“Family emergencies, Your Honor?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I did not address that issue. All of you will be given a private emergency phone number that you can give to two members of your family. And I use the term family loosely, by the way. Significant others and close personal friends count. The two people you choose are completely up to you. This phone number is staffed every minute of the entire court day. If there is a family emergency, someone can call this number, state the problem to the officer who takes the call, and within minutes one of my bailiffs will be informed of the situation and I will call a recess. If the emergency requires the termination of your services as a juror, you will be dismissed and an alternate will be appointed in your place. Any more questions? No? Good. We will convene Monday morning at ten A.M. for opening statements. Thank you, and you all have a nice weekend.”
32
Tory Troy
Defense Attorney Carolyn Payne
“They impaneled the jury.”
“Yeah, I heard. How’s it look?”
“Seven men, five women. Youngest is twenty-three; oldest, sixty-four. Two blue-collar workers, two stay-at-home moms. Plus a hospice nurse, an accountant, a pharmacist, a stockbroker, a teacher, a journalist, a surgeon, and a college student.”
“What do you think?”
“It looks like a relatively balanced bunch.”
“No matter.”
“What do you mean, Tory?”
“They’re going to find me guilty.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, come on, Carolyn. I was caught with the smoking gun, so to speak. Actually, the smoking gas chamber. Plus, I’ve been declared fit to stand trial. Why in the world would a jury acquit me, or even say I was insane at the time of the murders?”
“We’ve got a slew of experts available, if need be, to speak to those very issues.”
“You’re going to use my father, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t decided on whether or not to call him to testify, but I will tell the jury about his abuse of you and your mother. In fact, I bring it up in my opening statement.”
“Are you calling my mother as a witness?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Tory—”
“I don’t want her put through that.”
“She can be very helpful in making the jury understand the trauma you endured as a child. And if they are aware of the abuse you suffered at the hands of your father, they might be more predisposed to consider the possibility that you were, in fact, insane when you committed the murders. Do not dismiss the power of post-traumatic stress as a defense strategy.”
“It wasn’t just hands.”
“Pardon me?”
“You said ‘the abuse you suffered at the hands of your father.’ It wasn’t just his hands.”
“Yes, I know. I was speaking figuratively.”
“Oh, he made good use of his hands, that’s for sure. But that’s not all he used.”
“I am hoping you will testify to that, Tory.”
“You really think it’s a good idea for me to testify?”
“Yes. In this case, the only way the jury is going to warm to you as a person is if they get to hear you speak and see you as something other than a tiny brunette at the defense table flanked by me and two guys in dark suits.”
“I don’t know …”
“Tory, listen to me. You had better get your head in the game, sweetheart. I’m getting the unsettling feeling that I am going to be representing an apathetic client. And that will not play well with the jury.”
“It won’t matter.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I’ll stop saying it, but it still won’t matter.”
“Let’s talk about the witness list.”
“Okay.”
“Since you’ve agreed to testify, you will almost certainly be the prosecution’s first witness. Loren will grill you, probably pretty hard, and then request the right to re-call you. They’ll probably follow you with Tommy.”
“Yeah, that figures.”
“With Tommy, they’re immediately going to establish that you were seen standing over the bodies by an eyewitness.”
“Yes. But why are they going to all that trouble? I admitted doing it.”
“Not to the legal system you didn’t. Our plea is not guilty by reason of insanity. They need to prove for the record that you did it. We then need to stipulate that there is obvious evidence that you committed the crimes but that you should not be held responsible for the murders because you were insane at the time.”
“Can I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“What would happen if I changed my plea to guilty?”
“I would, of course, strongly advise against it, but if you did, since this is a death-penalty case, we would move right to a Supreme Court review of the case.”
“No appeal?”
“A review, and then sentencing.”
“So if I plead guilty, I would either be sentenced to prison with no chance of parole or to death by lethal injection.”
“Correct.”
“My inner goddess is talking to me, Carolyn.”
“Oh, really? And what is the goddess saying to you?”
“She keeps talking about sacrifice.”
“How so?”
“She keeps reminding me that if I willingly sacrifice myself, it would save my mother from going through the ordeal of testifying.”
“The goddess is right, but let me ask her this: What would Viviana Troy want?”
“She’d want to testify on my behalf.”
“That’s right.”
“But dredging up all that shit from the past …”
“She’ll get through it. And the reason I know she’ll get through it is because she told me so.”
“You talked to my mother about this?”
“Many times, Tory. Many times.”
“And she said she’d testify and talk about my father?”
“Without hesitation.”
“I’m not feeling very well.”
“Would you like to stop for today?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow. And think about what I said.”
“I will.”
