Love's Verdict

by Carsen Taite

  “Respectfully, Your Honor, that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Carly said, offended at the accusation. “We all had a right to know more, to dig a little deeper. Mrs. Franklin had already demonstrated that she was willing to serve or she would have made a bigger deal out of her experience during our questioning of the panel. Ms. Wilhelm’s just lucky she didn’t bring it up then, or I bet we’d have even more jurors digging through past experiences for a way out. But being willing to serve doesn’t mean you get a free pass to sit in judgment when other factors point to an inability to set aside prejudice.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you, Ms. Pachett.” Grafton picked up her pen and made a note. “I’m removing juror number six for cause. She’ll be dismissed when the rest of the panel goes. Is thirty minutes long enough for you to make your picks?”

  They all agreed, and Judge Grafton and her court reporter left through the door behind the bench. The moment the door shut behind them, Donna motioned to her trial partner, Ed Barnes. “We’ll take the jury room,” she said. Without waiting for an answer, they took off toward the door in the front of the courtroom, by the jury box.

  “Where are we supposed to go?” Landon asked.

  “We usually stay in the courtroom,” Carly said. “This won’t take long.” She sat back down at the defense table and spread out her notes. “Let’s start with the first row.”

  Landon looked around, not keen on discussing which jurors they were going to strike in front of courthouse personnel, but the courtroom was fairly empty with the exception of the bailiff, who was busy helping other attorneys on the docket locate prisoners in the holdover. She slid into the seat next to Carly and set her notes on the table. Jane and Trevor sat on the end.

  Everyone called it “picking” a jury, but the people they “picked” were the ones they wanted to eliminate. Each side could strike ten jurors, but they did so blind, which meant they could foreseeably strike the same jurors as their opponents, effectively wasting a strike. It happened, but not a lot. Most of the time, they tried to anticipate which jurors the other side would want and strike those. The common result was that they wound up with a jury comprised of individuals neither side had engaged with much during voir dire, and therefore, didn’t know much about. The whole process was a gamble, but Landon had learned to trust her gut.

  Carly’s method looked a lot more intense. She was hunched over a cram-packed, color-coded chart full of symbols and abbreviations. Landon squinted as she tried to decipher the information. If a bus hit Carly, they’d be hard-pressed to figure out anything about her method.

  Carly looked up from her hieroglyphics and smiled. “Don’t try to understand, just trust that I know what I’m doing.” She pointed at the first square. “Juror number one. Mr. Bailey. No ties to law enforcement. A once in a while sports fan. He’s an engineer and his wife’s a CPA—both professions high on facts and low on emotion. He’ll want solid evidence from the prosecution, not wishy-washy emotions. Answered no to all the questions about whether he knows anyone who’s been the victim of domestic abuse which probably means no one confides in him or he tends not to believe such stories. Didn’t have a lot to say. I say he’s a keeper for us.”

  “Wow,” Trevor said. “You got all that from what went on in here? I could barely keep up with what everyone was saying, it went so fast.”

  Landon was impressed too, but she tempered her response. She was more of a feelings than facts person when it came to jury selection, but she couldn’t argue with Carly’s logic. What she could do was assert her own acumen before Carly stole the show. “I agree, but at this rate, we’re not going to finish in time. How about we all write down the ten jurors we’d each strike, and see which ones we have in common, and then discuss the rest?”

  After a few minutes of tallying their individual responses, they managed to agree on a list of ten strikes. Carly filled out the strike list and handed it to the bailiff with five minutes to spare. Landon decided to make a quick run to the restroom. When she walked through the double doors at the back of the courtroom, she ran into Shelby, who was pressed up against the window, looking into the courtroom.

  “Hi, Shelby.”

  “Hey. Can I go in now? I know you said there wouldn’t be room, but it’s practically empty in there now.”

  “The jurors will be back in a few minutes. We’re almost done with this part. When opening statements start, you can grab a seat. I’ll make sure and save you one in the first row.”

  “You’re a sweetheart.” Shelby pointed back toward the courtroom. “Do you know what they’re talking about?”

  Landon followed her gesture and peered through the window. Trevor and Carly were sitting super close with their heads together, both looking down at the table. Landon assumed they were both reading something, but in a different environment, it looked like two young lovers, snuggling close. She made a mental note to mention how it looked to Carly, but she knew her reaction was about more than just appearances. She felt a stab of jealousy at their closeness, and not because they might be talking about the case without her, but because she wanted to be sitting where Trevor was. “Probably talking about the case. We’ll start opening statements after lunch.”

  “You’re doing that part, right?”

  “Yes.” Landon was still sore about it. She thought she was much better suited for closing since that was the more on the fly part of the trial, tying up all the loose ends that had come up during testimony into a pretty package designed to sway the jury to their side. She’d argued the same to Jane.

  “Carly would be perfect for opening. She makes intricate outlines and she’s excellent at delivering facts.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I think my skills would be wasted on opening.”

  “And I think it’s a good idea to mix things up a bit. If each of you only plays to your strengths, how am I supposed to judge how flexible you can be?”

