.  I could tell he was considering whether to object.  The most serious breach of courtroom etiquette is to interrupt opposing counsel during opening or closing arguments.  Yet I knew Walter was tempted, for I had slipped once or twice over the edge of the broad discretion permitted during opening statements.  You aint’ heard nothin’ yet, Walter, I thought as I turned back to the jury.
      “The second question is even simpler:  Did I help Donald ‘Lucky’ Hall escape from custody?  The answer is No, I didn’t help him, I actually made the decision for him.”
      There was a shocked murmur from the spectators in the courtroom.  Obviously no one expected me to admit so fully to my guilt.
      “That’s right.  I did it without his knowledge.  He was asleep or unconscious when I arrived at the proverbial crossroads.  I didn’t ask for, nor did I receive, his consent.  Which is why it makes perfect sense to me that I be charged as a principal in the crime of Escape.”
      I paused for a moment, studying the effect my admission of guilt had on the jury.  They were neither stunned nor shocked, but seemed to take it in stride, which is what I had hoped for.
      Now I stepped right up to the jury box, actually put both hands against the rail, and leaned towards the jurors as closely as I could without losing those seated at either end of the box.  I dropped my voice as low as I could, making it confidential.  As I spoke I could feel the rest of the courtroom lean forward to hear me better.
      “Now I’m going to tell you the Why.  But there are certain people in the courtroom I don’t want to hear this.  One of them is the State’s Attorney, who may object to my confidence.  Another is Trooper Smalley.”  I pulled back from the rail and turned directly to Smalley.  He met my gaze as if he had nothing to hide.  Moral rectitude radiated from him.  I almost laughed out loud.  Instead I shouted, “Don’t you pretend for one second you don’t know what I’m referring to!”
      Brown jumped from his seat, “Objection!”
      Judge Stone sighed audibly, then asked counsel to approach the bench.  It took Larry a little longer to reach the spot where Brown and I stood.  When he had, we huddled close as Stone said, “Mr. Brown, you know as well as I that Vermont allows wide discretion in opening remarks.  If you interrupt Mr. St. John again, I’m going to be most unhappy.”  Then he turned to me, “And Mr. St. John, I am permitting you even greater latitude than I would a member of the Bar, but I will be listening with less patience from this point on.  Please wrap it up and stay within the reasonable limits of the law.”
      I nodded agreeably while thinking, Sorry, I just can’t comply.
      Brown said, “Just for the record, I want to object to what’s starting to sound like a defense of necessity.  I was never notified that they would rely upon that defense.”
      “Is that what you’re about to do?” Stone asked.
      “No, it isn’t,” Larry said.  “Our understanding is that we’re free to ask the jury to nullify the law without claiming a formal necessity defense.  Isn’t that correct, Walter?”
      Reluctantly, he agreed.
      Judge Stone said, “Okay, but if you come back later asking for jury instructions on necessity, you’re not going to get them.”
      “Fair enough,” Larry said, then took me by the arm to get me out of earshot.  “I don’t know where you’re going on this, Jimmy, but you sure got our attention!”
      “As I was saying a few minutes ago, I’ve come to that point in my opening statement when I want to address why I made the choices I did.  It’s most important to me that you understand what motivated me to go beyond the law.
      “I believed then, and I am even more certain of it today, that if I had turned my client over to the police after the accident, he would have suffered great harm.
      “What I am about to tell you is a bitter pill to swallow, especially here in the Northeast Kingdom where most of us believe that the men and women who work in law enforcement are honest and upright.  In fact we can’t imagine the kind of police corruption that is taken for granted in cities like Philadelphia or New Orleans.  Nor can we conceive of police brutality like that heaped upon Rodney King in Los Angeles.  We expect a high standard of behavior from our police and sheriffs, who are people we instinctively trust and respect, rightfully so.
      “But there are exceptions to every rule and rotten apples in every profession.
      “When I helped Donald ‘Lucky’ Hall escape, it was because I saw first-hand irrefutable evidence that he had been tortured by the very men into whose care this court had entrusted him.
      “Torture is a word I don’t use lightly.”  I turned and looked at Smalley.  He was completely calm and unperturbed.
      “But torture is what was inflicted upon Donald Hall.”
      I paused, waited until the entire courtroom had stilled into silence, then announced loudly, “I call my first witness, Donald ‘Lucky’ Hall.”
      The courtroom buzzed with anticipation, and I could see reporters rushing out the back doors to call in the unexpected appearance of “the Dog.”
      Diane rose and walked to the back of the courtroom where on either side there were doorways to the attorneys’ rooms.  She opened the door to the defense room on the right, and Lucky walked into the courtroom flanked by federal marshals.  Close behind them came Odysea.  Their entrance couldn’t have been more unexpected or dramatic.
      Diane, who had kept Lucky as a client when she’d resigned as public defender, had arranged for the protective custody of the federal marshals.  Lucky had been delivered into their care at 8 am that morning.  She’d spent all week on the phone with a former classmate at Vermont Law School who now worked at the Department of Justice in Washington.  For years Justice had been ignoring the civil rights violations of local law enforcement, and only recently in the wake of widely publicized cases like Rodney King’s had they begun paying lip service to federal intervention.  She made sure they would do more than palaver when it came to Lucky.  She threatened and needled and whined until she secured a promise that federal marshals would escort Lucky into the courtroom and keep him beyond the reach of Trooper Smalley.
      Justice first had declined to act, then relented when Diane said she would file a 1983 Civil Rights action in federal court, making Lucky a material witness in a federal case.  She’d had the paperwork delivered by courier that morning, naming as respondents Trooper Smalley, the deceased sheriffs, and the heads of their respective agencies, all the way up to and including Governor Howard Dean.
      Every eye in that courtroom took in the presence of the federal marshals, every eye except Trooper Smalley.  He looked straight ahead as if nothing unusual or unexpected were taking place around him.

