—No, I really can’t imagine what it was like fishing all those sandwiches out of your toilet last night, she was saying.—Oh, dear, Jeanne threw in a can of corn, too?
As soon as Veronica hung up, she signaled to Katie.—Don’t ask.
—Bit of a clog at home?
Veronica grinned.—Leave it to Billy.
She stood, placed the BEE RIGHT BACK! sign on the desk—a smiling bumblebee with a pink ribbon in its hair and dashes behind it to show it flying away.
—I want you to see something, Katie.
She followed Veronica into the workshop. Inside this vast room that looked like a warehouse, the clients sat at long benches assembling boxes or grappling with menial tasks that seemed to fascinate some of them. The clients looked up with expectant eyes at their arrival; seconds later a group had gathered around Katie and Veronica, touching and hugging.
—You stay? a slender, balding man named John asked, petting Katie’s arm.—You stay today and tomorrow?
—Pretty hair, a woman in her mid-thirties with cerebral palsy said, resting her head on Katie’s other arm.—Want to watch me put labels on the boxes?
—What color do you feel when you’re unsad? asked a girl in a wheelchair, one hand curled at her side, the other around the chair’s control. She scowled at Katie, waiting.
—Do you love chocolate? asked another.
Katie answered them all, and Marty, the elderly supervisor who was always threatening to retire, nodded his approval.
—Okay, guys, Katie didn’t come here for a party, he said mildly, scooping them away with his arm. They scrambled back to their seats.
—She’s here to kiss Nick, a boy with Down syndrome taunted loudly, and then there were fits of giggling at all the tables.
—This way, Veronica said quietly, grabbing Katie’s hand.
They walked to the back of the room, down a short hall, and past the cafeteria, to the opening of a small vestibule. Veronica ushered Katie into a room with a two-way mirror, then checked to make sure the intercom was off. Inside the adjoining room, Nick sat at a table with a client Katie didn’t recognize.
He was enormous.
A tattered T-shirt stretched across his wide chest, his fleshy upper arms pushing against the thinning material. He watched Nick, his light blue eyes terrified, his pendulous lower lip pushed out like a shelf.
—His name is Jerry, Veronica whispered.—He started about a week and a half ago. File thick as an encyclopedia.
Katie’s eyes moved to Nick. He held his body very still, hands folded on the table, his mouth moving in silent conversation with the man.
—Nick’s trying like hell, but he can’t even get Jerry to talk to him. Katie moved to the mirror, placed her hand on the glass.
Nick kept his head bent forward slightly, a compassionate, paternal look on his face as he spoke. Jerry continued staring, wide-eyed, and then his body suddenly jolted. He lowered his head, cradled himself in his arms. A quick flash of anger sliced across Nick’s face, pulsed momentarily inside his eyes. Gone an instant later, easy to miss, Katie thought, if you hadn’t before tracked that same anger in his eyes as he formed his punishing words.
—Nick never mentioned him, Katie whispered.
—Jerry won’t communicate with anyone unless prompted, word for word, by Patricia, Veronica whispered back.—It must be driving Nick crazy, but you’d never know it.
—Why Patricia?
—I don’t know, something to do with his past, his mother, I think. I haven’t read the file. Nick spends all his downtime with it. Looking for clues, I guess.
Nick leaned into the table, slowly reached toward Jerry. In a flash, Jerry jerked away, his large hands pushing the air in front of him, eyes clamming shut. Nick sat back, and Katie almost gasped: there, on Nick’s face, was an emotion utterly unfamiliar to her, a raw, exposed fear that was gone before she could fully register it.
—Hello, Katie.
She hadn’t heard Patricia’s approach. Katie didn’t turn to the director, just mumbled a greeting and kept her eyes on Nick.
—I wanted Katie to see Jerry, Veronica said apologetically, as if
she’d been caught doing something wrong.
—That’s okay, Patricia said, in a tone that said it wasn’t okay at all.
