For a horrible moment Toni’s mind went blank. “Because . . .”
The word hung in the air, like a swinging corpse. The silence that followed felt endless. But at last Toni blurted out, “Because I was tired. I hadn’t slept well the night before and I . . . I didn’t want to take the boys when I wasn’t a hundred percent focused.”
She looked up at Billy again, who gave her an imperceptible nod. Well done. Good answer.
“Thank you, Miss Gilletti. Nothing further for now.”
The prosecution’s case wore on. Billy tuned in here and there, but mostly he just gazed at Toni.
She’s even more beautiful than I remember her. We’ll move to the West Coast after the trial. Start again, somewhere fresh.
He wished he could talk to her, tell her not to be afraid, that it was all going to be okay. The poor girl looked terrified, as if he were about to be led out to face a firing squad. It touched him that she cared so much. But there was really no need.
Billy knew he was going to be acquitted. Leslie, his lawyer, had told him so a thousand times. At the end of the day it didn’t matter whether he or Toni had been watching Nicholas. What happened was an accident. Nobody murdered anybody. It was a mistake, a dreadful, tragic mistake.
The one thing that bothered him slightly was the number of witnesses who testified about his drug use. Yes, he smoked the odd joint and occasionally snorted a line or two of blow. But the “experts” on the stand made him out to be some sort of rampant addict, and Leslie didn’t challenge their allegations.
Jeff Hamlin had the same concern. He took his son’s attorney aside at the first recess.
“That drug counselor guy made Billy sound like a junkie. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because the drugs are a distraction, Mr. Hamlin. A sideshow. We don’t want to get drawn into that.”
“Well, the jury was sure as hell being drawn in. Did you see the look on the foreman’s face?” Jeff Hamlin protested. “And the middle-aged woman at the back? She looked like she wanted to string Billy up right here in the courtroom.”
“Billy’s drug use or otherwise has no bearing on the case.”
“The prosecution obviously thinks it has some bearing.”
“That’s because they have no case,” Leslie Lose said confidently. “A fact I will abundantly prove tomorrow when we start Billy’s defense. Please try not to worry, Mr. Hamlin. I know what I’m doing.”
The prosecution took two days to present its case, which consisted of a thorough hatchet job on Billy Hamlin’s character. Much was made of the toxicology report, and Billy’s “substance abuse problems.” Still more was made of his promiscuity, with various girls from Camp Williams tearfully admitting under oath to being “seduced” by the charming carpenter’s son. Combined with Billy’s admission, backed up by Toni Gilletti’s evidence, that he had been in charge of the boys that day, the consensus was that the district attorney’s office had done enough to prove involuntary manslaughter. But for second-degree murder, they needed more. They needed negligence on a gross scale, and they needed malice.
“The defense calls Charles Braemar Murphy.”
Billy shot his attorney a puzzled look. Had they discussed this? Charles had never exactly been Billy’s biggest fan.
“Mr. Braemar Murphy, you were present at the beach on the afternoon that Nicholas Handemeyer died, were you not?”
“I was.” Charles nodded seriously. In an immaculately cut Halston suit and pale yellow silk tie, with his dark hair neatly parted to the side and a Groton class ring glittering on his little finger, he looked handsome, sober, and conservative—everything that the jury had been led to believe that Billy Hamlin was not.
“Tell us what you remember.”
Charles took a deep breath. “I’d been on my parents’ yacht for the day. I’m afraid I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, but I took one of the tenders over to the beach anyway, which was a stupid thing to do.”
Toni watched the faces of the jurors, who were all listening intently. It was astonishing how forgiving they seemed to be of Charles’s self-confessed drinking, in contrast to their disgust at Billy’s supposed drug taking. Was alcohol just more socially acceptable? Or was it Charles’s educated, upper-class manner that won them over?
Charles went on. “I was going at quite a clip, when I suddenly saw a rowboat directly in front of me, out in the shipping lanes. I swerved to avoid it and that’s when I hit Billy. Not head-on, obviously. I’d have killed him. But I clipped him on the shoulder. I wasn’t expecting to see a swimmer so far out.”
“Where were the children at this point?”
“On the beach, playing,” Charles said firmly.
That’s odd, Toni thought. I’m amazed he even noticed the boys from that distance and after the shock of what happened out in the lanes.
“Was Nicholas Handemeyer with them?”
“I think so. Yes. There were seven boys, so he must have been.”