A Time for Mercy (Jake Brigance #3) - John Grisham Page 0,203

and rape, and domestic violence. They are ugly topics, awful things to discuss anywhere, especially in a courtroom with so many people listening. But I didn’t create the facts, nor did you, nor did anyone but Stuart Kofer.

“The State tries to suggest, tries to imply, that perhaps the three Gambles are prone to embellish, to exaggerate. Seriously?” Suddenly, he raised his voice and was angry. He pointed at Kiera on the front row behind the defense table. “You see that little girl right there? Kiera Gamble, age fourteen and over seven months pregnant by Stuart Kofer? And do you think she’s exaggerating?”

He took a deep breath and let the anger pass. “When you deliberate, look at the photo of Josie Gamble in the hospital, with her jaw shattered, her face bruised, her eyes swollen, and ask yourselves if she’s embellishing. They’re not lying to you. Quite the contrary, they could tell many more stories about the horror of living with Stuart Kofer.

“What happened to Stuart Kofer? What happened to the local boy who joined the army and wanted to make it a career before being asked to leave? What happened to the fine young deputy known for his bravery and his involvement with the community? Where did the dark side come from? Perhaps something happened in the army. Perhaps the pressure of his work got to him? We’ll never know, I guess, but we can all agree that his loss is a tragedy.

“His dark side. We can’t understand what makes a man, a big strong tough cop and ex-soldier, kick, hit, and slap around a woman who weighs a hundred and twenty pounds, breaking her bones, her teeth, busting her lips, knocking her unconscious, then threatening to kill her if she tells anyone. We can’t understand why Kofer physically abused and threatened a skinny little kid like Drew. We can’t understand how a man becomes a sexual predator and goes after a fourteen-year-old girl just because she’s available, because she lives in his house. Nor can we understand how a man chooses to drink himself, time and time again, into a state of raging violence and unconsciousness. We can’t understand how an officer of the law, one known to be tough on drunk drivers, could spend the whole day drinking and saturate himself with alcohol to the point of passing out, then waking up and deciding it’s okay to get behind the wheel of a car. Point-three-six.”

Jake paused and shook his head as if disgusted by the ugliness of his own words. All twelve were staring at him, all uncomfortable at the ugliness.

“His house. A house that became a living hell for Josie and her kids. A house they wanted so badly to leave but had nowhere to go. A house that grew more terrifying each weekend. A house that was like a powder keg, where the stress and pressure mounted day by day until it became inevitable that someone was going to get hurt. A house that was so awful that Josie’s kids were begging her to leave.

“Now, the prosecution wants you to ignore all this, and concentrate instead on the last ten seconds of Stuart’s life. Mr. Dyer suggests that Drew should have waited. And waited. But waited for what? There was no one to help them. They had waited before for the police to come. They came all right, but they didn’t help. They had waited for weeks and months, desperately hoping that Kofer would find help and get a handle on his drinking and his temper. They had waited for hours during those long, terrifying nights, waiting for the headlights of Stuart’s car in the driveway, waiting to see if he could actually walk himself into his house, waiting for the inevitable fight. They had waited all right, and the waiting only brought them closer to disaster.

“Okay, I’ll take the bait. Let’s talk about the last ten seconds. As his mother lay unconscious and apparently dead, and with his sister tending to her and pleading with her to wake up, and with Kofer making noises in the bedroom, my client felt a fear and a danger that was unbearable. He feared great bodily harm, even death, not only for himself but for his sister, and he had to do something. It is wrong to take those last ten seconds and dissect them here in this courtroom, some five months after the crime, and far, far removed from the horror of the scene, and say,