by Matt Shaner
Val and I met behind the car, and the guard from my side stopped and motioned for us to follow him
“This way. Keep moving and remember you don’t have to answer anything,” He said. He took position in front of us and started to walk. We followed without saying anything. We were not prepared for the crowd that waited on our way from the garage to the building.
I’d say, looking back now, that there was a fifty-yard long walkway from the garage to the entrance for the courtrooms. This walkway was lined, like the garage, in orange construction cones and police facing out at the crowds. During the down time between the arrests and the trial, the media had speculated on everything. They thought Julia was involved in organized crime. They thought we had a hand in the disappearances. They thought the entire thing was a mass conspiracy. This talk and publicity created a large group of people waiting for our arrival. A face appeared out of nowhere and I was thankful for it.
Our lawyer arrived from our left and took position in front of us. He looked back and met both of our eyes.
“Just follow me and don’t say anything,” he said. We nodded. He started to walk like he knew the path from having paced it a thousand times before, and I believed that was true. As we progressed, the media pushed in, and the police started to take small steps backwards. The questions came at us just as fast as when we drove in from the street.
I felt for Val having to endure the harassment and questions. Some statements were so off the wall that I know I recoiled in shock. We finally reached the door and went inside as the lawyer turned back to the lights and cameras. I did not notice the podium that was set up, and he walked to the grouping of microphones. He put down his briefcase and started to talk. We waited to hear his words and watched as the scribbling hands of reports readied to move. He cleared his throat and began.
“Today, you will hear the story of a very corrupt person. My clients were intimidated and pressured into following her scheme to engineer the death of her husband for her own profit. These actions cost the welfare of many, and we will prove that my clients were innocent of any wrongdoing.” He stopped, picked up his briefcase, and joined us inside.
“Nice job,” I said.
“I’ve said variations on the same speech every time I go out there. I guess they haven’t noticed yet,” he replied. He walked to lead us into the courtroom and we followed.
After a climb up concrete steps that were flanked with a statue of Lady Justice and a statue of George Washington, he turned around the right corner of the floor. Standing alone in the wall was a pair of deep oak doors.
“The first courtroom in the county,” he said. “They reserve it for big trials. It makes the D.A. look good.” We walked over to the doors, and a bailiff pulled open one to let us in.
I felt something walking into that room. I thought of all the cases and judgments laid out over the years. The room, according to the plaque on the wall, was over two hundred years old. That meant a lot of murderers, robbers, violent men and innocent men sat where we would.
The room looked at a massive mural of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River above the bench. The judge’s bench was another large expanse of dark wood. The jury box was to our right. The tables for the defense teams and us were directly in our path. The audience area was to the back of the room, and it was full. We walked to seats that were open behind the prosecution table, and I noticed we were the first ones to arrive. We sat, and Val leaned over to me.
“Crazy isn’t it?” She asked.
“Yes. I expected something but not this much,” I said. The lawyer was off talking to someone in the audience, and we tried to relax.
“It’s an impressive room,” Val said. I could hear the din of voices reflecting off the corners of the ceiling. When it was down to an individual talking, the place would sound like a church. The conversation was driving into my head. I did not recognize anyone in the audience but had the feeling that I would by the time this thing was over.
Sara arrived after us. Sara went right over to Val and sat down. A reporter sat next to me. He must not have recognized any of us or just didn’t care since he also thoroughly ignored me. Two minutes after that, Shawn and Erica arrived, and strangely, sat on the other side of the room. Erica looked at us. Shawn looked at no one.
The judge walked in before I could follow my gut and go over. We heard the call to rise and followed suit. The lawyers took their places. Before the judge spoke, a door off to his left opened, and two guards led Julia into the room in handcuffs. She wore the prison style suit and looked directly at me. She sat at the table on the same side as Shawn, and her lawyers leaned in at each other to converse over something. The judge told everyone to sit, and the first day of the trial started.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Trial Day One
To hear everything retold through the mouths of strangers is something I will never get accustomed to experiencing. The lawyers worked in teams of three. After the usual reading of the charges and preliminary things, the attorneys spent hours explaining their halves to the jury.
There was nothing special about the jury, on a side note. I still cannot get into specifics over their identity, but I’ve heard at least one book will be coming out from the experience.
The prosecution stated they would paint a picture of Julia as the villain, the Black Widow. She and Bryan’s marriage held the secret of her vengeance for years. She didn’t care for the children. She was involved in illegal activity. She hated her husband. She hated her husband enough to hire people to take his life. She was the subject of a long running investigation and a menace to society. Overall, the public would benefit by her incarceration.
