by Greta Nelsen
“Yes, she does.”
“And who purchased that policy, Mr. Abrams?”
“Her husband,” he says. “Tim Fowler.”
“So my client was not the one who purchased the policy?”
“No.”
“Nor was she the one who requested coverage for the children, right?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“You testified that two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars is not a typical amount of life insurance for a parent to carry on a child, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Objection!” Ms. Tupper calls out. “Speculative.”
“Sustained.”
Zoe plows ahead. “In what year was the life insurance policy covering Owen Fowler begun?”
Lonnie frowns. “Nineteen ninety-eight, I think.”
“And Owen Fowler was added to the policy as of August 23, 2010, the date of his birth, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“So the policy we’re referring to had been in effect for twelve years, give or take, before Owen Fowler was even born, right?”
“Thereabouts, ma’am.”
“Has my client or her husband collected any of the proceeds of this policy since the death of their son?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The claim is under review.”
“Why?”
“Because of…well, because of this,” he says, waving his arm to indicate the court proceedings.
“If my client were to be convicted in this case, your company would be off the hook for the quarter of a million dollar claim for Owen Fowler’s death, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s not payable for deliberate acts,” Lonnie says, “like suicide, or homicide by a beneficiary.”
“So if my client were convicted, your company would keep the quarter of a million dollars?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Zoe chirps, “That’s all, Your Honor.”
* * *
If any doubt of Eric Blair’s wickedness remains, it’s about to shrivel like an errant worm in the August sun. And depending on what he reveals, the doubt of my guilt may collapse right along with it.
A look of premature triumph colors Charlotte Tupper’s face as she glides toward the witness stand, her pregnant form more graceful than seems fair.
Once Eric has introduced himself to the court, the prosecutor asks, “Are you familiar with the defendant in this case, Claire Fowler?”
There is not a cell in my body that desires the sight of this man, yet I must look. When he stares back, I glimpse the first thing since Owen’s death to bring me pleasure: Eric Blair’s revulsion. This aged, battered version of me clearly turns his stomach. “I know her,” he says.
The prosecutor makes him point me out before asking, “How do you know the defendant?”
“She’s the mother of my child.”
It’s as if the courtroom has been cast in stone. Even the stenographer’s nimble fingers lay still, the absence of the stenotype’s low clack as jarring as the bomb Eric Blair has dropped.
What seems like minutes later, Ms. Tupper, with an obvious note of surprise in her voice, says, “She’s the mother of your child?”
“She was,” he says. “Owen was my son.”
A number of the jurors gasp, and Judge Parsons raps his gavel. “Order! This court will come to order!”
When the courtroom settles, Ms. Tupper incredulously asks, “Owen Fowler was your son?”
“Yes.”
The prosecutor shakes her head. “Let’s back up. How did you first come to know the defendant?”
Eric unbuttons his suit jacket and relaxes in the witness chair. “We were coworkers at Hazelton United.”
“Only coworkers?”
“Not for long.” He grins. “Claire is very assertive, sexually speaking.”
At the sound of my name on his lips, my guts begin to wrench.
“So the defendant approached you for a sexual relationship?”
“Absolutely.”
“When?”
“July of 2009,” he claims. “About a month after I started working there.”
“What did the defendant do or say to let you know she was interested in you sexually?”
“She called me into her office late one afternoon. Technically, she was my boss, so I didn’t think much of it. I thought she had a project for our department.”
“Then what happened?”
“She kissed me.”
“Just like that?”
“After she had me shut the door, she unbuttoned her blouse so I could get an eyeful of her goodies,” he says with straight-faced conviction. “Then she asked if I’d ‘care to sample the fruit.’ When I didn’t object, she lunged at me.”
“That’s when she kissed you?”
“Yeah.”
“And what did you take it to mean when she asked if you’d ‘care to sample the fruit’?”
“I didn’t have time to think about it, because she unbelted my pants and shoved her hand inside.”
“How did you react to that?”
“I pushed her skirt up.”
“So you reciprocated her sexual advances?”
“I had no reason not to.” He shrugs. “She wanted me.”
“What happened next?”
He looks at me and smiles. “We had sex.”
“You had sex with the defendant in her office in July of 2009?”
“Yes.”
“Did the relationship continue after that?”
“She couldn’t get enough of me,” he says in a cocky tone that suggests he believes the lie himself. “In the office. In my car. Her car. Once in the bathroom of a Chili’s.”
“Was this strictly a sexual relationship, or was there more to it?”
Again, he looks at me. “She wanted to get married,” he says. “Have a kid. The whole enchilada. But I wasn’t into wrecking a marriage and all that.”
“So you broke it off with her?”
“Not right away. I played along for a while. It was good, and I had nothing better going on at the time. Plus, the thing about the kid kind of got to me. I thought maybe I wanted one, and she seemed like a good mother.”
“Then what happened?”
