A change of gravity

"Did he have some kind of horrible disease? If he did he was the only one who knew about it. Family didn't; doctor didn't; none of his friends did either.

"A scandal about to break, he chooses death over disgrace? Possible, I suppose, but we've got no evidence of one.

"His business was in good shape. Nurserymen and people in the landscaping business probably felt it just about the same as everybody else does when the economy was flat, few years ago, but his seems to've come through it okay.

"So the only reason he could possibly've had to do it then would've been chronic, severe depression. Unipolar mental illness.

"You could infer that here, I guess. I suppose in any case of suicide, you almost have to think the poor bastard must've been miserably depressed. Literally out of his mind. But if Hardigrew was that far gone, wouldn't he've shown it in some way? Started drinking too much?

Become withdrawn? You'd think so, but he didn't. He spent years in a bottomless Hell, getting ready to do this unspeakable thing, and during all that time none of the people who knew him and had known him for years: not a single one of them, had the slightest hint of what he was going through?

"It doesn't make sense. So depressed you want to kill yourself, and finally you do it, but not so depressed that anyone who loves you, or sees you every day, even notices?"

"I don't know," Robey said, 'but it does seem like that's what the defense's driving at."

"Well, they've still got a lot of work ahead of them," she said. "Far as I'm concerned anyway. There would've been a clue. Something you could look at now and say: "Hey that was kind of strange. Someone should've noticed that. Taken his car keys away from him. Had him put away, or at least put him to bed. Given him some mood-elevators; jacked him up on feel-good pills."

"There is no such clue. He got up that morning down in Suffield, self-destruction on his mind, showered and dressed like he always did; had a good breakfast after that. Again: just like he always did. Man's almost fifty, same age I am now. By the time you've reached this stage in life, made something of yourself -this is a successful man here, came from modest circumstances and did pretty well for himself you've developed a full set of habits. A lot of the things that we do are repetitive, have to be done again every day, over and over again.

Habits simplify your life. You know what to do, it's automatic. Don't have to do so much thinking.

"That's what our Nicholas did that last day; he followed his regular habits. He seemed to be in good spirits. Showers and gets dressed and eats. He goes out of his ten-room house on an acre-plus of prime land, so we're told, got to be worth at least three or four hundred thousand dollars, in the neighborhood it's in. This looks like one happy guy.

He gets into his bright-yellow Saab convertible, drives himself up to Barnes Airport in Westfield; he's signed up for a gorgeous summer Sunday of sky-diving. Several times before he's done this without any mishap whatsoever, not even a sprained ankle. But this time it's going to be different. Today he's going to kill himself.

"If you think that, then there wasn't any accident or any negligence involved here. When he stepped out of that airplane, in his mind he was doing a perfectly normal, rational thing.

"I can't believe it. Why go to all this trouble? There're plenty of places you can drive to and walk up to and jump off and kill yourself, if that's what you want to do. Don't need any training to do that. All the lessons; the classroom instruction; the tethered training jumps from that steel tower they've got up there: what is it, three or four hundred feet off the ground, and they take you up there and you jump7.

Forget it. I'm finished right there. I wouldn't dare to climb that high, never mind jump off. You want me to conclude he did it all in order to kill himself in style? All the supervised practice jumps with the instructors: everything was preliminary to the big day when Nick Hardigrew got himself killed? Nobody was negligent? No one failed to exercise due care? It wasn't anyone's fault?"

"Well, maybe," she said. "I suppose we never know what hell people could be going through behind their eyes where we can't see it. What they might do to stop the pain they're in." She shook her head. "I can tell you one thing though: The more I hear of this one, the gladder I am it didn't go jury-waived. Let those good people figure it out. I don't envy them for a minute." Then she said: "Well, 're we ready to go now? Tell them to bring down the jury."

"I dunno," Robey said. "When do you want the immunity hearing? Four today or first thing in the morning? I need to know now, so I can have someone get word to the witness's lawyer so he'll know when he has to come down here."