Absolute Brightness (28 page)

More titters. Another gavel whack.

And then, even though Mr. G was addressing himself to Curtis, he did this thing where he turned to face the jury.

“You realize of course, Curtis, that if Leonard had suddenly become conscious in the water and managed to free himself from the weight of the anchor, his ankle weights would've taken him down. You saw that as a possibility?”

“Objection, Your Honor. Leading the witness.”

“Sustained.”

“I'll withdraw the question,” Mr. G said, knowing he had done the damage he'd set out to do. He didn't care about the court records; he only wanted the jury to understand the situation clearly. “No more questions, Your Honor.”

 

nineteen

JUDGE GAMBLE INSTRUCTED
the jury that while it would be emotionally satisfying to have a clear motive in this case, it wasn't essential in establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But without a clear motive, all the evidence in the world is just stuff laid out on a table. Without a
why
, the story hangs there unresolved. Turns out it's the motive that connects the dots, makes a case, and allows us to sleep at night. And really, there was no motive—nothing that could be said out loud and with certainty.

Once the trial began, all the reporters we had seen the previous year after Leonard died were back in our lives. They were free to speculate about what Travis's motive might have been, but for them it was a professional matter. Most of them camped out in front of the courthouse in Trenton and reported daily what was going on inside the building. A few of them with names and microphones that we recognized parked their vans on our street, determined to get a statement from one of us set against the charming backdrop of the salon. Usually we just stayed indoors when they were around. None of us appreciated being local color for the evening news. Not again.

When Deirdre, Mom, and I weren't busy hurrying from the house to the car with a coat draped over our heads, we were peeking through curtains to watch on-the-scene reporters with TV hair stand in a shock of light and yak about us to their at-home audience. In their most professional tones and snazziest outfits, they speculated about how we felt, why Travis did it, and what would be his fate when the whole thing was finished. Some of the more seasoned reporters, like my old pal Carol Silva-Hernandez, spoke directly into the camera and tried to convey the impression that she was feeling something for all of us, even for Travis. If she talked about the future at all, she made it clear that she had adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Of course, once the gays and lesbians got wind of Leonard's fate, they all hopped on their bandwagon and headed in our direction. They claimed that Travis's motive was hate. They called it a hate crime. At first I was like, “Wait. Isn't all crime about hate?” But then Jodi, a lesbian from Weehawken, informed me that some people are targets of violence because of their “difference.” Jodi had come to Trenton to “be a public face,” talk to the press, and demonstrate outside the courthouse. She frequently held forth on the steps of the courthouse and also on our front lawn when she came to visit us. Reporters either made the most of her, offering her airtime and egging her on with questions, or they ignored her completely and treated her like a nutcase. Jodi couldn't have cared less what people thought of her. She was an activist—also a poet. Her life, she told me, was her art. Take it or leave it.

Personally, I don't think art should ever be an excuse for bad hairstyling. Everybody should take pride in the way they look, especially if they happen to be appearing on TV. Jodi had a mullet. When she appeared on TV, her head looked as though it had been set in a box of flyaway and fuzz. Not a good look. Mom and I tried many times to break the news to her that she was in need of a makeover, but she was so busy explaining the proceedings at court to us whenever she had a chance that we rarely could get a word in edgewise. Clearly, beauty was not a priority for Jodi. If only Leonard had been around, I thought, Jodi would've been invited back to Neptune for an overnight, and she would've left our house the next morning a changed person.

This crime, she explained, wasn't motivated by greed or passion or jealousy or even rage; it wasn't that personal. She said that the perpetrator (Travis) saw the victim (Leonard) demonstrating certain traits of a particular type (gay), and though the perpetrator may not have had any feelings one way or the other for the victim, he certainly had strong feelings (hate) toward the type. In this particular case, she explained, it was pretty obvious from Curtis's confession that the real reason Travis singled Leonard out was because he couldn't tolerate the fact that Leonard might be gay.