“There was a conference in Cincinnati for work. She set it up so we could go together—sort of a romantic getaway. But when we got there, I found out what she really wanted.”
“And what was that?”
“Sperm,” he says with a sneaky grin. “She was ovulating, and she wanted me to get her pregnant.”
I scrawl a desperate plea to Zoe, who shakes her head and pats my arm. In reply, she scribbles: We’ll get the bastard!
“In Cincinnati, the defendant asked you to have sex, for the purpose of impregnating her?”
He shrugs. “Her husband couldn’t get the job done, so…”
“Is that a yes, Mr. Blair?”
“Yeah. She wanted a kid. And I agreed, as long as she didn’t bug me about it later. I didn’t want to play daddy or be responsible financially, you know.”
“Did you have sex with her then?”
“Yes.”
“And did you later discover that she was pregnant?”
“She said she was.”
“Did she say the baby was yours?”
“Yeah. Like I said, she wasn’t having any luck at home, so she came to me.”
“Were you involved in the pregnancy?”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“What was the deal?”
“She was going to pretend like the kid was her husband’s, let him think he’d made it happen.”
“Is that what she did?”
“As far as I know.”
“Did you continue your relationship with the defendant after the Cincinnati trip?”
“Only for about six weeks,” he says.
“Then what happened?”
“
A cute blonde from the health club started in on me, and I just didn’t have time for Claire-bear anymore.”
“So you broke off your relationship with her in order to date someone else?”
“That’s right.”
“What about the baby, Owen? Did you ever see him?”
“She wanted me to a couple of times, but I made up excuses. She hadn’t handled the breakup too well, and I didn’t want to encourage her.”
Ms. Tupper drapes her fingers over the rail of the witness box. “What do you mean by ‘she hadn’t handled the breakup too well?’”
“She was stalking me. Showing up before and after work in the parking lot. She got so mad once that she pushed me and broke my leg. Ask her about that,” he says with a glare in my direction.
The prosecutor lets the remark pass without inquiry. “Did the defendant ever say anything about Owen that you interpreted as a threat to his wellbeing?”
“She said he looked like me, which she hated. She also said he was a mistake, that she regretted having him.”
“She regretted having him?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Did the defendant say if she was planning to remedy this ‘mistake’?”
A hush falls over the courtroom as he mulls the question. “No,” he finally replies. “She never said anything like that—to me, at least.”
* * *
Zoe charges for the witness stand like a Doberman on the scent of a blood-soaked T-bone. “Mr. Blair, you claim that you had sex with my client in her car?”
Eric cocks his head and sneers. “Yeah.”
“On what date?”
He grins, shrugs. “I didn’t mark it on my calendar.”
“What kind of car does my client drive?”
“Some small foreign thing,” he says. “Smashed my knees on the dashboard the whole time.”
“What color is my client’s vehicle?”
“Forest green?”
“Is that a guess, Mr. Blair?”
“We didn’t do it in broad daylight. We’re not animals.”
“But you claim that you had a sexual affair with my client for at least six months, is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
“And in that time you never noted the color of my client’s vehicle?”
“No.”
“You also claim to have had sex with my client in the bathroom of a Chili’s restaurant?”
He nods. “Yup.”
“The men’s or women’s room?”
He pauses only briefly. “Men’s.”
“Which Chili’s?”
This question stumps him longer. “The one in Smithfield, I think,” he says with faux tentativeness.
“Smithfield, Rhode Island?”
“Yeah.”
“And when did this alleged encounter occur?”
“Like I said, I didn’t mark it on my calendar.”
“Can you narrow it down to a month and year?”
“Objection!” Ms. Tupper calls. “Asked and answered.”
Judge Parsons mutters, “Overruled. Answer the question, Mr. Blair.”
“You know, I’m pretty sure it was September.”
“September of 2009?”
“Yeah.”
“What if I told you that my client was out of the country during the month of September, 2009? Would that change your answer?”
He shifts in his seat. “It could have been October.”
“So you don’t know when this alleged sexual encounter took place between you and my client?”
“Not really.”
“Mr. Blair, you claim that my client asked you to impregnate her, correct?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Do you have any evidence to support this claim—for example, a text message, email or voice mail message?”
“We were careful,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “There’s no trail.”
“You also claim to be the biological father of the deceased, Owen Fowler?”
He directs a gloomy, forlorn look my way that seems more a ploy for sympathy than a legitimate expression of sadness. “That’s right. Owen was my son.”
“Do you have any evidence of this supposed fact—for example, a DNA test supporting your claim?”
He huffs impatiently. “No.”
“So at this point, it’s basically your word against my client’s?”
“I guess.”
“Is it possible that Owen Fowler was not your biological child?”
“Anything’s possible.”
Zoe lets this response hang in the air for a while and then asks a few more pointed questions that, in my mind, expose Eric for the sociopath he is.