 
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25.  Witnessing

Taking the witness stand can be a terrifying experience.  Even though lawyers spend hours coaching their witnesses, videotaping and critiquing, prepping them on every point, no one can predict how those witnesses will react under the pressure of testifying.  I’ve seen self-assured and confident adults crumble the moment they turn to face a courtroom.
      During the brief time we’d spent coaching Lucky, I had reminded him about his skill as a storyteller.  “Just give your answers like you’re telling one of your stories.”  That had seemed to help, but now as I watched him walk down the center aisle of the crowded courtroom, I had my doubts.  He marched stiffly as if going to his own execution.
      Odysea had told me that since the flood Lucky had held back, refusing to be drawn into conversation.  “He’s in turmoil, that much is obvious.  I think he’s deciding whether to tell something that torments him.”  From the first moment of our reunion, I’d sensed she was right.  I had thrown my arms around him in loving embrace.  “I’m so glad you’re alive, Lucky!”
      He had stiffened and replied, “I’m sorry, Jimmy.”
      “What for?”
      He couldn’t speak, but just stared at me dolefully.
      “You have nothing to be sorry about, Lucky.”  I put a hand on either side of his shoulders, looked straight at him, and said, “When I thought you had drowned I realized how much you meant to me and I regretted that I had never told you that I love you.”
      He grew solemn and nearly started to cry.  I looked at Odysea, who shrugged as if to say, “I don’t understand any more than you do.”
      That had been over two weeks ago, and he seemed to be getting worse, not better.  When we’d asked him if he would testify, he had said, “You mean tell the truth?”  He’d said it like he yearned to believe that the truth would set him free, yet feared it would doom him for eternity.  In the end he’d agreed, saying simply, “That’s why we came back from Texas, isn’t it?”
      Everything hinged on Lucky’s testimony.  If he told what had happened in a way that was believable, both of us might walk out of the courtroom free men.  If he got scared and reverted to his dog-like ways, we were doomed.  It was as simple as that.
      As he passed by me on his way to the witness stand, I put a reassuring hand on his arm.
      He flinched.
      It wasn’t a good sign.

