He smiles up at me, apparently delighted by his own humor, revealing tiny, discolored teeth. “You people…,” he says, shaking his head, a thick vein pulsing across his forehead. I’ve noticed that vein before; it turns blue when he’s mad. And J. Stanley Edgarton III seems to get mad a lot.

Stanley has been calling us “you people” since he got here. New Bedford is only about thirty miles away, just on the other side of the bridge, but Stanley seems to regard Cape Codders-some of us, anyway-as an alien species. He turns his back to me, flicks off the TV, and wipes his hands together. I’m dismissed.

Members of the New Bedford defense bar warned us about Stanley. He’s an odd one, to put it mildly. He takes pride in being the first person in the courtroom each day, they report. He greets all trial participants upon their arrival, thereby establishing himself as the man in charge. For lay witnesses, people unfamiliar with courtroom procedure, Stanley even assigns seats. He is, in his own mind, one powerful fellow.

It’s going to be a long week.

“See you tomorrow,” I tell him.

Stanley faces me again, still shaking his large skull, his expression suggesting he pities my inability to see the light. “Looking forward to it.” His forehead vein throbs steadily.

I head for the office door, hoping I’ve dropped no hint of how worried I am. Buck Hammond had his reasons. And Monteros got precisely what he deserved. But that videotape is damning.

Geraldine leans across her desk toward Stanley as I head for her office door. I catch her words just before the heavy wooden door slams shut behind me. “Don’t underestimate her,” she says. I can’t help but smile. Coming from Geraldine Schilling, that’s high praise indeed.

Harry Madigan’s last day with the Barnstable County Public Defender’s office was November 1. He planned to take a month off before opening his private practice. After twenty years, he said, it was time for a real vacation. Real or not, it lasted all of four days. And he never got off-Cape.

Barnstable County’s troubled residents-those who live on the edge when they’re not confined to county facilities-know Harry well. Some have been with him his entire career. They trust him. They filled his office, and his file cabinets, before he hung out his shingle.

Joining him was like throwing a life ring to a drowning man. No thought required. I wasn’t eager to return to practice after my years with the DA’s office, and Harry knew that. But when he approached me about Buck Hammond’s case, I had no choice. Harry knew that, too.

Sometimes I think Harry knows me better than I do. He knew I’d fight Buck’s battle, knew I’d view Buck’s act as justifiable homicide. We have a problem, though. Our criminal justice system doesn’t see it that way.

The system hasn’t yet acknowledged certain basic human truths. One of them explains the single shot Buck Hammond fired at the Chatham Municipal Airport. Our only hope is that a jury of Buck’s peers will rise to the occasion-set the rules aside, if necessary-to reach a just result. Juries do that sometimes.

Hector Monteros raped and murdered Buck Hammond’s seven-year-old son. Monteros was in police custody, charged with the crimes, when Buck fired the now infamous shot that took Monteros down. And he did it while two dozen people looked on, half of them police officers.

Evening news anchors and editorial columnists have been asking ever since: “How could this have happened?” My question is different. I wonder why it doesn’t happen every day, every time a child is victimized.

It shouldn’t have happened, of course. Buck Hammond shouldn’t have taken matters into his own hands. He should have let the system work, should have allowed Monteros to stand trial for his crimes.

Monteros would have been convicted. The DNA evidence against him was conclusive. He’d have spent the rest of his miserable days in a cell at Walpole, the Commonwealth’s maximum security penitentiary. And perhaps that would have been a more just result. Generally speaking, inmates don’t take kindly to child murderers.

That’s what should have happened. That’s the way our society should function. But I’m not prepared to condemn Buck Hammond for what he did. It wasn’t my son in the morgue.

Buck’s defense is an uphill battle, of course, and it isn’t made any easier by the fact that he shot Monteros while three television cameras were rolling. All cases have problems, but Buck’s has more than its share.

Harry was appointed to defend Buck Hammond on the day of the shooting. Buck was assigned a new lawyer when Harry announced his resignation from the Public Defender’s office, but neither Buck nor his family was happy about it. They wanted Harry back; no one else would do.

The relatives raised enough money to pay the initial retainer and asked Harry to meet with them. Harry said yes, of course; he’s never been able to say no to an underdog. They met at his new, not yet opened law office on the Friday of his first week of vacation. By the end of the meeting, Harry’s long-anticipated break was over.

After more than an hour of discussion with the extended family, Harry agreed to refile his appearance and resume Buck Hammond’s defense. Lucky for Buck. Geraldine Schilling made Buck the poster boy for lawless behavior during her campaign, calling him the Vigilante at every press conference. She put his case on a fast track; trial was six weeks away.

When Harry emerged from his office with Buck’s relatives that Friday, he found a dozen people in the waiting room. And he knew most of them. He’d parked his old Jeep Wrangler in the front driveway, visible from Main Street. His regular clients pulled in and parked too. And they brought a few friends.

He called later than usual that night. He couldn’t do it, he said. No one could. In one day, he’d opened more files than any solo practitioner could handle. He would have to call Buck Hammond’s relatives and reverse his decision. He couldn’t possibly carry this workload and be ready to try a murder-one case in six weeks. Unless, of course, he had a partner.

Even at the time, I knew Harry was playing a trump card. He’d been hounding me for weeks about joining the practice. I wasn’t ready, I kept telling him. I didn’t think I’d be any good at defense work. I didn’t want to be pressured into a decision. In Buck Hammond’s case, though, there was no decision to make. Harry knew that. I showed up for work the next day, and it happened to be Saturday.

Within the week, we lured Kevin Kydd away from the District Attorney’s office. Geraldine is still sore about it; she hasn’t replaced him yet. That means she’s stuck in the courtroom more often than she’d like. It means she isn’t available, at times, for the important things. Political rallies. Press conferences. Fund-raisers.

Geraldine has every right to be sore about losing her associate. The Kydd, as we call him, is a year and a half out of law school and probably the hardest-working young lawyer in Massachusetts. Any firm in the Commonwealth would hire him in a heartbeat. But Harry and I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: long hours, longer headaches, and a salary with no way to go but up.

The Kydd gave Geraldine notice and joined us two weeks later. He went straight to work on the misdemeanors. Harry focused on the felonies. And I took on Buck Hammond.

Harry and I will try Buck’s case together-the relatives wanted him, after all-but I will take the laboring oar. Harry is swamped with other matters, and I have devoted my time exclusively to Buck. Now, the day before trial, Buck is as ready as he’s ever going to be to face the first-degree murder charge against him. So am I. I head back to the office anyway, though, to think it all through again, and again after that.