I held my breath and inched the door closed so only a sliver was open. But I could still see them. Oblivious to anything but themselves, they kissed like lovers—lovers who knew each other well, but were still fervent about each other.
I blinked with shock.
Soon, their bodies were pressed together, their mouths open wider in hungry kisses. Zavy grabbed Layla by the upper arms, pushing her against the wall. I leaned forward a little, ready to bolt in the door if there was some kind of assault going on, but Layla only groaned and lifted one of her legs around Zavy’s waist, pulling him closer.
67
Climbing the stairs, my breath was a little ragged and not just because I hadn’t worked out in a week. I kept seeing Zavy and Layla locked together.
I tried to piece together what I knew of Xavier Miller from earlier testimony and other things I’d heard. He was in his mid-forties, an investor. He lived in the Gold Coast. He had two stepdaughters to whom he claimed to be very devoted.
Slipping in the back door of the courtroom, my eyes searched and found my father. I made a beeline for him.
But I was interrupted by reporters, blocking me, calling out questions. “Izzy, how did you think the testimony went today?”
“Tell us why you decided to take this case?”
Another guy stepped up. “Izzy—”
But then my dad was at my side, holding up a hand. He gave the reporters a ferocious look. “You will step back. All of you. Now.”
I was about to tell him to save his breath. The Chicago media could be intense.
But the reporters responded, moving away.
“Nice,” I said. “Thanks.”
We huddled up at the side of the courtroom. “How did you know?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“About Zavy and Layla.”
“What about them?”
“They’re together. Like, as a couple.”
My father showed more emotion—surprise—than usual.
“You didn’t know?” I said. I explained what I saw.
“No. I just knew she had a lot of intense energy coming off of her. I could sense it. Initially I thought that was natural, since her mother is on trial, but then as I watched her, I noticed some kind of sneakiness. She was always looking over her shoulder, always slipping out of the courtroom at odd times and then back in, looking pleased. I just wondered what was happening with the girl. I had no idea it was this.” A look of distaste crossed his face, but then it was gone just as fast.
“Did Mayburn ask you to look into Zavy’s background? Did he tell you what little information there was on him so far?”
He nodded. “I’m looking into it now.”
“How are you looking into it if you’re here?”
“I have people. I have ways.” He said nothing else.
“Okay, well, could you hurry up those people and those ways? I need to know…” What was it I needed? “I just need to know if there is anything to know about Zavy. Please.”
He nodded again, then left without pleasantries or any kind of segue.
I glanced at our table and saw Valerie still talking to Q. She briefly looked from him to me. Normally, at a time like this, I would give her a thumbs-up or a re assuring smile. But now all I could do was look at her, wondering.
What was going on here? Should I tell Valerie what I saw? Or did she already know? Was it possible there was some screwed-up mother/daughter plot at work here? Had Zavy turned down Valerie’s advances and so she’d planned Amanda’s death? And then…what? Trotted out her daughter? But why? Because Zavy had money? It seemed a weak reason to kill a woman who had clearly been Valerie’s friend for some time.
I gave Valerie a brief, false smile, then went up to Maggie and Bernard. “Sorry, Bernard, but I need her.”
“Sure,” he said good-naturedly. He kissed Maggie on the cheek and turned away.
“What’s up?” Maggie said, her eyes scanning my face.
“We have to talk.”
I took a deep breath and launched into the story, whispering fiercely how my father had told me to look at Layla, how I’d seen her last night with Zavy and again today in the empty courtroom.
By the end of my tale, Maggie’s mouth was hanging open. She said nothing. Very un-Maggie-esque.
“Oh, holy mother of Elvis,” I said, “is this something that you didn’t want to know? Like one of those criminal lawyer things I don’t get?”
“No, no, no,” she said, recovering her voice. “You had to tell me.” Her eyes strayed over my shoulder to Valerie.
“Okay. What now?”
“Come with me.”
I followed Maggie through the gallery, where the reporters hushed, waiting. We went to where Martin Bristol was standing.
“Marty,” Maggie whispered. “We need your help.” He opened his mouth, probably to tell us that we were doing fine, that we could handle it, but then Maggie piped up again. “Big-time,” she said.
We walked with Martin to the side wall as I’d done with my dad, and leaned in to whisper. Once again, I told the story. “So what should we do?” I asked Martin when I was done.
Martin Bristol didn’t hesitate. “We should tell Valerie. Immediately. This is possible exculpatory evidence. We must inform her. And we have to consider calling Layla and Zavy to the stand.” He turned around, looked at the sheriff, who seemed to be readying himself for the judge to take the bench again. “And we need to continue the break from this trial,” Marty said.
“I’m on it,” I said. I hurried to the sheriff and spoke to him, explaining we needed a short extension of our break. He clearly thought our witness wasn’t there yet, and although I wasn’t sure about the location of the witness, I didn’t correct him. “And can we use your sheriff’s chambers for a quick conference with our client, sir?”
I thought he might like the use of “chambers” and “sir,” and I was right. He gave a quick bow and magnanimously drew an arm toward the back, as if to say, What’s mine is yours.
