From the Eyes of a Juror

by Frank Terranova

  Chapter 12 – The Smell of Blood

  Wednesday afternoon June 4, 2008 – 1:39 PM

  The garage was located on the eastbound side of Commonwealth Avenue (or Comm. Ave. as it is commonly referred to by the locals), and as the bus approached from the westbound side, Judge Gershwin requested that the jurors look out the windows on the driver’s side so that they might observe the structure from multiple vantage points.

  Judge Gershwin didn’t supply any additional instructions, so it was up to the jurors to determine what significance, if any, there was to viewing the garage from the opposite side of the street. But nevertheless, Newlan and the rest of the jurors obediently moved towards the driver’s side of the bus and did as instructed.

  “Bid deal, it’s a parking garage…I don’t get why we need to look at it from this angle,” softly groused Newlan as the bus drove past a spate of aging office buildings.

  Due to the configuration of the roadway, the driver had to take a detour down a few side streets to make the turn-around before they emerged on the eastbound side of Comm. Ave., and from there the bus backtracked down the road until it came to a stop in front of the garage.

  The sizable length of the bus was causing it to block the entrance/exit opening of the garage, and Newlan had a comical vision playing in his mind of encountering a carload full of pissed-off old ladies trying to exit the parking lot only to realize that a gargantuan bus was obstructing their way.

  Of course, even though Newlan may have been preoccupied with keeping himself entertained, his wandering mind didn’t prevent Judge Gershwin from rising up and taking her place in the center aisle of the bus as she prepared to address this diverse gathering of lawyers and common folk.

  “Ladies and gentlemen we are going to be making our way into the garage shortly, and once inside, the attorneys will be given the opportunity to provide you with their suggested instructions regarding the viewing.”

  Upon the completion of her introductory comments, Judge Gershwin gave the go-ahead for everyone to exit the bus, and as Newlan made his way onto the street, he observed that two Newton Police cars were parked just beyond the garage.

  The steady drizzle of rain still hadn’t let up, so as the occupants of the bus stepped onto the sidewalk, they instinctively made a loping dash for the shelter of the covered parking lot. For his part, Newlan was surprised to find that the garage was completely devoid of automobiles, but then he came to the conclusion that the Newton Police had probably been guarding the entrance all morning just to make sure that it was empty, specifically for the sake of the jury’s visit, which must have been difficult to coordinate given the fact that they couldn’t be sure exactly when the contingent from the courthouse was going to be arriving.

  In any event, the jurors, as well as the attorneys, the court officers, the State Police motorcycle officers, and the Newton Police officers were now all nestled comfortably inside the sooty garage waiting for Judge Gershwin’s next set of instructions.

  Newlan used the time-out to take a quick peek around at the oil-slicked asphalt, and, inexplicably, the place gave him the creeps, just as the garage at his condo complex sometimes did.

  But Newlan’s fears notwithstanding, before anything ghastly or otherwise of significance had the chance of occurring, Billy stopped the proceedings when the bus driver made him aware of the fact that the handicapped juror was still in the process of exiting the bus.

  “Wait for me,” good-naturedly shouted the crippled man as he rolled his wheelchair into the garage. Most everyone got at a kick out of this not-so-minor oversight, but of more importance was the fact that the blunder also seemed to relieve some of the tension that was collectively beginning to build up inside the jurors’ synapses.

  Now that all of the jurors were finally assembled (Billy took a head count just to make sure) Judge Gershwin requested that everyone come closer together and form a half-circle around her.

  “What are we having, a prayer service,” whispered Newlan to a fellow juror who was standing nearby. But the middle-aged man just shrugged his shoulders in return and gave Newlan a clueless frown.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I have your attention. Ms. Lyons and Mr. Gleason will now make their presentations,” announced Judge Gershwin as she waved Lyons over to the center of the assembled half-circle.

  “Members of the jury, I’d like you to pay particular attention to this parking space on the right hand side of the garage,” commanded Lyons as she pointed to a spot about half way down the length of the structure and began walking towards it.

  “Also, please make note of the parking space on the left hand side of the garage directly opposite this location,” added Lyons who was now standing on the very spot where Fred Miller had been shot to death.

  Lyons was about twenty yards away from where the semicircle of jurors was situated when she began backpedalling towards the garage entrance, while at the same time asking the jurors to make a visual note of a window-like opening on the right-hand side of the garage. She also asked the jurors to look up at the adjacent office building, which was partially visible from that vantage point in the garage.