I think if you had asked Leonard point-blank if he was gay, he would have totally sidestepped the question. He would have told you (as he told me) that he was just being himself—obviously. But I think everyone who knew Leonard would agree that “being himself” involved giving off homo signals like fireworks off a lit barge. If he wasn't already officially there, he was definitely on his way. It was just a matter of time.

A chorus of people took the stand, one after another, and each of them backed up the idea that even if Leonard wasn't exactly gay, he was at the very least “flamboyant.” “Colorful” was also a word the witnesses used to describe Leonard. And “original” was tossed around, too. Leonard's teachers, some of Mom's customers, Uncle Mike, and even a few of Leonard's classmates all said the same thing in so many words—Leonard was a big sissy. From there it was just a short leap for Mr. G to propose that Leonard was what he called “pre-gay,” and therefore subject to the same prejudices that gays and lesbians might suffer. The case wasn't being tried as a hate crime, not officially, but Mr. G had made his point.

Every once in a while Travis moved his head, but he never fully turned toward the witness stand or toward the jury, and as far as I could tell nothing seemed to register with him. Even when Mr. G pointed at him and referred to him as the “defendant” and accused him of doing something called “entrapment,” Travis never moved in his chair. Jodi told us later that Mr. G was playing the hate card. And Travis just watched him do it without budging. Jodi said it was either an impressive show of self-control on Travis's part or the guy was just plain dead inside.

When Mr. G introduced Travis's e-mails as evidence and had Curtis read snippets of them aloud in court, Travis leaned over and whispered something into Ms. Fassett-Holt's ear. But at that point she didn't raise an objection. How could she? She seemed to realize right then that her boy was sunk. Though the words Travis had used to describe Leonard in those e-mails were shocking to the people in the courtroom, the content of them was pretty straightforward. Gays were dead meat.

What was still missing, however, was an indication that Leonard's murder had been premeditated. Sure the hate was there, but not the plan.

During our lunch break, Mr. G told us that he hadn't been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Travis had planned the whole thing, with or without Curtis. An important point, he said. Still, he explained to us as he delicately bit into his machine-vended Kit Kat bar, without an airtight alibi, without credible character witnesses, and with so much of the evidence stacked against the defendant, Ms. Fassett-Holt didn't stand much of a chance. He said Travis would most certainly be found guilty and then only one question would remain—how harsh would his sentence be?

“What about motive?” I asked him. “Is that over with?”

He raised his shoulders and then let them drop. It was anybody's guess. The jury would have to decide for themselves if there was enough to support a probable motive. But Mr. G explained that unless something unexpected was introduced at the last minute, he felt the case was sown up. And then he chomped the last of his Kit Kat and licked his fingers as if to emphasize his point.

The next two days were spent listening to Ms. Fassett-Holt present her case. She called several people to the stand: experts and witnesses who testified about the extent and depths of Travis's miserable childhood; and together they shored up the argument that the boy deserved, at the very least, kindness. There were no big surprises or star witnesses, and as a result the proceedings were at times almost too painful to sit through. Nonetheless, Ms. Fassett-Holt persevered.

At the end of day two, I watched as they led Travis out of the courtroom. He was (as my Nana Hertle used to say) “calm as damnit,” floating above it all and showing not even a flicker of human emotion. He didn't seem to have any idea of the trouble he was in or of the consequences he was going to suffer if found guilty. It was as though he didn't care if he won the case or not, and that afternoon, instead of looking back at the courtroom as he usually did when he was led away, he just went with the guards. As they hustled him through the doorway and out of sight, I remember thinking,
That's it—he's gone.
Travis Lembeck was already living in another world, another dimension. The Past had ceased to exist for him. The Future was too painful to consider. He was already serving time.

