“Ah, yes. But outward things cannot replace inner strength. You said it yourself: They are things. Good things, yes, with graces attached to their use, but things, all the same. They have to be used right, as a means to help us increase our faith, not substitute for it. They’re not magical.”
“I know that.”
“And yet,” she continued, unruffled by my sharp retort, “you expect these things to make your problems disappear, like magic.”
She shook her head, her blue veil wafting. “My dear, my dear, I was just like you. I thought if I was good enough, careful enough, followed all the rules, God would surely reward me by answering my prayers. And every time something bad happened to me, I thought it was punishment for some sin. I felt I couldn’t win.”
Yes. My mouth began to drop open, and I shut it.
“Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that we’re not meant to ‘win.’ We’re not playing a game with God. He knows what He’s doing with us, and we have to trust Him. What can I say?” She spread her palms. “There are no easy answers. We won’t understand God’s ways till we get to heaven. That’s why we need faith.”
“Faith,” I muttered. “Just when I think I have it, something happens to prove me wrong.”
“Yes, that’s just the way of the world. You have to pray every day to keep strong. And God knows we’ll both need to keep strong in these coming days . . .”
Surveying her, I thought, She looks anything but strong. Worn out, weak, decrepit. And yet her soul, her faith, they were strong. That’s all that really matters.
“But I didn’t come here to give you a sermon,” she said, rising carefully, “and I’m sorry if I have.”
“That’s all right.” As I stood to help her, I suddenly realized I didn’t want her to go. “Please, won’t you stay a little longer and help me eat some of this cake?”
Her eyes smiled. “I’d love to.”
After she left, I prayed, climbed into bed, and continued thinking about all she had said, until I drifted off into a nightmare-free sleep.
But the following days in court were nightmarish enough to make up for it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The prosecuting attorney, a cement-haired man named Gauntley, spoke to a full courtroom. “I call Charlene Perigard to the witness stand.”
My dreaded cue.
Feeling all eyes on me, including Max’s, I rose and walked over the diamond-patterned carpet to the dark wooden witness box, my heart buzzing like a cicada trapped in my chest. The bailiff, a bald-headed man, brought the Bible to me. “Please raise your right hand.”
I did so, and there was a ripple of reaction from the onlookers as they saw the cross scarring my palm.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
The “I do” froze in my throat. I was back in the bitter cold depths beneath the cabin, in the midst of a satanic wedding ceremony.
“Say, ‘I do,’” Abner growled.
The bailiff cleared his throat. “Ms. Perigard?”
I blinked myself back to the moment, touched my throat, where I felt the faintest thread of a scar, and swallowed. He’s gone. Abner’s gone, and he can’t hurt me anymore. I pulled my hand away from my throat. But he’s still hurting Clay, and I have to stop him.
“I do.”
I clasped my hands together, looked steadily at Gauntley, and waited for his first question.
“Please state your full name for the record,” he directed.
“Charlene Elizabeth Perigard.”
“Ms. Perigard, please begin by describing your first encounter with the defendant, including the date and location.”
I took a moment to collect my thoughts and words. Looking out at the sea of faces, I saw Clay’s mom, a pale waif of a woman, a pastel pink scarf swathed softly about her head.
“It was a Sunday,” I began, “December twenty-eighth of last year. I was lost in some woods up north, outside of Cedar Hills, after being run off the road by Abner Morrow. He chased me and was yelling at me, threatening me, and I managed to lose him, but then he found me at the cabin and he—”
“Thank you, Ms. Perigard,” Gauntley cut in, “but you need to stay on track.”
“I am,” I shot back. “You said to describe what happened, and this is important.”
“I’m only interested in hearing about the defendant,” Gauntley said firmly, “not his brother.”
“But it’s his brother who’s the guilty one—not Clay. Abner was pure evil, a maniac. You have to hear the whole story.” My voice rose to a strange pitch. “You have no idea!”
“Please, Ms. Perigard, contain yourself.”
“No!” I realized I was shaking, but my mouth just kept moving. “I can’t be quiet anymore. The court needs to hear the truth. The whole concept of this trial is ridiculous! It—”
“Ms. Perigard,” Judge Whitman cut in, a warning.
I glared at Gauntley.
“Your Honor,” Gauntley said, “I’d like to request permission to treat Ms. Perigard as a hostile witness.”
Mortified, I stopped glaring and shrank in my seat. My cheeks burned. What in the world had I been thinking to create such a scene in court? Sounding like a hysterical, irrational person would not help Clay’s case.
“Counsel for both sides,” Judge Whitman said, “please approach the bench.”
My ears roared with rushing blood, so I only heard snatches of the quiet discussion being carried on before the judge.
“. . . evident that this witness . . . defensive,” Gauntley said. “. . . clearly prejudiced . . .”
Clay’s public defender lawyer, a thin red-head named Pharris, said something in return, but I couldn’t hear him at all.
The judge, however, I heard loud and clear as he officially declared me a hostile witness.
With something like a smug smile on his face, Gauntley returned to my side and picked up where he had left off. “Please describe your first encounter with the defendant.”
