by Jill Ciment
The gallery is packed with press and seniors. C-2 had read somewhere that the Villages bus their citizens all over Central Florida to attend celebrity trials, a pastime more engrossing than shuffleboard.
“Good morning,” the judge says to the jury after they take their seats. “I am sequestering you. I am also ruling that your identities will remain undisclosed during the trial. Attorneys will refer to you only by your letter and number, not name. In addition, I am warning the media not to photograph you. Anyone”—she looks out at the gallery—“including the public caught publishing or posting photos of the jurors on Instagram or Facebook will be held in contempt of court. You will do jail time, ladies and gentlemen.”
She waits for the bailiff to hand out notebooks and pencils to the jury.
“You are allowed to takes notes for your own use,” the judge instructs them, “but don’t get so distracted taking notes that you don’t pay attention to other clues. Notes are not a substitute for memory. Transcripts are not a substitute for memory. It’s not only what a witness says, it is also whether or not you believe them.”
Only C-2, F-17, and the twitchy alternate open their notebooks. The rest leave them on their laps or put them under their chairs.
The judge reads the charges—one count of second-degree murder and three counts of first-degree arson—and asks if the state is ready to proceed with opening remarks.
The rotund prosecutor stands, faces the jury, and wishes them a good morning. This time as he tries to button his jacket, the button slips easily into place. On an empty easel that was standing at the ready when the jury walked in, he places a poster-size full-color photograph of a not particularly pretty baby. C-2 catches a glimpse of the back of the photograph. It was printed at OfficeMax.
“Caleb Karl Butler, eighteen months old, didn’t die in a fire. Caleb was set on fire. How do we know?” He points to the defendant. “Because she told us.”
Someone has taken the defendant to the beauty parlor. Her black fringe has been shorn off and the blond strands shaped into an old-fashioned pageboy.
C-2 writes down:
somebody loves her
“Caleb’s diaper had been soaked in paint thinner,” the prosecutor continues. “Paint thinner isn’t a good accelerant. When the arson expert tried to replicate the origin of the fire, it took him nine minutes and forty-three matches to light a similar diaper.”
C-2 writes:
defendant blinks 68 xs a minute
“What was Caleb doing as his sister struck match after match and couldn’t get his diaper to catch fire? Let yourself imagine.” He mimics striking forty-three wooden matches. He takes his full nine minutes, waiting for the imaginary flames to burn out before striking the next one. If C-2 had her camera, she would take a close-up of Caleb’s mother’s face. She sits in the front row, on the defense side of the aisle, directly behind the defendant, but she won’t look in her daughter’s direction. If she did, she would only see the back of the newly coiffed pageboy. The prettier sister isn’t with her today.
The prosecutor asks permission to show the jury a photograph, but the defense objects. When the judge studies the picture, her civic veneer falters and her eyes widen. She rules the photograph too prejudicial, but the prosecutor has another picture to share, and this time the defense lets it slide.
The chemical engineer, seated in the first chair, is offered the photograph. She stiffens before daring to look, and then quickly hands it to F-17. He examines it thoroughly, jots something in his notebook, and hands it to the church lady. It is apparent that the church lady has no idea what she is looking at—and then she does. She quickly passes it along until it reaches C-2. It’s an eight-by-ten of the melted crib.
“After the defendant sets her brother’s diaper on fire, she closes the nursery door on what must have been Caleb’s screams. He was eighteen months old, for God’s sake. She sets two more fires—one in her twin sister’s bedroom and one in her own. She calls 911 at 4:38—six minutes after she closes the nursery door—and tells the operator, I quote, ‘I think I smell smoke.’ ” He says this in a falsetto key to imitate a young girl’s high register, presumably the defendant’s, though C-2 knows the jury may never hear her voice. “ ‘Thinks’? ‘Smoke’? She doesn’t mention that there is a baby inside the house.”
The defense objects to something the prosecutor just said and another sidebar is called.
C-2 is still holding the image of the melted crib. No one has come to retrieve it from her and enter it into evidence. She doesn’t know what to do with it. Facedown so she can concentrate on the proceedings, or faceup so she can confront exactly what she is being asked to judge?
* * *
· · ·
At noon sharp, the court recesses for lunch.
Without being told where they will be dining, the jury is ushered into a windowless van. Minutes later, the van parks and the deputy rolls back the door. They are eating at Nic & Gladys Luncheonette, courtesy of the court. C-2 has driven by this place for years and always thought it was abandoned. But there really are a Nic and Gladys, two older West Indians. The jury and the deputy are the only customers this afternoon. The choices are chalked on a board, in pristine handwriting. Fried pork chop or London broil. C-2 is a vegetarian. She asks if she can just order sides, rice and green beans. Gladys puts on a hairnet to scoop up the sides, while Nic works the deep fryer. When the food comes out, before anyone has had a chance to dig in, the church lady says grace by herself while the twitchy alternate asks the deputy where they will be having dinner tonight.
“Outback Steakhouse.”
“We get to order anything we want? Does that include alcohol?” the alternate wants to know.
“The state isn’t paying for your drinks,” says the deputy.