  Landon had started to say a high-profile case wasn’t the right venue for “mixing things up,” but she risked Jane kicking one of them off the case if she pushed too hard. She’d deliver the most incredible opening statement ever, but she didn’t have to be happy about it.

  “How long?”

  Landon stared at Shelby, certain she’d missed a piece of the conversation. “What?”

  “How long until things get started?”

  “Probably another forty-five minutes. The judge will call the panel back in, and they’ll seat the jury and swear them in. The prosecutor will read the Indictment, and the judge will ask for Trevor’s plea.” Landon looked at her watch. “She’ll probably break for lunch, and we’ll start back up with opening statements after.”

  “Do you need Trevor at lunch?”

  “No.” Landon hoped she hadn’t answered too emphatically, but having a client tag along during trial breaks got tiring real fast. “If you need to talk to him, that would be a perfect time.” Several jurors walked past them on their way back into the courtroom. “I should get back in there. Wait out here. We shouldn’t be too long.”

  Jane and Carly had already switched the chairs back so they were facing the front of the courtroom, but they were standing in front of the table, and they would remain there while the jury panel filed in. Trevor and Jane had moved to the side and were engaged in a whispered conversation, so Landon took the opportunity to talk to Carly. “Great job on Mrs. Franklin.”

  “Thanks. Of course, who knows how many other Mrs. Franklins there were in the panel who weren’t honest with us.”

  “True, but we can only do what we can do.” Landon considered her next words carefully. “Hey, so I was just in the back of the room and happened to look up and see you talking to Trevor.” She cleared her throat. Now that she’d started talking, she wondered if she was making a big deal out of nothing. “If I were a stranger, seeing you two for the first time, I might think there was something going on.”

  Carly’s expression was puzzled at first, but then sh
e snorted a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Uh, not really, no. Like I said, I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but you were sitting awfully close and you were smiling…” As she played the words back in her head, she realized how lame she sounded, and judging by the fierce look on Carly’s face, she felt the same. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “If I want advice on how to act during trial, I’ll ask for it, but you can be sure I won’t be asking you. You’ve been flirting with Shelby Cross since the moment you met her. For all I know you’re kissing up to her so she’ll put in a good word with Jane. I wasn’t flirting with Trevor, but if I was, I’d be justified in trying to level the playing field.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  The mass of jurors started to file into the room, bringing an abrupt end to their rift. Landon stored up all kinds of possible comebacks, but she was wasting valuable brain space she’d need to deliver an edge-of-your-seat opening designed to capture the hearts and minds of the jury from the first moments of trial. Carly might not believe she’d been trying to be helpful, but at this point all bets were off. Landon had two goals—win this trial and become partner—but she’d have to find a way to stop wanting Carly or she’d lose both.

  * * *

  “The evidence will show that Trevor Kincade had both the opportunity to kill Vanessa Meyers and the motive to do so.”

  Carly suppressed the urge to count how many times Donna’s trial partner Ed had used the phrase, “the evidence will show.” It was classic opening statement language if you were in law school doing a mock trial, but there were so many other ways to stick to the facts without reminding the jury every few seconds that you were bound by them.

  Ed droned on for a while before finally taking his seat. As boring as he’d been, Carly’s stomach was in knots after the one-sided recitation of the strikes against Trevor. She always felt this way in trial, which was one of the reasons she preferred the no drama landscape of appellate work where instead of anxious clients and fact hungry jurors, it was just her, the law, and the paper record.

  She glanced over at Landon, who had avoided her during lunch under the guise of going over her notes. When Ed finished, it would be up to Landon to divert the jury’s attention back to their side, and Carly could see her morphing into litigator mode. Landon looked every bit the high-powered lawyer in a sharply tailored navy suit with a crisp white shirt, and Carly experienced a surge of pride they were on the same side.

  Landon waited until Ed had taken his seat before standing and striding over to the jury box. She thanked them for their service and launched right into her opening. “What Mr. Barnes just described to you is horrifying.” Landon walked the few steps to the witness stand, where Ed had conveniently left a framed eleven-by-seventeen photo of Vanessa Meyers, looking happy and very much alive. Landon paused for a moment in front of the photo and then lifted it from the easel. She held the portrait in front of the jurors. “What happened to Vanessa Meyers was a tragedy, and that tragedy has lingered since her death, altering forever the lives of the family and loved ones she left behind.

  “You heard Mr. Barnes recite a litany of things he promised the evidence would show. As you can imagine, we have a different list, and I will share it with you.” As Landon spoke, she walked over to the side of the jury box and gently propped the photo of Vanessa out of sight. Without missing a beat, she returned to the defense table and placed a hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “But first I’d like to talk to you about something I bet you all can relate to. Getting blamed for something you didn’t do. Whether it’s big or small, we have a story that starts off with ‘they said I did something, but they were mistaken.’ You can all relate to that, right?” She nodded and at least half of the jury nodded with her.

  “Maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps you had a reputation in college for being the party guy or girl—a preconception you could never seem to shake. Can you imagine if those preconceptions were magnified on an enormous scale, and no matter who you really were, everyone defined you by what they thought was the truth without taking the time to figure out you aren’t the kind of person who could do the thing you’ve been accused of doing?”