The chambers were ivory, but the paint was thick, as if it covered hundreds of old layers of paint under it. Like the courthouse itself, the place felt as if it held secrets that would probably never be told.
“Valerie, let me summarize,” Martin said. He glanced at me, I nodded and he began to talk in his confident, soothing voice. At first, Valerie’s face was skittish, her eyes darting from Martin’s to mine to Maggie’s, then back again. But when Martin told her about me seeing Zavy and Layla last night and again today, her face went rigid with obvious anger. The muscles of her neck stuck out like cords. Her jaw tightened, moving back and forth. Her hands clenched and squeezed one another.
Put simply, Valerie Solara very much looked like someone who could kill.
68
Valerie Solara said only one word. “No.”
Her face was no longer contorted with anger, but it was still set rigidly, with…determination? And with…what?
When no one said anything, she spoke up again. “I will not allow you to call my daughter to the witness stand.” She shuddered, as if it were unthinkable. “And not Zavy, either.”
Martin began to run down the pros and cons of calling Layla or Zavy to the stand. Meanwhile, I kept thinking, Why aren’t we talking about whether Valerie knew about Layla and Zavy? Why aren’t we asking what in the hell was going on here?
I drew Maggie aside. “Let’s ask if she knew about Layla and Zavy. What if this is a part of a plot? What if she did do it?”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “Izzy,” she whispered, “that’s not our job right now. We were hired to represent her in this murder trial to the best of our ability and to show that the state did not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. There’s nothing we need to hear right now, except whether we should explore Zavy and Layla’s relationship in an open courtroom. This information could help free Valerie. It would be another piece to show the jury that the cops rushed to judgment, when there was a lot more going on behind the scen
es than they knew. But if she won’t allow us to do that, that’s the end of the discussion.”
I felt Valerie’s eyes on mine. Her expression asked for help—no, begged for it. But how was I supposed to help? I had no idea what was going on or what to do. I’d told Valerie I would be her friend. Had I been her friend by telling her about Layla and Zavy?
Maggie and I moved again to Valerie and Martin. “So, we’ll proceed as planned?” Maggie asked.
Martin nodded. “That’s right. Get your next wit ness.”
But none of us moved. We all stood and looked at each other.
“You’re sure?” I said to Valerie.
She nodded vigorously. “I am. I won’t put my daughter at risk. She is innocent. She is innocent,” she repeated. Then Valerie’s mouth set itself in a straight line.
When we stepped into the courtroom, my eyes found Layla in the gallery. She sat, face downcast and placid, as if she hadn’t just been making out with Zavy Miller, the husband of the woman her mother was accused of murdering. A man who had once been a father figure to her.
I looked then for Zavy Miller. With his testimony over, he had no longer seemed important to the trial. I found him now in the back, behind a news reporter I recognized from ABC7. Zavy scrolled through his BlackBerry, looking like an average businessman checking in with the world. But was he an average businessman? I let my eyes roam the courtroom. I didn’t see Mayburn or my father. I reached in my bag under the table to see if there were any texts or messages from either. Nope.
“For the defense?” the judge said.
I stood. “Thank you, Your Honor. The defense calls Sylvia Zowinski.”
A woman in her fifties made her way to the stand. She was heavy, and she walked slowly, as if each step caused pain. When she got to the stand, she glared at the judge, then sat down, glaring some more at me and the other lawyers.
I asked her to state her name and took her through questions about her work experience in the child-care field, ending with her stint as a nanny for the Millers.
“Are you still employed with the Millers?” I said.
Sylvia Zowinski had graying brown hair that hung long, obscuring her face. She shook it away in an awkward kind of gesture. “No. After Amanda died, the kids went to live with her sister, so Mr. Miller could sort every thing out.”
“Where did you go?”
“To visit some of my relatives.”
“And so your job ended at that time?”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Zowinski, I apologize for having to ask you this, but it’s important to this case. You have a criminal record, don’t you?”
She let her hair fall in her face again. “Yes.”
I gave Q a nod. He typed a few things on his computer, and Sylvia Zowinski’s rap sheet appeared on the screen, blown up to about five feet big.
The jury all stared, reading it.
“Ms. Zowinski,” I said, “do you recognize that document?”
“Yeah. It says what crimes I got on my record. They’re not even supposed to be there.”
“Why is that?”
“They were supposed to be expunged.”
Ellie Whelan stood from the state’s table. “Your Honor, we object to the display of this document. What probative value does it have here?”
The judge looked at me for my response. I’d already made my point, so I gestured at Q to take it down. “I’ll move on.”
I looked at my own copy of her rap sheet. “Ma’am, you have been convicted of fraud, is that right?” I nodded at Q, and a copy of the order finding the witness guilty of fraud appeared.
“Yes,” she said.
“Twice.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Q. He removed the first order, then showed another one, finding her guilty of the same thing.
“Ma’am, you’ve also been convicted of embezzlement, having to do with a job as an office manager, is that right?”
“I pled guilty to that because it was costing me too much money. I didn’t have that kind of money to pay you lawyers,” she said bitterly.
