by D. J. Palmer
“I don’t know his name. I called him Daddy,” Isabella said, answering the judge. “But I couldn’t call him that when he was in the house because he didn’t like me, so I didn’t call him anything. That’s what Mommy said. She said Daddy didn’t want me … he didn’t like me.”
Grace moved back a row to sit with Mitch. He could see the pain in her eyes. This poor sweet child, to be rejected that cruelly by a parent, to think she wasn’t wanted or loved—when all Grace had ever wanted was a daughter to raise, to give her a place to call home forever and always.
“Daddy never came for Christmas or birthdays or anything … but he did give me something once.”
“Oh, he did? What was it? Do you remember?”
“It was a book … it was the only present he ever gave me. I loved that book because I loved my daddy, even if he didn’t love me.”
Grace whispered to Mitch, “A book with boats and water on the cover?”
Mitch returned a shrug, but he assumed it was so.
“Who’s your mommy? Do you know her name?” Johnson asked.
“Rachel … Rachel’s my mommy.”
“Do you remember hurting the victim?”
Mitch noted how she didn’t use the word “murder,” and called Rachel either “Mommy” or “victim”—all very intentional, he thought, all designed to trip her up, blow the cover, expose the lie. This is a girl playing games, Johnson was thinking. But Mitch knew better.
Isabella returned a blank stare, not because she was refusing to answer, but because, as Mitch had speculated, “victim” was not a word she’d learned by age four.
Instead, Isabella gave what she thought would be a pleasing response. Children that age want to please figures of authority, attorneys included.
She said, “I wanted Mommy to move away from Daddy because he was always mean to her … he hit her. He hated her. That’s why I set the fire. I thought we’d have to go away, far away, but Mommy said Lynn was home so she got a new place to live close by.”
“Your daddy hit your mommy?”
Navarro snapped to his feet. “Objection! This is a mockery!” he shouted.
“You will lower your voice, sir, and sit down,” Lockhart scolded.
Isabella said, “He did. He hit her. He made her scared.”
“Did he ever hit you?” Attorney Johnson asked.
Isabella’s gaze went back to her lap and she nodded solemnly. “Yes,” she said softly.
“So you know hitting and hurting someone is wrong?”
She was still trying, Mitch had to give her credit for that.
“Yes, I know it’s wrong, you shouldn’t ever hurt someone.”
“But you hurt your mommy?”
Isabella shook her head vigorously. “No, I did not,” she said, sounding on the verge of tears, her lips pressed together in a pout, cheeks sunken in. “I love my mommy. I wouldn’t hurt Mommy.”
“Did your daddy love your mommy?”
She shook her head again. “He said he hated her. He said it all the time.”
“Did your daddy live with you?”
“No. He only came over when Mommy made him come see me, or she wanted money from him. He never wanted to see me.”
“Do you know why your father didn’t like you?” Johnson asked.
“Because I was alive,” Isabella said woefully. “He said he didn’t want me.”
“He didn’t want you to be alive?”
“He didn’t want me to be born. He told Mommy that. That’s why he never gave me a birthday present. Chloe was my sister. He didn’t want her either, but she died in Mommy’s belly and he said he was glad. He said he wished it happened to me, too. That’s why when he came to get me, I thought he was going to kill me.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Mommy and Daddy were yelling and fighting about money using loud voices. Daddy came to get me when I was in the tub and he said I was a very bad girl and he wished I was never born.”
“Why did he come to get you?”
“He wanted to take me to Mommy. He let me put on pajamas and he pulled me by my arm and it hurt. He took me to Mommy in the basement. She had blood all over her face. I think he hit her. He told Mommy that she made him do it because she wouldn’t do what he wanted. Then he put her head in a bucket of poison.”
Mitch thought: Ammonia. A common cleaning supply stored in a basement and easily accessible.
“He made me watch. He said he was going to do it to me, too, if Mommy didn’t leave for good. Mommy couldn’t breathe right. So I hit my daddy on his back and told him I hated him and he got really mad and he hit my face. He called me a bad girl again. He tied up my hands with rope and said he’d put my head in the bucket next if Mommy wasn’t gone and gone for good. Then Mommy started to cry.”
Grace looked like she’d had her head put in that bucket as well, and Attorney Johnson appeared out of sorts, her attack failing.
Navarro was back on his feet, incensed. “Objection!” he shouted, his face smeared with rage. With his suit jacket off, Mitch could see the V-shaped sweat mark running down his back. It was hot as Hades in here, but Mitch’s blood felt ice cold.
