Forcing Amaryllis

by Louise Ure

  I checked my desk drawer. The papers had been rifled through but it looked like everything was still there. The green satin jewelry box in my bedroom was upended, and my costume jewelry was strewn across the dresser. “Someone’s gone through these things, but I can’t tell if anything’s missing.” I didn’t keep any cash in the house, and the only valuable jewelry I had was the carved turquoise ring that was in my purse.

  He wrote out the details of the call and handed me a copy of the report. “Make a list of anything you discover is missing. The number at the top of the page is what you’ll need for your insurance company.” I didn’t think I’d need it.

  When they left, I called Enrique. He was on patrol and not far away so he was there in minutes.

  “Do you think you left the door open?” he asked after a quick walk-through.

  “I know for sure I closed the glass door and the curtains, but I can’t remember if I locked it or used the dowel.” That wasn’t like me, but my mind had been racing this morning as I headed downtown for what was likely to be our final day of death-qualification.

  “If you didn’t use the dowel, the lock on that door is easy to jimmy.”

  “Let’s check everything. Room by room.” I started in the kitchen. I opened each cupboard. The boxes of cereal and the bags of polenta and sugar looked undisturbed.

  Then I opened the utensil drawer. “Enrique, come here.” All my knives—steak knives, chopping blade, chef’s knife—had been placed in the drawer with the handles toward the back and the blades upright. A quick rustle through a familiar drawer would have resulted in slashed and slivered fingertips.

  “I found something, too,” he said, coming out of the bathroom. He held three razor blades in a tissue between his fingers. “Buried in the bath mat in front of the sink. That would have been a nasty surprise in the morning.” I shuddered.

  Then it hit me. I knew what was missing: a black-and-white photo, taken just as she jumped from the tallest rock into the cool waters below at Seven Falls. Her face was alive with joy. It had been signed “All my love, to my best (and only!) sister.” I checked the floor and behind the desk to see if it had fallen.

  “Why would somebody steal Amy’s picture?”

  26

  I spent the weekend going through every cupboard, drawer, and package in my house. I canceled my bank accounts and credit cards and changed my PIN numbers in case the intruder had taken a moment to look through my records.

  I threw out the food in the refrigerator. Whoever had done this had made me afraid to even drink my own coffee. Enrique and Strike took turns standing guard.

  By Monday I almost had myself under control. I probably had left the dowel parked by the wall in my hurried departure on Friday and had made the entry easy for the burglar. I wouldn’t make that mistake again, and now I was on alert for him. But my mind spun with the possible reasons for the break-in. Nothing valuable was taken. Nothing but Amy’s picture, that is.

  It was the end of August now, and our newly death-qualified jury candidates had reassembled in courtroom three. Cates looked chastened. I think those long days of hearing how willing these people were to take his life had awakened him to the possibility of failure.

  Now it was time to pick among them for the final fourteen who would sit on Cates’s jury. The first thirty-four potential jurors sat quietly reading newspapers and taking in their surroundings. That meant enough candidates for a twelve-person jury, two alternates, and the allowed ten strikes from each side in a capital case.

  Of course, we were using the Arizona “struck” system, so the entire jury panel would be cleared for cause before either side had to start using their peremptory challenges. Judge Gutierrez conducted that first series of questions to determine if there was a good reason that someone—

  although already death-qualified—shouldn’t serve on this particular jury. Then the lawyers for each side would determine whether to keep them or use their peremptory challenges to remove them.

  I’ve always thought that the way other states select juries is kind of like Dodge Ball, where you have to focus all your attention and energy on one player at a time, without knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the other players on the field. Instead, the Arizona system is more like Red Rover. You get to look over the entire field of potential jurors and plan your strategy for using challenges. And because each side takes turns using peremptory strikes, you know what your opponent is doing as well.

  The clerk pulled fourteen names from a basket on her desk, twelve for jurors and two for alternates. The first candidates filed into the jury box, and Judge Gutierrez began.

  He tapped his microphone twice, introduced the people at the defense and prosecution tables, and then asked if any prospective jurors knew them or knew Lydia Chavez.

  Two hands went up.

  An elderly woman on the panel, with hair as fine as the fur on a bichon frise, said she had read newspaper articles about Dee Dee Pollock and therefore felt that she knew her. Gutierrez smiled down into his lap.

  He thanked her and moved on to the second juror, a wiry black man with a coin-size, cherry red birthmark on his cheek.

  “What’s your association with these people?” the judge asked.

  “I’ve done business with Mr. Cates’s father for about twenty years now, Your Honor. I’ve got a hay and feed company on the south side of town. He’s been real good for my business, even recommending me to folks.”

  “I understand, Mister … uh … Sanders,” Gutierrez said, running his finger down the list of juror names. “I think that’s a good reason for you not to want to serve on this jury. You’re excused.”

  A young woman with white-blond hair down to her hips replaced him in the jury box.

  “Have you or any member of your family ever been the victim of rape? Or has anyone in your family been the victim of a homicide?” the judge asked.

