* * *
“Keep going over this, Bryce. I think we’re on to something.” Kendra needed to talk with her client about the 9-1-1 tape, but wasn’t sure how to approach it. She decided to plunge forward. “Before I go, I need to know about Valerie and your daughter.”
“I ca…ca…can’t,” he said. “I already talked with Sandra about them. Please don’t make me go through it again.”
“You have to. I know it’s a cliché, but the rest of your life could depend on it.”
As the memories of his infant daughter crowded inside his head, Bryce attempted to push them away. But they remained, more persistent than usual, fluttering around inside him like tiny, pure white birds.
And he wondered how many people in the world lived whole and happy lives because the one chain of events that could press them over the edge never occurred.
“I met Valerie Simmons at the University of Utah. During our junior year, she got pregnant.”
“All by herself?” Kendra asked.
Bryce laughed. “No, I had something to do with it. Her family was Mormon.”
“So, you dropped out of college and got married.”
“Yes. It was hard to leave my roommate to fend for himself, but it was the right thing to do.” He explained that Noah Morgan was a blind boy he’d been paired up with after Child Services took him away from his mother and put him into foster care. After a couple stints in various foster homes, they placed Bryce in the Lake Institute for the Deaf and Blind. “I became Noah’s eyes. And he was my ears. We were inseparable. It was like together we were a whole boy.”
Together we were a whole boy. Funny how a single phrase could bring back a memory Bryce thought long buried.
He’d been ten years old and written a letter to his mother in the care of the Robertson Inn where she worked for years. The Institute put on a spring carnival and Bryce invited her. When she failed to appear, he wandered around in a daze, looking for Noah. He found him, lying on the ground under one of the big fir trees on the east side of the Institute.
Noah lifted his head. “Your mother didn’t show, did she?”
“How’d you know?”
“I recognize your footsteps and they’re sad today.” Noah sat, brushed the needles from the back of his blonde hair, then lifted his face toward the sun. “I used to dream my mother would come for me—the wish I made with every birthday cake. But now, if I had only one wish, it would be to see the sky and know what blue is.”
The first surge of understanding swelled in Bryce that there were ways of being in this world for which no grown up could offer an explanation. Things he would never be able to comprehend and must, somehow, come to accept. This peculiar wisdom was too huge and risky to articulate and so he turned his thoughts to something he could do for Noah. “Wait right here,” Bryce said. “I got a great idea.”
When he returned, he dropped to the ground beside Noah. “Tell me what you imagine the sky looks like.”
“Sometimes, when I lift my face toward it, my skin gets hot. So, I imagine the sky looks real hot, even though I know blue is a cool color.”
“No. The sky looks crisp and frosty cool, even when it’s hot.” Bryce wrapped Noah’s hand around a cold bottle of sparkling water. “Take a big gulp and hold it in your mouth for a few seconds.”
Noah filled his mouth. His cheeks puffed out in rosy globes on both sides of his freckled face.
“Spit out the water and think about chapel, the time that choirboy sang Amazing Grace without any music and his voice sent goose bumps down our arms.”
Bryce placed a polished stone in Noah’s hand and told him to rub it. “The sky is dazzling today. It’s everywhere, all around us—so blue that it changes everything else. The grass is greener, the water in the pond is a brighter shade, even your yellow hair is lighter under a blue sky as dazzling as today. In a way, it looks like this rock feels, like that boy in the choir sounded.” Bryce leaped up, raised his arms. “And it makes your eyes tingle the way your mouth felt, just after you spit out the sparkling water.”
Taking the stone and putting it down, Bryce then wrapped Noah’s hand around a paper cone of cotton candy. “The sky has a few high, puffy white clouds today, and when one of them floats across the sun, the air gets cool. Stick out your tongue.”
He put his open hand behind Noah’s head and pulled his face to the mound of cotton candy. “Feel how it dissolves, disappears almost as fast as it hits your tongue. Clouds look the way that feels. All wispy and soft.”
Bryce grabbed a wad of cotton candy and smeared it across Noah’s face.
Within seconds the two boys fought a candy battle that left them pink and sticky. The bright sound of their laughter had risen like a bunch of colored balloons, their pastel ribbons streaming beneath them in the wind.
Kendra’s voice brought him back. “Why were you removed from your mother’s custody?”
For a moment, Bryce was taken aback by the question. It was a subject he hadn’t visited in years, and yet there it was, his childhood all around him like broken glass. “My father, or the man I thought was my father, committed suicide. Jason, my older brother by twelve years, joined the army. My mother was a drunk who left me in a motel room to fend for myself when I was six.”
“Did you ever learn the identity of your birth father?”
“Not really. I think I met him once—the night they left me.”
“Did you stay in touch with Noah?”
He shook his head. “I lost touch with everyone after…after…” Memory could be a floodgate—once opened, it was hard to close.
Kendra gave him a moment to collect himself. “So, Noah wasn’t happy about your getting married and leaving school.”
