Grace Sebold’s problem, however, and what Sidney had wrestled with for the past twenty-four hours, was the same problem her father faced as he sat in jail. The unexplainable needed to be explained. If the documentary was going to suggest that another object was actually used to strike Julian, then the inconvenient facts of Julian’s blood in her cottage, as well as on the blade of the oar, and Grace’s fingerprints on the shaft, needed to be explained.
There were not many ways to rationalize those findings. There may not be any. But if one existed, Sidney knew where it rested, and she knew whom it needed to come from. Baldwin’s chain-link fence slowly parted. Sidney turned the rental away from the prison and headed back to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
CHAPTER 25
Saturday, June 17, 2017
THE CARIBBEAN AIR WAS WET AND THICK AS SIDNEY WALKED FROM the Hewanorra International Airport. A line of taxicabs waited for their turn to zip tourists around the island, the drivers eager to load suitcases into trunks and graciously accept tips from excited Americans and Brits overly gratuitous at the start of their vacations. Bringing these tourists back to the airport was never as fruitful as shuffling them to their resorts. Spirits were high and wallets loose at the dawn of their journey, quite the opposite by week’s end.
So it was a strange expression the cabbie offered when he stepped from his car to find Sidney with nothing but a small rolling suitcase instead of stacks of luggage. That she was alone was another oddity. And her request, to be taken to the Bordelais Correctional Facility, was most peculiar of all. But, the cabbie thought as he climbed behind the wheel, a fare is a fare.
It took forty minutes to reach Dennery, and it was the first time he’d dropped an American at the prison. The cab crested a hill and the clearing came into view, where the white rectangle buildings stood within a perimeter of fence. The driver pulled down, through the visitor’s gate and into the parking lot.
“I’ll be an hour. Hour and a half, at the most,” the American woman asked. “I’ll pay you to wait for me.”
They settled on a fare. She offered half, delivering the American dollars over the seat. “I’ll give you the other half when I get back, plus the toll back to the airport. Actually, Charlery’s Inn. Do you know it?”
“Yeh, man. No problem.”
The driver watched her walk to the prison entrance, where a guard waited for her. Once she was inside, he pulled the car into a parking spot, shut off the engine, and took a nap.
* * *
Her father and Marshall had visited three weeks earlier, so Grace was surprised to hear she had another visitor so soon. Usually, they came every three to four months. Sometimes it stretched to longer intervals, and she always recognized the annoyance in Marshall’s eyes at the long span between visits. Despite Marshall’s attempts to disguise it, Grace knew his condition was deteriorating. She noticed that his motor skills had diminished greatly in the last two years. The day he showed up in a wheelchair broke her heart. Marshall always complained to Grace that “they” wouldn’t come any sooner, referring to their parents. Although Grace appreciated her brother’s loyalty, and his desire to see her more often, she was no fool. Grace understood the cost, both in time and treasure, it took to travel to a foreign country to visit a daughter they loved, but whom they had determined they could no longer help. That Marshall simply didn’t have the means or the ability to visit on his own was another source of his anger. His independent spirit, even after two decades of being reliant on his parents, had never died. The accident, that horrible part of their life, had taken so much from him, but it hadn’t harmed his rebellious and sovereign mind-set.
With subtle headshakes and quick winks that went unnoticed by her parents, Grace always let Marshall know during their visits that she understood. If it were up to him, he’d come every weekend. And Grace truly believed that if Marshall had been a normally functioning adult with a middle-class job, he would come to St. Lucia every week or two to visit her. It broke Grace’s heart that her parents, aging and tired after nearly twenty years of caring for their ailing son, had relied more and more lately on outside help for Marshall’s care. Marshall hated the facility where they were planning to place him, something he made very clear in his letters to Grace.
Although he was unable to travel independently to St. Lucia, Marshall was free to communicate through written word. His letters had become one of Grace’s greatest comforts over the years. They arrived like clockwork. At least twice a week, sometimes more, and Grace never grew tired of them. In those folded pages, Marshall kept her abreast of what was happening at home: His crumbling relationship with their parents. Their growing impatience with his condition—that was the word that the Sebolds used when discussing Marshall with doctors and therapists. From Marshall’s visits over the years and from his letters, Grace knew that no one gave her younger brother enough credit. He’d never be the athlete he once was, and would never mentally be the same person he was before they climbed into the car on that fateful night, but Grace’s brother was still one of the smartest people she knew. His intelligence was etched throughout his letters.
Despite the short span between visits, her stomach still fluttered with excitement to see him. She followed the guard into the visitation room and sat at the table. The guard closed the door and Grace waited in silence while the screening process took place outside. She looked up when the door opened moments later. Sidney Ryan walked into the room. Grace smiled.
“This is unexpected. I thought we were scheduled to talk on the phone this Tuesday.”
“Hi, Grace,” Sidney said as she sat in the chair opposite her. “Sorry to show up unannounced. This couldn’t wait.”
“What is it?”
“When I sat across from you last time, I told you I wasn’t sure what I believed. Today I think I do. I met with a forensic pathologist back in the States who refuted the claim that the paddleboard oar caused Julian’s head injury. And, although it’s her opinion, she backed it up quite impressively with experimentation that I hope to base the next episode on.”
