The Price of Justice

by Marti Green

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Was there anything distinctive about that tree?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Any markings?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Dani went back to her table and picked up several sheets of paper. She handed one to Whiting, one to the judge, and the last to the witness. “Would you take a look at this, and see if it refreshes your memory?”

  Harmon scanned the page. “Yes.” He placed the paper down on his lap.

  “First, tell the jury what you’re looking at.”

  “It’s my official report describing the site of the murder.”

  “Please read what it says.”

  “Victim was found at the base of a large oak tree approximately sixty yards from the beginning of the treed area in the rear of Palm Beach High School. Carved into the tree is a heart with initials inside of ‘ES + PG.’”

  “And is that an accurate report of what you saw?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, when you found the victim, were her hands bound in any way?”

  “Yes. They were bound with a ribbon.”

  “And the color of the ribbon?”

  The detective glanced down at his notes, then looked up. “Purple.”

  “Just one more question. Was that information released to the press or the public?”

  Harmon brought his hand up to his chin and squeezed it, while shaking his head. “No, we always like to hold something back from the public, you know, to ferret out the crazies who confess to everything. We kept quiet about the ribbon. And the initials on the tree? Well, that wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t announced either.”

  “Finally, detective, did Ms. Sobol have any tattoos on her body?”

  Once again, he looked down at his report. “She did. A purple-and-turquoise butterfly on her right hip.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Redirect, counselor?”

  “Yes,” Whiting answered, then walked over to Harmon.

  “If the defendant had tied Carly Sobol’s hands with a purple ribbon, he could have told anyone about it, including Earl Sanders, right?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “And he could have told anyone about the tattoo and the initials on the tree, as well, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you. You can step down now.”

  Dani returned to the jury box and stood beside them as she played the rest of the videotape. One by one, Sanders described his victims. All were young women between sixteen and twenty-five. All had been stalked by him. All had been raped and murdered. And all the murders had been unsolved until he’d confessed. When the video was finished, Dani noted that one juror wiped away tears from her eyes.

  “Your Honor, can we break for lunch now? My next witnesses are coming from out of town, and I’d asked them to arrive for the afternoon session.” Dani could have had them arrive in the morning. Amelia’s money was paying for their expenses, which could easily have included a motel the night before. But she wanted to leave the jury with the memory of the tape, of Earl Sanders confessing to the brutal murders of ten innocent women, one of them Carly Sobol.

  Letitia Sanders sat rigidly in front of the television screen, barely moving a muscle in her thin body. Earl had told her, of course. He’d told her about the others. Not the details, though. Just the fact of it. Her son. A serial killer. Now Court TV showed every bit of Winston Melton’s trial, all day long. She hadn’t changed the channel for three days, just waiting for Earl’s story to come out, knowing it would, that everyone would know her son was a monster. It was almost too much to wrap her head around. She lit up another cigarette, the ashtray already filled with a dozen butts. The small space reeked of stale cigarettes, but so what. No one else around to be bothered by it.

  She’d quit blaming herself after they killed him, shot him up with that drug that stopped his heart. Now she blamed the government, the prison, his schools—everyone who should have known he had a problem and done something to help him. She supposed people thought he deserved to die. And once, she would have thought that way, too. An eye for an eye, and all that crap. But he’d been born innocent, and he had stayed good until his daddy left. It turned him dark, made him into something he needed help for.

  She’d tried to explain that to Josie, her best friend. But Josie said for someone who did what he did, the blackness had to have always been in him. “Probably came from his daddy,” she’d said, trying to console Letitia, to let her know it wasn’t her fault. Josie was a good woman, but Letitia knew others wouldn’t see it the same way. People in the trailer park, in the town, hell, all over the country, were watching her boy confess to killing all those girls, and they’d say it was his mommy’s fault. Well, let them say that, she thought. I’ll be gone from here soon enough. And then it won’t matter to me what they think.

  Back in the courtroom after the lunch break, Dani called the first law-enforcement officer to have investigated one of the other victims of Earl Sanders, followed by eight others. One by one, they described the murder of a young woman, their investigation, the dead ends. In each case, there was no DNA, no other clues. In each case, a vital piece of information was withheld from the public. In each case, Earl Sanders knew that vital piece of information.

  There was little Whiting could do to counteract their testimony. He tried to suggest that someone else could have given Whiting that information—the real murderer—but Dani could tell from looking at the jurors’ faces that they thought that was far-fetched.

  The next morning, Billy Clark testified that Sanders had stayed at the Tip-Top Inn, only twelve miles from the high school, around the time Carly was murdered, and Debby Malone testified that Sanders had come into the IHOP where she worked, also not far from the high school, during that same week. Dani’s next witness was Max Dolan. He entered the courtroom dressed in a navy suit, a burgundy-silk tie, and crocodile-leather loafers, and walked up to the witness box with the confidence of a man used to success.

