CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Closing arguments are the whole ball game. This morning Royal Spofford has to prove that a crime was committed, how the victim was killed, and that beyond a reasonable doubt Ashlyn Bryant was responsible. The defense—which goes first in Massachusetts—has only to convince jurors there’s reasonable doubt. Sometimes that is tough.
It’s the lawyers’ last chance. The defendant’s, too. This is a chapter I cannot write in advance, because those words no one can predict.
I worked the whole weekend and all through Monday, trapped by torrential rain and a relentless deadline. Joe’s on the way—he called to say the paper assigned someone else to court this morning. Then he asked if he could bring coffee and watch the closings with me. On regular broadcast TV, not the feed. Every station is carrying it, of course. So, sure. Whatever. Maybe Joe likes having someone to talk with about the trial, too. Or maybe he’s angling to get more page-time in my book.
I’d changed into jeans and one of Dex’s oxford shirts. Combed my hair.
Theo from Dex’s law firm called five minutes later, saying they had two more boxes of possessions and asked to bring them over. Why not. Party at Mercer’s house.
But at 9:45, Joe notwithstanding, I’ll focus on the closing arguments. Today is when the case of Little Girl Lost will be won—and lost.
I can almost hear my deadline clock ticking. I head for the living room to turn on the TV. It all depends on the jury.
The jury. Thirteen men and women now—twelve eventual jurors and one alternate. People whose faces I have never seen. I think about ex-Juror G, Sandra Galanopoulos, probably watching the trial at home. Because of me. And not having to decide whether Ashlyn Bryant would spend her life in prison. Wonder if she’s happy about that?
What if her one vote would have made a difference?
I stop in the middle of the hall. What if Ashlyn walks? Because of me? What if Ashlyn’s acquitted, the only thing in the world I could not bear to happen, and it turns out I made it happen? Because Dex would have wanted the trial to be fair, I ratted out Juror G. I did the right thing for Dex. But what if it was the wrong thing for Sophie? Did I ruin everything? Again?
Unsteady on my feet, suddenly, I touch the wall for equilibrium. I see my reflection in the front hall mirror, then think—mirror. Today I wrote 465.
The doorbell rings. Joe already? I flip on the TV. Go to the door. It’s not Joe.
“Katherine, honey,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
“Let me in,” she says. I’ve never seen Katherine’s hair so chaotic, or her face so drawn. Her chic cropped jacket is yanked off one shoulder by the strap of a heavy tote bag, her sunglasses dangle from the collar of her silky shirt. “Someone’s following me.”
I step out onto my front porch and Katherine slips inside. “Following you?” I ask. “Who?”
“Come back inside,” she hisses. “Don’t let them see you.”
I look up our street, then down. No one unusual. I come in, close the door. Katherine is unsettled, her eyes darting in a way I’ve never seen.
“Who?” I say again. “Why would anyone—why were you coming here, anyway? Anything up?”
“In a silver car,” she says, not answering me. “Some kind of silver car. Was behind me the whole way. Crazy-driving.”
We both flinch, startled, as a horn honks on the street outside. A snazzy Mini Cooper pulls into my driveway.
“That car?” So much for the scary stalker. “That’s Joe Rissinelli. He was on his way here.”
Katherine gives me a look, blinking. I can’t tell whether she’s assessing his arrival, or deciding whether it’s his car she saw. A Mini Cooper is pretty easy to recognize.
“Not sure,” she says. “The publisher got a bomb threat, he thinks it’s about the book. Cops say it’s a hoax, but I guess it’s making me jumpy. Shouldn’t even have told you. Morons. But I did see that car.”
“What?” I say. “A bomb threat? Because of the book? My book? Listen, that’s—incredibly disturbing.”
Joe trots toward the front door, khakis and loafers, carrying a cardboard container with three coffees. Reporters always worry there won’t be enough coffee.
Katherine, still regrouping I guess, adjusts her jacket, smoothes her hair.
“Hi, Joe,” I call out from the doorway, lifting a hand in greeting. I explain to Katherine, keeping my voice low. “We’re watching the closings on regular TV together, his idea. Because I’m interviewing him for the book.”
