Nita’s father was left-handed. Her father, Al Flood, who was the reason that Bash and Noel had left Nita on her steps and fled, not even bothering to ring the bell. If the Flood brothers were famous for being raucous, their father was more so. Randy had told me he was the one who had punched a hole in the Nairns’ living room wall, during a particularly rowdy poker game.
Boiled down to the testimony before the grand jury, it all seems so obvious, even thirty-five years later. A jealous girl felt she had been spurned. She wanted revenge. Or she feared the wrath of her father, who probably did beat her when he discovered her drunk on the doorstep. She said she had been raped. It was easier than telling the truth. The kindest interpretation was that she had lied to end the beating, that she hadn’t set out to punish Davey at all. Or that she was confused, the next day, unclear on the events of the night before. She didn’t remember vomiting in Bash’s car, didn’t even remember getting into Bash’s car.
It was possible, in 1979, for such things to happen and not make the news. If we’re honest, I think we know it’s possible today, as long as no one pulls out a phone and begins taking photos or video. Again, they were all minors. Under any circumstances, Nita Flood’s name would have been protected. But the initial police report, taken at the Howard County ER, was never made public. The accused was seventeen. It could—and should—have remained confidential.
Yet it didn’t. The story got out, traveling through that octagon of a school with such speed and ferocity, it was as if lightning had struck the metal railings that circled the hallways. Within a week, all the students seemed to know the story and they favored the vengeance version. Nita Flood had lied. She had tried to ruin Davey’s life, torpedo his chances for Stanford and medical school. I heard about the stories from Randy, whose sisters brought home the high school gossip. Nita lived just three houses down from them.
“They said she pulled a train,” Randy reported to me, his eyes wide.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You don’t know.”
“I do.”
“Then tell me.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“You don’t know.”
We were walking around the lake. It was a blustery January day, but we couldn’t figure out anything else to do. Teensy was waxing the floors and said we couldn’t stay inside unless we wanted to help.
“It’s when you do a bunch of guys, one after another.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. “You can only have sex when you’re in love. Besides, my brother was there and he’s never had sex.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
And I couldn’t imagine Noel, either, doing such a thing. It was hard enough to imagine Davey had done it. Bash, of course, I could envision. But only with Lynne.
Lynne, it turned out, was the source of the stories. She and Bash had broken up again and she was angry with him. She told people that Bash and Nita had sex that night when he took her home, which seems unlikely, given the vomit. Yet the rumor grew and grew. Four boys, eight boys, sixteen boys. Her brothers, her father. Nita Flood would have sex with anyone.
At the end of the semester, Nita Flood transferred to Centennial High School, where she finished her senior year, the first Flood to earn a real high school diploma, as opposed to a GED. But she didn’t show up on graduation night. She took a bottle of pills the week before and ended up in the ER again, this time needing her stomach pumped.
And that’s when her brothers decided to go looking for Davey Robinson and his friends. Did they intend to kill them? Did they understand what it meant to take a knife and shove it into another person? Were they any wiser than I was the day I stood next to the culvert, ready to hit Randy Nairn across the back of his head with a stick? Certainly, Ben Flood never anticipated falling on his own knife when AJ tackled him from behind. Perhaps AJ did save Davey’s life that night. But Ben Flood lost his. As I understand AJ’s quite personal definition of karma, he broke even at best.
APRIL 1
Jury selection is a misnomer. It is more properly jury elimination: the lawyers, prosecution and defense alike, meet in circuit court to select the people they don’t want to serve. For a first-degree murder charge, Lu will have a large pool from which to choose, including a good number of recidivists in the bunch, as she thinks of them, people who have served before. Her staff investigator has already pored over the list of citizens called today, checking to see who had experience in the jury pool—and what that experience was.
Howard County is a good place to be a prosecutor. Law-abiding citizens, concerned with their quality of life, with warm fuzzies for the people paid to protect and serve them. Murder is shocking here, and the federal investigation into possible gang activity distressed some old-timers, who never thought “urban” problems could find their way to Howard County. Advantage: Lu.