  “State your name and address for the record.”

  “Maxwell Dolan, 54 Livingston Street, Fort Lee, New Jersey.”

  “Are you familiar with the defendant?”

  Dolan smiled. “Yes. I first met him in elementary school. We went to the same prep school, and then we roomed together at Princeton our first year.” He hesitated, then added, “Well, up until Win was arrested, that is.”

  “And did you ever see him outside of prep school or college?”

  “Yes. Both our families had homes in Palm Beach. We’d hang out together during winter breaks there. All through elementary and high school and after our first semester at Princeton.”

  “Were you acquainted with Carly Sobol?”

  “Sure. Win dated her his senior year of high school. When we were down in Palm Beach, we’d hang out in groups, go on double dates, that sort of thing.”

  “To your knowledge, what happened to the relationship between Win and Carly?”

  “He broke up with her when he left for Princeton.”

  “Do you recall where you were on the night of December 15, 2007?”

  “Win and I were in Palm Beach. We’d been hanging out together, just driving around, when Win suggested we stop at the high school. They were having their winter dance.”

  “And did you go there?”

  “Yes. We got to the high school and went inside the gym—that’s where the dance was. I saw a friend of mine and went over to her. Later, I saw Win and Carly leave out the side door. I didn’t know what he had in mind, and since he’d been driving, I went outside to look for him.”

  “Did you find him?”

  “No.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I walked around a bit, then went back into the gym. After a while, I decided to wait by his ca
r.”

  “How long did you have to wait?”

  “I didn’t. He was already there. We got in his car and drove away then.”

  “When you saw him at his car, was there anything about his appearance or behavior that seemed unusual?”

  “Nope. He was just Win, smiling and joking around.”

  “Were his clothes disheveled? His face flushed? Any scratches on him?”

  “No, he was fine.”

  “When you were looking for him, did you notice anyone else hanging around outside?”

  “I saw this guy, he didn’t seem like he belonged at the high school. He was older, and his clothes were wrong for a dance.”

  Dani went to her table and brought over a picture of Earl Sanders. “Is this the person you saw outside the high school?”

  “That’s him. I couldn’t forget his face.”

  “Thank you. I have no further questions.”

  Dani sat down as Whiting stood up and approached Dolan.

  “Before the defendant went to prison, did you consider yourself to be his best friend?”

  “Yes, and I still do. I write to him regularly.”

  “So, you’d want to help your best friend, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t commit perjury to do so.”

  “Just answer the question, yes or no,” Whiting said with a scolding tone.

  Dolan smoothed down his tie before answering. “Yes, I would want to help him.”

  “Isn’t it true that you never told the defendant, or his lawyer, or anyone, in fact, that you saw someone, as you put it, ‘who didn’t seem to belong there’ outside the school on the night in question?”

  “I told his investigator, when he showed me a picture of that man. I remembered his face vividly.”

  “But that was just recently, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, for the seven intervening years, you conveniently forgot about him, right?”

  Dani called out, “Objection. Argumentative.”

  “Sustained,” said Judge Hinchey.

  Whiting smirked as he turned to the jury. “That’s okay. I have no further use for him. He can step down.”

  As Dolan left the stand, Dani saw him let out a deep breath, then slump down in a seat next to the other spectators. She had just one more witness. She called Winston Melton to the stand.

  As he walked slowly to the witness chair, he glanced at the jury and nodded at them. After he was sworn in, Dani smiled at him warmly, then began her questioning.

  “Winston, is that the name you’re called by your friends?” Dani wanted to humanize him for the jury, let them know he was a real person, just like them, erase the image the prosecutor painted of him.

  “No, they call me Win.”

  Dani nodded. “Okay, Win. Describe your relationship with Carly Sobol.”

  Win sat erect in his seat, not slouched over as though he didn’t care, but alert and concerned. “I’d met her in Palm Beach, when I was in high school. When I was a senior in high school, and she a junior, we began dating.”

  “Were you seeing each other exclusively during that time?”

  “Mostly. When I was at school, I’d go out with some girls, but I just considered them friends.”

  “You went to school in Connecticut, and Carly lived in Palm Beach. It seems like you couldn’t have seen Carly very often.”

  “During the winter, my dad would take the company jet down on weekends. I’d usually go with him. So, I saw her a lot over the winter. And I went down there over spring break as well.”

  “Had you been intimate together?”

  Win looked perplexed. “Do you mean sex?”

  A few members of the jury tittered.

  “Yes, did you have sex with each other?”

  “Yes, we’d started doing it.”

  “Were you in love with Carly?”

  Win shook his head. “No, not really. Sometimes I’d tell her I was, but just to make her feel good when she’d tell me she loved me.”

