Aftermath

by Tracy Brown

  “Was that unusual?”

  Camille nodded. “Most nights my brother-in-law, Steven, came in from the guesthouse to watch my husband’s flat-screen plasma TV. Apparently, the TV in the guesthouse wasn’t good enough.” A few jurors snickered, mostly the men who understood exactly how he’d felt.

  “So typically late at night, your brother-in-law would be in your living room until the wee hours of the morning watching TV.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But on this night?”

  Camille took a deep breath. “I walked into my kitchen and saw Steven lying in the middle of the floor.”

  “What else did you see?”

  “Blood was on the walls and on the floor in a pool around his body. I also saw a gun on the floor and a broken beer bottle.”

  The DA’s brow was furrowed compassionately. “You must have been terrified.”

  She nodded. “I was.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I noticed a light coming from the dining room, so I picked up a knife from the block on the counter and went to see what was going on.”

  “Weren’t you afraid that the assailant might still be in the house?”

  Camille shook her head. “At that point, I wasn’t thinking straight. I probably should have ran out of the house, but I guess seeing my sister’s car in the driveway made me think that she might be in the house and that she might be in danger. So I went into the dining room with the knife.”

  “And what did you discover there?”

  Camille sighed. “I saw my sister sitting at the table, a candle lit in the center of it.”

  “What was she doing?”

  Camille shook her head. “She was just sitting there staring at the wall like she was in a daze.”

  “What did you say to her, if anything?”

  Camille looked at Misa and then back at the prosecutor. “I asked her what she had done.”

  “You assumed immediately that she had killed your brother-in-law? Why?”

  “Because she had blood on her clothes and on her hands. I could see blood on the wall near her also. Plus, she was sitting there so calmly that I assumed she was aware that Steven was dead in the kitchen.”

  The prosecutor looked at the jury panel. “She was sitting there calmly,” he repeated.

  Camille knew she had fucked up. “Well … she was quiet I mean. She was just sitting there in a daze. Her hands were shaking,” she offered.

  “To your knowledge, had she called 911 to summon an ambulance for Mr. Bingham?”

  Camille looked at Misa again. Misa was staring at her legal pad, though the page was blank. She could tell that Camille’s testimony today would be damaging to her case, but she also understood that her sister had to tell the truth under oath.

  “No.”

  “So,” the DA said. “You arrived home, found Steven Bingham lying in a pool of his own blood on the kitchen floor. Then you walked into the dining room where you found your sister sitting calmly with blood on her clothes and hands. And she had not even bothered to summon help for the victim. So, in essence, you arrived to find your sister waiting for Steven Bingham to die.”

  “OBJECTION!” Teresa bellowed.

  “Sustained. Watch it, Mr. Davidson,” Judge Felder snarled.

  “I’ll rephrase it, your honor.” The DA smirked ever so slightly at Camille. “Did your sister exhibit a sense of urgency concerning Mr. Bingham’s condition?”

  Camille shook her head. “No. But at that point, I believe he was already dead.”

  The DA ignored her and kept going. “What explanation did your sister give you for what had happened?”

  “She told me that Steven had molested Shane. That she had come over to confront him and brought the gun she had gotten years ago for protection.”

  Louis looked like he wanted to disappear when the subject of the illegal gun came up. He had given the .38 to Misa years earlier, and he certainly didn’t want the DA to know that.

  “She said that she caught Steven by surprise while he was in the kitchen getting a beer. She told him what she suspected and they had words. She told me that he lunged at her and she pulled out the gun, but he kept coming toward her. She said she fired in self-defense.”

  “Yet, she didn’t call the police?”

  “Objection!” Teresa interjected. “This witness can’t speak to what was going on in my client’s mind at that time.”

  “Sustained.”

  The DA moved on. “You finally called 911, Mrs. Bingham, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Camille answered.

  “Did you call your husband to tell him what had taken place?”

  Camille looked at Frankie, recalled speaking to him on the phone that night and hanging up without telling him that his brother was dead on their kitchen floor.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of your husband?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She thought it was a dumb question. “His brother had just been shot by my sister. I thought he might flip out. He and Steven were very close.”

  “How about you, Mrs. Bingham? Were you and the deceased close?”

  She thought about that and answered honestly. “Not at first,” she admitted. “I thought he was a freeloader who lounged around all day and took advantage of our kindness. I don’t think he liked me, either.”

  “Any idea why not?”

  She shrugged again. “Maybe he sensed that I didn’t want him around. Maybe he thought I was stuck up. I don’t really know. But there was definitely tension between us at first.”

  “That changed?”

  Camille nodded.

  “When?”

  She looked at Misa again, held her gaze for a moment before the DA snapped her back to the question at hand.

  “I developed a drinking problem,” she admitted. “My marriage was unraveling and drinking was how I coped. There were times when I would wake up with a hangover and my nephew was there and…” Her voice trailed off as she wondered for the hundredth time whether Steven had used those opportunities to prey on Shane. “Steven would come over from the guesthouse and make Shane some cereal or put on his favorite cartoons. He would let me sleep off my hangover.” She looked at her hands. “I was grateful to him for that. I thought we were starting to get along better.”