      Before Larry could begin his direct examination of Lucky, Judge Stone wanted to make sure our star witness knew that he didn’t have to testify.  After all, the last time Stone had seen Lucky, he had ordered him evaluated for competency.  “I want you to understand that you have the right to refuse to testify, either about the alleged escape or about anything concerning the other charges you face.”
      Of course we had anticipated this, had prepared Lucky for Stone’s questions.  “Just answer yes or no when he asks you a question.  If you’re not sure, ask him to repeat the question.  You have to give your answer out loud because the tape recorder can’t see you nod.”  That made him smile, so we knew he understood.
      Lucky tried, oh how he tried, to reply verbally to each question that Stone posed.  He’d lean forward as if to respond, his lips would pucker and shake, but no sound was forthcoming.  I could feel everyone in the room willing Lucky to answer, but he couldn’t no matter how hard he tried.
      The best he could do, and then only when Stone persisted, was to nod his head to questions like, “Did your lawyer explain to you that you are not on trial today?”
      I expected Judge Stone to lose his patience, but he remained calm.  Perhaps the presence of the jury explained why, for even the most irascible judges want jurors to perceive them as wise and patient.  Stone smiled several times at the jury as he questioned Lucky, then sighed benevolently before saying, “For the record, I want it noted that Mr. Hall has responded non-verbally to my questions by nodding his head in the affirmative.  I am satisfied that he understands, and knowingly waives, his legal rights in this regard.  Please proceed, Mr. Hughes.”

      We had decided that Larry would lead Lucky through direct examination.  Our fear was that if I questioned him, the jury might think Lucky were being unduly influenced.  Fortunately, Lucky had immediately taken to Larry, who was able to put him at ease.
      Larry now stood in front of the witness stand, supported by his walker.  His head, which often seemed to bob and shake as if listening to music only he could hear, was cocked sideways so that he could see both Lucky and the jury.  His thick eyeglasses were slightly askew, but otherwise he was impeccable, dressed as always in brightly colored slacks and a plaid jacket.  Larry was a bit of a Beau Brummell.
      By contrast, Lucky wore faded jeans and a blue denim work shirt.  We had tried dressing him up, but he was stiff and unnatural in a tie and sports coat.  “It’s better for him to wear his regular clothes,” Diane finally insisted.  She had been right, as I now saw.  Yet wearing his own clothes or getting encouraging looks from Larry wasn’t enough.
      Lucky was trembling with fear, which made his head flutter up and down in an insistent tremor.  The right side of his face — the side without the strawberry — was highly flushed.  The knuckles on both hands were turning white from gripping the side of the armchair in which he sat.
      It took Larry longer than usual to begin.  I think he was as nervous as Lucky.  I could hear people fidgeting throughout the courtroom.  Even the jurors shifted in their seats.  Finally, after taking several deep breaths, Larry commenced to speak in his halting fashion.
      “Please tell us your name and where you lived before your arrest in October of this year.”
      Lucky stared at a spot on the carpet several feet in front of him.  He seemed to be struggling internally, waging a battle that was tearing him to shreds.  He didn’t even try to reply, nor did he look up at Larry.
      “Let me ask again if you will tell us your name.”
      Lucky kept staring, then I saw him raise his head and peer into the courtroom.  His eyes were drawn directly to Trooper Smalley.  I shifted slightly in my seat and could see the side of Smalley’s face.  Probably to anyone else, Smalley’s expression remained unchanged.  Yet to me, and most certainly to Lucky, there was the subtlest shift in the musculature of his jaw.  It tightened, just enough to convey his message:  Say one word, just one single word, and I’ll burn you to ashes!
      Lucky began to whimper.
      I turned directly behind me to face Odysea who was sitting with Diane in the front row.  Odysea nodded her head slightly to let me know that she, too, had witnessed Smalley’s evil threat.
      “Your Honor,” I said too loudly, shattering the silence and nearly knocking over my chair as I jumped out of it.  “May we approach the bench.”  I looked at Brown, who frowned before accompanying me.