  Landon continued in this vein, setting the tone for reasonable doubt before moving on to challenge Eddie’s litany of evidence. By the time she sat back down, Carly was captivated and could tell by their rapt attention, the jury was as well. Judge Grafton looked at the clock on the wall and asked Donna who they planned to call as their first witness. When Donna replied she planned to call the lead detective on the case, Leon Royal, the judge nodded in thought.

  “It’s almost five, and the State’s witness will likely be on the stand for a while. I’m calling a recess until tomorrow morning and we’ll start fresh then.” She spent a few minutes explaining to the jurors that they were not allowed to talk to anyone about the case or read or watch any news coverage. Carly stood with the rest of the attorneys as the jurors filed out of the room.

  “Is it a good thing that she cut things short today?” Trevor whispered in her ear as the last juror filed out of the room.

  “It doesn’t mean anything, really,” Carly replied. “Royal’s testimony will probably run longer than anyone else, and it’s easier to do it all in one day than figure out the best place to break it up.”

  “Are you busy tonight?”

  “What?” His question had caught her off guard. Carly scrambled for a response. “We’ll probably spend most nights during the trial preparing for the next day.”

  “But I thought Landon was going to cross-examine the detective? I was hoping we could talk, maybe over dinner. Nothing big, but it would help alleviate my stress to get a play-by-play of how you think things will go.”

  Carly spotted Jane, who was standing behind Trevor, mouthing “say yes.” Not what she wanted to hear. Trevor was a nice guy, but she had more important work to do than babysit a worried client, not to mention she was getting an inappropriate vibe from all the extra attention he’d been sending her way. Then again, if babysitting Trevor was the path to partnership, maybe it was a small price to pay. “Okay.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll text you for the address and pick you up at seven.”

  “Trevor, we should get going.” Shelby tugged him out of the courtroom with Jane close behind.

  Carly watched them go, lingering behind with Landon. “I think I’ll wait here a minute and let them hog the press. Great job on the opening, by the way.”

  “Thanks. That was the easy part. Now we just have to wait and hear what the witnesses say when they get on the stand.” Landon pointed to where Jane, Shelby, and Trevor were exiting the courtroom. “What was that all about?”

  “What?”

  “Are you really having dinner with Trevor?”

  Landon’s tone made it clear she thought it was a bad idea. Carly agreed and had already started thinking of ways to get out of it but wasn’t about to say so in the face of Landon’s patronizing attitude. “He wants to talk about the case and feels comfortable with me.”

  “As long as that’s all he’s feeling.”

  Landon muttered the words, barely loud enough for Carly to hear. “I thought we agreed to get along?”

  “We did. During trial. But you cozying up to the client after hours is a whole new ball game.”

  “Are you trying to be clever?” Carly steamed at Landon’s characterization and wondered if she was imagining the undercurrent of jealously in Landon’s tone. Was she jealous of her relationship with Trevor or the advantage it gave her on the job? Whatever the source, Carly was determined not to let it distract her. “I guess you thought agreeing to get along meant I was going to roll over and let you have this partnership. I can’t help it if our mutual client decided to bond with me, but you can bet I’m not going to tank my chance at the prize by blowing him off. If Trevor does wind up taking the stand, which of us do you think Jane is going to pick to ta
ke the lead? Why don’t you focus on your own trial prep and let me handle mine?”

  Carly didn’t wait for an answer before stalking out of the courtroom. She stopped before she hit the doors and arranged her expression into a look that she hoped conveyed confidence in case she ran into jurors, the press, or any law enforcement scheduled to testify the next day. She should be wearing the game face twenty-four seven during this trial. Why was it just a few words from Landon always seemed to crumble her defenses?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Landon watched Carly go, torn between wanting to chase after her and wanting to restore her own dignity. She took her time, gathering the rest of the files, but before she left the courtroom, Landon walked over to where she’d left the photo of Vanessa Meyers and turned it over.

  Vanessa was pretty, not bombshell beautiful, but definitely attractive. Tall, slender, with brunette waves of hair and deep chocolate brown eyes, she would catch anyone’s attention. But there were plenty of other women who looked like her, which was exactly what had been bugging Landon since the moment she’d seen the picture propped up on the easel in the witness box.

  “Hey, Landon, everything okay?”

  She turned to see Skye standing a few feet behind her. “Yes…Maybe.” She motioned Skye over to where she’d assembled the files and handed her a stack. “Help me find the file on Jocelyn Aubrey. It’s one of these.” She flipped through her bunch, wishing she’d been more organized, but she’d focused all her attention the day before on preparing her opening statement and her cross-examination of Detective Royal.

  Skye handed her a file. “Here you go. What’re you looking for?”

  Landon scanned the contents, growing increasingly frustrated. Finally, she found the slip of paper at the back of the file. She hadn’t really needed it as evidence, but she’d had Skye get it from Mandy anyway. She picked it up and shoved it at Skye. “Who does she look like?”