Trial Run

by Anne Metikosh

  “Come on. One of my mock jurors let me down at the last minute. I need someone to fill in. Wednesday. Mel’ll give you the day off. I already talked to him.”

  “Nice of you to arrange it,” I said drily. As usual, she took no notice.

  I had been coerced onto one of Kerrin’s mock juries before. I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not sure I approve of test-marketing a criminal case before trial. Molding the truth to an acceptable form flew in the face of justice as I understood it.

  Ten years ago, my father had been outraged by Kerrin’s liberal stance. “Don’t tell me you’ve become one of those bleeding hearts who believe all these young hoodlums are victims, too? The system has somehow let them down, so they’re not responsible.”

  Kerrin’s reply had been equally emphatic. “Certainly the system has let them down. D’you know that 99 percent of the injustice associated with crime happens before the principals ever even come into contact with the criminal justice system? Obviously, the victim has already been victimized and, more often than not, the defendant has been subjected to some kind of abuse, too — anything from inadequate prenatal care to exclusion from the work force. The police and the courts and the prisons only come into it later. They’re nothing but mop-up operations.”

  My sister had championed the rights of the accused with all the fervor of a recent convert. A compelling young lawyer named Brian Adams had persuaded her that her degree in psychology could be more profitably employed outside a clinical setting, so Kerrin had become a trial consultant, hired by defense teams to help select jurors and devise case strategies.

  It didn’t really matter to me then what Kerrin did for a living, as long as she kept bringing Brian Adams home with her. My seventeen-year old heart was broken when the two of them announced their engagement. Even when it mended, I idolized Brian, though our lives barely touched after I left for college.

  By the time I finished grad school, Kerrin and Brian were busy professionals with an infant son, Rory. Dad had been dead a year and Mom was starting to fail, mentally, if not physically. I hadn’t intended to settle back in Kingsport, but, ultimately, I couldn’t ignore my mother’s need. I had inherited her ingrained sense of family duty; pride made me indispensable. Victims of Alzheimer’s disease tend to die by inches, and the right time to make a break, to commit Mom to a care facility, never seemed to come. I moved back in to my old room and ran my mother’s house, and her life, channeling my education and energies into the details of daily existence that had become too much for her to handle. My world narrowed to hers and my only points of light became, not a family of my own, but a husband and son borrowed from my sister.

  When he was two, Rory died in a head-on collision with a truck. Brian, who was driving their car, lingered for three days before Kerrin finally allowed them to unplug the life support. Afterward, she went straight back to work, burying herself in other people’s grief and gaining a reputation as a hard-ass who always played to win. She hardly seemed to notice when our mother finally died.

  My sister’s peremptory summons grated. I had spent the last three years meeting her for Friday dinners, persuading her to take in a show, cooking our Christmas turkey. My vigil for my sister hadn’t been much different from the one for my mother, and the grace with which I maintained it was wearing thin.

  • • •

  Since my cozy evening had already been interrupted, I decided I might as well run some errands. The Towne Market was open twenty-four hours a day. I don’t know anyone who shops at three A.M. but I do like to go late in the evening, when most people are glued to the tube. I picked over eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes, then cruised the aisles for staples. Usually there’s no line up at nine o’clock, but when I trundled my buggy to the check out, there were two people waiting impatiently behind a blue-rinsed matron who was giving the clerk a hard time about the price of mayonnaise. According to the flyer, it was on special at $2.39. The clerk had rung it through at $2.69. The customer was indignant over the error, unhappy with the clerk’s attitude, and demanded to speak to the manager. It was the sort of diplomatic crisis that could take a while to sort out. Naturally, there were no other clerks available.