“We both won scholarships to the University of Utah. Noah begged me to stay and graduate, but I had to be a father to my baby. I watched her being born, February ninth, 1984, and I cut the cord. It was the most amazing moment of my life, Kendra. I spent the night in the hospital with Valerie and our daughter, drifting in and out of sleep. And when the new day awakened, it was like a bright blue miracle, right outside our hospital window.”
“God,” Kendra said. “I can’t imagine what it feels like to watch a baby come into the world, especially your own.”
“I hope you get the chance, Kendra. Because it’s…” Bryce stopped, shivered slightly, then focused his gaze on the wall, as if searching for the precise word. Unable to decide on just one, he said, “Amazing. Awesome. Wonderful. I don’t know, maybe it was just me. There was so much missing from my childhood. I wanted, just once, to feel endlessly connected to another human being.” His eyes locked with Kendra’s. “That’s what happened with my daughter. With Courtney. And she made me believe, at least for a little while, in God, in some electric improbable being all charged up with love and goodness.”
Kendra scribbled her notes, periodically interrupting the flow of his thoughts with a specific question. “Wow, Bryce. You could make a woman change her mind about having kids.”
He had something else he needed to say and again, he struggled to find the words. “It’s funny how time usually fades memories. I never talked about her, but she changed me into someone better than I am. I remember every detail about that year.”
“Tell me about it,” Kendra said.
“Christ, I don’t know where to begin.”
“Just start at the beginning. I’ve got time.”
“Noah flew out for the christening. We named her Courtney Morgan Bryce. Noah was thrilled that we named her after him. But before we even took her home from the hospital, we found out she had a ventricular septal defect. The doctor told us it was the kind of defect that often corrects itself without surgery. So, we were optimistic and brought her home.”
“And she was fine?” Kendra said.
“She was perfect. And I was crazy about her. To the rest of the world, Courtney Morgan Bryce was an ordinary miracle, but she was the wonder of my life. I couldn’t get enough of her. N
ight after night, I dug her out of her bed, just to hold her, stare at her, and make sure she was still breathing.”
“As the months passed, Courtney revealed her many faces and I felt nothing short of simple awe at this little daughter, whose life was already separate from mine. During those early months, her dark blue eyes paled into the light blue eyes of my mother, Rachael Bryce. They sparkled whenever Courtney spotted me. It was like getting to see how my mother’s eyes would have shone, had happiness ever filled them.”
He became more assured with each day Courtney lived that she would be okay. It was as if the longer she stayed in the world, the more firmly she’d be anchored to it. By continuing to breathe, she staked her claim on life. He was wrong. So, so wrong.
Less than a month before her first birthday, the nightmare he’d experienced since her birth didn’t stop when he opened his eyes in the morning. Tests revealed an enlarged and overactive heart. The aortic leaflets inadequately supported in the region above the ventricular defect prolapsed and there was nothing left for them to do except a repair, which meant open-heart surgery.
“Two days before the surgery, she looked up at me and uttered her first word, ‘Da’. In that moment, I saw her in every conceivable stage of her life—swinging in the park, playing inside the tiny wooden playhouse I already planned to make for her. I was going to teach her to swim the following summer.”
A bone-chilling panic silenced him now. He couldn’t go through that night again.
Kendra reached across the table to touch his arm. “Courtney died before her surgery, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Bryce choked out. “She died.”
“And you were thinking about her when you found Skyler, when you saw his blue fingernails and when you placed that call to 9-1-1?”
“Yes. I couldn’t help it. It all came racing back.”
The whole terrible time in his life spilled out. Courtney had been the reason for the marriage. She forced them into the confines of a family. She was the moon that controlled their tides. The baby had forged Bryce and Valerie into a life, and once the baby was gone, that life disappeared, too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As soon as Kendra returned to her office, she phoned Radhauser. “I’m going to take you up on that offer to help me with the Bryce case.”
“What do you need?”
“Any possibility you can spare me a few minutes?” She wanted to talk with him face to face about what she learned from Bryce and how she planned to use it for his defense.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
Maria, Kendra’s office mate, was visiting a client booked at the Ashland holding and Kendra had the office to herself. She sat at her desk and cradled her head in her hands. Though sure it was the right thing to do, she was uncertain how Bryce would feel if she brought his family to see him before the trial? Would it give him the support he so desperately needed? Or would he be angry with her for meddling in a past he wanted to forget?
She had stopped at the District Attorney’s office on her way home from the prison and picked up police reports, hospital records, a tape of the 9-1-1 call, photographs of the crime scene Radhauser had taken, fingerprint results, a preliminary list of witnesses for the prosecution, and the autopsy and other forensic examinations—everything the defense was entitled to for her preparation. She spread the documents out on her desk, then studied them for a few minutes and began writing cross-examinations of the prosecution’s witnesses and direct examinations of her own.
A nineteen-month-old toddler had been murdered and the details summarized in less than three pages of a handwritten report. That was the way the system worked. The criminal courts were full of cases like this one, and the jails were filled with people like Bryce—some of them innocent.