But one determined contrarian can infect eleven law-and-order types. Lu will pay particular attention to anyone who brings a book to jury duty, which indicates someone who expects to spend at least a day in court. If it’s a crime novel, so much the better. But there are outliers, respectable citizens happy to serve, who end up being enormous pains in the ass. Lu distrusts early Columbia “settlers,” despite the fact that her family was among them. That first generation of Columbia homeowners, now in their seventies and eighties, skew bleeding-heart liberal. Rudy’s status as one of them, along with his mental health issues, could win him sympathy with that crowd. And there are crotchety libertarians scattered throughout the county, people who think that North Laurel doesn’t belong in Howard County, that Prince George’s County should be forced to annex it. If people “down there” want to kill one another—that’s their problem.
I’m so happy this is a white-on-white crime, Lu thinks, and not for the first time. No race issues, not in the crime itself. It still factors into jury selection, however. Although it is strictly forbidden to consider race as an issue when striking a juror, almost every attorney has theories about how race affects an individual’s behavior on the panel. African Americans tend to hold police in a lower regard than do white citizens. It’s an earned contempt, but a troubling one for prosecutors. In a case where cop testimony is crucial, Lu will try to find a legit reason to keep her jury as white as possible.
The judge reads the standard boilerplate questions to the jury. Fred has requested—and Lu has acquiesced, happily—to add a question about whether potential jurors have any ingrained ideas about mental illness. She understands that Fred is going to try to use Drysdale’s mental issues as a kind of a subtext, hoping to find the sweet spot between sympathy and hostility. Most citizens dislike insanity pleas and have no problem sending mentally ill people to prison. Whatever it takes to get them off the streets, they reason.
She sits at her table, her back to the jury pool, and even as potential jurors move in and out of the box throughout the morning, she tries not to make too much eye contact. People don’t like it. Men in particular can take it the wrong way. Lu is just pretty enough that she has to be careful in her courtroom interactions with the opposite sex. It’s amazing what men can infer from a woman’s direct gaze. Romantic interest, often, but also arrogance, which will not work for her in this situation. She needs the men on the jury to take her seriously enough, but she can’t come across as aggressive or angry. She wants the women to respect her, but not resent her. These are her private ideas, culled from years of trial experience. There are thousands of theories about jury selection, but the science is far from perfect. Lu goes with her gut. Fred, backed by the deep pockets of Howard & Howard, has access to the services of jury consultants, but that costs extra. She’s sure that the Drysdales have eliminated any frills they can.
Lu has dressed with particular care today as this will be the potential jury’s first impression of her. A suit, tailored as all her clothes must be, in a flattering shade of loden green. Luckily, i
t is unseasonably cool for early April. By tomorrow, if the forecast holds, she will be in a blouse and a pencil skirt, which means she will have to forgo her beloved boots for regular heels.
Fred calls a middle-aged man for voir dire. Plaid shirt, horn-rims, short salt-and-pepper hair. During the boilerplate, he raised his hand on two questions—the one about law enforcement and the one about mental illness. Interrogated by the judge, he reveals that he has a son in the military and he’s an MP.
“Do you think you can be a fair and impartial juror in this trial?” the judge asks.
“No,” the man says like a shot. Probably lying, but if he doesn’t want to be here, Lu doesn’t want him. She hates using one of her strikes on him, but it’s probably worth it. She wants women on this jury. Preferably middle-aged women who can imagine themselves alone and vulnerable, being beaten to death for the simple fact of arriving home after a movie.
After voir dire, they start seating the potential jury, moving people in and out of the seats in the box, alternating their strikes. It’s going pretty smoothly. How long has it been since Fred tried a case? Lu can’t even remember. She thought he would be more puffed up and cock-of-the-walk, but he’s keeping it low-key.