A horn toots out on the street, a hand waved from the driver’s side window. A silver Audi pulls into my driveway.
“Who’s that?” Katherine recoils, steps out of street view as Joe comes inside. “Listen, I need to talk to you,” she says.
“And I need to talk to you, sister,” I say. “Bomb threat? And that’s just Theo from Dex’s law firm,” I say. “Bringing me boxes of his stuff. Stupid, because I’ll never open them. Hey—is that who you saw? Silver car?”
“Maybe,” Katherine says.
She peers around the doorjamb as Joe arrives with the coffee. Theo pulls into the driveway behind the Mini. Awful lot going on for 9:25 in the morning.
A flurry of introductions—though Joe and Katherine know each other, of course—and I send Joe (and his coffees) to the living room and the big-screen TV. Theo is pulling a wheeled cart up the front walk, two oversized cardboard boxes bungeed to it. I have about ten seconds until he gets to the door.
“Kath?” I grab her arm. “Bomb threat?”
“Forget about that, cops insist it’s nothing.”
“Kidding me? A bomb is not nothing.”
“It’s not a bomb. It’s nothing. Like the other day at court. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. And listen. We may have found the babysitter.”
“Valerie?” I ask, dumb question, because there are no other babysitters. “And who’s ‘we’?” I look out the open front doorway, briefly scanning for silver cars. And bombs. Theo is five steps away, but turns to adjust the boxes.
But whoa. Babysitter Valerie could confirm where she’d taken Tasha, the little girl’s relationship with Ashlyn, and how Ashlyn explained Tasha’s whereabouts. Maybe she could explain Ashlyn’s “issues.” And Luke.
My brain is going at light speed, weighing the possible outcomes at this point in the trial. This is going to be a holy mess.
“Does Quinn McMorran know?” I ask. “Does Spofford? Where is she?”
“She’s dead,” Katherine whispers.
“Dead?”
“Hi, Miz Hennessey.” Theo’s at the front stoop. He points to his cart. “These are kind of heavy. Want me to bring them inside?”
“I have to go,” Katherine says. “You have too much company.”
I grab a box from Theo’s cart and plop it down inside, blocking his entry and Katherine’s exit. No way she’s gonna leave me without explaining that breaking news. Dead? Valerie is dead?
“Thanks, Theo.” I take the other box, too, pretending it doesn’t weigh a ton, and stack it on top. “I’m sure you have to get back to the office. And I’m in a meeting.”
I close the door with as believably polite a smile as I can muster, shutting him out and Katherine in. She cannot leave. Not after that breaking news.
“Valerie’s dead?” I whisper. Put two and two together. “Was it a bomb?”
“They’re starting!” Joe calls out.
“Tell you later,” she whispers back. “But Merce. Trust me. There are no bombs.”
Katherine, who still seems freaked out from her “silver car stalker,” makes the morning even nuttier by settling herself on the couch too, and the three of us have a closing-watching coffee klatch. I’d put my tablet on Record in the study so I could watch the closings with Joe, Kath, and everyone else on the planet. Kath took one of the coffees. All good.
Ashlyn-cam is trained on her face, and the defendant closes her eyes as Quinn McMorran begins her closing.
“What showboats, right?�
� I wave off the drama. No one answers me.
At least Ashlyn had the self-restraint not to fold her hands in pretend-prayer. I have to believe that only some sort of deus ex machina can save her. The courthouse on fire, or someone having a heart attack. Even another bomb threat would merely delay the inevitable.
“The key question in this case can never be answered or proven,” Quinn is saying. “That question is: when and how did Tasha Nicole Bryant die? And if you cannot answer that, you must acquit.”
Wonder if Ashlyn would agree to a post-conviction interview with me? From prison? She’d probably love extending her fifteen minutes.
Joe and Kath are watching McMorran’s closing in silence, letting me take notes on my laptop. In about thirty minutes, I can hear Quinn building to the big finish.
“It’s disturbing to think of a mother hurting her own child,” she says. “But how disturbing is it to convict a grieving mother for that unspeakable crime—when she did not commit it? Ask yourselves, each of you fellow human beings, each of you citizens of the United States of America, ask yourself: do I have enough indisputable evidence, genuine facts, authentic truths? Has anything—anything—convinced you? You may not like her, ladies and gentlemen. But you are not asked to be her friend. You are sworn to judge her beyond a reasonable doubt.