—Though perhaps we should give them some privacy.
They made dinner together that night, Katie brushing orange glaze onto two chicken breasts and waiting for Nick to mention Jerry, his fear of failing to connect with a client for the first time. Instead, Nick talked about the home they would purchase in the next few months, his attention focused on the small russet potatoes he peeled into the sink.
—We can’t afford anything palatial, of course, he said.—But I’d prefer something dignified, like that last one we saw. But in a better neighborhood. He kept his eyes on the small potato in his hand, as if he were addressing it rather than Katie.
Katie listened to the confidence in his voice, watched how it contrasted with his actions—the haphazard, nearly frantic peeling, the red skins flying and sticking to the sides of the sink and the faucet.
—I stopped by the center to see you today, she said casually.—But you were busy.
He stopped peeling, gave her a blank look.—When?
—Around two? Veronica said you were in session with a new client.
He scowled, started peeling again.—I’m talking about a house here, Katie. Our house. Am I the only one interested in getting out of this little shithole apartment? His face doing that thing. Gearing up.
She dropped the brush with glaze on it, moved behind him quickly, and wrapped her arms around him.
—I can’t wait for us to move into a new house, honey. But I just had to tell you. I walked in that front door today and I got this huge burst of pride that I know you. Veronica says almost every time I visit that you’re the best speech pathologist they’ve ever had.
Peeler raised, Nick peered into the sink full of wet, red skins. He turned around in her arms, slowly. Looked at her carefully, his eyes tracing her entire face—almost as if he were tracking his own features in a mirror, unable to recognize them.
—I can’t imagine the pressure, she said, resting her head on his chest. Listening to his heart thrumming against her ear.
She felt him shrug in her arms.
—Is it a man or a woman? she asked.
Nick stepped back, out of her arms. Looked closely at her again. —Who?
—The new client.
—Man.
—Big speech issues?
He shrugged again.—Too early to tell yet. He turned to the sink again, shoulders thrust back.—Shouldn’t be a problem, though.
—At least not for you, she said lightly, and walked to the stove. She pushed the chicken into the oven.
He stared at the potato in his hand.—This one might take a little time. He’s got this very messed-up past, and he has trouble communicating.
—Well, thank God you’re there, right? she said.—Chicken’s in, so you better move it with those potatoes.
Nick watched her adjusting the heat on the oven, finally smiled.
—You look pretty tonight, he said.
Katie raised one eyebrow at him.—Just tonight? she said.—What about last night? Or the night before that?
He shook his head at her, finally grinned.—Idiot, he said, and reached for her.
Just before bed, as Katie brushed her teeth over the sink, she suddenly felt Nick’s hands on her hips. It unnerved her sometimes, the way he would sneak up on her like this, but there was comfort, too—this need for her, the way it would come so unexpectedly. The understanding between them that she was always ready for him. His thumbs pushed against her lower back, bending her forward. She rested her elbows on the sink, her toothbrush still in one hand, and Nick lifted her night-gown and hooked his fingers onto her panties. He pulled them down to mid-leg, and Katie waited for him to kiss her neck, to cup her breasts in both hands or run his
tongue between her shoulder blades. Instead he drove himself at her, missing, and then again, until he was inside her. Katie gripped the toothbrush to stop from screaming out in pain.
—Nick, she said, or thought she said. When he didn’t answer, she tried to pivot away, but Nick’s hands tightened on her hips, holding her in place. She watched him behind her in the mirror, his closed eyes, the look of intense concentration on his face.
—Katie.
She smiled and slumped over all the way, moved in time with him. Listened to her name, his need for her. His voice shaping her body.
7
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do,” Katie says to Richard after the lunch break. “You want me to act for the jurors?”
“No, of course not,” Richard says, placing a comforting hand on her arm.
They’re standing near the bathrooms opposite the courtroom, bodies huddled in consultation. Over Richard’s shoulder Katie sees Veronica walk inside, followed closely by Daniel.