But then suddenly, on the third day, something happened. Ms. Fassett-Holt asked if she could approach the bench. Mr. G joined her, and together they stood before Judge Gamble with their backs to the courtroom. We waited. Shortly after that there was a recess. I knew something was up because when Mr. G sidled up to us, he didn't look good—his face had gone ashen and his eyes seemed sunk into his head. Then, after a lot of hemming and hawing, some discussion about the introduction of new evidence, and a fair amount of complaining about the inadvisability of calling a witness to the stand without first doing an interview, he explained to us that Ms. Fassett-Holt was simply making a very desperate, last-ditch attempt to save her client's life by calling me to the stand.

Just then a weaselly looking guy in a gray suit elbowed his way through the crowd, came up to me and asked if I was Phoebe Hertle. I was still reeling from Mr. G's announcement, so I barely nodded, but it was enough to make the guy hand me an official-looking piece of paper, which Mom swiped out of my hand before I could get a good look at it. It was a document that said I was to appear as a witness.

The next hour or so was pretty much a blur for me. I do remember that Deirdre tried to improve my overall presentation by restyling my hair and makeup.

“Basically, you want your eyes to pop, up there on the stand,” she told me. This was one of the handy catchphrases that Deirdre had picked up since enrolling in Roberson's Beauty Academy in Asbury Park. I just sat there thinking about Leonard and wishing that he'd lived long enough to witness Deirdre's change of attitude and her dexterity with a mascara wand.

“Don't make her look too much like a tramp,” Mom said, which I believe was her way of getting Deirdre to tone down the eye shadow and make me look more like a model citizen.

I said nothing. I was still getting used to the fact that I was about to become a player in an actual court trial.

Of course, if I had known that I was going to be called to take the stand, I would have worn an entirely different outfit and I certainly would have fixed my hair in a style more fitting for a witness. The worst part, however, was how they used me, or how Travis
let
them use me, in order to make it seem like maybe the case was not as airtight as it was. Ms. Fassett-Holt did just what she had to do in order to cast a reasonable doubt over the proceedings. That was her job, but clearly Travis had had a hand in it. Was it his idea, I wondered, or did Ms. Fassett-Holt just happen to have a sudden brainstorm at the eleventh hour, a brainstorm that involved me?

Travis didn't look up from the table when I took the stand and put my hand on the Bible. And he never looked over at me while Ms. Fassett-Holt was grilling me about my whereabouts on the evening in question. Nor did he look up when I explained that, yes, I knew the defendant. But, no, it would not be accurate to categorize our relationship as romantic. Definitely not.

Did Travis see his lawyer smirk at that? I wouldn't know. I was too busy sweating under my oversize cable-knit and side glancing at the jury box. Did he notice how Ms. Fassett-Holt turned toward the jury and shared her bemused expression with them, like they were her private little army of confidants? She had their attention. Finally. How happy she must have been. And who told her, I wonder, that Travis and I had kissed? Who besides Travis and I knew that he had once discovered me standing in his backyard trying to get his attention after midnight by throwing stones at his bedroom window?

“I didn't mean to break the window. That was an accident.”

Travis had definitely told her about that.

But still he didn't look up to see my expression when Ms. Fassett-Holt asked me point-blank if I had ever been inside the shed, which was situated in the Lembeck backyard.

“No,” I told her. “I didn't even know there was a shed.”

I saw where she was going with this. She was suggesting that I could very easily have planted the rope in the shed, the rope they later found linking Travis to the murder.

“I told you, I didn't even know there was a shed.”

Travis also didn't look up when Ms. Fassett-Holt asked me to explain to the court what I was doing in the Lembeck backyard in the first place. She didn't seem that satisfied with my answer. But then maybe she never had a cousin who was murdered, maybe she never had to go down to the morgue with her mother to identify a body and then return home feeling bad because she hadn't been a good-enough friend to that body when it was alive. Maybe she didn't understand that sometimes a person needs to reach out to someone who won't ask a lot of stupid questions, but instead will just place his hand gently on her breast and tell her it's all right. Ms. Fassett-Holt wanted it to seem like a romantic thing between Travis and me, like a sex thing. She wanted details about our “prior date,” as she called it, on the Fourth of July.