“And you know, from sworn forensic testimony, that there are no fingerprints. No DNA. No witnesses. No hairs, no fibers, no evidence whatsoever, not even proof that Ashlyn Bryant was ever in Boston. There is no cause of death.
“‘Only Ashlyn.’ That’s what the district attorney kept saying. But you know that’s not true. And certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt.”
I clap a couple of times, sarcastic applause, as she sits down. “When you got nothin’, bring out the United States of America, Dex always said.”
“Well, she’s persuasive about the cause of death,” Joe says. “And no forensics connecting Ashlyn, really, not in any way.”
“Gah,” I say.
“Anyone hungry?” Kath asks. “Merce? Okay if Joe and I go scrounge?” They head to the kitchen, discussing the proper preparation of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as they go. They’re all chatty, like they were both still working at City, like they watch sensational trials and make lunch together all the time. Funny to have people in the house again. Funny that we’re brought together by murder. Very cozy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Does it take this long to make sandwiches? Katherine better not be telling him about dead Valerie.
“You guys!” I call toward the kitchen. “It’s on!”
I open my note-taking file. There’s no way jurors can remember every word of evidence. Like all prosecutors, Spofford is hoping the jury’s collective memory will forget the elements that hurt his case. And only remember those that help it.
I almost feel the warmth of Dex’s body next to me. I certainly hear his thoughts. It’s all about which side tells a better story, he’d say. I smooth the couch cushion beside me, imagining his favorite jeans, and his soft pale-blue shirts, and move my hand just in time for Katherine to sit down. She smells of peanut butter, and holds out an array of sandwiches, crustless triangles arranged on one of my mom’s silver platters.
“Nice,” I say, choosing one. Back to reality. “Where’s—”
“Bathroom,” she says.
I picture him there, can’t help it, Joe looking at himself in my mirror. Don’t touch that, comes to mind. When Joe comes back, I search his face for—I don’t know.
He takes a sandwich, like we do this every day. Settles into the wing chair. Jeans and a tattersall oxford shirt. It’s perplexing. Why is he here and not in court? The newspaper assigned someone else to cover the closings? Doesn’t pass the sniff test. He knows I’m writing the Ashlyn book. What’s his goal?
The TV screen shows the courtroom. The players, silent, all in place. The microphones pick up that unmistakable courtroom prologue—the rustle of papers, the adjusting of spectators’ feet, a few muffled conversations. On the bench, Judge Green, his bright yellow tie peeking from the collar of his robe, turns pages in a file. Off camera, the jury must be seated in those threadbare navy chairs.
The judge looks up.
“Here we go,” Joe pops the last of his sandwich. Rubs his palms together, in anticipation, or to get rid of crumbs. “What do you think?”
“It’s all about which side tells a better story,” I say, thinking of Dex. “But she’s irretrievably guilty. No one can story-tell me out of that.”
“Guess so,” Joe says.
“Yeah,” Katherine says. “Seems like.”
“Seems like?” My eyebrows go up at Kath’s response. And I can write this scene as it happens. “Spofford is going to nail her. Don’t you think?”
“Doesn’t matter what we think,” Joe says.
BE HER VOICE
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” Royal Spofford began. “Thank you for your infinite patience and goodwill.” The veteran prosecutor came in smart, experienced, knowledgeable. He had to tell a story that would catch jurors’ hearts and minds and persuade each one, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Ashlyn Bryant had thought about, planned, and then carried out a scheme to kill her own daughter.
The key to his argument was powerful. Heartbreaking. Compelling. That Ashlyn broke the sacred trust of being a parent. And deserved to rot behind bars for life.
“As we begin, let me show you something.”
Spofford clicked a computer switch. A video montage of Tasha photos appeared on a screen set up to the right of the judge’s bench.
“This is Tasha Nicole Bryant.” He almost whispered, wanting the jurors to lean in to hear. Wanting them to be haunted by Tasha. See her as a real person. “She is why you are here. Here’s her favorite stuffed rabbit. Her backyard swing set. Her doting grandparents. And—” He paused, not wanting to overdo. “And she was taken too soon.”