“But you know how important your reaction will be when Agent Fortier shows it to them,” he tells her. “Think how it will affect these jurors.”
“But I don’t know how—I don’t think I can pull it off.”
“Okay, well, there are ways to get into this. Think about when you were a kid and you’d react so strongly to what an actor was going through on the screen, how you’d really feel—”
Katie takes a quick step back. “Who told you that?”
“No one.” For a split second, Richard looks guilty, like he’s accidentally discovered something about Katie he shouldn’t know. “But don’t all kids do that? Get lost in the main character of a book, or even in a cartoon animal from a movie? And then experience the same emotions?”
Katie eyes him warily. “I guess so.”
“But I’m not asking you to act or even pretend here. I just know that sometimes it might feel like all of this isn’t real anymore, and it’s easy to lose some of what actually happened and the natural emotions that go along with it due to this long process. And we have to find ways to get ourselves back into it—”
“I haven’t forgotten Nick once in this. I’ve never stepped outside of it, not once.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, pressing her arm again. “Of course you haven’t.”
“If I do this, then it will be real.”
“Look, Katie, I’ve counted on you for so much, and maybe it isn’t fair to ask you to really put yourself back in that moment.”
“I’ve been inside that gym every day since this trial began,” she says. “Every moment of every day since Nick died.”
“So—”
“So if it happens, it will be real.”
The CSI agent, a hefty bald man with a perfectly groomed goatee, blows air into the opening of two surgical gloves and snaps them onto his hands. He waits for Richard, who is in deep consultation with Detective Mason at the right side of the room. The two men talk quietly, surrounded by cardboard boxes marked LAPLANTE EVIDENCE.
“Mr. Bellamy?” Judge Hwang prompts.
Richard nods and accepts a small manila envelope from Detective Mason. He walks over to Agent Fortier, hands it off. “Do you recognize that envelope, Agent Fortier?”
“I do.”
“And would you identify it for us?”
“The label has my initials on it right here,” the agent says, pointing with a gloved finger, “and it reads that it contains a hair sample.”
Agent Fortier confirms that he was the one who collected it from the crime scene and then sent it to the Warwick Police Department, who in turn sent it to SBI for testing.
“Would you open it, please, and confirm that the label and contents match up?”
Agent Fortier tears open the top, pulls out a small plastic envelope that looks empty. Holds it up to the jurors, confirming that it is Jerry’s hair sample, taken from the scene.
Richard treks across the room and returns with envelope after envelope, a steady stream of evidence the CSI agent gathered at the scene. At first there isn’t much interest on the jurors’ faces: the agent pulls out a letter, another hair sample, the broken doorknob from the shed behind the Warwick Center. But even the jurors are able to read Richard’s movements now—when he strides purposefully across the room with a large envelope in his hands, they sit up straight, suddenly attentive.
Up until this point, Agent Fortier shook each envelope until the contents settled at the bottom, then carefully tore off the top. This time he pulls a knife out of his front pocket and snaps it: a long blade scissors out with a loud click. The heavy woman in the front row gasps, then flushes; she hides her embarrassed laugh behind her notepad. Agent Fortier shakes the envelope, slices the top open. He pulls out a rolled-up shirt.
“And what is that?”
“This is Nicholas Burrelli’s shirt.” He holds it up, and the cloth unfurls. Dark brown stains saturate the thick collar, bleed into the entire top half.
Katie’s eyes travel all over the shirt—the last piece of clothing Nick ever wore—and wraps her arms around herself.
“And is this shirt in the same shape today as when you took it into custody on May fifth?”
“Yes.”
“And was this in your exclusive care, custody, and control from the time you collected it until you turned it over to the Warwick Police Department?”
“Yes.”
The shirt still held high, he explains the staining process, the chemical investigation from SBI, the DNA testing. That the blood is Nick’s.