  Marketing minds must have had just such a scenario in mind when they set up magazine racks by the cashier and stocked them with tabloids. What better to do while waiting to spend money than pick one up? It was impossible not to be beguiled by the tantalizing covers. This week’s teaser was a grainy reproduction of an old centerfold, the usual shot of a nubile body coyly shrouded in satin sheets. A bland, pretty face smiled seductively into the camera. The girl in the photo looked about nineteen. I had seen her face often in the last few weeks, in the newspapers and on television. The girl was Susan Forrester.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Personality had quickly become the salient feature of the Outray case, the public being less fascinated by the murders themselves than by who was involved. The eight mock jurors assembled in Kerrin’s office were no exception.

  As a trial consultant and advisor on jury selection, Kerrin was not interested in the foibles of individual personality; what she wanted in a mock juror was a representative of a particular segment of society. She purposely sought out types. By analyzing a juror’s response to the case being presented, Kerrin could determine with reasonable accuracy the feelings and opinions of like-minded members of the community, and she would try to stack the real jury accordingly. Over the years, Kerrin had built an extensive network of acquaintances and referrals from whom she constructed her mock juries. She pooled them from every walk of life and every social sphere, and she treated each of them with the same benign indifference. Some were truly interested in the process; some felt a measure of civic responsibility that they could fulfill more expediently in a couple of afternoons in Kerrin’s office than in several weeks in a courtroom; some were simply curious or in need of the fee that Kerrin paid. Apart from me, all were there voluntarily.

  I surveyed the group assembled in the conference room and thought that, as a random market sample, Kerrin had done quite well. We were an eclectic mix, males outnumbering females five to three.

  Two of the men had obviously dressed down for the day, but the tasseled loafers and Ralph Lauren shirts couldn’t disguise their Phi Beta Kappa arrogance. There was probably a twenty-five-year age difference between them but the mold had remained intact and I wondered if their opinions, too, would bridge the generation gap.

  The older one claimed the head of the table; the younger slid into the chair at his right. The rest of us settled into whatever seat was nearest. A coffee pot lent focus to the table and people began to make little busy motions with spoons and mugs. Louise removed the pot for refill. Her hair was less rigidly fixed to her head today, though still determinedly blonde. Kerrin glossed over introductions.

  “I’m not a lawyer,” she said. “And you’re not a real jury. It’s their job, the job of the defense and the jurors, to try this case in court. They deal with the law. I’m here — we’re here — for the human element. I want to learn what convinces you. What you believe. What turns you on, what turns you off. Okay?” Several heads bobbed. “It’s okay for you to have opinions and feelings. That’s what you’re here for.” Kerrin looked directly at me. “It’s not okay to not share them.”

  I considered the faces ranged around the table and thought I could make a pretty fair estimate of the feelings they would express. An English professor once told me that there are only seven basic story lines in all of literature and a like number of stock characters. Individuals may appear to be unique but, in my experience, stereotypes are as common on the streets of Kingsport as in the pages of any novel.

  Perched directly opposite the Phi Beta Kappas was a young man with a mild overbite and a tendency to preface each breathy comment with a little shrug. When Kerrin said okay, his head bobbed agreement on a neck that looked too fragile to support it.

>   As far from him as possible slouched a middle-aged man with a doughy face under a bowl of brown hair. The name “Jerry” was stitched in royal blue across the pocket of his pink shirt. On Jerry’s right sat a blonde with a fly-catcher hairdo and improbably long, fuchsia nails. She was openly appraising the ensemble worn by the impeccably tailored matron on my left. The simple wool dress under scrutiny couldn’t have cost much more than six hundred dollars, which may have been walking around money for Juror #3, but I suspected #7 would have to wait for the knockoffs at Lucy’s Labels.

  The remaining male juror had settled quietly in the chair on my right. Unlike the others, he was unaccountably difficult to categorize and I eyed him covertly while I tried to find the right label to apply. I guessed his age at about thirty-five, though it was difficult to be sure since a full beard obscured much of his face. I was pleased to note it was the genuine well-trimmed article, a far cry from the scruffy patches currently in vogue. A ray of lines around blue eyes hinted at a sense of humor or a squint.

