by Roger Bray
“… with every best intention toward the prosecution see any aggravation in this, and I think that even first degree is pushing it.”
So straight out murder first or second it was, they tried to push Alex into a plea bargain.
“We know there was a lot of tension and anger on both sides. Alex, we can see that, a bit of a push, it was an accident wasn’t it. There’s no need for you to ruin your life over a stupid moment when you couldn’t control yourself.
“We’ll do you a favor here, Alex, forget the death penalty, that was only me grandstanding,” Scott cajoled him.
“You know how it is, there’s an election coming up so I'm pushing hard, but I don’t want you to suffer any more, I know you loved her and it was a mistake. A stupid moment.”
The District Attorney (DA) tried to be comforting and fatherly to an incredulous Alex.
“You didn’t mean for that to happen I know that, that’s manslaughter not murder. If you tell us where her body is, I promise you that you’ll get fifteen years maximum and you will be out in ten, maybe a bit sooner if you show real contrition. Come on Alex, you’ll still be quite young, young enough to start over.”
There was a major sticking point to that plan and Alex had refused again as he had tried to tell them over and over he couldn’t plea bargain and he couldn’t tell the prosecution where Hazel’s body was because he didn’t know. He didn’t know because he hadn’t killed her, and that was his defense from the start.
He had not killed his wife; he would not have killed his wife regardless of whatever the prosecution might say. He would not plead guilty to something he hadn’t done.
The DA had thrown his hands in the air as though Alex had foolishly refused the deal of the century and the death penalty was, in the mind of the prosecutor at least, for a short time, back on the table while the prosecution pushed hard to try to build the best case they could on the flimsy evidence they had and concentrated on getting the murder charge to stick.
Which was probably why Alex was still at the penitentiary because of his insistence on his innocence.
Prisons are full of innocent people, most of the prisoners will certainly tell you that they are innocent, but in his case, his sister wholeheartedly believed him. Even if he’d pleaded guilty, she would have supported him—he was her big brother she would be there for him. A guilty plea would have made both of their lives easier. A shorter sentence in a better prison would have helped him and he would have had the chance of an earlier parole. If the prison was closer to Eugene, it would have helped her with the miserable trip each week.
Of course, she would have still supported him had he pleaded guilty, but she knew him to be an honest man who had loved his wife and the life they had had together, even if the last few months had been rocky; but if he said he had not done it, that he had not done anything to Hazel, then she believed him.
But now as she stirred her coffee she knew the look of despair and resignation that she would see when she visited Alex the following morning. Protestations of innocence didn’t change the fact that Alex was in jail, innocent or not, he was in Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) and not likely to get out any time soon.
His latest and probably last appeal had failed. No new evidence and therefore no chance of a retrial, his lawyers had given up, the pro-life lawyers were not interested because there was no advertising mileage in a non-death sentence case. According to the decision makers, he'd had a fair trial.. After all this they thought maybe he would roll over, admit his guilt and, in time, get a lighter regime than that he was currently suffering in Salem.
Overcrowded, one-man cells now holding two and a maximum-security regime for a man who was less likely to be a threat to someone else than anyone she knew. She had shed enough tears, before the trial and during it, afterward when the verdict came down, not unanimous so she had some hope, but guilty nevertheless. She had lost count of the tearful nights she had spent at home, alone, after each appeal. At times when the whole damn thing had caught up with her when she was not prepared for it, when it had caught her, three generous glasses of whiskey in, half expecting but always still unawares and unprepared for the wave of hopelessness and self-pity that she felt on those lonely nights.
What people didn’t realize was that her life had fallen apart as well. She and Alex had inherited their parent’s house in which she now lived after her own marriage had fallen apart, as the trials and appeals dragged on. It would have been too easy to blame all that for her relationship collapsing but her husband, Brian, ten years her senior, had of course, been as shocked as her that her brother had been charged and professed his unwavering belief in his innocence. He may have been unwavering, but he didn’t have the stamina to see through the slow process of justice, good or bad; she suspected that the marriage wasn’t that strong anyway, certainly not strong enough to stand up against the whirlwind that was approaching.
Brian had got her through the trial and the first appeal, but by the second his interest in Alex and his innocence were gone, along with any interest he might still have in Alice. Their sex life had pretty much stopped while the jury was out on its seven days of deliberations and any libido that she may have had before went down as the tension and stress levels went up.
And her libido and any pretense at sexual attraction disappeared completely with the guilty verdict which meant that the stress and tension became a permanent fixture in her life.
Alex’s lawyers wavered as the time the jury was spending in deliberations increased and they became unsure if it was good or bad and swapped between the two constantly. It became increasingly difficult and no one could pick a possible outcome and by the evening of day four of the sequestration they had all given up trying. When seeking clarification from the judge the couple of questions the foreman had asked gave no indication as to the jury’s intentions, except the request for a definition of what a non-unanimous verdict would entail.