Rudy Drysdale is restless, shifting in his chair, sometimes making little grunts. Is he trying to create the impression of a man more unstable than he is? Lu thinks his brief exposure to his beloved outdoors might have riled him up this morning. He is clean-shaven and his suit, while cheap looking, is new, not the greenish one she remembers from the grand jury hearing. Another expense for Ma and Pa Drysdale. What would it be like to be Rudy’s parents, to be responsible for a manchild who never found his place in the world? She can’t imagine it. Rudy is almost AJ’s age, yet he seems trapped in late adolescence. Petulant, moody, incapable of taking any responsibility for his actions. He wanted a place to sleep and a woman ended up dead.
He had a place to sleep, she thinks. But maybe he didn’t feel comfortable masturbating under his parents’ roof. Could it be that simple? This forever teenager needed a place where he could experience relief. Not his childhood home and definitely not in a shelter.
By lunchtime, they are so close—eight jurors have been seated, several returned to the jury room to see if they are called for another trial. Lu wishes they could keep going, but the meal break is sacred. Sure enough, all momentum is lost an hour later when they reconvene. Everyone is logy, irritable. Especially Judge Sampson, who is generally friendly to prosecutors. Even Lu, who has eaten sensibly—some roast chicken, a banana—feels her energy flagging. And her boots hurt even while sitting. It is almost 4 P.M. by the time they have a full jury—four women, eight men, with two women as alternates. Overall, Lu is pleased. But two of the women are African American, which gives Lu some concern. They might have sons who have had run-ins with cops, even if they didn’t raise their hands when asked if they had any ingrained biases about law enforcement. Sadly, the odds for young black men having bad experiences with cops are almost 100 percent. Luckily, the case against Rudy is more about science than police work—fingerprints at the scene, the DNA. That helps a little, Lu thinks, glancing at her watch. No time for even opening arguments today. The judge gives the jury its instructions—don’t talk to anyone about the case, and that includes social media; don’t research the case; be back at the courthouse by 8:30 tomorrow, ready to go. The trial is expected to last only two to three days. Lu hopes she can wrap it up before the weekend. Juries are very prosecutor friendly on Friday afternoons, in her experience.
“Everybody rise,” the clerk says.
Later, Lu will describe what happens as a whoosh, more a sensation of noise than movement, then almost blinding pain as she hits the floor on her left side. She then hears gasps and screams, but all she knows is that her left arm hurts like a son of a bitch, as does her head, which is now being pounded on the floor—by Rudy Drysdale. It’s as if he flew from where he was standing, not quite ten feet away. He bangs her head once, twice, three times, then stands and races for the door, marshals in pursuit. Lu, dizzy and disoriented, struggles to sit up, and it seems, in her blurred vision, that Drysdale is surrounded by a halo of light, shimmering, almost suspended before the closed courtroom doors, so close to freedom. Yet the bailiff, who is old and rotund, has no problem grabbing him and throwing him to the ground, where he is quickly cuffed.
“Motion for a mistrial,” Fred screams at the judge. “Motion for a mistrial, Your Honor.”
His timing is a little disconcerting—he could at least pretend to care about Lu, who is feeling her head, her wrist, shocked that there’s no blood, nothing actually broken. But, hell, if Fred didn’t ask for a mistrial, she might. She doesn’t want to try a case in front of a jury that has just seen her flung to the floor like a rag doll, even if it does establish Rudy’s predilection for violence. Maybe this guy is mentally ill. What the hell was he trying to do? Fred’s been saying all along that Rudy’s desperate to get to trial as soon as possible, in hopes that he might be released. Yet he’s just delayed his own case by days, possibly weeks. And if the attack is reported in the press—luckily, there are no reporters here; the local reporter went home when it was clear there would be no opening statements—Fred might even demand a change of venue. With shaky fingertips, Lu traces the goose egg rising above her left ear. Rudy really could have killed her if he wanted. Had he come at Mary McNally this way? Did he intend to hurt Lu more seriously? No, he was focused on escape.
She hears a woman crying, saying his name over and over. Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. For some reason, Lu thinks of Cary Grant and almost starts to laugh. Is inappropriate laughter a symptom of concussion? Someone—the judge?—crouches down next to her and tells her not to move, to wait for paramedics. She shakes her head impatiently, then realizes it really hurts to shake her head.