The defense told a different story. Julia had hired an attorney from the opposite coast, and we knew he could not have come cheap. The man stood and adjusted his suit. He walked to the jury and spoke in the manner of a Southern preacher. He said that Julia was nothing more than a woman scorned. Her husband ran out on her for another woman, and to our surprise, that woman would testify. I could see the reaction in Shawn and could feel it from Val. This had to be a lie and was nothing we were ready to handle. He stated that Bryan abandoned the family, and we had no body to show for his whereabouts. He said we were involved, named each of us, and that he would clearly show all this in court. He sat in his chair with a regal feeling about his presence, and the judge decided to break until the next day.
Val and I made our way to the cafeteria of the building to grab something small for the ride home. Shawn was standing at the snack machines, and Erica was nowhere in sight. I told Val to wait at the entrance, and I made my way over to him.
“Who is the woman?” I asked. He was staring at the candy in the machine. I waited for a few seconds and asked again. “Well?”
“Should I know?” He still didn’t turn to me. I noticed the tension in his voice. This was becoming tiring. If I couldn’t count on him, then really, I had nothing to lose.
“Did you set this up?”
“I wish,” he said. That was it. I shoved him, and he fell on a brown table that slid a few feet on the ultra-waxed floor. He stood and made his way back to me before a guard ran in and stopped him. “You’re lucky he made it here in time,” he said through his struggles. Val pulled me out of the room, and we made our way to the car. More members of the media arrived, in time with the nightly news, and flash bulbs popped as they did when we showed up in the morning. We did not stop or answer any questions.
The lawyer advised us to not pick up the phone or see anyone at the door, and it was nice to keep to ourselves for a change. I watched for Shawn to come home. He pulled in the drive, exited the car, looked to our house and went inside with Erica and the baby. Val and I went to sleep and prepared for the next day.
Chapter Fifty
The Next Day
In terms of media, things were completely different. A
handful of local reporters remained. They still attempted to crowd us when we walked in, but just keeping our pace was enough to throw them off. The room was still crowded, and a reporter was standing inside next to the door with a news camera trained on her. She was talking about the trial and the anticipation for the first witnesses that we would hear. Our lawyer was talking to a different person in the audience this time. They were examining notepads and seemed to be exchanging information. We sat in the same seats as before and waited for the judge.
If there was anything I learned from the experience, it was that judges are never on time. I had no idea why they placed a start time on the proceedings, as he was not in his seat on time for any of the times at the assigned minute. During the first few days, it was annoying. Val and I created a game to take up time. We would discuss people. We would rate them on attractiveness. We would look at the big mural on the wall and come up with captions for the men involved on the canvas. I wondered, over the last few hundred years, how much time those guys wasted hanging on the wall and waiting for a judge to arrive. He made an appearance thirty minutes late, and we sat down to start the proceedings.
Chapter Fifty-One
Shawn’s Story
I wondered how it felt for Shawn to sit on the stand. He drank water as he talked, and you could still hear the effect of the throat wound on his speech. The jury had to lean in to hear him, and I thought that worked to our advantage. Any sympathy would make the testimony more believable.
I did not know how Shawn would testify. My pulse rate and my nerves were much higher than before. I did not sleep that night. He had some kind of information, and I hoped he would make a good choice on how to use it. The first questions were more relationship building. The picture was painted to put Shawn in his place, and then the questions came to the specific details. If it were going to get ugly, this would be the place.
I knew the connection between our lawyer and Julia. It was surprising that the defense attorney would not move to get him removed from the case, unless, no one mentioned it. Julia could just play it off as a rumor, and it would stay a tabloid non-issue. It was not surprising that she kept it in the dark. It was surprising that he did though. It gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Forces seemed to be at work that was greater than anything we could see at the time.
Our questions were coached consistently, to the point that I knew what was being asked and what I should answer. I thought Shawn’s treatment would have been the same. If he deviated in any way, we would know in an instant by the reaction to the question.
No time was wasted or delayed from diving right into the incidents. Shawn fielded the first question, paused, and went with his answer.
“Did you know anything about Bryan’s disappearance?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Do you know the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“At the times you were over to visit, how did Bryan and Julia’s relationship appear?” The question somehow made it around an objection.
“It was a little rocky but nothing out of the norm.”
This was progressing well. The next question changed things.
When asked about Bryan leaving, Shawn replied, “His son was killed in an auto accident. That would give me a reason to leave town.”
The face on the lawyer changed for a second, and he seemed resolved to go with the switch. He asked him to continue. Shawn described the night of the drunk-driving accident and Bryan’s decent into the dark side of his mind. There were no objections as this worked perfectly into the case for the defense. Before Shawn could get into the hostage night, we recessed for the day.
Every once in a while, I felt the tug to do something. There was no way this could be left alone, and I was determined to try and fix things again. We left the courthouse that night, and I told Val that I would be going to Shawn’s to see what would happen. She advised me against it, but that wasn’t an option.