Judge Prindle had called the jury back into the court and had instructed them that, under Oregon statute, an eleven to one or a ten to two verdict was acceptable, but anything less than ten would result in a mistrial. As this was a murder trial the jury’s job was made a little harder, and they had to get an eleven to one result. The jury foreman, a blue-collar worker, who Alice had thought she recognized from somewhere, looked crestfallen and a little worried but nodded his thanks toward the bench as the jury were returned to their own little prison.
Twelve hours later, after a cross examination by the judge, the foreman admitted that an eleven to one majority was as close to unanimous as the jury were going to come in reaching a verdict this side of Thanksgiving, so the judge, reluctantly Alice thought, accepted their decision.
And there it was; the decision was in, Alex Reed, guilty of second degree murder.
A few faces on the jury looked as though they were unhappy with the verdict and at least one of them had been so opposed that they had voted it down, but the others had been persuaded or browbeaten into agreeing or, were so sick of the proceedings that they had gone along with the majority and were now bowing their heads in shame, or so Alice liked to think as she looked across the double row of jurors and found it difficult to get one of them to hold her gaze for more than a moment.
Even Judge Prindle seemed a little surprised at the guilty result and adjourned the court for pre-sentencing reports to be delivered in one month, before he would pass sentence.
When sentencing did finally come down Alex was past it, he didn’t care anymore and seemed to be disinterested in the proceedings. Whether it was life with no parole, life with parole, twenty-five years to life, what did it matter to him? He was going to jail for something he hadn’t done, and that was the end as far as he was concerned. Alice saw the start of the slow collapse of her brother.
From his initial disbelief and protestations of innocence he had had little to say beyond saying that he didn’t do it and he had no idea what had happened to Hazel, but how was he going to prove i
t, how do you prove a negative? And through it all, he was given little opportunity to mourn a woman that he loved with all his heart.
The prosecution’s case had all been this had happened, then this, then this while the defense case was only, no, it didn’t.
The whole prosecution was based on conjecture with some small amount of little real evidence backed up by some dubious circumstantial evidence and a passionate closing address by the DA, the defense case was based on words, mainly “no”, and lacked any real kind of rebuttal, certainly, it transpired, in the eyes of a majority of the jury. There was no evidence the defense could put forward, no alibi that Alex could offer, he had been at home, alone. At the time the prosecution said he was murdering his wife, in their marital home, he had indeed been there. But she hadn’t, and neither had anyone who could prove it. No neighbors, no friends, no family popping in at the right time. Brian and Alice had spent a lot of time with her brother anyway, Alex and Alice worked together and saw each other every day, and Brian, to his credit, had said that they should make sure Alex was coping. They spent a lot of time together, but not that night, not the one goddamned night that would have made all the difference, but knowing Hazel was going to see Alex, they had decided to give them space to talk and try to sort out the mess their marriage had inexplicably turned into. There would be time enough for them to catch up the next morning. Unbeknownst to them all until a few days later, the next day was already too late and DA was already planning to charge Alex with murder.
The trial had come and gone quickly. A couple of months between Alex’s arrest and conviction, followed by the first appeal; no new evidence so no new trial. The third appeal was also in her past along with Brian, who had found a new partner in a shapely blond thing that worked in his real estate office. Alice suspected that he had been banging her for a long time before he had finally asked for a divorce and they had formally split up. Now their divorce was finalized, she had received the last of the documents in the mail a couple of months earlier, she realized that she no longer cared.
At first, she hadn’t blamed him, she understood the pressure of the legal hurdles and incessant publicity, but also the detrimental affect having a convicted murderer in the family, could have on his business. He had spent years building it up and now it was starting to slip away from him. So, she understood, at first, but then she went back to blaming him and hating him all over again for, as she saw it, by leaving when she was at her lowest, he was showing how weak he was, and he was not giving her the support she needed.
In the end, her emotions circled back to an understanding that she was being unfair to him and she decided that she had enough emotions going through her and hate was simply another one that she didn’t need in her life, so she’d signed the papers, nodded in agreement to the proposed breakup and moved on.
Emotionally she moved on, she didn’t blame Brian any more, she never had if she was being honest and she had actually felt relief when the divorce had finalized. Not relief that the marriage was over, she actually felt a little regret over that, but relief that the hurt had ended, that they didn’t need to bicker with one another anymore, their relationship had a line drawn under it and they could stop hurting each other.
She stirred her coffee again, lifting the spoon to check for unabsorbed sugar, satisfied at finding none, she took a sip while she determined how she would tell her brother that the appeal process was over, and his lawyer had pretty much told her, “Don’t ring us, we’ll ring you.”
Alice knew this was her life for the next twenty or so years; the hour drive up the interstate to Salem and OSP to see him once or twice a week, but she supposed his life was a lot worse than that, at least when the visit was over she could walk out and get in her car and drive away. He would walk a slow shambling walk back to some common area within the prison to while away another day before lock-down. He was thirty-six, with good behavior he could maybe hope to be out a couple of years short of sixty, she was thirty-four and had now resigned herself to living a spinster’s life, in her parent’s old house and forever destined to be a murderer’s sister. She laughed quietly but without humor, maybe she should buy a cat and call it Lizzy Borden or something suitably murderous to reflect her new reality.