“Lu,” a familiar voice says. “Lu. Can you hear me?”
Shit, her father is here. He must have sneaked in toward the end or she would have seen him before now.
“Lu,” he says. “Lu.” Mrs. Drysdale says Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Lu senses that her father wants to hold her but is restraining himself, in part because he’s not a very huggy guy, but also because he doesn’t want to undermine her authority.
“How do you feel, child?” She should be angry at that word, child, but it makes her happy.
“I’m fine. It probably looked worse than it was. It was the first blow—when he jumped me and knocked me down—that really hurt. After that, it was more like he was trying to shake me and my head kept hitting the floor because he didn’t have a good hold on my shoulders.”
Having said it, she realizes it’s true. The impact of his body hitting hers, knocking her to the ground—that hurt like hell. But his hands on her throat, her shoulders—well, she’s known rougher, for sure.
Saying that to her father right now would probably not be all that comforting.
The EMT guys decide to let her go home, although with muttered imprecations about concussions, and while Lu scoffs at them, she finds herself unaccountably nervous as bedtime nears. She drinks cognac, knowing it’s a terrible idea—it will knock her out, only to have her wide-eyed at 3 A.M. Then it doesn’t knock her out anyway. She simply cannot sleep. It’s not that she experiences the attack when she closes her eyes. Instead, she has the strangest sense of déjà vu. That whooshing noise. A man running. Rudy at the door of the courtroom, so close to the outdoors for which he longed. Yes, the attack on her was a diversion, an attempt to throw the court into chaos. So why didn’t he then break for daylight, as the saying goes?
Because he’s crazy. But not crazy in the way that counts. Not crazy in the way that allows you not to be legally culpable for another person’s death. Lu is sure of one thing now—Rudy Drysdale knows how to blindside a person, can move fast when he wants to. And he had the strength to kill her if that’s what he wanted. Rudy Drysdale has killed.
But it wasn’t what he wanted, not today.
She checks the In
ternet, winces at the light of her laptop in the dark room. The story of the attack has made it to the news, but with no video, the TV stations can’t do much with it, and even the newspapers are hard-pressed to flesh it out. Her office has been asked what charges Drysdale will face. The answer, so far, issued through Andi, has been that Lu cares more about the charges he already faces for the murder of Mary McNally. What happened to her is unfortunate, but it cannot distract from the matter at hand: murder in the first, of a citizen, a woman who never harmed anyone.
Lu and her father agreed before he drove her home to spare Justin and Penelope the story for now. Easy enough for twelve hours. It’s not like they watch the news. Delightfully self-centered, they didn’t notice how slowly she was moving, like someone with potential whiplash. (Maybe she does have whiplash. It was, after all, a collision of sorts.) But she will have to tell them before school tomorrow, or risk a well-intentioned teacher asking them about it. She will downplay the incident as much as possible. It’s not as if she had a brush with death. There wasn’t even time for fear.
The phone rings before breakfast, before there’s time to tell the twins anything. Lu does not, despite her out-of-body feeling at the courthouse, actually believe in déjà vu. She has read that such sensations are simply a neurological blip in which the brain processes a new experience or image so quickly that one believes it has been seen before.
Yet she will come to believe that she knows, when her cell phone rings at 6:45, what has happened. It’s a county number. What kind of news comes in at 6:45 A.M.? Death. Only death calls this early. Someone is dead and almost everyone she knows and loves is accounted for, sleeping under this very roof. She is going to answer the phone and find out that Rudy Drysdale is dead.
He is.
THE BOY WITH MOONLIGHT IN HIS EYES
And then there were none.
When AJ and his friends left for school that September, I was startled by the intense, lonely silence that overtook our house. I had never realized how much buzzy excitement AJ had generated just by coming and going. Noel, Davey, Bash, and Ariel had felt like my friends. (I never cared for Lynne, who in an unguarded moment told me I could be a cheerleader if I took gymnastics, as I had the right size and build. “But you’ll have to be really good because if you’re not cute, you have to do all the moves perfectly.”)
Wilde Lake: A Novel Page 21