Chapter Fifty-Two
That Night
I called and told him I was coming over. He told me not too, but he would do nothing to stop me. He also told me that I came over at my own risk. This was not a threat but only him trying to sound tough, and I laughed it off. When I hung up the phone, I hoped it was not a threat, and that my mental state would not be leading me to a premature end. We decided to meet at nine that evening.
Before I left, I told Val that if I was not back in an hour, to call the police. She promised me she would.
I walked over to his house and noticed that the place was dark. I knew he had to be home. His car was out front, and he had nowhere to go. I paused at the yard, looked back to my house, and kept walking. I went up to the door and knocked; it swung open. I walked inside, and it shut.
The blast from the light hurt my eyes. He had rigged up some kind of desk lamp and had it shining in my face. It took a few seconds to focus, but around the lamp I saw the red light of a video camera, and next to the camera was the outline of Shawn in the shadows.
“So what do you want?” he asked.
“Don’t I at least get a seat?” I returned. He kicked a chair in my direction. “Why not at least go to the living room?”
“It’s not here anymore.” His tone did nothing to ease the situation. “So what is it you want in coming over here? Remember to speak loud for the camera.”
“That’s how much you trust me? To have a camera? That makes no sense.”
“You’re one to talk about trust.”
“I don’t need this.” My patience was done. He had taken it all away. I turned to walk out.
“You want to know what I’ll say?” He asked. “Of course you do. You’ll just have to wait and see.” He finished talking and started to laugh. I went back home and did not sleep at all that night.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Next Day at Trial
I downed three cups of bad waiting-room coffee after arriving at the courthouse. I wondered how they expected people to exist off of the Styrofoam cups that they provided. Hours of jury deliberation would be hellish after small shots of coffee in those things. I watched the groups of young attorneys come and go. That morning was actually beautiful outside, but no one noticed. They were busy on PDA’s and cell phones. They were making deals and preparing cases. If that was what it cost to make money in the field, I was glad I skipped on law school.
Val was off in the café talking to Sara. I watched a judge leave his chambers and walk into another room. After his walk, two deputies escorted a handcuffed prisoner into a courtroom, and it dawned on me that no one thought anything different. This was a place where good and bad collided in casual passing. The forces that fight to better society stood directly across from those who slipped through the cracks and decided to worsen it for everyone. It was a daily confrontation, and it carried out as easily as some dull computer programming office environment.
I also felt the souls of the building. The concrete walls witnessed tragedy and triumph. I imagined the countless families feeling vindicated and betrayed, some at the same time. Traffic tickets and murders were fought in the same room. Life swirled on outside the walls while our system of checks and balances maintained a hold on order inside. Val and Sara emerged from the café, and we all made our way up to the room. I had not told Val anything of the results of the confrontation with Shawn, and he was listed to be the first witness of the day. This could be the most important morning of our lifetimes.
The room was semi-full, as with each of the other mornings. The judge arrived late, and after handling some brief matters, ushered Shawn to the stand. He was reminded that he still sat under oath and the testimony continued. We sat in rapt attention ready for the next question. This is what was asked:
“Please tell us what happened on the night of Bryan’s disappearance.”
“We were there at his house,” Shawn said. H
e clarified that the people there were him, Drew, and me. My pulse rate started to rise. He described a conversation, a conflict and that we all left and never saw Bryan again. He looked at me for a second, and the questioning moved on. Julia looked furious. She was whispering something into the ear of her attorney. He scribbled on his pad and affirmed whatever she had brought to his attention.
After Shawn ended his testimony and an uneventful cross-examination, he was allowed to sit back down. I was determined to talk to him and made sure, that when the day was over, I would be in position to grab him in the hallway. I raced past other audience members and caught up with him. He was walking faster than normal.
“Why?” I asked. He turned but did not look at me.
“Because I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I can never go back there. I will never go back there, be it in my head or in my voice. I at least owe that to him.” Suddenly, I understood. The things owed to the dead finally outweighed any consequences that Julia planned. After that discussion, I did not see Shawn again at the courthouse until the day of the violence.
Chapter Fifty-Four
The Prosecution Rests
The final witnesses for the prosecution outlined the details of the events surrounding the disappearance of Bryan. The police officers that arrived at the accident described everything in painstaking clarity. I could see the picture they were sketching for the court. In the eyes of the prosecution, this is what happened: each event transpiring over the few months were cleverly orchestrated by Julia to achieve her personal and financial gain. She worked with her circumstances and planned everything almost to perfection. The plan misfired when someone with a conscience, Shawn, and I, became involved. We had the nerve to step up to her and stop her plan to take her husband’s life. Now he had run away, because he had no other recourse having been caught in a relationship with such a scheming woman.