      “What you’re proposing is highly unusual,” Stone said when I had finished speaking.
      “It’s an affront to the dignity of the judicial system,” Brown objected.  “It’ll turn this courtroom into a Bread and Puppet circus!”
      Larry was unperturbed by Brown’s rhetoric.  “The Americans with Disabilities Act imposes upon the criminal justice system an affirmative duty to provide reasonable accommodation to people with disabilities.  What we are asking may be unusual, but it is not unreasonable.  The witness, as this court knows, suffers from a disability as real and obvious as my own.  If I asked for a physical device that would aid me, you would grant it, wouldn’t you?”
      “Of course,” Stone admitted, “but this isn’t the same.”
      “Yes it is,” I argued.  “When Lucky feels threatened, he’s unable to communicate through speech.  If he were deaf, he’d be provided with an interpreter.  Why not do the same for someone who is mute for emotional reasons?”
      Stone considered a long moment, then finally nodded his head in agreement.  “Okay, we’ll try it.”
      Brown bristled, but there was nothing he could do.

      Stone briefly explained to the jury what was about to happen.  “This is a bit of an experiment,” he said, “so please bear with us a few moments.  Bailiff Foley, I want you to set up a folding chair right in front here.”
      As she sat in the chair that Foley had placed just below the witness stand, Odysea smiled warmly at the jurors.  As a group they smiled back, instantly charmed by her relaxed and friendly manner.  Courtrooms are very solemn places, yet Odysea was dressed in white cotton pants and a brilliantly colored smock that had been made in Guatemala.  Her prized goddess hung on a newly woven thong the color of a Texas sunrise.  Against the deliberately dark and somber backdrop of the courtroom, she looked like the first crocus of spring breaking through frozen ground.  Everything about her was at odds with the prevailing atmosphere, and the jury obviously approved.
      Brown hadn’t been far off track when he had compared what was about to happen to a performance by Bread and Puppet Theater.  This was as extraordinary an event as any I’d encountered in a Vermont courtroom.
      “I’m ready,” Odysea said to Judge Stone.
      “Then by all means begin,” Stone graciously replied.  I was starting to think he was as intrigued by this as everyone else in the room.
      Lightly, and then with more force, Odysea began to tap out a rhythm on the djembe, which was cradled between her knees.  I recognized the rhythm at once.  It was the same song she had played the night I had brought Lucky to my cabin following the accident.
      I looked at Lucky, who this entire time had been whimpering quietly and staring at the carpet in front of the witness stand.  The cavernous courtroom reverberated with the sound of the drum, slowly drawing him out of his exile of fear.  He looked up and saw Odysea, then noticed me.  I was standing a few feet in front of him, having switched places with Larry (who had insisted “this is your show from here on, Jimmy”).
      “Lucky,” I said above the beat of the drum, “will you please tell us your name.”
      I could see that he wanted to, that he truly was trying to reply, but the fear that had gripped him continued to hold him hostage.
      I nodded at Odysea, and immediately the beating of the drum grew louder and more compelling.  Then she began to chant:

      Djembe! it sings the song
      Now you know it won’t be long.
      Djembe! it weaves the tale
      Makes you move and makes you wail.
      Djembe! Djembe! Djembe!

      She repeated the chant, and with each repetition Lucky became more energized.  I remembered how he had danced that first night, how the circle of his movement had expanded as he filled the whole cabin, prancing wildly and rattling his chains like a tambourine, until the drumming and the dancing were as one.
      Suddenly the drumming ceased and Odysea repeated the final line of the chant in an hypnotic drone.  The air in the courtroom vibrated with it.
      “Djembe! Djembe! Djembe!”
      I thought I heard a second, deeper voice join hers.  I looked at Lucky and saw at once that the voice was his.
      The droning stopped, but the vibration lingered while Odysea and Lucky gazed at each other in open admiration.  Lucky beamed at her, a giant grin pasted to his face.  She nodded encouragingly, then resumed tapping lightly on the djembe.
      “My name is Donald Allen Hall,” he said, “but really I’m Lucky.”