“This is completely out of control,” Navarro shouted.
To Mitch’s utter surprise, Navarro came out from behind his table to approach the witness in a threatening manner. This got Jessica Johnson’s attention, and Judge Lockhart’s as well. A court officer, wearing a crisp white shirt like those of the Edgewater guards, even took a step towards Navarro. There was a fire in Navarro’s eyes, a simmering rage that seemed out of proportion to his frustration over the proceedings. He should have been pleased, because as hard as Johnson was working to trip up this witness, the jury was getting a firsthand look at someone, a teenage girl talking like a four-year-old, who clearly was meeting the criteria for criminal insanity.
“You will retake your seat this instant, Counselor, or I will hold you in contempt, do you hear me?” Judge Lockhart said, sending Navarro back to his proper place while Isabella, unaffected by his outburst, continued with her testimony.
“Mommy was crying … she wanted him to stop. She couldn’t breathe with her head in the bucket. She said it burned her eyes and her throat. The rope hurt, but I couldn’t get it off to help.” Isabella’s breathing became rapid and shallow.
“Oh my … okay … what happened next?” Attorney Johnson sounded less like a lawyer questioning a witness and more like a concerned police officer trying to ascertain facts from a traumatized victim. She appeared stunned and shaky on her feet. Her questions were losing focus and intent. This testimony had to be as shocking to her as it was to everyone else in the courtroom, but nobody more so than Grace.
“Daddy said he’d send her to jail forever if she didn’t leave and take me with her.”
Mitch thought of what Ruby had shared.
He said he’d put her in jail …
Other phrases from those sessions jumped out at him.
I wasn’t alone.
Gone and gone for good.
I’d get the bucket too.
He was right. All of it, every dissociative state she’d experienced with him, brought up memories from her distant past. Which meant the state names she’d listed were from the past as well. But how? Everything Isabella shared appeared to belong to the same series of memories, a grouping of memories. Mitch had only asked her about each city and state individually, but didn’t think of them as a group, or a pattern.
He took out a yellow legal pad from his workbag, as well as the black marker he used to sign prescriptions. In big letters, he wrote on a page:
HAVE JACK SEARCH THE CITIES AND STATES AS GROUP. LOOK FOR A PATTERN.
He handed the note to Grace.
Grace gave the note to Jack and returned to her seat beside Mitch.
“Did you try to get help for your mommy?”
“I couldn’t help Mommy. I couldn’t!” Isabella cried. “He hit her all the time. He wanted her to go away. He
wanted me to go away. So I ran upstairs when he had her head in the bucket. I ran upstairs and went to my hiding place under the bed, the place I went to when Mommy and Daddy fought. Not under it … I hid in it.”
“In it?” Attorney Johnson said. “Like you crawled under the covers?”
“It was a box. I crawled under the box. My hands were tied but I could move the boards to climb in. I laid down on the boards under the box and you couldn’t see me even if you checked under the bed.”
“You hid in the bed’s box spring?” Attorney Johnson asked.
“It’s a box. That’s where I hid.”
Grace’s eyes went wide. She whispered to Mitch: “Penny did the same thing when she came to live with us. We couldn’t find her. We thought she’d run away.”
“How long did you hide in there?” said Attorney Johnson.
“I heard him coming up the stairs. I heard him looking for me.” She stomped her feet on the floor of the witness stand.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
“He was looking for me, but he couldn’t find me.”
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Mitch had heard tap, tap, tap and figured it was a reference to the 911 phone call Rachel made, but that was wrong. It was Isabella remembering her father’s heavy footsteps coming up the stairs … looking for her.
“I heard Mommy calling for me, too. But she couldn’t find me either. They thought I’d gone outside, because I tripped and my necklace got caught on my finger and it broke. It fell by the front door, but I didn’t stop to pick it up because I had to get upstairs to my hiding place.”
“What necklace?”
“A necklace Mommy bought for me and said it was from Daddy, but I knew that was a lie because I heard her tell Bonnie that. Bonnie is our neighbor. Mommy told Bonnie she bought it for my birthday because Daddy never gave me presents.”
“What was the necklace?”
“It was a necklace with an anchor.
“I heard Daddy come upstairs and he told Mommy that she better run. She better leave right now. Right now! Or he’d put her head back in the bucket and make her breathe that horrible stuff until she died. Mommy saw my necklace by the door and she thought I’d gone outside … she didn’t know I was under the bed. But I was too scared to come out.”