  After DA Lyons had completed her instructions, it was Gleason’s turn in the spotlight, which reminded Newlan of the wedding ritual where everyone forms a circle and the over-imbibing guests take turns dancing in the center of it.

  As Gleason entered the semicircle, his face turned a bright shade of red, which was in sharp contrast with his bald head, white hair and bushy white beard. Newlan sensed that Gleason seemed to be a bit uneasy about addressing the jurors, and when he spoke his voice came across as mild and meek.

  “Could he possibly be nervous?” wondered Newlan.

  “Good afternoon. I’d like you to make note of the lighting, or lack thereof, in this garage,” began Gleason. “And another unique aspect of the garage is the fact that there are no exit doorways. If a person were to park their car in here, they would exit from the same opening where cars pull in and out of. Also, if you walk to the entrance of the garage and look outside, you will notice that Comm. Ave is a one-way street on either side of the median strip, so if a vehicle were to take a left upon exiting the garage, it would be going the wrong way onto a very busy street.”

  Newlan observed that DA Lyons made a pouting expression when Gleason mentioned the possibility of a car going the wrong way on Comm. Ave, and he wondered what it all meant, or whether any of the other jurors saw the look of veiled disgust on Lyons’ face.

  Luckily for Gleason, the more he talked, the more relaxed he seemed to get, and Newlan, for one, could relate to his deficiency because it usually took him a few minutes to get warmed up whenever he had to speak at a work-related meeting (and this was after years of playing in rock band). Based on their backgrounds, one would think that both Newlan and Gleason should have been accustomed to public speaking by now, but the reality of the situation was that deep down inside they were both very private, introverted men.

  And yet despite his self-consciousness, Gleason did a commendable job of articulating his points. And when he promptly finished up his summations, Judge Gershwin wasted no time in letting the jurors loose.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you may proceed to walk about the garage…and please take as much time as you need,” signaled the honorable judge. And with her figurative green light now flashing, the jurors began to wander aimlessly around the decrepit parking lot, stopping at times to stare up at the ceiling, and out at the adjacent office building.

  At this point in time Newlan didn’t even know any of the jurors’ names yet so he was keeping his distance, thinking to himself that he wasn’t here to make friends, and as he trudged around the garage, he tried to visualize in his mind exactly what might have happened inside the confines of these dark walls.

  The atmosphere in the garage was dank and musty which reminded Newlan of a creaky, unfinished basement, and his psychic tende
ncies were clearly telling him that, in the not so distant past, something bad had happened somewhere close by. He realized that Judge Gershwin hadn’t given them any specific details as to why they were visiting the garage, but just the same he muttered, “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is where the murder took place…not to mention the fact that I vaguely remember the news report stating that Miller was murdered in a garage next to where he worked.”

  After examining the crumbling support beams, which didn’t seem wide enough for someone to hide behind, Newlan ventured over to the parking spot that DA Lyons had pointed out, and he slowly rotated himself in a roundabout circle so that he might view the garage from different angles, when suddenly, out of nowhere, he thought he smelled blood. Truth be told, he didn’t really even know what blood smelled like, but nevertheless he was sure he wasn’t mistaken.

  “Or maybe it’s just the stench of death,” whispered Newlan.

  Newlan closed his eyes as he struggled to retrieve the origins of the foul odor from his memory banks, and it eventually occurred to him that his recollection of the rancid fetor dated back to his teenage days when he worked at a local supermarket, cleaning up the butcher shop. The stink that was emanating from the parking spot was reminiscent of the butcher shop after a long hot day of chopping up the remains of cows and pigs into various cuts of meat. However, due to the fact that no one else was complaining about the putrid malodor, he was uncertain whether the scent was real or just the product of his vivid imagination.

  Real or imagined, Newlan hurriedly decided to move along and inspect the side of the garage where the opening in the wall revealed the adjacent office building, and when he reached his destination, he gazed up at the windows on every floor of the structure and tried to imagine what the view of the garage would look like from each aperture.

  Newlan was hoping that maybe the jurors would get to go inside the building and look down at the garage from various vantage points, but that exercise didn’t turn out to be on the agenda. However, that didn’t stop him from reflecting back on a trip he had made to Dallas several years back for a work-related conference. One of the few touristy things to do in Dallas was to visit the School Book Depository building where Lee Harvey Oswald was positioned when he allegedly shot JFK, and looking up at the office building from the garage luridly reminded him of looking down from that old refurbished brick building towards the grassy knoll in downtown Dallas. Even though he was now looking up instead of down, and even though there were certainly no indications that any shots had been fired out of the office building windows here in Newton, the situations seemed analogous to him nonetheless.