“But you did plead guilty to embezzlement, correct?”
Q removed the order and put up a guilty plea.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, looking at it.
I asked her questions about her convictions, drawing out the details. Then I looked at my notes. The main reason to call Sylvia Zowinski was to show that the cops should have looked at her as a suspect, especially with her background. We would try to do the same thing with Dr. St. John, who we were calling next.
I glanced at the rap sheet again. There were other crimes there, but some were older than ten years—which meant they weren’t usually admissible—or they were misdemeanors, which were also generally excluded from evidence.
I looked up. “We have no further questions for this witness, Your Honor.”
But we couldn’t stop the state from asking her questions.
“Ms. Zowinski, you worked with the Millers for a number of years, correct?” Ellie Whelan asked.
“That’s right.”
“You got the job because you were recommended by the nanny who’d worked for the Millers before you.”
“Right.”
“And in the long time you lived with them, did you ever see Mrs. Miller harm herself?” Ellie was trying to discount any suggestion we had elicited earlier in the trial that Amanda might have killed herself.
The witness looked confused. “No.”
“And in the time that you worked for the Millers, how was Mrs. Miller’s mental status, that you observed?”
“Well, being a mom is hard, but she was always good about it. Never yelled or anything like that.”
Striding confidently toward the witness, Ellie buttoned the coat of her black suit, trimmed with red piping. “Ma’am, working as closely as you did with Amanda Miller, did it seem possible to you that she would have committed suicide?”
“Objection,” I said, standing. “Ms. Zowinski is not a mental health professional.”
“I’ll withdraw the question,” Ellie said.
“You don’t have to do that,” Sylvia Zowinski said, “because I can tell you, Amanda would never leave her girls.”
Ellie Whelan thanked the witness and sat down.
69
Dr. Dominick St. John was still fuming at us. Which was great for two reasons. First, we wanted him mad. Second, we could use his anger to convince the judge he should be an adverse witness, one we could essentially cross-examine if needed, even though he was our witness.
Seeing the doctor again, I could tell now that his hair was definitely a wig, dyed a sort of chestnuty-brown color. His face was almost the same hue. He was either a supertanner or he needed to prescribe himself some blood pressure medication.
Maggie asked about where he lived, whether he knew the Millers, whether he was on the neighborhood association board along with the Millers. Maggie then zoned in on his house, how it was right next door to the Millers’, asking a series of questions about that.
He answered each through gritted teeth. He glared at Maggie, and every once in a while turned his eyes to me to do the same.
Maggie kept going. “You and Zavy Miller, the two of you had gotten into disagreements about zoning and whether small businesses should be allowed in the area, is that right?”
“It is.” He explained their disagreements, drawing out details of who said what and at what meeting. “Then I found out that Xavier—” he continued, saying the name in a mocking way “—had money in some of the businesses that were attempting to locate to our neighborhood—some bars. That’s why Xavier wanted to get the alderman to have it rezoned.”
The courtroom door opened. Mayburn came in and stood near the back, a few rows behind where Layla sat.
“And did you disagree with that course of conduct?” Maggie asked.
“Of course. Have you seen where we live? It’s historical. It’s beautiful. It’s elegant. It’s the one of the most pure
neighborhoods in the city.”
I glanced at Mayburn, expecting him to roll his eyes or make a face at the pomposity of Dr. St. John, but instead he wore a somber expression. He met my eyes, then raised his eyebrows. We gotta talk. My dad soon entered the courtroom, as well, standing near Mayburn, and although he didn’t change his expression, I could feel the same message from him.
“Did you let Mr. Miller know that you were unhappy about the rezoning attempt?” Maggie asked.
“Of course.” Dr. St. John sat up taller and touched lightly at his hair, as if to make sure it was still there. His face contorted. “It was infuriating, because he wouldn’t listen to reason. All the other neighbors said to me, ‘We want you to fight this. This is a battle worth going to the mat on.’ And so I returned the assault from Mr. Miller.” He made it sound like the Battle of Gettysburg.
“How did Mr. Miller respond?”
Dr. St. John’s reply sounded like a snarl. “Xavier Miller acted completely unprofessionally.” He stared at Zavy from the witness stand. “He ignored my letters and my repeated attempts to discuss the matter, and so finally I had to bring in legal counsel.”
“What did the attorney do, the one you retained?” Maggie asked.
“We threatened Xavier with legal action. It was the only way to get his attention.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A little over a year ago.”
“And so you had occasion to see Amanda Miller during the time that you and Mr. Miller were disagreeing on the zoning.”
“Yes,” he said with obvious distaste. “I’ve already testified to that.”
“Now I’m asking for specifics. Under what circumstances did you see Mrs. Miller?”
He looked Maggie up and down, as if disgusted by what he saw there. “Neighborhood meetings.”
“You and Amanda Miller got into some shouting matches, is that correct?”
Dr. St. John took a breath and seemed to calm himself. Now that we were accusing him of shouting, he didn’t look like he wanted to do it any longer. “Yes.”
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