Scott Sterling reported that Bryce hit him and when CPS investigated, they found a neighbor who witnessed the event and heard Bryce threaten Scott. From the account Bryce had given Kendra, it would have taken a saint to remain patient and not slap that boy’s behind. Years ago, this was considered discipline. Spare the rod, spoil the child. But times changed. And Kendra needed to get to work.
This is what she knew from law school and from living with her father. The prosecution was sworn to do justice. The defense attorney was sworn to protect the interests of his or her defendant. It didn’t matter if she thought, or even knew, her client was guilty. What mattered was whether or not the prosecution could prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Was it better to let a guilty client go free than for an innocent man to be convicted?
For Kendra, the answer was an unequivocal yes.
The front door opened.
A moment later, Radhauser appeared in her office doorway. He removed his Stetson and ducked to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe. Plopping into the chair beside her desk, he then stretched his long legs into the aisle between Kendra and Maria’s desks.
“You look tired,” she said.
“It’s been a rough week.”
“How’s your wife?”
“A little depressed about the mastectomy. And pretty sore. But things look good so far. We’re waiting for the biopsy results from the lymph nodes. If they are clean, we have every reason to be optimistic.”
“I’m happy for you both. And the baby?”
“Apparently he came through his mother’s surgery like a trooper. But you didn’t call me over here to talk about Gracie and our baby. What’s up?”
“Despite all the circumstantial evidence pointing to him, I’m convinced Bryce is innocent of both charges.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. And I’m depending on you to prove it.”
“My father always told me you are better off defending the guilty. I didn’t understand what he meant until now. He claimed the cases that eat you alive are the ones where you’re absolutely certain you are defending someone who didn’t commit the crime.”
“Seems like it would be easier to defend someone you know is innocent. Who’d want to argue a case when they knew their client was guilty?”
“I’ve had some time to think and this is what I believe. If you know your client is guilty, the trial is only a game you’re playing—like those practice cases we tried in law school. There’s nothing to lose. If the jury finds your client guilty, so what? Justice is done.”
“And if they find them not guilty often enough,” Radhauser added. “You can become as famous as your father.”
She tensed and sat straight up. “That’s not fair. I don’t want to be compared to my father and I don’t care about being famous. I want my instincts to be right. I want to serve my clients to the best of my abilities. And I want to find a way to keep Bryce alive and out of prison.”
“Lighten up, Kendra. I was only joking. I know you didn’t join the public defender’s office to become your old man. Or to make money.”
Kendra relaxed. He was right, and unless she changed her name, she might as well get used to sarcastic references to her father. “Do you know any good private investigators?”
“Sure. Is your boyfriend cheating on you?”
“I don’t have time for a boyfriend. It’s about the Bryce case.”
“I use Tommy Henderson pretty frequently.”
“Is he good at finding missing people?”
“As good as any. Why?”
“Bryce finally talked,” she said. “Seems his meeting with the forensic psychiatrist loosened his tongue. I was right about the 9-1-1 call. There was a very good reason for his confusion.” She told him what she learned about his childhood, his wife, and their infant daughter.
“Do you plan to call his ex-wife as a witness?”
“I will if you or Tommy can find her. She’ll be a perfect rebuttal once Marshall introduces the 9-1-1 tape. I’m building my defense. And I want to find his mother, his brother, and his best friend, Noah Morgan, fast. Before the trial begins if possible.”
“That’s not a good idea,” he said. “Have
you asked Bryce about this?”
“I don’t want to take the chance he’ll say no.”
“What if he’s pissed off and goes even further into his shell?”
“My intuition tells me he needs family support. It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” she said. “You know what the prosecution is going to do with that 9-1-1 tape.”
“Okay. The ex-wife will be a great surprise and negate their efforts, but I’m not so sure about his birth family. Given his mother’s drunken history, what makes you think her visit would be helpful?”
He might be right. Maybe she should reconsider the mother, especially if she was still drinking. What could she offer her son except painful memories of a past he wanted to forget?
“If she’s sobered up and is sorry for the way she neglected Bryce, her presence might be a comfort and shed some light on his seeming willingness to take the blame for something he didn’t do. And my bet is she’ll have some Alcoholics Anonymous 9th step work to do—some amends to make to her son.”
“And if she hasn’t quit?”
“Then we leave her in Utah, the box under the freeway, or wherever the hell she is.”
He stood to leave.
“Oh, and Radhauser. One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“About Tommy Henderson’s fee. I’ve got it covered.”
“This case is going to drive you into bankruptcy,” he said, placing his Stetson back on his head.
She laughed.
* * *
When Bryce wasn’t lying on his narrow bunk drifting down the stream of his life, positioning himself somewhere along the rocky shores of his early days in Wheatley, Utah, he was bent over the small table in his cell, determined to overcome his sense of failure and do what Kendra asked of him. For now, he was writing down everything he knew about Scott Sterling.
A River of Silence Page 20