  Newlan was beginning to feel a little bit like Columbo from the old detective TV series as he made his way towards the garage entrance and briefly poked his head out onto the street. It was still raining, but it only took a few seconds for him to follow Gleason’s instructions and take a look-see down the avenue, and he instantly agreed with Gleason that it was obviously a busy street, and that it would be virtually impossible for a car to get very far going the wrong way.

  During the course of his brief investigation, Newlan also observed that a couple of the Newton Police officers who were charged with guarding the garage were sipping coffee while standing out on the street under an umbrella. And although his soon-to-be next panic episode could have been filed, part and parcel, in the same folder that held his overactive imagination, he could have sworn that the cops where staring at him. And on top of that, the cold wet air was giving him the chills.

  Based on Newlan’s idiosyncrasies, it should come as no surprise that he was the type of person who would be plagued by varying degrees of paranoia whenever he noticed a cop car driving behind him in his rearview mirror, and it never failed to make him jittery; so much so that he’d literally end up driving erratically. His affliction was in fact so bad that he even got pulled over a few times. And yet his solution to the problem was always the same; try not to look back. Of course this was easier said than done since, as we will come to know all too well, he had to look back, he always looked back. And now in his presently conflicted condition, he struggled mightily to follow that same strategy as he turned around and uncomfortably put some distance between himself and the cops, who weren’t actually staring at him in the first place, but good luck to anyone who tried to convince him otherwise.

  At this point, Newlan decided that he had seen all he needed to see, and with the specter of the cops weighing on his mind, he headed back towards the center of the garage where many of the jurors, as well as the attorneys and Judge Gershwin were milling about.

  Newlan disdainfully surveyed the handful of jurors who were still making various observations as they wandered around the garage, and he shook his head in exasperation. By now, he was both tired and irritable, and he just wanted to go home, which caused him to involuntarily grumble to himself in frustration, “What the hell are they still looking at?”

  Newlan happened to be standing in close proximity to Mr. Gleason when he uttered his bewildering remarks, and Judge Gershwin mistakenly came to the conclusion that he was chatting with the reticent defense attorney.

  “Sir, if you could, would you please refrain from fraternizing with the attorneys. If you have any questions, you should bring them to the attention of our quite capable court officers. Do you understand?” asserted Judge Gershwin in a scolding manner.

  “Yes your honor,” replied a red-faced Newlan as he inched away from Gleason with his tail between his legs.

  “Fuck, I’ve only been on the case for an hour and I’m already getting reprimanded by the judge,” silently groaned Newlan, and with another shake of his head, he added, “Man, you can’t make this shit up.”

  Newlan’s unintentional fit of temper turned out to be for naught because shortly thereafter, the tarrying jurors satisfactorily completed their review of the garage, and everyone filed back onto the bus for the trip over to the Newton Police station.

  The police station was only a few miles from the garage, but due to the typically heavy Boston area traffic it still took an exorbitant amount of time to get there, and in the interim, Newlan once again put his head back and closed his eyes as he attempted to reflect on what he had just seen in the garage…and as he did, he almost dozed off again. But this time he made a concerted effort to stay awake, lest he succumb to another embarrassing nightmare-induced outburst.

  When the bus finally arrived at the police station annex, the driver pulled into a parking lot behind the main building where roughly fifteen Newton Police cars were parked. One would think that the sight of all those blue-lighted cruisers lined up in one place should have been comforting, but in the mind of the mistrusting Newlan, it was anything but.

  If nothing else, Newlan’s trepidation evoked a heightened sense of awareness in his brain stem, and he was on the alert for Judge Gershwin’s next dictum. But while he waited for the measured judge to proceed, he scrutinized the police presence that stood surrounding the station’s garage, which was situated to the rear of the parking lot. Naturally, the swarm of cops, who were put in place specifically to guard the premises for the jurors visit, did nothing to ease his consternation, and additionally, for some strange reason he was taken aback by the dimensions of the garage, which he estimated to be almost as large as the parking garage that they had just visited on Comm. Ave.

