Читать онлайн «Primal Fear»

PRIMAL FEAR

by William Diehl

BALLANTINE BOOKS 9 NEWYORK Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

Copyright 0 1993 by Gunn Productions, Inc. Excerpt from Show of Evil copyright 0 1995 by Gunn Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc. , New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Elizabeth Barnett, literary executor, for permission to print “First Fig” by Edna St. Vincent Millay from Collected Poems, HarperCollins. Copyright 1922, 1950 by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Manufactured in the United States of America First U. S. Ballantine Books Edition: May 1994

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

77tis book is for my children, their husbands and wives, and my grandchildren: Cathy, John, Katie, Emily and Chelsea Bill and Lori Stan, Yvonne, Nicholas and Jordan Melissa, Jack and Michael and Temple And always for Virginia

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Dr. Everett Kugler of the Georgia Mental Health Department, for his invaluable assistance in the research of mental disorders; attorney Brett Merrill, of Swainsboro, Georgia, for his guidance in law and trial procedures, and for his continued encouragement; Chip and Kathleen, and Steve Collura, for their patience; the members of Save the Beach and the Gunn Committee, for their concern and support; and author Stanley Booth, who couldn’t write a bad sentence if he tried, for the inspiration of his words and for making even the darkest days a little brighter.

I believe in the law. I believe in the sanctity of the courtroom and in the majesty of justice. I also believe that things are not always as they appear, that sometimes facts can be manipulated the way a magician manipulates an audience. He distracts you with this hand, while the other hand does the tricks. It’s called misdirection. The prosecutor in this case is a magician. He has misdirected your attention from the facts of the case with flashy tricks and information that really have very little to do with my client’s guilt or innocence. He has produced a body of what he calls evidence-all of it circumstantial. He says my client had motives, opportunities, desires, but produces no hard evidence connecting him directly to the crime. He says my client is immoral, that he is a liar, that he was caught cheating the victim, that he was desperate. My client does not deny these allegations - but does motive or opportunity or desire make him a murderer.