This time when I spoke, I was careful to keep my tone subdued. “It was evening. I was freezing and lost in the woods. I spotted someone walking through the trees, and it was Clay, on his way back from ice fishing.” My eyes forgot the room crammed with people, and landed on Clay’s face. His expression was intent, but impersonal. His mouth remained in a firm line. I wished I could see him smile.
“Ms. Perigard?”
I snapped back to attention. “Yes?”
“Did he approach you?”
“No, I called out to him.”
“How did you end up in the cabin?”
“He brought me to it.”
“I see.” Gauntley’s tone told me he saw something I didn’t. “Did you pause to think that this strange man might not have had noble intentions?”
My face flushed.
“Objection,” put in Pharris. “Calls for an opinion, not fact.”
“Sustained,” the judge said.
Unperturbed, Gauntley resumed. “So you went with the defendant, alone and willingly?”
“Yes.” My hands clamped together painfully. “I had no choice. I was freezing, lost. It was snowing so heavily, and getting dark. I needed shelter. I thought I could call for help from the cabin.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There wasn’t a phone.”
“Tell me what happened next.”
“Clay’s brother, Abner, came home. I recognized the truck and tried to escape, but Abner caught me.”
“You were forced into a cold, underground prison, and locked up, correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“You were subsequently forced to watch your brother get his toe cut off, correct?”
“Yes, but Clay didn’t do it. He—”
“He didn’t stop it, though, did he?”
“Objection!” Pharris said. “Counsel isn’t giving the witness a chance to finish answerin
g.”
“Sustained.” The judge gave me a nod. “Continue, Ms. Perigard.”
I swallowed. “Clay was tied up when that—the toe—” I cringed “—happened.”
Gauntley nodded. “You and your brother were locked back up after this incident, but the defendant was not, correct?”
“Yes, but . . .” I shot a desperate look at Pharris, wishing he could help me in some way other than objecting. As Gauntley continued, reigning me in and redirecting me to suit the prosecution’s case, I knew I was doing a horrible job. I was barely able to say anything in Clay’s defense.
* * *
The one bright spot in the long hours of court, was that Max had made it home, and I had someone on my side to talk to at the end of each weary day.
Max’s time on the stand was no more promising than mine had been.
Back at my apartment that evening, heat raged through me, and I vented to Max. “Gauntley’s picking us apart, making us seem so traumatized that we’re incompetent.”
“I know, I can’t wait for this to be over, but we’ve gotta hang in there. We owe it to Clay. He doesn’t deserve this.” Then Max tried to cheer me up with talk of the future. He had achieved the magic success on stage that he’d hoped for, he and Wayne were now in demand, and it didn’t look like money was going to be an issue for him any longer.
I stared at Max, the brightness of the future he described hovering just out of my reach. When he asked, “What kind of house should we get?”, I shook my head and massaged my temples.
“I can’t think about anything else right now. Not with this trial going on.”
He put an arm around me. “I know. I wish you and Clay were both free. I think . . . you’d be good for each other.”
* * *
The next day when I picked up my paycheck at the college library, I was summoned to the dean’s office.
This is highly irregular, I thought suspiciously as I entered his large, orderly office. A gnawing deep in my stomach told me that now with all the trial coverage, maybe the college didn’t want me working for them anymore. I’m bad publicity.
I waited nervously, but the dean looked up and smiled at me from under his bronze mustache. “Sit down, Charlene,” he said kindly before introducing himself as Dean Rowland. Instead of firing me, he said, “I’ve been told you are a very good worker, and I have a proposal for you. I’d like to offer you a full four-year scholarship to our fine college. We would be honored if you’d accept.”
I blushed. “But—but why?” I stuttered, taken completely off-guard. “I didn’t even apply for a—”
He shook his head. “That’s not always necessary. We keep our eyes and ears open for worthy candidates. Simply put, the Scholarship Association and I believe you deserve it, that you would work hard, and that you would make good use of it. Now, there is a condition attached: You’ll need to keep your grades up. Do you think you can do that, Charlene?”
“Yes.” Bewilderment gave way to wonder. “Yes, I would work very hard. I would be extremely grateful. But—I just don’t know if I should accept.” Suddenly, I felt like I was once more in front of Helen from church, being offered charity that I didn’t deserve.
“And why not?”
Because I don’t want it because you feel sorry for me. I don’t want to be a charity case. “I don’t think I deserve it.”
His eyes registered understanding. “Take it. You deserve it. And we’d be proud to have you as a student.”
A new thought struck me. “But my brother,” I began. “He’ll probably be able to put me through school. So there’s really no reason—”
“Yes, there is,” he cut in. “We’re aware of your brother’s situation, but we want to do this. For you.” He held out a fat white envelope, and it found my hand.
“You may not know it, young lady, but you’ve got a lot of people rooting for you.”
Something like tears gathered in the back of my throat. “Thank you,” I managed before turning away, the precious envelope clasped in my hands.
Not all the world is bad, after all.