  Taking a fresh pot of coffee from Louise, Kerrin shut the door of the conference room and got down to business.

  “I’m sure you are all aware of the Randy Outray case.”

  Little murmurs of assent were punctuated by a snort from Jerry.

  Kerrin said, “Talk to me about it.”

  Juror #7 waggled pink nails and identified herself as Lila. “Are we supposed to have an opinion already? Because, I mean, we haven’t heard any evidence or anything yet and it doesn’t seem right to me that we should make an opinion already.”

  Jerry rolled his eyes. “Like none of us have kept up with the news or nothin’. Don’t you read the papers? Or watch TV? Jeez Louise, the whole world knows about this case. What kinda evidence are you lookin’ for?”

  Lila stiffened. “I don’t think we should make up our minds based on hearsay, is all I’m saying.” She emphasized the word “hearsay”, proud to be able to use it in a sentence.

  PBK Senior cleared his throat and waited for attention to focus on him. “If I may, I think what Ms. Adams is trying to establish here, is a framework on which to build. She is not asking for any judgment calls at this point. Am I right, Ms. Adams?”

  “Kerrin. Actually Mr. Lyons — Thomas, isn’t it? — judgment calls are exactly what I’m after.” Lyons subsided with bad grace as Kerrin continued, “This is a very high profile case. It’s had lots of media attention and it will have a lot more, all the way through the trial. The jury that will be asked to decide the case will be composed of members of the community just like you people. They’ll take an oath to listen impartially to the evidence presented and to try their best to render a fair judgment, but each of them will have opinions just like you do, shaped by emotions and experiences that may not have any bearing whatsoever on the case itself. That’s the human side of the justice system and that’s why we’re here today. To see if we can get a handle on people’s opinions.”

  PBK Junior steepled his fingers and said, “Fascinating.”

  I was tempted to flash a four-finger vee and say, “Live long and prosper,” but I suspected Star Trek reruns weren’t on his TV viewing list.

  My neighbor murmured, “Beam me up, Scotty,” the movement of his lips scarcely visible through his beard. I grinned. He winked and held out his hand. “David Maitland.”

  “Nina Ryan.”

  The gesture set off a spate of handshakes and introductions that further identified PBK junior as Chad Taylor and the lady in wool as Daintry Gregg. In a breathless rush, the slight young man introduced himself as Brent William.

  “Brent William what?” Lila wanted to know.

  “Nothing. Just Brent William.”

  “Really? I’ve never heard of that before as a last name. Just plain, I mean. I always thought it had an ‘ess’ on the end, you know, like Williams.”

  Brent looked bewildered. He seemed rather ingenuous for a young man of twenty-odd. If Kerrin intended him to represent Randy Outray’s contemporaries, I thought she had blundered. His naïveté was the complete antithesis of Randy’s slick veneer.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In the spring, local TV station WKPT had broadcast a special called Founding Fathers. To celebrate Kingsport’s two hundred and fifty years of history, the producers mounted a lavish tribute to the visionaries who had hacked fortunes out of New Hampshire’s pine forests. Nineteenth century shipbuilding had given way in the early twentieth century to textiles and, more recently, to high-tech communications, but the lumber barons of old lived on in successive generations of Outrays, Reids, and D’Arcys. The final fifteen minutes of the show presented some of the new growth to the populace. Kerrin ran the segment that mattered to us.

  Randy Outray had been interviewed in his living room. He occupied his own wing of the family mansion and his decorating style ran to large and electronic. A massive screen flanked by equally impressive speakers dominated one end of the room. There was no conversational grouping; chrome and leather furniture was arranged for maximum screen visibility.

  Throughout the interview, the scion of the Outray family lounged across a vast tan sofa, fingers laced around one bent knee, body slightly arched in presentation of self, like a model in a magazine ad. He stared directly into the camera, sparing a glance for the host only when a question was asked. Though he sounded pleasant enough, something in the set of his mouth spoke of a temper too often given rein. Regular features were enhanced by expensive grooming and extensive orthodontics but an enigmatic expression and hooded eyes gave his face an oddly shuttered look. I had the feeling that in a social context he would be discomfiting to know, the predator who subtly invades your spatial comfort zone.