“Are we allowed a glass of wine with dinner if we pay for it ourselves?” asks the chemical engineer.
“One,” says the deputy.
“You’re shitting me,” says the alternate.
While the jury waits for dessert—a choice between red velvet cake or Neapolitan ice cream—Cornrows turns to the chemical engineer and, indicating her fraying stalks, asks, “How do I wash them? No offense or anything, I just thought you’d know.”
“You don’t wash them, you soak them in a cup of olive oil overnight,” says the chemical engineer. She wears her hair meticulously clipped on the sides with a sculpted plateau overhead. “Don’t forget to mix it with a cup of coconut oil. You don’t want your hair smelling like a salad.”
“How do I keep the oil from dripping on everything?”
The chemical engineer smiles. In profile, she makes a striking Nefertiti. She has no more idea of how to wash cornrows than C-2 does. “Did you bring a bathing cap?”
“Do you want to go outside for a smoke?” F-17 asks C-2.
“Are we allowed?” she asks the deputy—ex-military, by his scars and stance.
He tells her and F-17 to stand just outside the door where he can see them. On the far side of the glass window, C-2 stations herself in the sun. F-17 leans against the faded Nic & Gladys Luncheonette sign, painted decades ago in the same penmanship found on the blackboard.
He offers her a cigarette.
“I don’t smoke,” she reminds him.
“Neither do I.”
He lights her cigarette and then his own. They both hold the burning tips away and downwind. The sun feels kind after the artificial chill of indoor Florida.
“I brought a carton,” he says, smiling.
* * *
· · ·
The deputy hands C-2 a note when they return to the jury room. It reads: Your husband called.
“He wants to know if you’ve been sequestered,” the deputy says.
“Did you tell him yes? Am I allowed to call him back?”
“Y
ou can give me the message and I’ll relay it.”
We are being sequestered, she writes on a page torn from her notebook. I will phone you as soon as I am allowed. Call Jimmy if you need anything. Don’t be a martyr.
She crosses out the last line and hands the note to the bailiff.
“We are being sequestered,” she hears the bailiff tell her husband. “I will call you as soon as I am allowed. Phone Jimmy if you need anything. Don’t be a martyr.”
She can’t hear her husband’s lengthy reply, but she can see the bailiff growing impatient.
“No, you can’t talk to her at this time,” the bailiff says.
* * *
· · ·
The prosecutor is restless to get started. He doesn’t bother to button his jacket. “We know how she did it, now I’m going to tell you why. Jealousy, oldest motive in the world. Caleb was a miracle baby. Mr. Butler was fifty and Mrs. Butler was forty-four when she discovered she was pregnant after a lifetime of trying. Twelve years before, the Butlers had adopted the defendant, Anca, and her twin sister, Stephana, age five, from a Romanian orphanage.” The italics are his. He waits a beat for the jurors to construct their own internal visions of a Romanian orphanage—neglected infants in factory-size rooms, the back of their heads flattened from never being picked up.
The defense objects, and another sidebar is called. The prosecutor looks over at the jury and all but rolls his eyes, letting them know that he’s got motive galore, if only the defense would shut up.
All afternoon, C-2 takes notes as the prosecutor tells tales about Anca’s tantrums and the revolving specialists and the evolving diagnoses, a checklist of all the things that can go wrong in childhood and adolescence—friendless, fat, bullied, and bullying.
C-2’s final note of the day:
The prosecution has no idea why she did it
Cornrows’s earlier tip proves on the mark—the jury is staying at the Econo Lodge across the interstate from Silver Springs, a lagoon-blue lake braided in jungle vines, where the first Tarzan movies were filmed. The Econo Lodge sits on the treeless side of the eight-lane interstate, a two-story stucco building with a fiberglass pool. The hotel’s bright orange sign with its whirlpool design and twinkling star is reminiscent of a Tide detergent box.
The jurors are the only guests.
After telling them that breakfast will be served in the lobby at seven a.m., the Indian woman who commandeers the front desk assigns each juror a room, but doesn’t hand out key cards.
C-2’s assigned room is on the second floor, between the open-air landing with the noisy ice machine and F-17’s room. Below her is the church lady, who tells C-2 she is a light sleeper and asks her not to wear shoes when in her room. Cornrows has scored the only one-bedroom suite, which the alternate insinuates is cronyism because her boyfriend’s sister cleans here.
The deputy cuts him off. “Your rooms have been prepared according to the court’s mandate. You will not be allowed to lock your doors from the inside. The chains and bolts have been removed. The cable and wifi have been disabled, but the TVs have DVD players, and movies are available at the front desk. Questions?”
“Do we get maid service?” asks the church lady.
“When do we leave for Outback?” asks the alternate.
“Must we go?” asks C-2.
She, the chemical engineer, and F-17 opt for takeout.
* * *
· · ·
The room has two twin beds, a patterned rug to hide stains, one reading lamp, blackout curtains, and a surprisingly clean bathroom. The view is of passing semis. Her husband would never deign to stay in places like this, but when C-2 travels alone, she secretly likes these undistinguished stopovers, though she always packs her own sheets.
