I hold out my laminated press credential to the guards, showing them my happy-looking photo and affiliation with City magazine. If they notice the expiration date, I’ll act baffled and figure something out. I put my handbag on the conveyor belt. The belt doesn’t move.
The shorter one, name tag Silvio Ortiz, takes my credential, almost looks at it, hands it back. “Where’re you headed?” he asks.
I know that. “Three-oh-six.”
“Where’s your Bryant pass?” the tall one asks.
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Ortiz glances away as we hear the whisk of the revolving doors. “Miss? Can you step aside, please?”
I turn to see who’s getting priority.
Well, well.
“Hi, Quinn,” I say. Quinn McMorran. Accompanied only by two bulging black leather briefcases. Quinn was my first phone call about Juror G. And now, here she is. Sorry Joe. You just lost a biggie.
“Hello, Mercer.” The sleeves of her black blazer are pushed up over her elbows, pearl earrings match her necklace. The life-changing mistrial decision is looming. This is probably not her most approachable moment. But it’s the moment I have.
“Did you get my message?” I ask. “Do you have two minutes?”
“Not now.” She puts down one briefcase and swipes her bangs out of her eyes. I’m sure she has associates, but I’ve never seen them. Maybe they’re out of camera range in the courtroom. Maybe she wants Ashlyn to appear vulnerable.
“Big day, as you know,” she says. “Mistrial decision. Whatever you have can wait.”
Okay, fine. First Joe bails. Now Quinn McMorran’s entire body language is announcing I am outta here.
And you know, I mentally shrug, if she doesn’t care, who am I to force her to hear this? Juror G would probably be replaced by someone else voting guilty.
My conscience—Dex—pokes me. Hard. If I give up on this, it betrays everything he stood for. “There’s no true justice without the rule of law,” he’d say. “Playing fair is how we demonstrate faith in our system. How we honor it.” I let Dex down once. I swear I will never do it again. Quinn ordered me not to call her. But I am not having this on my conscience.
“Quinn?”
She frowns, as if I’ve overstepped. “Goodbye, Mercer.”
“Quinn.” I take a step toward her, then another. “Wait.” A few more people, I don’t recognize them, are yanking off belts, then plunking wallets and cell phones in gray metal-detector bins. The guards focus on them, and they focus on the guards and the conveyor belts and their destination inside, so Quinn and I are—for the moment—ignored.
“Listen.” I lower my voice, aware of the others, aware of the unpredictable acoustics of the cavernous lobby. “It’s about a juror.”
“You’re sure?” she asks when I’ve finished. “A woman. G.”
“Well, no,” I whisper back. “Not sure at all. But that’s what she said she said. What she told me.”
She stares at me, then looks up and to the right. “Could she have said Grunewald? Or Galanopoulos?”
“The person didn’t say the name,” I remind her. Wonder if she just handed me two jurors’ names. “Just indicated a G name, hard to spell.”
“G as in guilty, apparently.” Quinn rolls her eyes.
“I have no idea.” I don’t really know anything. I’m truly speculating. “I only thought…”
“You did right, Mercer. Dex would have—well. Approved. Thank you.”
I’ve never seen that expression on anyone’s face before. Gratitude. Fear. Light-speed assessment.
“See you in court,” I say to her back. I won’t, of course, because the guards aren’t letting me in. If I don’t get home soon, I’ll miss the fireworks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I needn’t have hurried home. It’s one in the afternoon, I’m back in my sweats, and the trial hasn’t started yet. Nothing from Joe. Nothing from Quinn. Nothing from the judge.
I’m stolidly pretending my life is not on the line here. Proceeding as if the trial will proceed as well. If the world worked the way it should, what would I write next? I sit at my desk, open my tablet to the video of my unwatched testimony, then open a manila folder full of snipped-out clippings and forensics files from Katherine. Perfect. The duct tape.
ALL DUCT TAPE IS NOT THE SAME
“Perry Chaudhary.” The man in the white coat stated his name as Royal Spofford requested. “Evidence analyst for the State Police Crime Lab.”