  This was the whole reason we had originally asked for individual voir dire. When you start asking sensitive questions about rape and murder, jurors are much less willing to be completely honest when they have to speak in front of a crowd, and we needed to know as much as possible about these people. We had some of the same information from the jury questionnaires, but it was important to hear how they talked about it. Did they feel traumatized? Victimized? Had the police been helpful? Did they now want revenge?

  Gutierrez had shot us down on the request, saying that he would be sensitive in his phrasing and would let jurors reply privately if they wanted to. I didn’t see a great deal of sensitivity yet.

  One hand went up.

  She was a plain woman with freckles and light red hair, and she whispered her response while turning her wedding ring around her finger as if it were suddenly too hot to wear. “Do I really have to say it in front of everybody?” she asked, her eyes counting the number of people in the room.

  “Would you be more comfortable in chambers?” asked Gutierrez. He had the bailiff bring the juror, the lawyers, Cates, and the court reporter into his private quarters behind the courtroom. When they filed back into the room, McCullough passed me an explanatory note: Raped by a handyman two years ago. Never told her husband. I nodded and then heard Gutierrez say the expected words. “You’re excused, juror number seven. Thank you.”

  Three people claimed hardship as their reason for not being able to serve on the jury. Gutierrez excused an elementary-school teacher and a woman who was the sole caregiver for an Alzheimer’s-riddled parent, but did not excuse the Yellow Pages salesman. He said the trial would probably last well past the start of the academic year and the teacher would be needed at school, but that Yellow Pages ads could be sold all year long. New candidates filled the two empty chairs.

  The prosecution team went first, and Dee Dee Pollock rose to begin her questioning. She wore high heels to compensate for her diminutive stature, but her voice could have belonged to an Amazon.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Dee Dee Pollock, and I’m a deputy coun
ty attorney for Pima County. Do I have your promise that you will give your full attention to the evidence we present and deliberate as fair and impartial jurors in this case?” Each of the jurors nodded, solemn in the recognition of their vow. She looked like the good, avenging angel, and they wanted to be on her side.

  “Let’s talk about that evidence,” she said. “You’re going to hear it described as ‘circumstantial evidence,’ and the judge will tell you that circumstantial evidence can be just as important as direct evidence. Do I have your promise that you can give as much consideration in your deliberations to circumstantial evidence as to direct evidence?” Ah, she’d planted her first seed.

  Leaving her associates at the table, Pollock questioned each of the jurors herself, sometimes asking about an opinion, sometimes about their background, and sometimes about any prior jury service. With each juror she ended her questions with, “Do I have your promise that if I prove to you, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant murdered Lydia Chavez, that you can vote to convict him?” By the time she was done, it sounded like the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

  When it was our turn, Merchant rose from his seat but didn’t approach the jury box. Instead, he stood behind Cates and put an avuncular hand on his shoulder.

  “Is there anyone among you who thinks he cannot be open-minded in this case, and if the evidence is proved to be flawed, could not find Raymond Cates innocent?” No hands went up.

  I flipped the pages of the jury questionnaires into the order the jurors were sitting in the box. Merchant approached juror number one. “Mr. Wheaton, oh, I’m sorry, it’s Dr. Wheaton, isn’t it?” he said to the young man in the first seat. He looked young enough that I could have babysat him sometime in years past.

  “Tell me about your medical practice.” Young Dr. Wheaton described his night schedule in the emergency room at Carondolet Hospital, assuring us that he could still be attentive in the trial even if he’d just pulled a night shift at the hospital. Merchant thanked him and moved on. We didn’t want any medical personnel on the jury; they had too much inside information about injuries and death and could make it all too vivid for the other jurors during deliberations. The prosecutor was going to be doing her damnedest to do the same thing during the trial; she didn’t need any help. I marked him as one of our peremptory challenges.

  Patsy Worthington was in seat number three. She was a blowsy, forty-year-old waitress at one of the oldest bars in town. Cigarettes and liquor had added years to a face that had probably never looked young at the best of times. After all this time I bet her feet were molded into the pointy-toed, high-arched shape of the shoes she wore as part of the “elegant” atmosphere at the bar. I passed Merchant a note with the question I wanted him to ask.

  “I see you work at Partee’s,” he said. “Did you ever forget the face of someone you waited on at the bar?” Merchant asked, priming the pump for one of our key defense messages.

  Patsy laughed. “Sometimes things get so hectic I don’t even look at their faces. One time I took a drink order from my brother before I realized who it was.” The other jurors laughed with her.

  James Bartholomew was in seat five. Retired from a tire manufacturing company in Akron, he’d moved to Tucson six years ago and lived in a double-wide trailer off Kolb Road. I didn’t see anything questionable in Mr. Bartholomew’s background to worry us, but I wanted Merchant to gauge his candor, as well as plant another seed for the defense. I passed him a note to ask about mistaken identity.

  “Mr. Bartholomew, have you ever thought you recognized someone in the street and then found out it wasn’t them?”

  “Oh, sure, it happens all the time. Sometimes it’s a car I recognize or the back of somebody’s head or the way they walk. Sometimes you just see what you expect to see.” Bingo. Merchant had hit his mark.