A few minutes later, there is only silence as Richard stands with Detective Mason near the boxes, consulting. The jurors stretch forward when Detective Mason hands Richard a medium-size envelope. Richard crinkles it inside his hands as he slowly makes his way across the room.
Agent Fortier slices open the envelope, pulls out a clear plastic bag. Inside, a small .22 revolver.
“Will you take it out of the plastic bag, sir?”
Agent Fortier pulls it out, holds up the small gun in both gloved hands.
It looks like a toy, Richard had said earlier, outside the courtroom. I don’t think it will have the punch we need. Maybe . . .
I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do.
“Will you let the jurors get a better look?” Richard asks the agent.
Agent Fortier rises, holds up the gun. He walks past the jurors, and a few half rise out of their seats to see it. When he gets to the end of the row he turns slightly in Katie’s direction, and Katie half rises, too. She stares at the gun, and then her hands slowly come up to cover her mouth. She nods at Agent Fortier, sits down with a long, shaky exhale. Feels the jurors’ eyes on her, stares at her lap.
As she keeps her eyes trained on her folded hands, she wonders what Richard’s face looks like right now—what his reaction is. She wonders if what she just did was for him or if it was real. Wonders if, by the time the trial is over, she’ll be able to tell the difference.
Donna stays seated at the table for her questioning, her forearm touching Jerry’s. Jerry has a pencil in his hand, the pad in front of him, but his eyes seem to be fighting sleep; his lids droop, snap open, flutter again.
“Part of your job is to take photos of the crime scene?” she asks Agent Fortier.
“Yes.”
“Once you book and fingerprint a suspect, I understand that sometimes you also take additional photos. Can you explain this to the jurors?”
Agent Fortier turns to the jurors. “If the suspect has tattoos, or any distinguishing marks, we take photos of them and keep them on file.”
Donna glances at Jerry, pushes her arm into his before she rises. Jerry, well trained by now, pulls the pad in front of him and stares at it. But his lips begin to move slightly.
“And did you take any such photos of my client after his arrest?”
“I photographed some scars on his body.”
Donna picks up a folder on her desk, walks it over to Richard; he flips through the
photos inside, nods at Donna, hands the folder back.
“Your Honor, the defense would like to admit Exhibits One through Nine.”
While the court reporter tags each photo, Donna checks on Jerry. She turns away immediately, touches her hair, fusses with the sleeve of her suit jacket. The jurors watch her nervous movements, their faces curious, but it isn’t the photos that provoke Donna into action. Back at the defense table, Jerry’s lips move faster, his face wrinkling up like he’s arguing with himself. A woman in the front row finally notices and scoots over to him. She talks softly to him, discreetly pulls something out of her pocket. Pours water into a small cup, hands the cup to him, and then places what Katie assumes is a pill in his palm.
Donna carries the stack to the overhead projector. She places the first one on the glass. The TV screen fills with a close shot of Jerry’s torso—three bumpy scars, about two inches long, stretch across his stomach in a neat row.
“What is this we’re looking at?”
“These are three scars on the defendant’s torso,” Agent Fortier says.
Donna removes the photo, places another one on the glass: a shot of Jerry’s leg, revealing six circular white indented scars.
“And this one?” she says in a soft voice.
“These are scars on his left calf.”
“These are burn marks on Jerry’s leg?”
“Objection. Agent Fortier isn’t a scar expert.”
“Sustained.”
“Okay,” Donna says, tapping the glass. “Did you ask Jerry how he got these marks?”
“Objection. Relevance.”
“Overruled.”
“He said his mother burned him with a cigarette,” Agent Fortier says, “because he was bad.”
“Objection, Your Honor. I don’t see how scars from over thirty-seven years ago have anything at all to do with the murder of Nick Burrelli six months ago.”
“Overruled.”
One by one, Donna places the photographs on the glass, and Agent Fortier identifies them.
Lies of the Heart Page 19