He’d brought a regular sports jacket to court, but the district attorney rejected it. Wear your whites, Spofford instructed. Makes you look more credible. Chaudhary’d gotten a haircut, too. Unfortunately.
He sat in the witness box, trying not to look at Ashlyn Bryant. Kept imagining what she must have done. And how. He knew he had to be clinical. But it was difficult.
“So Mr. Chaudhary.” Spofford pointed to a poster-board exhibit showing a cross-section of duct tape. “To the untrained eye, all duct tape looks the same. Is that true?”
“No. All duct tape is not the same,” Chaudhary replied.
“Why is that important in this case?” Spofford asked.
“Only one manufacturer uses the kind of powdered aluminum that gives that silver-gray color. A company called Adheeso.”
“Was the tape found with little Tasha Nicole manufactured by Adheeso?”
“Yes.”
“How available is Adheeso tape? If you know?”
“Yes, I looked into that. And it’s, well…” Chaudhary paused. “Rare.”
“Adheeso is—rare?” Spofford raised his eyebrows at the jury, confirmed they were paying attention.
“It is,” Chaudhary said. “It’s available, but very local. You have to be where they sell it.”
“I see.” Spofford appeared to be thinking. Then, “Could you buy it in Ohio?”
“Yes,” Chaudhary said. “Ohio is the only place.”
Spofford turned away from the witness, as if he had finished. Then he turned back, raised one finger at Chaudhary. “One more question. Was there anywhere else, besides with the victim, that you found this ‘rare’ duct tape?”
“Yes.” The lab tech tugged at the hem of his suddenly too-small white jacket. “On the refrigerator of the Bryant home. Detective Koletta Hilliard had seen duct tape there when she waited in the Bryant’s kitchen, and asked Ohio law enforcement for a sample. And” He swallowed. “It matched.”
“Nothing further,” Spofford said.
Quinn McMorran was on her feet before Spofford settled in his chair.
“Mr. Chaudhary,” she said. This damn duct tape. “The tape on the refrigerator—what was it doing?”
“It appeared to be securing a ventilation grate.”
“I see,” she said. “The Bryants used their own tape to fix their own refrigerator. Now. That tape in the green plastic bag. Were there traces of clothing fabric on that? Or skin?”
“No,” he said.
“I see,” she said. “Now, it’s difficult to use tape, especially the kind you tear, without leaving fingerprints on it, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
McMorran cleared her throat, looked at Ashlyn. Ashlyn, as instructed, was using her best posture, keeping her face composed, her eyes focused.
“Two final questions, Mr. Chaudhary. Yes or no. My client was fingerprinted after her arrest? Correct? Her fingerprints had not been on file prior to that, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly. So, again, yes or no. Did you find any of her fingerprints on that duct tape? Just yes or no.”
“No.”
“Nothing further.” McMorran almost made it to her chair before Spofford stood.
“Redirect?” Spofford said. “Mr. Chaudhary, did you find any fingerprints on the duct tape?”
“No.”
“So since someone used it, she might have been wearing rubber gloves?”
“Yes.” Chaudhary said. “She might.”
“Recross?” McMorran barely waited for the judge’s approval.
“Mr. Chaudhary, you said she. How do you imagine Ashlyn Bryant got the duct tape from her parents’ home all the way to Boston? You think she packed her suitcase with a roll of local duct tape?”
“Objection.” Spofford sneered out the word, didn’t bother to stand. He rolled his eyes at the jury. “Your Honor. Please. Absurdly argumentative.”
“Withdrawn,” McMorran said. Let the jury mull that one over, she thought. But she was worried. This duct tape could sink her client.
Duct tape. I write that on my list. Spofford had hit this one out of the ballpark. Ohio duct tape? Brilliant. No way Quinn McMorran could undo that inescapable connection.
As a writer, I can think clinically about that duct tape. How and why it was placed on Tasha’s face. The evil it allowed. In my writer role, it’s a compelling story.
But in my mom role, it’s unthinkable. When I imagine—and I can’t help but do so—that happening to Sophie? My very consciousness would crumble, or explode, or both. How is Ashlyn standing this, hearing—and seeing—graphic representations and unflinching testimony about her own baby girl?