One of the most frustrating things was she couldn’t blame anyone for the whole mess.
Could she blame her brother?
If he had killed Hazel then yes, for sure, if he had forced her into a situation where she had got herself murdered, left her on a country road after she had got out of the car after another pointless argument. If he had driven away and left her there to be abducted and murdered, he would have blamed himself for the rest of his life but, even in those circumstances, Alice would have still found it difficult to blame her brother.
Neither of those things had actually happened, Alex had not killed Hazel. Alice had known that to be true from the start, but she was even more sure of it now after the paucity of evidence the prosecution were able to offer, and he hadn’t left her, alone and abandoned where she could come to harm. Alex was as blameless as it was possible to be in these circumstances. The only way he could have stopped what had happened might have been to lock her up in the basement, but he hadn’t done that either.
Hazel herself? Well, if she was dead, and that particular fact seemed certain as she’d had ample opportunity to reappear and hadn’t, but supposing she was, Alice considered it a little unfair to blame her sister-in-law for getting herself murdered. That she might have put herself into that unfortunate position there seemed to be no doubt but, she had not asked for it and she had certainly not deserved it either, putting herself into a bad situation and someone else doing something to her were still two completely different things.
Alex and Hazel’s marriage had definitely hit a rough patch, but rough not rocks and Alex was sure, and Alice believed him, that given time they would have resolved their differences and come out of it in a stronger relationship. Alice knew that, given time and without interference, it would have been much stronger than her own, which she had considered being quite strong, but then, she thought wryly, what the hell did she know about relationships? Nothing apparently, as the divorce papers in her kitchen drawer could attest.
Her marriage to Brian hadn’t been given a chance to recover. For that fact she could and did certainly blame Hazel, and, even herself to some degree, but for the main part Alice fixed the blame on Nicholas Rowe, a forty something dot-com millionaire who had a big house west of Eugene and a big ego to go along with it and his collection of imported cars.
She could have kicked herself. It was all there to be seen, but she had missed it completely. Probably because her own marriage at the time was going through the slow decline that she mistook for familiarity and normalcy, and that she and Brian seemed each other’s company rather than embrace it, seemed normal to her at the time. A clash of schedules with her and Alex working together, Brian’s business taking up so much of his time and energy, he worked so hard that he was exhausted when he came home.
In hindsight Alice now knew that Brian was spending more and more time building his business; but what was taking up most of his time and energy, leaving him exhausted was a blond secretary, not the business pressures.
But she had missed all of that, probably willfully, she admitted later, turning a blind eye to her own impending domestic disaster, she considered Alex and Hazel’s situation to be similar, complacency rather than any actual problem. Friendship and courtship followed by marriage had been over ten years then, with what had happened a few months earlier it was only to be expected that they were a little jaded in each other’s company. Not that Alice understood then what was going on with Hazel. She hadn’t realized until later, and how was she expected to understand, even Hazel admitted that she didn’t understand, even when it was happening.
When Alice and Hazel had gone out to one of Eugene’s quiet little bars it had seemed like a good chance to spend some time away from their respe
ctive spouses, guilt free and the only intention being some innocent fun. When Rowe swept in offering them drinks and witty conversation, they had both been bemused and even flattered by the attentions of this known playboy around town. Neither of them had been taken in by him though, or so Alice thought at the time. She and Hazel were both married and for their problems, both still loved their husbands. A few nights out at a couple of different bars, they ran into Rowe a couple more times and he always seemed charming and funny, but not particularly interested in either one of them.
It was only later, when Hazel started making excuses for not meeting her and the situation came to a head when she was caught out lying to Alex and Alice, saying she was with Alice to Alex, while crying off meeting Alice, did she finally admit she was seeing Rowe. Seeing and in fact, sorry, Alex, leaving with Rowe.
The real irony of the whole sorry saga for Alice was that she had been absolutely faithful to Brian who it turned out she didn’t love, while Hazel was being unfaithful to Alex who, according to Alex’s statement, she still loved.
Alice was staring idly at nothing over the rim of her coffee cup and was lost in these thoughts, which always forced her emotions onto a pointless roller coaster ride veering between anger and a deep sadness, a sad despair which generally finished as a spiral into a cold and familiar melancholy. So familiar now that it seemed more natural to her than any other mental state that she could consider. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the man talking to her, until his third or fourth attempt, which made her jump and drop her spoon onto the table.
Momentarily lost, her eyes refocused, and she looked up to see a man standing in front of her on the other side of the small table. He was quite tall, about 6 feet 2, slim, muscular build. He had short blond hair and a lovely smile which showed his natural and almost perfect teeth.
In one hand he held a coffee mug, and he held the palm of the other out facing her.