  “During those times that you were sleeping off your drunkenness,” the prosecutor began. Camille glared at him, pissed that he was making her sound like a lush. “Did you ever awake to find Shane traumatized in any way?”

  She tried to recall if she ever had. “No,” she said honestly.

  “Did Shane ever cry or exhibit fear of Steven Bingham in your presence?”

  Camille knew this wasn’t the answer that would help her sister’s case, but she was under oath. “No,” she said softly.

  The prosecutor sneered at her. “So it sounds as if Steven Bingham was blamed for such an atrocity based solely on your sister’s imagination.”

  “OBJECTION, your honor!”

  “Rephrase that, counselor,” Judge Felder ordered.

  “Gladly,” the DA answered. He looked at Camille pointedly. “Did you think your brother-in-law was a child molester when you left your nephew in his care?”

  “Objection!” Teresa was on her feet now.

  “Overruled, Ms. Rourke.”

  The DA looked at Camille. “Please answer the question.”

  Camille wanted to cry. “No,” she said. “I didn’t think he was. But—”

  “You spent a lot of time with your nephew, did you not?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “In fact, it’s fair to say that you spent more time with him than his own mother. Am I right?”

  Camille looked at Misa and shook her head.

  “That’s not the case?” the prosecutor asked, pulling out the sign-in sheet from Shane’s day care showing that C
amille had dropped him off and picked him up far more than his mother had.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “That may be true.”

  “And had you ever noticed Steven exhibit more than a passing interest in the child?”

  Camille had to admit that she hadn’t. “No.”

  The DA seemed satisfied so far. “Would you say that Shane was afraid of his uncle Steven?”

  Camille wiped her nose with a tissue from a nearby box and wished she could answer differently. “No.”

  “No further questions, your honor.” The DA went back to his seat and got a pat on the back from his colleague on a job well done.

  Camille felt sick to her stomach. But before she could ask the judge for a time-out, Teresa was on her feet and walking her way for cross-examination.

  “Mrs. Bingham, is it true that you were distracted by your failing marriage in the days leading up to January fifth?”

  Camille brightened a little. This much was true! “Yes,” she answered. “My husband was ignoring my phone calls and had run off with someone else. I was very distracted by that.”

  “Is it possible that Shane had exhibited some change in behavior but that you were too preoccupied to notice?”

  Ashamed, Camille answered, “Yes.”

  “No further questions.”

  Camille stepped down from the witness stand, relieved, but praying that she hadn’t done too much damage to Misa’s case with her testimony. She felt terrible. But as she passed the defense table, Misa winked and smiled weakly at her, letting Camille know that the truth hadn’t cost her the only sister she had.

  Reasonable Doubt

  Today it was the defense’s turn. Misa rubbed her hands together in anticipation, eager to change the jury’s minds about what they had heard so far.

  “The defense calls Louis Crowley to the stand.”

  Misa watched her ex-husband stand up, watched his girlfriend, Nahla, give him an encouraging smile, and she couldn’t wait for Teresa to tear his ass apart. He got up on the stand, took the oath, and sat down. His brown suit fit him well, but Misa thought he looked like a broke-ass church deacon sitting up there with his tan tie and pocket square. She shot daggers at him and listened as Teresa got started.

  “Mr. Crowley, you were married to the defendant for three years, is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “How would you describe your marriage?”

  He chuckled a little. “Looking back on it, we got married for the wrong reasons,” he said. “We dated for two years and things were good. Then, Misa got pregnant with our son and we thought the right thing to do was to get married and make a real family.”

  “I see,” Teresa said. “At what point did the marriage begin to collapse?”

  “Well, it became clear pretty fast that we wanted different things,” Louis said.

  “You wanted another woman, isn’t that right?” Teresa asked, cutting to the chase.

  Louis looked like he’d swallowed the canary. He recovered quickly and responded. “Well, I did meet someone else. But that wasn’t the only problem.”

  “Really?” Teresa asked. “What were the other problems?”

  “Well,” Louis said, “Misa didn’t want to get a job. And I was fine with that. But the money was slow coming in and I think she expected us to be doing as well as her sister and Frankie were.”

  Teresa tilted her head, contemplatively. “You discouraged your wife from working outside the home, didn’t you? Didn’t you tell her that you didn’t want her working in some office with a bunch of men leering at her every day?”

  Louis recalled saying that, but it seemed so long ago now. “I guess I might have said that.”

  “But in fact, it was you who met someone at work, isn’t that right?”

  Louis looked at Nahla and then at Misa, who was scowling at him. “Yes, I did.”

  “You abandoned your wife and son for a woman who made double your salary, am I correct?”

  “I wouldn’t say abandoned…”

  “Did you leave your wife and son?”

  He seemed tormented by that question. “I left my wife. I never left my son.”