  “Well, I don’t see how that young man could possibly have done such a terrible thing,” said Daintry Gregg. She had the kind of cut-glass accent that belongs in English drawing rooms. “I know his mother. I served with her on the hospital board some years ago.”

  “You know Mrs. Outray, so therefore her son can’t be a murderer?” Jerry said. “That doesn’t make sense. Besides, I didn’t think there was any question of his guilt. I understood he made a confession.”

  Kerrin said, “He made a statement, yes.”

  “Well, I don’t get it,” Lila said. “If the guy’s already confessed, what are we doing here?”

  Thomas Lyons spoke with exaggerated patience. “In a criminal case, the United States Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to a jury trial.”

  “Or in any civil suit exceeding twenty dollars,” appended Chad. Like Frick and Frack, these two had already fallen into the habit of completing each other’s thoughts. It was an interesting phenomenon, especially as they appeared to have met for the first time here today.

  David Maitland said quietly, “A verdict by a representative jury is especially important in a controversial trial like this one — it increases the legitimacy of the process in the eyes of the public.”

  I looked at him curiously. His expression was impossible to read.

  Kerrin said, “There is a plea bargain on the table. The problem is Randy doesn’t want to accept it. He wants to go to trial. He feels that if his defense team fights hard enough for him, he’ll go home.”

  “On what grounds do you plan to defend his case?” David asked. “Self-defense?”

  Sarcasm was lost on Lila. “No way,” she said.

  “No way for self-defense?” Kerrin quickly picked her up. “Not possible?”

  “You gotta be kidding, lady.” Jerry was outraged. “This guy had a knife. He attacked and killed a woman and her little girl and then he raped them, supposedly.”

  “It must have been the other way around, surely,” said Daintry Gregg, as though even the most antisocial act must conform to some kind of social norm.

  Kerrin said, “The rapes did occur afterwards. Anybody know what that’
s called? Necrophilia. Having sex with a dead person. Let me ask you something. How many sane neighbors and friends do you have who go around killing women and children and then proceed to have sexual intercourse with the bodies? Raise your hand if know any. Why not? What happened here?”

  Chad shrugged. “He lost it.”

  “He lost it,” Kerrin repeated, enunciating each word clearly. “There is a medical condition, one that is very, very rare — I think there are only two or three documented cases — called pathological intoxication. Two of the symptoms are superhuman strength and necrophilia.”

  She scanned each face for a reaction, testing the limits of believability for her suggestion. This was the crux of her job, presenting ideas, searching out the theme that would have the widest latitude of acceptance among the jurors.

  “Well?” she said. “Is it a defense? Does it work for you? Give me a verdict.”

  Lila said again, “I don’t get it. Patho-whatever intoxication? You mean like he was drunk, at ten o’clock in the morning?”

  “No,” said Brent, adding in a rush, “I think she means he had, like, repressed desires that, maybe, came out all of a sudden at that time and he said ‘to hell with it, I’m going to just act out what I feel I want to do.’” He sagged, deflating like a balloon as air and words ran out together. Jerry smirked openly at the thought of the repressed desires that Brent’s willowy figure suggested.

  “What a load of crap,” he said.

  “Is that an established medical condition?” Thomas Lyons demanded. “Are you going to get some kind of doctor to testify that it really exists? Because, frankly, I find it difficult to swallow.”

  Chad agreed. “It would be easier to accept alcoholic stupor or something drug-induced. Though I have heard of guys losing it over a truly foxy chick and from what I saw in the papers that Susan Forrester certainly qualified.”

  “You rotten pig!” Lila spat. “So what if the girl posed for Playboy eight years ago? That gives some guy the right to jump her? And kill her kid?”