      The spell of fear had been broken, and from that moment on Lucky told his story as if he was telling one of his myths.
      We worked our way backwards in time, starting with the accident.  He described the sheriff’s car going out of control as they drove down Barnet Mountain in the snow storm.  He must have blacked out before impact, because he didn’t remember striking the cedar that had prevented the car from careening into the river.  Nor did he have any idea how long he’d been waiting when I had rescued him from the wreck.
      “But why had the deputies taken you to Barnet instead of to the State Hospital in Waterbury?”
      “They said my old friend wanted to talk to me first.”
      He told how he had been marched in chains by the deputies until they met Trooper Smalley in a field beyond the funeral monument near Karme Choling.  He said Smalley didn’t speak at first, just stared at him as the snow swirled about them.  Suddenly Smalley took a burning cigarette from his lips and held the glowing coal against Lucky’s wrist, repeating it in a pattern.  Lucky had screamed in pain and tried to pull away, but the deputies had restrained him.
      I asked Lucky to hold up his left wrist so the jury could see the burn marks.  Plain as day were two lines, one an inverted V, the other a capital L on its side.
      “Do you know what the symbol represents?”
      “No,” he answered.
      “Why did he do this to you?”
      “I think to scare me.”
      “Why would he want to scare you?”
      Lucky mumbled something inaudible.
      “Can you please repeat that?”
      “Because of the baby.”
      Now things got hard again, and I was afraid Lucky would revert to his earlier state of fear, but Odysea kept playing and I kept asking simple, direct questions to lead him through the nightmare he described.
      Smalley had appeared one night in late summer at Lucky’s camp beneath the Portland Street Bridge.  He had threatened to arrest Lucky for Trespassing unless Lucky did him a favor.
      “What favor did he ask you to do?”
      “To take a baby.”
      “What do you mean, ‘take a baby’?”
      “He told me a baby was being hurt by her father, and he wanted me to rescue the baby and bring her to him.”
      He went into detail about waiting at the mini-mart as Smalley had told him to do.  “Every day around three o’clock I’ve seen the mother stop at the Mobil Mini-Mart,” Smalley had said.  “She always leaves the baby in the car seat.  Just wait until you see her go inside the building to pay,” Smalley had ordered.  “Then open the car door and take the baby out of the car seat and bring her back here to your camp.  When the mother calls the police, I’ll know to come to the camp.  Do you understand?”
      Only things had gone wrong, very wrong.  Unknown to Smalley, the baby had a seizure disorder and needed regular doses of Phenobarbital.  No sooner had Lucky gotten the baby back to his camp than she had begun shaking violently.  He had tried but couldn’t stop the child’s seizure.  When Smalley arrived, she was dead.
      “What did Smalley do?”
      “He took her in his hands and started shaking her, cursing me, and shaking her and shaking her.  Then he hit me and threw the little baby against a tree trunk.  He wouldn’t stop.  He kept thrashing her body against the trunk until it broke apart in pieces.”
      I could feel the courtroom fill with revulsion at the scene Lucky described.  He looked pale and drained, and I thought he was going to be sick, so I backed off for a few moments.
      The djembe filled the silence with a staccato rhythm like a heart breaking.
      “What happened next, Lucky?”
      “He told me to leave, to go far away and never come back.”
      “Did you?”
      “No, I had no where to go.”
      A few days later, Smalley showed up with several other cops at the riverside camp to arrest Lucky.  When Lucky had tried to run away, Smalley had tackled him and begun beating him.  That’s when Lucky bit him.