  “How long did this relationship last?”

  “The summer before I left for Princeton—I told her we should see other people.”

  “How did she take that?”

  Now Winston, as instructed by Dani, looked somber. Softly, he answered, “Not well.”

  “Did you hear from Carly after that?”

  “A few times. She’d call and start crying, asking why we couldn’t get back together.”

  “And what would you say?”

  “I tried to let her down gently, but I made it clear it was over between us.”

  “Now, let’s go back to the night of December 15, 2007. Why did you decide to go to the high school?”

  “You know, Max and I were both down in Palm Beach, just kind of hanging around. We knew some kids who went to the high school from all the time we’d spent down there, so I suggested we take a ride and see who was there.”

  “What happened when you got there?”

  A clouded look passed over Win’s face. Dani knew this wasn’t coached. It was a genuine feeling of sadness. “I spotted Carly dancing with some guy. When the dance ended, he went off somewhere, and she came over to me. She wanted to talk, but it was so loud in the gym, you know, with the music playing, we could hardly hear each other. She took my hand and led me outside.” Win’s hands were held tightly together; his head had dropped down to his chest.

  “What happened next?” Dani prompted.

  Win looked back up, then turned toward the jury, speaking to them directly. “Even outside, the music was loud. She said, ‘Let’s walk,’ and headed toward the trees. I followed her, until we got to this spot, a little clearing, and she stopped. She threw her arms around me and told me she still loved me. I pulled her hands off me and stepped back from her. I said it was over between us, that I didn’t love her. She got angry, really angry. She hit my chest, pulled my hair, called me a pig. Then suddenly, it was over, like she had no more energy. She moved away from me, leaned up against a tree, and just started crying. I tried to comfort her, but she told me to just go away, leave her alone. I did. I walked away, went back to my car, and left.”

  Win stopped for a moment, then continued, still looking at the jury. “I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d walked her back to the school. Then maybe she’d still be alive.”

  Dani waited a beat. “Win, did you kill Carly Sobol?”

  Win looked back at Dani now. With a strong voice, he answered, “No. I would never hurt anyone. She was alive when I left her.”

  Dani nodded, then turned to Whiting. “Your witness.”

  Whiting strode over to Win. “So, you left your old girlfriend in tears, went back to your car. Was Maxwell Dolan waiting for you there?”

  “No. He showed up later.”

  “We’ve heard Mr. Dolan say you were smiling and joking when you returned. Did you find Ms. Sobol’s behavior amusing?”

  “No, I, uh—”

  “Answer the question, please.”

  Win’s face reddened. “I was a kid, a stupid kid. So, yeah, part of me thought it was funny that she was still hung up on me. But when I heard what happened to her, I felt sick.”

  “Why did you go back with her into the woods if you were no longer interested in her?”

  “’Cause she was still a friend. I thought we were just going to talk, you know, like what she’s been up to.”

  “You saw what she’d been up to. She was dancing with another guy. Isn’t it true that you felt jealous when you saw that?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that you wanted to get back together?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that she laughed at you when you said that?”

  Dani could see Win squirming in his seat. Hold it together. Stay ca
lm.

  “Absolutely not.”

  His voice was raised, just short of shouting. Dani had spent hours prepping Win, knowing that Whiting would try to get him agitated. She’d told him over and over, “Don’t lose your temper. If the jury sees that happen, they’ll think you’re capable of murder.” Still, she’d prepped enough witnesses to know that sometimes they fell right into the prosecutor’s tricks.

  “Isn’t it true that she told you she’d moved on, just like you’d said she should?”

  Win’s mouth was clenched tightly closed, his eyes squeezed to narrow slits.

  “Answer the question.”

  “No. She did not say that.”

  Whiting must have thought he had him then, for he went in for the kill. “Isn’t it true that you raped and murdered Carly Sobol?”

  Suddenly, it seemed as though Win’s body deflated. The rigidity in his face disappeared, his shoulders relaxed, and his eyes opened widely. With his voice calm, he answered, “Everything I’ve said here is the absolute truth. When I left Carly, she was crying and alive. I didn’t rape her. I didn’t kill her. Even though I didn’t love her, she was my friend, and I felt devastated by her murder.”

  “We only have your word for that, don’t we? No one saw her alive after you, isn’t that true?”

  “That’s not true. The person who murdered her saw her alive after me.”

  Whiting turned to the jury and shook his head, then returned to his table. Dani knew it was done as theater for the jury, but she suspected it was too late. Winston had done well.

  CHAPTER

  27

  Dani was back in the courtroom the next morning for what often won or lost a case—the closing arguments.

  “Ready, counselors?” Judge Hinchey asked.

  Both attorneys nodded. Whiting stood up, patted down his suit pants, and then, with a somber expression, strolled over to the jury.