  Just as she had done at the aforementioned parking garage, Judge Gershwin addressed the jurors from the center aisle of the bus, and she informed them that they would be viewing an automobile which was being housed in the Newton Police Station garage; a1999 blue Nissan Maxima to be exact. But this time around, the considerate judge allowed the attorneys to address the jurors from the bus as well, and DA Lyons requested that they make note of a hole in the front door-handle armrest on the passenger’s side of the car which was outlined with electrical tape to make it easier to see. However, when it was Gleason’s turn,
he rose slowly and hunched slightly to avoid scraping his head against the low ceiling of the bus, and with a slight grimace he informed the jurors that he had nothing to add.

  After getting the go-ahead from Judge Gershwin, the disparate brigade of unlikely bedfellow made their way inside, and one of the many Newton Police officers who were on the scene directed them to the back of the garage where the automobile in question was located. The front doors of the vehicle were already opened wide and the windows were rolled down, eerily welcoming the jurors as they apprehensively approached like an uncertain bunch of first graders entering the haunted house at an amusement park.

  Newlan was at the front of the pack as they advanced toward the mid-sized sedan, but he politely nodded for the handful of female jurors in his vicinity to go ahead of him. However, they insisted that he go first.

  “I guess this isn’t something that any of us really wants to see,” acknowledged an understanding Newlan as he ambled up to the car and stuck his head inside the open doorway on the driver’s side where, much to his dismay, he was promptly greeted by a most unwanted surprise.

  A foul stench that had seemingly attached itself to the inside of the cabin set off Newlan’s internal panic alarm and he was almost overcome by a dizzying queasiness; the odor was in fact so acrid that it almost knocked him off his feet and had him gasping for air. He detected the scent of blood again for sure, and this time he was positive that it wasn’t just his imagination.

  After a taking a few deep breaths, Newlan made a number of repeated attempts to get a quick glance inside the vehicle, and when he finally succeeded, he observed what appeared to be multiple blotches of sizable blood stains congealed onto the front seats of the cabin, which appeared to have been torn apart and hastily put back together. For the brief moment that his head had penetrated beyond the invisible boundary of the car door, he also managed to catch sight of several unidentifiable splatters which he deemed to be organic in nature.

  “Who knows, maybe bits of brain,” mumbled the squeamish Newlan, while at the same time he noticed that there was a scattering of clothing, sports equipment, newspapers, and trash strewn about the back seat.

  Newlan felt as if he was about to vomit, but he staggered backwards just in time to breathe a reviving dose of fresh air into his lungs. From that point on, he made the rest of his observations from well outside the perimeter of the car, including reviewing the hole in the passenger door as DA Lyons had requested. And just to be thorough, he made a quick pass around the vehicle and examined the interior of the cabin from the external vantage point of each of the car’s windows.

  During the course of appraising the body of the vehicle, Newlan stumbled upon a bumper sticker that read ‘Question Authority’ affixed to the rear bumper and he nearly blew a gasket due to the fact that he had the exact same bumper sticker slapped onto the back of his own car as well.

  “This is way too spooky. What are the odds of us waving the same freak flag? Man, you can’t make this shit up,” quietly murmured Newlan as he dubiously forged on. The unlikely signage coincidence, a rebellious insignia at that, which when combined with his bizarre Grateful Dead concert dream, understandably shook him, and it left him wondering whether the day’s peculiar events might be an auspicious sign of things to come. However, he quickly composed himself long enough to take a prolonged look at the vehicle from every conceivable angle before gingerly retreating from the scene while the majority of the jurors were still in the process of circling the car.

  As Newlan observed the procession from a distance, he couldn’t help but notice that many of the jurors were visibly shaken by the nauseating funk that was radiating from the vehicle, almost to the point of vomiting just as he had done, while on the other end of the spectrum, a smaller faction lingered around the car; evidently they were having no problem sticking their heads into the cabin for extended periods of time.

  “They must have strong stomachs,” admiringly assumed Newlan as once again he reflected back on his younger days when he was employed at the local supermarket.

  One of Newlan’s job duties was to scour and cleanse the butcher’s saw at the end of the day, and after eight hours of cutting meat, especially in the summertime, the cross-cutting instrument reeked of an awful scent of a decomposing corpses; and the mere thought of the fetid stink was enough to send a reflexive gut-turning reaction coursing through his body.