  “Oh no?” Teresa asked. “Defense exhibit C, your honor.” She held up a child support order and had it entered as evidence. “This is an order of child support that my client had drawn up after you refused to provide for your son. In this filing it’s painfully clear that your son’s day-to-day expenses, including tuition, food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, medical, and dental costs were all paid for by your wife. You, in fact, had not a single receipt or bill to prove that you had contributed in any way to your son’s financial well-being prior to this filing.”

  Louis had no response for that.

  “In fact,” Teresa continued, “this order stipulates that you owed your wife arrears totaling seven thousand dollars plus a monthly support order of one thousand dollars a month.” She raised an eyebrow at Louis. “So you didn’t only leave your wife, Mr. Crowley. You abandoned your son as well—physically and financially. In fact, you didn’t even bother to visit with your son until after the courts ordered you to pay child support.”

  While Louis fidgeted in his seat he noticed that many of the women in the courtroom were looking at him like he was the gum on the bottom of their shoes. He felt vilified. Misa, meanwhile, felt such contempt for Louis as her attorney rehashed the lengths she’d been forced to go in order to get him to be a father to his child. She still remembered his reaction when the judge ordered him to pay child support and asked if he wanted to set up visitation with his son. “Yeah, I guess so,” he had said. “If I’m gonna be paying child support, I might as well see him.” Misa hated his guts, and would have given anything to have chosen a different father for her son.

  Teresa moved on, her tone suggesting that she was interrogating a hostile witness. “Mr. Crowley, prior to Christmas Day, 2007, when had you last seen your son?”

  Louis tried to recall the exact date, but couldn’t pinpoint it. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  “Had you seen him at all in the month of December 2007?”

  Louis answered hesitantly, “I don’t think … no. No, I didn’t.”

  “How about November 2007? Had you seen your son at Thanksgiving?”

  Louis had not. “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that you saw Shane on average once every two months prior to Christmas 2007?”

  Louis glanced at Misa and saw the expression of pure hatred on her face. “That sounds about right.”

  “Why hadn’t you been a consistent part of Shane’s life?”

  “I work very long hours.”

  “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week?”

  “Objection,” the prosecution interrupted.

  “Withdrawn,” Teresa countered. “How does your new girlfriend feel about children, Mr. Crowley?”

  Louis frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  “Does she have any?” Teresa asked.

  “No.”

  “Have you discussed having any?”

  Louis shook his head. “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that you told your mother that your girlfriend doesn’t like children?”

  Louis remembered telling his mother that, but wondered how the hell Misa’s attorney had gotten that information.

  “I might have said that.”

  “So you lied when you said that you weren’t sure how she felt about children.”

  “No … what I meant … I’m saying that she might not feel that way anymore.”

  Teresa tilted her head to the side and looked at Louis like the liar that he was. “But she felt that way at some point, did she not?”

  Louis sighed. “When we first got together she mentioned that she wasn’t particularly fond of children.”

  “What does your girlfriend do for a living, Mr. Crowley?”

  “She’s a dentist.”

  “And when the two of you met, you were working two odd jobs in
order to provide for your family, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you left your wife and moved in with your girlfriend, did you continue to work?”

  “No.”

  “You quit your jobs?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “How did you support yourself?”

  He glanced at Nahla and then replied. “Nahla supported me while I went back to school and got my degree.”

  Teresa looked at the women on the jury and was happy to see them looking at Louis with some contempt.

  “Is it true that you went on vacation with your mistress to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and to Acapulco, Mexico, while Misa was left to try her best to provide for your son?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I didn’t pay for those vacations, so it’s not as if I was taking food out of my son’s mouth.”

  Teresa frowned. “While you were cavorting on exotic beaches, your wife was getting financial assistance from her sister and brother-in-law. They purchased a car for Misa so that she could transport your son to and from school. They helped her to pay her rent and to buy food and clothing for your child. And you were off enjoying a child-free environment with your mistress.”

  He looked at Nahla and noticed she seemed just as embarrassed as he was. “I did feel bad about not seeing my son that often,” he said, his voice cracking a little as the guilt he’d suppressed for years spilled forth.

  “Did you?” Teresa challenged him.

  “Yes, I did. And that’s why when Misa called me on Christmas Day and told me to come and get him, I didn’t hesitate. I went and got my son.”

  “You went and got him and brought him back to the home that you shared with your girlfriend who hates kids?”

  “Objection, your honor!”

  “Sustained.”

  “Mr. Crowley, what happened when you brought Shane home with you on Christmas?” Teresa asked, standing in front of him with her arms folded across her chest, her Louboutins making her tower over the witness.

  “Well, the first night, everything was good. He was happy to see me but he was being really clingy and I didn’t know why.”

  “Did you attribute that to the fact that he hadn’t seen you in over a month?”

  Louis knew that was a dig at him and he deserved it. “I just thought he was used to being babied or something. He slept in bed with me and Nahla that night, and in the morning he seemed fine.”