  He turned to other jurors. A middle-aged Hispanic woman whose eldest son was a policeman. A stuntman at Old Tucson. A seventy-year-old who managed an apartment building near the university. A thirty-year-old landscaper who said summer was his quietest time of the year because “it’s hell to work outdoors in August.”

  Merchant thanked all the jurors for their time and sat down, smiling at Cates and McCullough as if he’d just come from a birthday party. It was all show, just stage acting to have the jurors think we liked them all and that Cates was part of this big, happy family.

  We passed a sheet of paper between the prosecution and defense tables, with each side either accepting a juror or marking a peremptory challenge. I had already talked to McCullough and Merchant about some of the most damaging juror attitudes that we should watch for: a tough-on-crime mentality, a strong antigun stance, or the abject fear of terrorism that had seeped into even local courts since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

  Our team chose to excuse the emergency-room doctor, the Hispanic woman whose son was a policeman, and a scrawny, balding man who said he had moved into a gated community because “you see what the world’s coming to.”

  New jurors took their seats, and Judge Gutierrez said we would continue jury selection the next day. This was going to take some time. Neither side wanted a fair, balanced, and objective panel of jurists. We wanted jurors who could be swayed to our point of view.

  After our mock-trial research I had assumed that we would want more women than men on the jury. While they’re tougher on rapists, they’re easier on murderers.

  We now had more men than women, but the men we had were important ones. The stuntman, the landscaper, and the college student could probably all put themselves in Cates’s shoes. It was a perfect example of the Similarity Principle: if I can identify with the defendant, then he can’t be a bad guy.

  I couldn’t tell who the leaders were going to be, the ones who could hold out for an unpopular position, who could turn the tide if the jury was indecisive. It was possible that the librarian in seat twelve could rise to the occasion, but if she was the decision maker on this jury, then Cates was in trouble. She sounded more by-the-books, law-and-order oriented than the defense team would have liked. Maybe it would be the young woman from the public relations firm in seat ten. She was used to public speaking and swaying people to her point of view. And I had seen her look at Cates with interest.

  I had been careful to keep the jury questionnaires to myself and not put them on the table, where Cates could see them. It’s important to let the jury know that the defendant takes an active role in jury selection, but they get scared if they think a criminal can get a look at their private information, even if their street address isn’t shown on the form.

  After a full week the prosecutor conferred with her associates and declared herself satisfied with the jury. Merchant, McCullough, Cates, and I held a whispered conference and did the same. Judge Gutierrez looked pleased, saying that our decisiveness would allow him to get home in time for a quick dip in the pool before the baseball game started, and adjourned for the day.

  Opening statements would begin Monday morning. My weeks of defending Cates were over. Now it was time to find out if he was guilty.

  27

  I was watering the rosebushes in the fading sunlight when the phone rang inside. Maybe it was Tonio. I raced to the house and panted a breathless greeting.

  “It’s Miranda Lang. I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home.”

  I hadn’t heard from her since my trip to Phoenix with the belts. “No, of course not. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m in Tucson. Can we get together?” She named a family restaurant on Campbell, only a five-minute drive away.

  This time I made sure that the sliding glass door was locked and the wooden security bar was in place. I grabbed the keys to the used car I’d purchased with the check from the insurance company. It was a bland car, imported from some striving Southeast Asian nation, the kind of car you lose in parking lots. Turning the key in the ignition, I found myself wanting something a little throatier these days—clean lines, a big V-8, ma
ybe something a little intimidating—but my bank balance would have to change colors before that happened.

  Miranda was already settled in a well-lit back booth when I arrived.

  “Cozy in here, don’t you think?” She gestured at the surgery-bright lights overhead. “I find that I don’t like dark places.” She was back in her warrior mode tonight, wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck made out of something that looked like chain mail, and a wide, flat silver bracelet like Wonder Woman’s. The muscles in her arms stood out like a relief map of a mountainous country.

  When the waitress arrived, Miranda ordered a veggie burger and iced tea. I asked for a coffee and waited for her to begin.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do about it. But I have to be here to see it.” I raised my eyebrows in question. “You didn’t see me there today, did you?”

  “At the courthouse? No.” I paused a beat to consider my words. “But you said he wasn’t the one. Why would you want to attend Cates’s trial if he wasn’t the one who raped you?”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t the one. I said I wasn’t sure.” She drew a breath that was a cross between a sigh and a sob. “And then you came by with that belt.”

  “I thought you weren’t sure about the belt.”

  “I’m not. But I put ‘maybe’ and ‘maybe’ and ‘maybe’ together and it’s beginning to sound like ‘sure.’”

  “Did anybody else in that lineup look familiar to you? Maybe you thought you’d seen them somewhere before but couldn’t place them?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t positively identify any of them. Who are you talking about?”

  “The guy with the longer hair in back. His name is Blanken, he’s got a record, and Giordano thinks he might be the one.”

  She sighed. “I’m not sure anymore. Do you know what that’s like? To have the power to point a finger at someone, change their life forever, and yet to be afraid to do it?”