She instinctively picks up the remote to test the TV and is met with the promised nothingness.
C-2 has brought two novels for company, though lately she is more inclined to read nonfiction—history, science, biography. She chose novels because she has read that fiction enhances compassion and she suspects she will need all the mercy she can muster for the Romanian orphan. One of the novels is a thick thriller her husband recommended and the other is a new translation of Madame Bovary, which she has meant to reread for years.
She kicks off her shoes, stretches out on the bed nearest the air conditioner, and flicks on the reading lamp. A haze of cold LED slopes onto the pillow. She weighs both novels literally, one in each hand, but neither appeals. After hearing the story of the immolation of Caleb, the thriller’s hair-raisers will seem too tame, and Madame Bovary’s adultery too silly.
She wanders over to the window. In addition to the passing semis, her room looks over the rectangular pool, which is long enough to have a deep end and a shallow end. The pool is set back from the highway, in a grassy area shielded by pines. Four chaise lounges, two occupied by feral cats, share the tiny concrete deck. A cyclone fence tall enough to meet safety regulations and choked in kudzu is the only landscaping.
F-17 has remembered his bathing suit. He is swimming laps, diagonally so as to achieve the longest stretch before he has to turn. C-2 is a swimmer herself, though she didn’t think to pack a suit. F-17 does a solid flip against the shallow-end corner and begins his crawl and kick. No unnecessary splashing. She approves of his stroke.
She slips into shorts and crosses the parking lot to the pool. At least she can dip her feet in. Besides, she wants F-17’s medical opinion of the defendant’s rapid, persistent blinking.
He is reclining on a chaise lounge, eyes shut against the low sun. He hasn’t bothered to towel off and the water beads on his chest, the skin startlingly smooth in contrast to his pitted face. He looks younger than forty-two, the age he gave during the voir dire. His hair is a black that doesn’t cast red in the sun. If he let it grow, he would have ringlets. But he keeps it short enough that each strand only has one chance to complete a circle, the kind of Platonic ideal you find in the ringlets on the marble bust of a Roman general.
Her shadow causes him to open his eyes.
“May I ask you something?” she says. She does not recline on the adjacent chaise, but sits on its unstable edge. “What causes rapid eye blinking?”
“How rapid?” he asks.
“Sixty-eight times a minute.”
“Are you asking me as an anatomist or as a juror?”
“It’s a medical question.”
“Rapid blinking blocks vision. You basically close your eyelids so there’s less information coming into the brain.”
“I read somewhere it was a sign of lying,” she says.
“Actually, people blink more when they daydream than when they lie.”
* * *
· · ·
It is still bright and sunny at seven when her takeout arrives—an Outback salad and a baked potato. She eats in her room, on the spare bed. There is no chair. One Styrofoam container is hot, the other cold. She opens the baked potato first so she can eat it while it still holds an atom of heat. Then she rips open the clear bag containing the plastic utensils and one stingy napkin. Concentrating on each forkful, she slowly chews the potato’s flesh. Whenever she eats alone these days, she uses the opportunity to practice eating alone after her husband is dead, when she will be eating alone for real. His mother lived to ninety-six, but that doesn’t mean he will.
C-2 has come to accept that the last ten years of a life are as transformative as the first ten. But how do you know when the countdown begins? Her husband has always emitted excess heat, now he is constantly cold. Is that number ten of the countdown? Or did the countdown begin last year when he had the pacemaker put in?
Her potato is cold.
She wants out of this motel room.
Now.
She heads to the lobby to pick out one of the approved DVDs for the evening. F-17 is already there
, choosing among three approved VHS cassettes. He holds them up for her opinion—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dora the Explorer, and Amadeus, the story of Salieri, a mediocre court composer, and his murderous envy of Mozart. C-2 saw both the play and the movie. The promise of Mozart’s music is irresistible.
“Are we allowed to watch a movie together?” she asks the night deputy, a fully made-up state-fair beauty queen with a badge.
“Sorry. You can’t be alone together, and I have to stay here,” she says in an unexpectedly husky voice.
F-17 offers C-2 the videocassette.
“My room only has a DVD player,” she says.
* * *
· · ·
Once again, C-2 stretches out on the twin bed nearest the air conditioner and listens to Mozart through the gypsum wall, which masks nothing. She can practically distinguish the instruments. When the music stops and the muffled dialogue begins, she goes outside into the humid night air. The outdoor walkway that connects the second-story rooms smells faintly of ammonia and mold. Next to the open stairwell, under a cold spotlight, in a funnel of moths, the ice machine hums. She leans against the iron railing. She can see the front office from here. The deputy is gone. She doesn’t appear to be in the parking lot, either. The music starts up again, The Magic Flute. She knocks on F-17’s door. He is barefoot in an unbuttoned shirt and jeans. He doesn’t seem all that surprised to see her.
His room has a queen-size bed.
“May I come in?” she asks.
“We could be thrown off the jury,” he says, closing the door behind her.
“I need music,” she says.
“Do you want me to start the movie over?”
“No,” she says.
There is no chair in his room, either. She sits on the edge of the mattress.
“You comfortable?” he asks, lying down.