      Walter Brown began his cross examination by ordering Odysea to stop drumming.  “Believe me, it won’t be necessary.  I’m going to be very, very brief.”
      She looked at me, and I shrugged.  She resumed her seat next to Diane.
      “Now let me get this straight,” Brown said.  “You say Trooper Smalley tortured you because he wanted to scare you so that you wouldn’t tell anyone that he had asked you to steal a baby.  Do I have that right?”
      “Yes,” Lucky said, though it was more a whisper than said aloud.
      “That he wanted you to save it from its father, who was hurting the child?”
      Lucky nodded, then remembered to speak aloud.  “Yes.”
      “And you believed him?”
      “Yes.”
      Here Brown paused for effect, looked at the jury, then said in a stage whisper, “Why?”
      “Why?” Lucky repeated.
      “That’s right:  Why?  Why would you believe such a ridiculous story?  As I understand it, you’ve been in foster care, isn’t that true?”
      “Yes.”
      “Then you certainly know that there is an extensive network of social workers who protect children from abuse.  Why would a Vermont State Trooper ask a homeless young man to rescue a baby from child abuse?”
      Lucky murmured a reply only Brown could hear.
      “You say ‘you don’t know.’  You don’t know a lot of things, do you?  For instance you don’t know what the burns on your wrist mean.  Isn’t it true that the reason you don’t know these things is that you made up the entire story?”
      Lucky dropped his head and stared at the carpet again.
      “We’re not playing story time, young man, though I admit you’re quite good at it.  But you’ve gone too far by making these outrageous accusations against a respected law enforcement officer who has risked his life on more than one occasion to protect the people of Vermont.”  Brown shook his head in disbelief.  “How can you expect us to take you seriously?”  He had asked the question rhetorically, never expecting Lucky to respond.  Brown turned away from Lucky in disgust and returned to his seat.

      “Lucky, I know this is hard for you,” I said on re-direct examination, “but I want you to answer Mr. Brown’s last question.  I’m going to phrase it a little bit differently, though.  What do you know about Trooper Smalley that no one else knows?”
      Lucky refused to answer.  I hadn’t expected otherwise.  I knew Smalley had a hold on Lucky, a hold so strong that only one other person in the world could break it, and to Lucky that person was dead.
      “Lucky, please look at me.”
      Slowly he raised his head and met my eyes.  “I want you to keep looking straight ahead for a moment and think about my question.”  I stepped to the side, giving Lucky a clear view to the back of the courtroom, then walked directly to the bar in front of Trooper Smalley.  I nodded my head once.  Lucky’s mother stood up quickly, smiled at Lucky and mouthed the words, “Tell the truth.”
      At the same time, I repeated my question, “What do you know about Trooper Smalley that no one else knows?”
      Lucky laughed joyfully, an odd sound in the total stillness of the waiting courtroom.  I knew what that laugh meant — that he had seen his mother, knew that she was still alive when he had thought her dead, that finally he had permission from her to reveal the truth that had been tormenting him for the past six years since she had dropped him off at the rest area on I-91.
      Lucky laughed with joy and I leaned close to Smalley and whispered, “It’s all over, Jim.”
      “He’s my father!” Lucky said clearly into the courtroom.
      Then deja vu struck with the force of lightning as Smalley’s fist swung straight at my nose, which broke for the second time in six weeks, knocking me to the floor.
      As he connected I noticed the ring on his fist as it came flying at me.  There, once again, was the Masonic seal.  And then I saw what I should have seen all along, that the pattern of Lucky’s burn was a crude rendering of a compass and framing square, the twin tools in the Masonic seal.  So Rod had been right after all.