  As Newlan’s mind aroused his memories, there was one notable occasion in particular that came rushing to the forefront of his brain; it was a flashback that was indelibly burned into his retinas. And now here it was once again staring at him in his minds-eye; as he was cleaning the blade of blood and bones and cow flesh, he was startled by the sight of hundreds of maggots crawling through the hunks of leftover meat shavings which had fallen into the receptacle at the bottom of the appliance.

  Newlan recalled becoming so violently ill that he quit the job on-the-spot, much to the chagrin of the store manager, who always regarded him highly by virtue of his strong work ethic. And now as he considered the prodigious conundrum which had been placed in his path, a cloudy obstacle which was practically blocking out the sun and moon and the sky from his very soul, he wished that he could relinquish his post on the jury as well. But unfortunately, as he would soon find out, it’s not always possible to run away from our problems.

  From a very early age, it seemed that the sight of blood triggered a queasy reaction from deep within the core of Newlan’s being; and it wasn’t just one of those typical youthful motor responses that a person outgrows, for, if anything, this abnormal psychological disorder became worse and worse over the years.

  And yet, in spite of his phobia, there was a time when Newlan would render his body at the disposal of the Red Cross whenever there was a blood-drive at work. As long as he looked the other way while the platelets were being drained from his body, he was able to persevere; that is, until one day as he stood waiting his turn in line, when he caught sight of a volunteer rolling away a tray of plastic bags filled with blood. Without a warning, the fortuitous unveiling of the sacks full of crimson liquid sent him scurrying out of the room, teetering on wobbly legs, and he almost fainted as he got up and unsteadily walked away.

  As it turned out, that was the last time Newlan ever attempted to give blood, and nowadays, whenever the Health Services department was holding a blood drive and someone asked him whether he was going to participate, he would weasel his way out of his predicament by jokingly pronouncing; “believe me, they wouldn’t want my blood.”

  But today, on the other hand, as Newlan looked back on those less-than-finer moments from his younger days, he was rather proud of himself for being able to withstand the odor that was being emitted from Fred Miller’s automobile, albeit just by a nose. And furthermore, he was equally proud of the fact that he was able to endure the sight of what was obviously a collection of mammoth blood stains caked into the plush upholstery of the car’s seats.

  “Hey, I had to tough it out or the rest of the jurors would have thought I was a wimp,” Newlan would later boast to his friends as he recounted the day’s events.

  But Newlan’s silent ramblings aside, once his fellow jurors had viewed the vehicle to their satisfaction, the same routine repeated itself…board the bus…everyone in separate seats…wait for the bus driver to help the wheelchair-bound juror onto the bus via the handicapped lift…and down the road they went.

  By now Newlan was completely exhausted, but after considering the morbid implications of the blood stained automobile, not to mention the improbable bumper sticker coincidence, he didn’t have any such worries in regards to falling asleep on the ride back to the courthouse. To the contrary, he was suddenly wide awake, and his mind was racing in a million different directions, churning almost as rapidly as the bus which was shuttling them back to their new home-base.

  When the legion of justice seekers finally arrived, full-circle, back to whe
re they had started from, the slightly distraught Newlan and his fellow jurors were escorted into a now empty courtroom by Billy, and from there they were addressed by Judge Gershwin one last time for the day.

  “The attorneys will present their opening statements first thing in the morning, after which we will begin promptly with witness testimony. Now, I want to take a moment to remind you, as I will every day, not to discuss the case with anyone, be it family, friends or fellow jurors. If the case is mentioned on TV, you should change the channel immediately…and please do not attempt to research the case on the internet. Also, you should refrain from reading about the case in the newspaper, and as a matter of fact, you should have a family member go through the paper first and cut out any references to the trial, as well as any references to the other high-profile cases that are being tried here in the Middlesex Superior Courthouse this week.”

  The benevolent judge then smiled warmly as she peered directly into the jury box and cordially added; “have a safe trip home and we’ll see you in the morning. Please arrive at the courthouse promptly at 8:45 AM. Court is adjourned.”

  “All rise,” mechanically exclaimed Billy as he hustled the jurors back to the deliberation room with a sense of urgency which Newlan took to mean that Billy had plans for the evening, and that the lengthy bus adventure had made him late.

  But plans or no plans, Billy had some last minute details to share with the jurors, especially for the newbies such as Newlan who hadn’t been in attendance the day before, and he proceeded to dispense explicit directions on anything and everything they ever needed to know about being on a jury, facts both big and small, ranging from their lunch menus to where to park their cars.