“That’s great,” Grace said. “I mean . . .” Grace’s eyes became wet with tears. “Sorry,” she said as she wiped her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. “It’s been a long time since I’ve cried over any of this. But someone is listening to me. Finally someone is helping me. I knew that you’d find something if you looked.” She reached across the table and squeezed Sidney’s hand. “Thank you.”
Sidney nodded. “Listen, Grace. This thing with the oar, it was really impressive what Dr. Cutty was able to show. It’ll make an explosive episode. But I still need to disprove key aspects of your conviction.”
Grace lifted her chin. “Okay.”
“Julian’s blood. It’s a problem. It was discovered in the sink of your cottage bathroom.”
Grace smiled. “So I’ve been told.”
“I know you don’t have access to the Internet, but for each site that supports you and tries to raise money for you, there’s another site or message board that talks about how guilty you are. And a lot of what they talk about is the fact that Julian’s blood was all over your room.”
“I’ve seen the websites. Marshall sends me that stuff. Prints out all the Web pages and bundles them together so I can read them.” Grace smiled. “Grisly Grace Sebold dripping with blood like Carrie White in Chamberlain, Maine. To the public, it was like popcorn—devoured kernel by kernel, while being fully entertained. To me, sitting in that courtroom and listening to it all during my trial, it was preposterous. And therein lies the problem with our—and by that I mean the world’s—justice system. We are allowed to simply defend ourselves against absurd allegations, but the dirty little secret is that if the prosecution wants to convict someone badly enough, all they have to do is make the most farcical accusations they can think of, make many of them, and make them often enough to sway the jury. The blood was not found all over my room. It was found in the bathroom.”
�
��Okay,” Sidney said. “But the fact that any of Julian’s blood was in your room is a sticking point for your critics.”
“And for you?”
Sidney shrugged. “It . . . confuses me. And if it confuses me, it will confuse my audience. Julian’s blood is a problem, Grace. His blood in the bathroom, his blood in the sink, and his blood on the oar. And another problem is the bleach that was used to hide it. So I can credibly show that the oar wasn’t used to kill Julian, but I need you to help me with the rest.”
“It wasn’t bleach.”
Sidney squinted her eyes.
“What they found in my room. It wasn’t bleach.”
Sidney raised her eyebrows. “What was it?”
“Alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride,” Grace said.
“What’s that?” Sidney asked.
Grace leaned forward so her elbows rested on the table. “The active ingredient in Clorox wipes.”
The Girl of Sugar Beach
“The Razor Blade” Part of Episode 4
*Based on the interview with Grace Sebold
“Damn it!”
“What’s the matter?” Grace asked.
She lay within a mess of white sheets in the king-sized four-poster bed that dominated the Sugar Beach cottage.
“I cut myself,” Julian said from the bathroom.
“Why are you shaving? We’re on vacation.”
“Um, this is a problem. I’m bleeding like a sieve.”
Grace untangled herself from the covers and climbed out of bed. The morning sun shone off the mahogany floor, promising a beautiful day of sunbathing.
“Let me see,” she said as she walked into the bathroom. “Wow. What the hell did you do?”
Droplets of red blood freckled the white countertop and sink. Another impressive collection had formed on the tile floor. Red stained tissues were piled near the trash can.
“It’s all the goddamn rum,” Julian said. “My prothrombin time is probably five minutes.”
“And you’ve been taking ibuprofen for your back. Your platelets are worthless.” Grace looked at Julian in the mirror. They both started laughing.
“We’re such nerds,” he said.
“Here.” Grace grabbed a washcloth from the wall and pressed it to Julian’s chin. She kissed his lips. “Now go elevate it, or something.”
“It’s my chin. How am I supposed to elevate it?”
She looked at him with a snarky expression. “Just get out of the bathroom so I can clean this up. It’s like a massacre in here.”
Julian walked through the main room and opened the patio doors. He kept the washcloth pressed to his chin as he sat in the warm sun and stared at the Pitons. In the bathroom, Grace opened the cabinet under the sink and found a container of Clorox wipes. She pulled several from the dispenser and began cleaning the blood.
“It’s like a slaughter,” Grace said as she balanced on the paddleboard.
She dug the long oar into the water on the right side, and then lifted it across the board to do the same on the left.
Julian sat in front of her, his legs straight and his heels hanging off the end of the board. “It’s not going to clot. The alcohol and Advil will make it drip all day.”
His chin was still oozing, and the bandage he’d received from the nurses’ station was beyond saturated, now nothing but a red piece of adhesive on his chin.
“Getting your heart racing is not going to help any,” Grace said. “But I can’t get us back. The current is too strong.”
“Are you serious? I’m weak from blood loss.”
“Give me a break. Take me back to shore. I want a mojito.”
Julian turned and looked up at Grace, who was standing on the paddleboard behind him. The sun was high in the sky, the silhouette of her head intermittently blocking its rays and casting a shadow over Julian. The oar rested on her shoulder, her fist gripped tightly around the shaft.