 
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26.  Beginning

The stunned courtroom erupted into pandemonium as Trooper Smalley, having knocked me to the floor, bolted over the rail towards Lucky.  To his great credit Bailiff Winston Foley, old and frail as he was, didn’t hesitate to put himself between the lunging Smalley and Lucky.  Sheriff George reacted immediately as well, jumping over the rail in a flying tackle, grabbing Smalley around the ankles and bringing him down.  At the same time Walter Brown leaped out of his chair and onto Smalley’s back, while Larry precisely placed his walker over Smalley’s neck, pinning his head to the floor.  The federal marshals ran from the back of the courtroom, as Judge Stone banged his gavel and shouted at them, “Arrest that man!”
      Though dazed and in serious pain, I was aware on some level of the chaos I had instigated.  I leaned back against the rail, my right hand over my throbbing nose, and watched with bemused detachment as the wild scene unfolded in the normally staid courtroom.  I saw Odysea run towards Lucky with the ferocity of a she-bear protecting her cub, then realized Diane was kneeling next to me.
      She smiled at me, and I swear there was a halo of golden light radiating around her.  “Mr. St. John, will you please tell the court how you perceive the criminal justice system at this moment?”
      “Here at last is Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”
      “Amen,” she said, kissing me sweetly on the cheek.

      It took months for the full story to emerge, but when it finally did I was not surprised to learn that Derrick James Smalley, Jr. — a.k.a. “Jim” to close friends and family — had been involved in an international conspiracy of kidnapping for adoption.  It had started five years earlier in London, England, when a police inspector named Peter Laws had uncovered an illegal adoption service that was realizing enormous profits by selling street children from Brazil to wealthy London couples who asked no questions.
      Instead of exposing the operation, Inspector Laws had made himself a full partner, intending from the start to expand throughout Great Britain.  A longtime Mason, Laws recognized at once what a perfect training ground “the Brotherhood” made.  Not only was secrecy inherent in the Masonic Order, but there was the ready-made code that Big Rod had overheard — phrases like “taught to be cautious” and “on the level” — which immediately identified Masons to each other.  Laws’ insidious plan was to recruit law enforcement officers who also were Masons.  They would act as brokers, giving the illegal adoption service the appearance of legality, while exploiting their Masonic connections to locate childless couples desperate enough to adopt at any price.  An additional inducement to potential brokers was the spurious claim that they would be rendering a public service in the Masonic tradition, both to the homeless children and the childless couples.
      In fact Trooper Smalley had been approached by a Canadian police officer at the Masonic Lodge in Newport, Vermont, which shares Lake Memphremagog with Quebec.  When he’d learned that Smalley was a Vermont Trooper, the Canadian had taken him for a ride on his spiffy new metallic red speedboat.  Once on the lake he had described the operation to Smalley, inviting him to become a broker to Vermont couples.  Smalley saw the potential at once but deferred until he could “look into the matter.”  Then he undertook his own research project.
      He learned about Georgia Tann, who during the 1940s had been considered an expert on adoption in Memphis, Tennessee.  Just before Tann’s death she was embroiled in scandal and alleged to have been a kidnapper who had made a fortune selling babies.  Tann had started with legal adoptions, but apparently discovered she could make more money by shipping kids to New York and California where wealthy couples paid handsomely.  Tann was assisted by her friend Camille Kelley, a Shelby County Juvenile Court judge nationally known for her unconventional practices.  After the scandal broke, Kelley was portrayed as having coerced parents seeking public assistance into relinquishing parental rights.
      Smalley also discovered an article in Time magazine about American kids being adopted by childless couples in Australia, Canada, and Europe.  The article pointed out that the United States had no exit-visa requirements.  Unlike the states, which have strict legal procedures for domestic adoption, the federal government didn’t regulate foreign adoption.
      Smalley combined what he’d learned into a pernicious plan to steal children who were suspected victims of child abuse, then ship them out of the country with phony papers via his Canadian connection.  Like Judge Kelley, he chose kids from poor families, assuming they would make easier targets.  Like Inspector Laws, Smalley convinced his cohorts that they would be improving the abused children’s lives by placing them in the homes of the affluent.
      Of course he knew about domestic abuse firsthand, having victimized Lucky and his mother for years until he finally had abandoned them to return to Vermont.