He clicked again. The screen went black. “Who snuffed out the light in little Tasha’s eyes?” He turned to Ashlyn Bryant, who, he assumed as instructed, looked at him square on.
“Ashlyn Bryant,” he said, eyes locked on her, consonants hard. “Decided she didn’t want to be Tasha’s mother. Decided the child was inconvenient. A mistake. So she plotted and planned. She researched and she schemed. She erased the little girl from the face of the earth.”
He turned back to the jury, added a tinge of sorrow to his voice.
“There’s nothing wrong with drinking and dancing and having ‘fun.’” Spofford smoothed the silky pattern on his crimson tie. “But as parents, we must change priorities. Ashlyn, however, was not ready for that. So Ashlyn decided—to make a change.”
He paused, letting them imagine it. Nothing is more powerful than imagination. Terrible facts plus imagination always means guilty.
“Ashlyn Bryant is smart,” he said. “When Ashlyn wants to do what Ashlyn wants to do, she finds a way. She creates a new reality.”
He gestured, a fraction of motion, to Tom and Georgia Bryant, still in the front row, watching him, rapt. Georgia nodded, agreeing. Even her own mother, he wanted to tell the jurors, agrees with me. But of course he couldn’t say that.
“Ashlyn led a life of lies and deception,” Spofford went on, eyes back on the jury. “She lugged Tasha around, left her with sitters, who knows. Poor child, she didn’t know what life was supposed to be. At her grandparents’ house, lucky enough to be in their safekeeping, everything was fine.”
Georgia reached for her husband’s hand, clutched it.
“But Ashlyn knew,” Spofford made his voice portentous, as if narrating a TV crime drama, “she knew her duplicitous life was inevitably coming to an end. Soon everything would have to change.”
Every juror was listening, he could tell. Nothing beats a grisly murder story.
“Remember,” he went on, “because Tasha was a two-year-old, only Ashlyn was capable of telling what happened in their lives. As long as Tasha simply s
aid ‘Gampy’ and ‘Rabbie,’ no problem.”
He took a deep breath, telegraphing that what came next clinched it.
“But Tasha began to say words. Make sentences. Become verbal. When Tasha starts talking the truth, Ashlyn’s in trouble. Because Tasha’s too young to understand ‘secrets.’”
Reporters turned to each other, nodding. He’s right, they mouthed. Tasha would eventually have blown it for her.
“The defense arguments?” Spofford’s voice hardened. “An accident? A hot dog? Terminal cancer?” He shook his head at the absurdity. “That is a trip down a rabbit hole.
“If Tasha had died in a backyard accident, wouldn’t someone have called 911?” Spofford ended this section of his argument not with a bang, but with a sneer. “But no one did.
“‘Only Ashlyn.’ I spoke those words to you on day one of this trial—only Ashlyn could have caused the death of Tasha Nicole. Has anything—anything,” he deliberately echoed McMorran’s construction, “convinced you beyond a reasonable doubt that it could have happened any other way?”
“Bottom line: Ashlyn changes the plane ticket her mother generously bought for her. Flies herself and Tasha to Boston, where they’re unknown faces in an uncaring crowd. Somehow—could be any number of ways—she snuffs the last breath out of her own daughter with a chloroformed cloth and three strips of the duct tape she brought from home so she could not be caught on surveillance video purchasing it in Boston. Puts Tasha’s little body in a plastic bag, maybe puts the bag in an inconspicuous tote, and carries her, like trash, to Castle Island. Perhaps she says goodbye, in a way we can only imagine, and returns to Dayton, free and unfettered, to the life she wants. She makes a new reality by telling everyone that Tasha is ‘someplace else.’ Which, ladies and gentlemen, indeed she is. In Boston Harbor.”
With those words, in a move orchestrated with his associate, the video came up again. A green plastic bag, rippling in the gentle waves, scarring the beach at Castle Island.
“There sits Ashlyn Bryant now.” He pointed at her. “Silent. But you have heard her, from others who testified. There’s one particular sentence I hope you will remember. Ashlyn said: ‘Holy crap, I am so good at making stuff up.’”
Trust Me Page 13