“Bleeding like a stuck pig,” Julian said. “And my girlfriend can’t get me back to dry land.”
He gripped the edge of the board and leaned quickly to his right. Grace screamed as they both splashed into the ocean.
CHAPTER 26
Saturday, June 17, 2017
“CHARLERI’S INN. YEH, MAN?” THE CAB DRIVER ASKED.
“Change of plans. I’ve got to get to Victoria Hospital in Castries,” Sidney said. She checked her watch. “But we have to hurry.”
“Castries is a long way,” he said.
“How long?”
“One hour. Fifty minutes if I drive fast.”
“Get me there in thirty and I’ll give you an extra fifty dollars.”
“Yeh, man,” he said, shifting the car into gear and racing out of Bordelais Correctional Facility.
They made it to Castries in just over thirty minutes. Sidney still rewarded him the bonus.
“This is my last stop,” she said. “Then Charlery’s. Wait for me?”
“No problem.”
Sidney opened the back door and headed to the front entrance of Victoria Hospital. At the reception desk, she asked for directions to the mortuary.
“Are you here to make an identification?” the woman asked.
“No. I’m here to speak with Dr. Mundi. I phoned him about an hour ago, and he said he’d be at the hospital until this evening.”
The woman held up a finger, and spoke quickly on the phone. When she hung up, she looked at Sidney. “I’ll take you.”
They rode the elevator to the basement and Sidney followed the woman through the corridors. Besides that the hallways were darker, and the creep factor a bit higher, the St. Lucian mortuary wasn’t much different from Dr. Cutty’s.
“Down on your right,” the woman said, pointing to the only open doorway at the end of the hall.
“Thank you,” Sidney said.
She found Dr. Mundi behind his desk. A worn box, whose cardboard edges had been blunted by years of storage, was in front of him as he rummaged through it. He didn’t notice her enter, so she cleared her throat.
The doctor looked up.
“Hi, I’m Sidney Ryan.”
“Come in, come in,” Dr. Mundi said.
Sidney sat in a chair in front of the desk. “Sorry to call today, and then show up so quickly.”
“No problem. I think it is here,” Dr. Mundi said, digging into the box. “Yes, right here.” The doctor pulled out a file folder and slowly turned the pages until he found what he needed.
“Yes,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I did note it. A one-point-nine–centimeter laceration on the victim’s chin determined at the time of autopsy to be a typical shaving injury. These wounds are not difficult to identify, and are common autopsy findings. Usually on the face of male patients, the legs of females. ”
“Would you give me permission to record you while you explain that finding, and how you could determine that it was the result of a razor?”
The doctor looked up from his notes. “A twin-blade razor, I noted.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. I don’t mind if you record.”
* * *
Her phone battery was at 1 percent and she had no bars of service as the cabdriver shuttled her south through the mountains of St. Lucia and toward Vieux Fort. She hated being disconnected, but having spent the life of her phone capturing video of Dr. Mundi’s explanation of the laceration he had documented ten years ago on Julian Crist’s chin, coupled with what Grace had told her earlier while she recorded their conversation, being cut off from the world was worth the footage. That the video was raw, recorded on a combination of her iPhone and a small handheld camcorder, was sure to add to the urgency of the episode she was imagining. She had stumbled across evidence overlooked during Grace’s original trial and was now haphazardly recording her findings without the assistance of her camera crew. Coupled with the professional footage Derrick had shot of Dr. Cutty’s demonstrations, Friday’s episode had the potential to be a blockbuster.
When they finally reached Charler
y’s Inn, back near the airport, where she had met her driver earlier in the day, Sidney handed over the fare. He’d had a good day and never saw an island resort. She wheeled her small suitcase into her room and locked the door. After setting her phone to charge, she opened her laptop and booked a flight home for the next morning.
She found a Piton beer in the minibar and sat on the edge of the bed. Pastel hues of soft salmon and green covered the walls of the cheap hotel. Sidney took a long swallow of beer and picked up the hotel telephone, listening to the series of prompts until her call was finally patched through to New York.
“Hello,” Leslie Martin said.
“It’s me,” Sidney said.
“Jesus, I thought your plane crashed. Where have you been?”
“I took a detour. I’m in St. Lucia.”
“What? Why?”
“Because she didn’t do it.”
JURY DELIBERATION DAY 2
“We need to discuss the blood evidence,” Harold said from the head of the table.
“I don’t believe her,” the retired schoolteacher said almost before Harold was finished with his sentence. “How could that much blood be present in the room, yet she has no idea how it got there?”
“Well,” Harold said in his calm, understanding voice. “That’s not exactly what was argued in court. But again, this is a good start to the discussion. Let’s reread the transcripts from her testimony and the cross-examination. We’ll put the facts about the blood and the cleanup onto the chalkboard, like we did during our discussion of the murder weapon.” Harold pointed to the green board behind them, covered now by white chalk dust after yesterday’s spirited debate.
“And then,” he said, “we’ll have a more accurate discussion about the blood, the body, and the cleanup.”
PART III
A RATINGS JUGGERNAUT
CHAPTER 27
Don't Believe It Page 16