Ashlyn is so adept at keeping her face off camera, it’s all the more riveting when I do catch a glimpse of her. The day McMorran called for the mistrial, Ashlyn looked, only once, right at Ashlyn-cam. As if she were telegraphing–well, triumph? But that interpretation may be my own skepticism.
One thing for sure. It was not a look of grief. I’d recognize that particular look. I see it in the mirror every morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The suspense about the mistrial is driving me crazy. I should be thinking: the longer the delay, the better for the book. Instead I’m thinking: hurry the hell up. It’s now almost three in the afternoon. Nothing from the court.
Fine. I’ll work.
TOM BRYANT, I print on my legal pad, then list bullet points. Father. Retired. Accountant. Pilot. Babysat.
From all accounts, he and Ashlyn did not get along. Why? Tom relationship w/Ashlyn? I write on my list.
If I believe what I read in Insider—I know it’s the most unreliable source ever, but at the grocery I can’t resist—the reason Ashlyn might have hated her father was that he was cheating on Georgia. I write Affair?
Maybe in Boston? Was Tom Bryant ever in Boston? Someone must have checked. While I wait for the judge to rule, I could pre-write a Tom Bryant on-the-stand scene. It’s not clear that he’s going to testify, and if he doesn’t, that scene won’t matter. If there’s a mistrial, none of this will matter.
I am weary of making things up.
I need food. I need exercise.
And I’m lonely. I stop in the center of the kitchen, realizing I could scream and shriek and go totally bananas, and no one, no one, would know. Maybe that’s what I’m really doing these days. Screaming. And shrieking. But now there’s no one to hear it.
“O-kay, Mercer,” I say out loud. “Get over yourself.” I put one hand on the refrigerator door handle, thinking. Maybe I should get a dog. Or a cat? The random cat begins to coalesce into a specific cat. A rescue. A sweet fluffy tortoiseshell rescue. I begin to pull the door open, then stop, shaking my head with a smile. Silly, Sophie is allergic to cats.
I stand there for a beat. My hand clenched on the fridge door is all that keeps me from collapsing onto the floor.
It doesn’t matter anymore that Sophie’s allergic to cats. The weight of that is almost—but I’m not going there.
I’m not.
I’m trying to write a book. I’m trying to find a life. For now.
Bottle of water. Apple. It’ll have to do. I trudge back to the study, still feeling blue about the cat.
“If you’re still with us?” Voice interrupts my gloom. “It appears the judge has a ruling on the mistrial motion. We’re back live in ten.”
Of course that’s when the doorbell rings. And the phone rings. It’s not Quinn McMorran because she’s in court, so I let my cell go to voice mail. But I’ve gotta answer the door. Since the trial is starting in ten minutes, I have eight minutes and thirty seconds to find out who the heck is here and tell them to go away.
As I arrive at the front door, the phone rings one more time before giving up.
I look through the peephole.
Joe Rissinelli?
“This is your doing, isn’t it? Is this what you wanted to tell me?” He’s talking before I get the door all the way open. A silver Mini Cooper is in my driveway. “About the juror? That was me calling you, by the way.”
“Hi, Joe.” We’re face to face, him on the outside, me on the in. Him in Levis and a sport coat, me in sweats. Both of us wearing wedding rings. His spouse is probably alive. “Tell you? About … the juror?”
I know I floated the idea of doing an interview with Joe, but did I use the word “juror”?
“Yeah,” he says. “The juror. Sandra Galanopoulos.”
He smiles. A nice smile, but I bet it’s the one he uses on interviewees. To get them to talk. I smile back, exactly the same way. I absolutely never said a juror’s name to him, because at that point I didn’t know a juror’s name. Quinn McMorran mentioned two last names at the courthouse. That I remember perfectly. Galanopoulos was one of them.
“Sandra Galanopoulos?” I repeat the name he said. “The trial is about to begin, so—”
“Is it?” Joe says. “Want to invite me in?”
I’m baffled. I’m not sure what’s happening in court, but whatever it is, it’s four minutes away.
“Sure.” I wave Joe toward the living room. “I just have to, uh, save something.” I gesture, vaguely, down the hall. I’ll start my tablet taping, at least. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
“I know you have video feed,” he says to my back as I head down the hall. “And I know about your book.”