  Parking in particular was of the utmost importance for jurors who were assigned to high-profile cases. These jurors required “special protection”, and thus it was essential that strict protocol be followed. As such, a gated section on the fourth floor of the garage, cordoned off behind a couple of wooden barrier horses, was reserved expressly for their use. They were required to present the security guard on duty with their juror identification badge every morning, and once beyond the barrier, the guard would escort the jurors into a waiting room where Billy or one of his colleagues would take them up to the deliberation room which was reserved for courtroom 630.

  “Oh and by the way, I’m gonna switch you with seat number 8 tomorrow so that he can sit with everyone else and not feel left out,” explained Billy as he pointed towards Newlan and the handicapped juror.

  Newlan’s seat number 16 happened to be the last seat on the ground level of the jury box, whereas the handicapped juror was saddled with seat number 8 which was raised up on the back row, directly behind seat number 16, making it inaccessible from a wheelchair.

  Seats number 8 and 16 were located at the far end of the seating chart, furthest away from the gallery section of the courtroom and closest to the witness stand, and this fact, although rather insignificant, would prove to be a blessing in Newlan’s quest for anonymity.

  But putting Newlan’s self-centered issues on the backburner for a moment, it was clear that the handicapped juror, who up until now had been placed on an island a few feet away from the rest of the jurors, conspicuously stuck out like a sore thumb. However, the new seating arrangement being proposed by Billy would allow the incapacitated man to sit in the jury box with the rest of his colleagues. Billy simply removed the swivel chair from the spot where seat number 16 was located, which left plenty of room for a wheelchair, and since seat 16 was at the far end of the row, there would be little affect on exiting and entering the jury box.

  “No problem,” replied an outwardly agreeable Newlan, although inwardly his superstitious mind opposed the change.

  But regardless of Newlan’s irrational leanings, from that point forward he learned that he would become known as “juror number 8”. Apparently, once a juror is assigned to a case, his or her badge number becomes irrelevant, and their identifying number becomes their seat number.

  “So much for Larry Bird’s number 33…I hope that this doesn’t mess up the Celtics chances,” ranted Newlan under his breath while Billy hastened on to bigger and better things.

  And although Billy rushed through his announcements, he was very thorough in his dissemination of the relevant information, and yet the detail-oriented Newlan still felt as if there were a thousand unanswered questions left for him to ask. But in the end he bit his tongue, since he could clearly tell that Billy was in a hurry.

  Billy wasted no time in escorting the jurors onto the waiting elevator, where the majority of them got off on the fourth floor. Since most of them had been selected to the case yesterday, they were already parked in the reserved section of the courthouse garage. But Newlan, who was parked just above street level, stayed put on the elevator and rode down to the ground floor with the handful of remaining jurors.

  While the elevator descended, Newlan overheard two jurors, a petite elderly woman in her late sixties, and the same heavyset woman who had given him the stern look earlier in the day, discussing the schedules for Medford-bound buses.

  “It looks like they’re going my way…maybe I should offer them a ride?” silently debated Newlan in his mind, but then he thought the better of it. Amongst other excuses, he rationalized that they might inadvertently discuss the case, which was an egregious offense that Judge Gershwin had empathically instructed them not to commit.

  “Besides, right about now, I’m not in the mood to indulge in a casual conversation with a couple of people I don’t even know…and on top of that, I’d feel obligated to give them a ride everyday, which could end up being torture,” mutely complained Newlan. As the days went by, he would wind up developing a guilty conscience over not giving the ladies a ride, but for now he was more than happy with his decision.

  For now, a guilty conscience was a problem for another day, and when the elevator landed on the ground floor, Newlan hastily exited from the same entrance where he had entered the courthouse in the morning; the only exception being that on his way out of the building, he didn’t have to pass through any security checkpoints, which was a relief because he was anxious to get the hell out of there and get back home to the comforts of his condo.

  Not surprisingly, the horde of reporters and TV cameras were still in place as Newlan pushed his way out of the revolving courthouse door. In an effort to avoid the media throng, he made a mad dash for the parking garage, and as he got into his car and started her up for the drive back home, the exhaustion that had been pounding away at his aching head all day finally broke through, and it was only then that he truly reflected on what an excruciatingly long day it had been.

  It had only been one day, but to Newlan it seemed as if he had been at the courthouse forever and day…and little did he know…just how much worse…it was about to get.