* * *
Back in court, Gauntley continued his merciless tactics. I shared my concerns with Pharris. “This is all wrong. There’s not enough focus given to Abner and his part in all this—he was the mastermind, the one who made us all suffer.”
“It’s not his trial,” Pharris said.
“But Gauntley seems to think that by showing that Max and I were tortured and almost killed, it’s all Clay’s fault. It’s illogical.”
“The trial’s not over yet.” Pharris then promised me that our time would come. Once the prosecution was through with presenting their side, Pharris would put us on the stand to testify as witnesses in Clay’s defense.
Still, I worried.
The prosecution gave an impressive presentation of evidence. The ransom note was shown as Exhibit #1. The wicked metal pruners were Exhibit #2.
In addition, enough disturbing pictures were shown to fill a grisly photo album. The vivid pictures included Max’s severed toe; his foot minus the toe; my scarred palm, finger, and neck; our dark prison; and two gaping graves in the cellar. The prosecution even showed highly unflattering pictures of me and Max right after our escape—pitiful pictures I didn’t even remember being taken.
But the prosecution’s prized piece of evidence was more disturbingly effective than any still picture could ever be; it was the video that had been sent to Grandfather.
It was about to be shared with the world.
I’d known this was coming. Pharris had been given a copy of the video as part of the legal discovery process long before trial, but I still wasn’t ready.
For this special feature, a giant screen was brought into the courtroom. I felt like I had front-and-center seats in a movie theater premiering the worst horror movie ever, with me as the unfortunate star.
Static specks snowed onscreen for a few moments before a dark hooded, masked figure appeared.
Abner is back.
I trembled in my seat.
Abner’s red eyeballs looked out from the screen and seared into me. He spoke in a slow, raspy voice. “Greetings, Mr. Perigard. It has now been five days since you received the first ransom note, three since you received Max’s special package . . . and you’ve still failed to meet my reasonable demands. I warned you about involving the police, but you ignored me. Big mistake, old man. This is your last chance, your last warning.” He paused.
“Perhaps your cold heart is not swayed by your grandson. Therefore, this time, I’m going to use your granddaughter.” Abner made a sweeping gesture toward me.
There I was, back in the nightmare, bound to the chair. In real-time, as well as on film, my breathing became labored and sweat trickled from my forehead.
Abner continued. “Perhaps your granddaughter’s screams will persuade you to finally cooperate. If not, this is the last you will ever see of her. And now . . . on with the show.” He opened the stove door and stuck the black branding iron inside.
As it heated up, he circled around me, chanting eerily in Latin while, onscreen, I twisted in my bonds. Now in court, I twisted in my seat. Why didn’t I just close my eyes against this wretched rerun, cover my ears? But it was as if I was bound once more.
Abner removed the glowing red-hot iron from the fire.
He brought it toward me. Onscreen, I started screaming.
In court, I stuffed my fist in my mouth as I watched the brander pushed onto my palm. Once, then once more. Suddenly, the scene shook, flipped, and disappeared from sight with a rattling bang.
Clay dropping the camera, I recalled.
When things steadied, the screen showed only a dark shadowy blur as the camera lens focused on nothing. My screams could be heard, though only faintly, before Gauntley switched the film off. Then there was only stunned courtroom silence.
* * *
The third witness whom the prosecution called to the bench was none other than Grandfather, who didn�
��t have anything of much worth to say, but he sure thought he did. After answering predictable questions (about me, Max, the ransom, and the video), he began spouting off about how it was all a conspiracy, and Max and I were probably in on the scheme from the start, and that’s why we wouldn’t go against Clay now.
“Silence!” Judge Whitman ordered. “I will not allow such wild and irrelevant opinions and accusations. You will stick to answering the questions, or I will have you removed from my courtroom. Is that clear?”
Grandfather looked like he wanted to shoot the judge, but he replied in the affirmative. I heaved a sigh of relief when he stepped down from the bench.
Other witnesses the prosecution called included Detective Donnelly and the officer who had visited the cabin the night of our escape. Pharris had the chance to cross-examine each man when the prosecution was through, but it seemed like a waste of time to me. So many of the questions and answers seemed so irrelevant to the main issue of Clay’s innocence.
Why do they call them “witnesses?” I wondered indignantly. What do they know? They weren’t there to see any of it.
* * *
“The prosecution calls Robert Crew to the witness stand.”
It took me a few moments to register who this latest witness was. Then I saw Rob, wearing a suit and polished black shoes, walk confidently up to the witness box and be sworn in. Max and I exchanged glances, wondering what in the world Rob would say. Would it help us, or would it hurt us? Knowing Rob’s allegiance to Grandfather, I feared the latter.
Gauntley began. “You are employed by Mr. Perigard, correct?”
“Actually, no,” Rob announced coolly and clearly. “I was, but as of now, I’m giving my resignation. Mr. Perigard wanted me to swear that he took this kidnapping seriously from the start, but nothing could be further from the truth. He even had me switch out the ransom money for counterfeit.”
“Why, you—you—” Grandfather sputtered, rising from his seat. “You can’t quit—you’re fired! And furthermore—”
Frozen Footprints Page 26