“Hang on, okay?” I trot to the study, not acknowledging what he’s said. I’m not going to play this game. Someone told him everything, or enough, and the list of the possibles is short. Maybe it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the book.
“All set,” I say, as I come back into the room. Joe’s on the couch, tapping on his cell, but clicks it off and stashes it into his jacket pocket.
“I’ll tell you something if you tell me something,” he says. Smiling again. Lots of smiling going on. He points me to the wing chair across from him, as if he’s in charge.
I burst out laughing, can’t help it. I don’t sit. “That’s certainly putting it all out there.”
Joe stops smiling. “Here’s how it’ll work. First, I promise I won’t say I got it from you if you promise you won’t say you got it from me. You tell me about the juror. And I’ll tell you about Ashlyn’s pregnancy. And who she says is the baby’s father.”
I blink at him, remembering my own speculation that he had an in with Ashlyn. Maybe they’ve had a jailhouse rendezvous? Or several? He’s a reporter, a very good reporter, so there’s got to be more to this than is evident. Because right now nothing is evident.
“It’s about two minutes until the trial starts.” I’d adore to know what he’s offering to tell me, but his arrival doesn’t make sense. Especially right now. “I’m surprised you’re not there to hear the judge’s ruling in person.”
“The judge is gonna rule there’s no mistrial. But he’s not doing that until four,” Joe says. “He’s replacing Sandra Galanopoulos, but he’s not explaining why. I’m thinking you can. And he’ll put the trial into recess until tomorrow.”
“What?” I’m surprised Joe knows all this, but he’s Joe Riss, so it’s possible. I lower myself into the chair, conscious of my sweats and stupid furry slippers. Good thing I have on underwear.
“Recess. Which means we have time to talk. Trust me.” Joe makes himself at home, leans back against the white couch cushions, crosses an ankle over his knee. Fingers a smudge from his loafer, like he’s noticing my feet. Smiles at me. Again. “And oh, that
‘in-depth perspective interview’ you wanted to do with me? Bull. Good try, Mercer, but that’s the oldest trick in the book. What did you really want to talk about?”
Busted. But I was going to tell him anyway, I bargain with myself. If I tell the “Carmendy at the checkout” story—leaving out her name—and as a result he tells me something good, what could that hurt?
“Want some coffee?” I ask. Which reminds me. “And hey, what were you ‘sorry’ about? When you texted?”
A shadow passes over Joe’s face. “Personal thing I had to take care of,” he says.
Personal is the line I won’t cross. “Cream and sugar?” I fill the empty space.
He follows me down the hallway to the kitchen, and he’s probably inspecting all the family photos lining the wall. He’s a reporter, and I’d do exactly the same thing at his house, but I walk faster to give him less time to visually invade my privacy. As we pass the study, I see they’ve posted a graphic on the court monitor. It says: COURT WILL RETURN AT 3:45. Has Voice lost his job? But Joe seems to be right. Again.
“How’d you know?” I ask.
“Lucky guess,” he obviously lies. He takes a chair at the kitchen table. “But our deal. To show my goodwill, I’ll go first.”
No one else has sat there for the past year or so—that fact does not escape me. It’s Sophie’s chair, and the padded seat still has four indelible dents from her pink Piglet booster. But he doesn’t know that, and I cannot ask him to move. I stab the coffee pod into the machine, recognizing the emotional land mine, defusing it. “Deal,” I say.
“Okay. So—and again, you didn’t get this from me,” Joe checks to confirm I’m consenting, then drums his fingers on the white tabletop. Stops. “About Tasha. At first, Ashlyn tried to hide being pregnant with her. She gave all the predictable excuses for her weight gain.”
“Uh huh,” I say, lifting the container of skim milk, inquiring.
“Sure,” he says to the milk. “When it got too obvious to ignore, Georgia asked Ashlyn, flat out, who the father was.”
As the coffee gooshes into a cup, I imagine that dysfunctional family dynamic. I put in a pod for me. “She’s never had any other kids, has she? Ashlyn?” I ask.
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