      “Jim always hated Donald,”  Lucky’s mother, Marion, told us that night at a dinner Larry Hughes hosted at Anthony’s Diner.  “He refused to marry me when I got pregnant.  He called me a whore, said Donald wasn’t his child.  It wasn’t true, I’d never loved anyone but Jim.”  She looked around the table at each of us as if needing to make sure we understood how deeply she had loved him.  “Then when Donald was born with the birth mark on his face, Jim said it was proof of his bestial origins.”
      She quickly looked at Lucky, saying, “Of course it wasn’t true.  It was just the meanest thing he could think to say.”  She turned back to us.  “He felt trapped by me and the baby.  He was working in a factory on the night shift and complained bitterly about his deadbeat life.  I wasn’t that surprised when he finally disappeared with our dog.  He always loved that dog more than anything.
      “I knew he’d go back to Vermont.  I hoped one day he’d send for us.  But he never did.  Ten years passed and then I got very sick.  I found out I had AIDS.  I thought I was going to die right away.  I didn’t want Donald to watch me deteriorate, so I brought him to Vermont.  I was afraid to take him straight to Jim, which is why I left him at the rest area when I knew Jim would be on call.  I always thought Jim would accept him eventually . . .”  She broke down crying, then said the last thing she had wanted for Lucky was for him to be raised in foster care.  She had been a foster child, and her memories of being sexually abused by her foster father had haunted her for her entire life.
      When Lucky had been arrested on murder and kidnapping charges, Marion had seen an article about it in a Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper.  She’d come to Vermont right away, only to discover that she couldn’t find her son.
      “I kept calling all the jails, but no one knew anything about Donald.”
      “That’s exactly what happened to me in Texas,” Odysea said.
      “I’ve been thinking about this ever since you told me,” Diane said.  “I suspect Trooper Smalley didn’t want Lucky apprehended.  He did everything he could to avoid it, first by keeping news of his escape out of the media — which actually gave you time to get out of Vermont — then by hiding Jimmy under the John Doe so that you couldn’t find him in Texas.”
      “Smalley is very cunning,” Larry said.
      “And very evil,” I added.
      “What he did was evil,” Odysea said, “but I’m not sure we have the right to condemn him as evil.”
      “‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’” Larry quoted.
      Lucky spoke for the first time.  “Sometimes I think maybe all of us are evil, that it’s part of being human, just like being good.”
      “I agree,” Diane said.  “We’re constantly choosing what we’ll bring into the world each day.”
      Odysea nodded, “Yes, it has so much to do with intentions.”
      “Sometimes even the best of intentions result in bad things,” Marion added.  She reached out to Lucky who gently took her hand in his.
      I fell silent, thinking about my own intentions and the evil I had made manifest in my life.  It was a very sobering thought.
      Then Marion told us that when she finally had learned that Lucky had escaped custody, she decided to stay in St. Johnsbury in the event he should be re-captured.  “I’ve made some wonderful friends through Vermont CARES, the AIDS service organization.  They’ve helped me in every way.”  It wasn’t until my trial that she dared to hope she might see her son again.
      “Marion, do you have any idea why Jim had Lucky brought to Barnet the night of the storm?” I asked.
      She flushed in embarrassment, then nodded her head.  “The field called Sunnyside is where Lucky was conceived.”
      Once again I recoiled at Smalley’s evil.  He’d been so afflicted by hatred for his son that he’d had him returned to the scene of his conception to be ritually abused one last time.  Was it some kind of weird exorcism?  Or a final act of dominance?  With a man like Smalley, it probably was both.

      “I have to do this, Diane,” I told her later that night.
      “No you don’t,” she replied bitterly.  “You’re doing this to avoid being with me.”
      “It’s not true.  Being with you is exactly why I have to turn myself in.  I don’t want to spend the rest of our life together being haunted by my past.  Besides, I brought evil into the world.  I took the dynamite from someone who trusted me and gave it to people I loved.  It killed them.  It’s that simple.”
      “Nothing is that simple!” she shouted at me.  “They used you, Jimmy.  You weren’t a person to them, you were their working class hero!”
      “I don’t believe that.  Maybe it started out that way, but in the end we were friends.  Besides, it’s not the point.”
      “Then what is the point?”
      “If that