33
Defense Attorney Carolyn Payne
Case Notes: Tory Troy
I was recently contacted by Dr. Baraku Bexley, the court-appointed psychiatrist who declared Tory Troy competent to stand trial. He told me that during his review of a number of writings by Tory Troy provided to him by her college Creative Writing professor, Gabriel Mundàne, he came upon a story titled The Baby’s Room that he thought I might find interesting. The story is about a young mother who loses her daughter to SIDS. I include the text of the story in this file for review by second-and third-chair attorneys on this case. If its subject suggests any additional strategies for Ms. Troy’s defense, I would welcome a report.
The Baby’s Room
by Victoria Troy
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying—this to Us
Made Nature different
EMILY DICKINSON
IN THE BLINK …
Sarah opened her eyes and saw that the digital clock next to her bed read 6:15.
She had missed one of Annie’s feedings.
The baby monitor was silent, though, and Sarah was surprised that her four-month-old daughter had slept through her five o’clock feeding. Sarah figured that her darling Annie Bananny was just overtired because she had kept her up a little later than usual last night. Sarah’s parents had come by, and they could never stand having Annie taken away from them when they visited.
She hated to have to go in now and wake her from a sound sleep just to feed her, but if she waited much longer, she’d throw off her schedule for the whole day and she knew that Annie would be cranky and probably wouldn’t go do
wn for her afternoon nap.
Sarah threw off the covers and swung her legs off the bed. Even though her husband, David, had been dead for a year, she still had not been able to use the whole bed for herself. She still slept on “her” side of the mattress; she still made the bed every day; and she still changed the sheets and pillowcases once a week. She knew it was bizarre to change the pillowcase on David’s pillow every week, but it somehow comforted her and so she indulged herself.
Sarah sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, stared at the carpet between her bare feet, wiggled her toes, and tried to wake up. Coffee. That was what she needed. Huge amounts of coffee. But first, she had to take care of Annie.
Sarah slid down the right half of her nightgown and squeezed her full, milk-laden breast. A drop of milk appeared at the end of the engorged nipple.
Sarah got out of bed, slid her feet into slippers, and slipped on a heavy red robe. Scratching her ear, she padded down the hallway to Annie’s room. She could see through the window at the end of the hall that the sky had clouded over during the night and, as she neared the baby’s room, she could hear rain start to pelt the vinyl siding.
She passed the bathroom without going in. Sarah always waited until she checked on Annie before she allowed herself to use the bathroom. Her routine was to peek in the crib, stroke Annie Bananny a little to let her know she was there, whisper a few endearments to her, and then tell her she’d be right back. She would then go pee, get a soft towel from Annie’s shelf in the linen closet, and return to the baby’s room, where she would breast-feed her daughter in the padded oak rocker that her mother had given her as soon as she had heard that she was pregnant. Sarah still teased her mom that the furniture delivery truck was already in the driveway before she hung up the phone after telling her that she was expecting.
Sarah paused at the door to the baby’s room. An early gray light was just beginning to filter in through the white damask curtains, and she could see Annie’s small form in the crib.
Sarah walked over and bent over the side of the crib, hoping to see Annie’s eyes open so she wouldn’t have to wake her by jostling her or picking her up.
Annie’s eyes were still closed.
Sarah bent over and saw that Annie was not moving in her sleep but instead lying perfectly still, wrapped all the way to her neck in her pink Beauty and the Beast sleeper. Sarah’s heart began to race and she could feel a film of cold sweat break out on the back of her neck. She placed the back of her hand against Annie’s cheek and gasped when she felt how cool the skin was. Sarah let out an uncontrollable wail of terror, grabbed Annie’s small body with both hands, and pulled her roughly out of the crib.
“Annie!” she cried, as she stared into the baby’s face. “Annie! Wake up! Please! Wake up for Mommy!”
No response.
Outside, the wind picked up and the cold rain began to beat more heavily against the windows of the baby’s room.
IMAGES FROM A NIGHTMARE
Sarah rushing, grabbing, pacing; Sarah watching, standing, watching; Sarah jumping, crying, spinning; Sarah screaming; Sarah fainting.
… rushing down the hall carrying Annie in her arms;
… grabbing the phone and punching 911 so hard she snapped off a fingernail all the way down to the cuticle, leaving her nail bed spurting blood and not even feeling it;
… pacing the living room with Annie in her arms, waiting for the ambulance;
… watching as the two EMTs ripped open Annie’s Beauty and the Beast sleeper and shoved a tube down her tiny throat;
… standing in the rain outside the entrance to the emergency room at the hospital as the two men unloaded the gurney and wheeled Annie through the automatic doors;
… watching helplessly from the corner of the trauma room as what seemed like a hundred people descended on Annie and tried desperately to bring her back to life;
… jumping in shock as a doctor applied tiny little electrical paddles to Annie’s tiny little chest and shouted, “Clear!”;
… crying as she watched a nurse with the brightest red hair she had ever seen pull a white sheet up over Annie’s face;
… spinning hearing a doctor say matter-of-factly, “Let’s call it. Time of death, seven-sixteen A.M.”;
… screaming as she looked down and saw Annie’s Beauty and the Beast sleeper on the trauma-room floor, covered in the blood from her own torn fingernail;
… fainting as a young woman with genuine compassion in her eyes asked her, “Are you all right, ma’am?”