When my lawyer is done, Charlotte Tupper says, “Redirect, Your Honor?”
“Proceed.”
“Just to be clear,” the prosecutor says, “the defendant did ask you to impregnate her, correct?”
The reptile appears impatient. “Yes.”
“And you did have sex with her for that purpose, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And she did, in fact, become pregnant, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And she told you that you were baby Owen’s father, correct?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Do you have any doubt that you fathered baby Owen?”
“No.”
Charlotte Tupper shakes her head. “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
Chapter 21
It’s obvious that the fallout from Eric Blair’s testimony will be seismic, if only for the fact that I am permitted an impromptu powwow with my attorneys in the now-familiar conference cell.
“Un-fuckin’-believable,” Rudy spouts as his wingtips stub against the base of a chair, nearly tripping him. “Can you say perjury?”
“You couldn’t pry the truth out of that bastard with a vial of sodium pentothal and a crowbar,” Zoe says. With a vigorous shake of her head, she asks, “What did you do to piss him off anyway?”
I shrug. “Turned him down?”
“He must’ve really wanted you,” Paul says with bare skepticism.
I let loose a bout of jerky laughter. “You don’t know the half of it,” I say. “I didn’t always look like this, you know.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a tender exchange between Zoe and Rudy: his hand draped gingerly over her shoulder; her head tilted, features softened, an open smile at her lips.
The beauty of this interaction jabs a raw nerve. If I don’t come out ahead of this murder charge and extend my betrayal of Owen, the moments of perfection that lie before Tim and me will vanish on the wind.
I wait through a lull in the conversation, tap my fingers on the table and think. But there really is no choice. “I’m going to testify,” I say. “I can’t just let him…” My lawyers have prepared me for much of what Charlotte Tupper has deployed against me, but not the deep-rooted pathos of Eric Blair.
“Smart girl,” Zoe says with an approving nod. “If there was another way, I might advise against it. But in this case, the only thing that will erase such damning accusations is the real story, in your own words.” She stares me hard in the eyes. “What is the real story, Claire?”
A female deputy lopes by the cell; I hold my answer until she has gone. “He raped me,” I whisper, the words harder to speak than I’d imagined.
Rudy echoes, “He raped you?”
I don’t want to say it again. Instead, I force a nod.
“He raped you?” Zoe repeats, a perplexed scowl hijacking her face.
I’m not sure why this notion seems unable to penetrate their minds, which leaves me at a loss to explain further. “He’s a psychopath,” I say. “Ask anyone.”
“We have,” Paul says. “Obviously, he’s a womanizer. We figured he was going to claim an affair. But this stuff about Owen…”
“Was the baby his?” Rudy asks outright. I cannot tell how much of Eric’s story he may be bu
ying.
If I admit to this detail, I will be obliged to tell them everything. I draw a breath and let it seep out, stare at a chipped spot of paint on the cinderblock wall. “He raped me in Cincinnati,” I say, “and I ended up pregnant.”
“Holy shit,” Rudy says. He reaches across the table and strokes my hand. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I mutter. “I’m not.” I pull my hand from his, curl it to my chin and shut my eyes. Now that the secret is free, I am mired in a pit of exhaustion.
“Does Tim know?” asks Zoe.
My mouth goes dry. I lick my lips, my eyes still closed, and say, “I’ll tell him tomorrow.”
* * *
Tim’s parents’ phone rings four times, then five. By ring number three, I realize that, if anyone bothers to answer, the voice I hear won’t be Ally’s.
“Hello?” It’s Ellen, Tim’s mother.
“Hi,” I whisper, embarrassed to be speaking to her from jail. “Is Ally…there?” I can’t bring myself to ask if my daughter is home for fear of having to admit that she is.
A long, vacant pause follows, sends moments I can ill afford to lose into oblivion. “She’d rather not talk to you right now,” Ellen says in a gruff tone. “I’m sorry.”
I am at once dumbstruck and numb. Nothing I can say will fix this.
“She’s just a little girl,” Ellen continues, “and this whole thing has been hell on earth for her. Hell on earth.”
I stare at the side of the pay phone where the flexible metal cord attaches and try to fight off a prickly shiver of goose bumps. “I…”
“We’ve tried, Claire. Lord knows we have. But people’ve got their limits. They can only take so much before…”
“I know.” My supporters started falling off even before Eric Blair’s testimony, but now a mass exodus is on the horizon.
“Tim is about worn out too,” she tells me. “He went off the road Sunday morning, on the way home from work.”
“Is he okay?” I ask, without care for whether she thinks I deserve the answer.
She sighs. “Physically, he’s fine, except for a gash to the forehead that took a dozen stitches—and a twisted knee. It’s mentally he’s broken, Claire. He can’t bear much more. He misses that baby so much.” She sniffles a little, and in the background, I hear the unmistakable sound of my daughter’s fingers dancing over piano keys.