ANNA AND GEORGE
Sarah’s parents, Anna and George, came to the hospital after a physician’s assistant named Erika called them and gave them the bad news.
They had both been up, but still in their robes. George had been sitting in the living room watching the Today show, and Anna had been standing at the kitchen counter adding items to a grocery list. George took the call and was so stunned, he couldn’t hang up the phone. It simply slipped from his hand and landed on the floor next to his recliner. Anna, knowing that most phone calls at seven-thirty in the morning usually meant trouble, came into the living room and gasped when she saw the look on her husband’s face.
“Annie’s dead,” he said in a flat monotone. “That was the hospital. We have to go pick up Sarah.”
“Dear God,” Anna whispered, already crying. “How much can one woman be expected to take?”
THE LAST DAY THAT HE LIVED …
It had been a year since Anna and George had lived through the death of Sarah’s husband.
David, a tall blond who everyone had said looked a little like a young Robert Redford with a mustache, had been sitting at his desk at work when he suddenly stood up, grasped both sides of his head, screamed, and collapsed. David had then had a violent seizure on the floor behind his desk, and by the time the EMTs got to him, he was already dead. They had worked on him, of course, and they had even used lights and sirens to take him to the hospital, but the two guys in blue from the American Ambulance Service had known as soon as they saw him that it was already too late. The autopsy would determine that David had died of a cerebral aneurysm. A critical artery in his brain had burst and he had died within minutes.
Sarah had been home watching Oprah when she got a call from David’s boss. She was in a good mood because she had been to the doctor that morning and he had told her that she was definitely pregnant—about five weeks or so. Sarah couldn’t wait to tell David. She had already taken a home pregnancy test, and the two of them had sat nervously on the edge of the bed waiting for the digital countdown timer on David’s Casio watch to chime. The test had been positive, but they didn’t want to let themselves get too excited until the pregnancy was confirmed by a doctor. Today it had been confirmed, and now Sarah was just waiting for David to get home so she could give him the good news and they could celebrate with pizza and nonalcoholic wine.
The phone rang about four-thirty.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Sarah?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Hi, Sarah, this is Bill Curtin from MedTech.”
Sarah immediately tensed up. Bill Curtin was David’s boss, and she instantly knew that the only reason he would be personally calling her was if something bad had happened to David.
The first thing she thought of was an accident at work. MedTech made sophisticated surgical equipment and tools, and it was David’s job as a senior design engineer to troubleshoot production problems once a piece of equipment hit the assembly line. This often necessitated his going out onto the factory floor and working with some of the assemblers to fix a glitch or modify a manufacturing procedure. Sarah knew that some of the machinery could be dangerous, and she immediately imagined David’s hand mangled in a lathe or his leg crushed by a roll of steel stock that had slipped its bonds and rolled over him.
“Sarah, I have some bad news.”
Sarah clenched her teeth and realized that she had been holding her breath since she had
heard Bill’s name. She forced herself to release her breathing and loosen her jaw.
“Is it David? Has he been hurt at work?”
“Sarah, is there someone there with you that I can speak to? I really don’t want you to be alone right now.”
“God damn you, Bill!” Sarah shouted into the phone. “WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY HUSBAND?”
“David’s on his way to the hospital, Sarah. St. Stan’s. They took him by ambulance. He apparently had some kind of stroke while sitting at his desk and that’s all I know. Would you like someone to come over and stay with you? Do you have anyone you can call? I’m on my way to the hospital right now myself. Would you like me to pick you up?”
“No, no, Bill. Thank you, but I’ll call my father. And, really, thank you for calling. I’m sorry I shouted at you.”
“No problem, Sarah. Jesus, I’m sorry to have to be the bearer of such horrible news, but I’m sure David will be all right. Just don’t go getting yourself so worked up that you get sick, okay? David needs you now, you know.”
“Yes, I know, Bill. Thanks again for calling. I have to call my father. Bye.”
Sarah hung up the phone, and she knew.
Deep in that silent place where a woman feels things no man could possibly feel, she knew. Deep in the sacred recesses of what we have, for lack of a better word, for centuries called the soul, Sarah also knew. In some mysterious and shrouded part of her being, Sarah suddenly and undeniably felt an emptiness in that place where her beloved David had lived.
Sarah stood with her hand on her belly for a full two minutes before she could pick up the phone again and call her father.
Dialogues Page 13