Jack got up from his seat, came to Grace, and handed her the piece of paper she’d passed to him.
There was a look in his eyes, and something passed between them. Grace unfolded the note and read what he’d written. Mitch couldn’t see what was on the page.
When Isabella paused to catch her breath, Grace turned to Mitch. “I know … I know who it is,” she stammered.
Mitch gazed back at her, stunned.
“I know who killed Rachel,” Grace said urgently. “And he’s here, Mitch. Help us all, he’s been here all along.”
CHAPTER 53
MITCH KEPT HIS GAZE locked on Grace as she rose from her seat to approach the bar. She took purposeful strides that drew the attention of Ryan, Annie, and Jack, who had to be wondering what the heck she was up to. When she glanced over her shoulder, Mitch got a good look at the rage in her dark brown eyes, and he knew whatever she was about to do, an earthquake was coming.
He unfolded the piece of paper. On it Jack had written:
Searched all the cities and states in a group. First result was a national defense book from 1996. There are boats and water on the cover. These aren’t cities. These are ships. Navy ships.
Mitch looked up when Attorney Johnson asked, “When did you finally come out from under the bed?”
“I heard Mommy’s car start up. She drove away. Then I heard Daddy’s car start up. He drove away, too. So I went downstairs after everyone was gone. But I couldn’t get my hands untied.” She held up her hands once more to show Attorney Johnson as if they were still bound.
“I could turn on the TV. So I watched TV and I waited for Mommy to come get me.”
“Did Mommy ever come home?”
Isabella shook her head slowly.
“No. She went away and didn’t come back so she wouldn’t get the bucket. But I went to the basement and poured the bucket into the toilet so she wouldn’t get it again. I poured the bucket with my hands tied up, I could do that, but Mommy still didn’t come home because she didn’t know the bucket was gone.”
Mitch read the last line of Jack’s note.
Guess who has an anchor tattoo on his forearm? I saw it when he rolled up his shirtsleeve.
“Who came to get you?”
“He did,” Grace shouted in a booming voice that drew everyone’s attention to her, but not only to her. Grace leaned her body over the bar separating the front of the courtroom from the gallery. With an outstretched arm, she aimed an accusatory finger across the courtroom, pointing it directly at Penny’s attorney, Greg Navarro.
CHAPTER 54
GRACE KEPT HER DISTANCE from Navarro, but leaned over the gallery bar to make certain he knew she had him in her sights.
“You came back to the house to make sure Rachel was gone, didn’t you … didn’t you, you son of a bitch?” she raged.
Judge Lockhart slammed her gavel hard. “You … you’re out of order!” she screamed. Navarro was on his feet, looking about the courtroom like a cornered animal. Court officers were on the move, closing in on Grace from both sides, several with their hands on the butts of their weapons.
“Did you cut a deal with Rachel, is that it?” Grace continued, undeterred despite the advancing threats. “Rachel got arrested for drug trafficking, and you were working in the public defender’s office back then. You were her damn attorney. So what was the deal you made? You’d intentionally throw her case if she didn’t sleep with you? Did you forget how babies were made, Navarro? She got pregnant with Isabella and Chloe, your twin daughters, and you … you did what? Tried to keep her quiet, keep it all contained, is that it?”
Judge Lockhart slammed her gavel, repeatedly demanding Grace be silenced.
“Daddy found me sitting on the floor watching TV,” Isabella said as if nothing were going on around her. “He said Mommy was always asking him for money for me … and he was tired of paying … he told her to stop asking but she said she’d tell everyone who my daddy was … that’s why he got so mad and made her go away and leave me … he took me to the park and he left me there.
“He told me if I said anything to anybody about what happened, if I ever told anyone his name, he’d come for me, and he’d put my head in the bucket, and he’d kill me in it, and he’d find Mommy and he’d kill her too. And he put a cloth to my face with that horrible stuff on it and I breathed it until it hurt my throat, so I knew he wasn’t lying. He took me to the park and he left me there … he left me in the park … he left me all alone…” Isabella raised her arms as though her wrists were bound by invisible rope and pointed to Greg Navarro. “And I never told anyone my name.… I never broke my promise to Mommy that I wouldn’t tell on him so he wouldn’t hurt her. I went away, too. I got gone and was gone for good.”
Grace sidestepped a lunging court officer, moving sideways toward the prosecutor’s table.
“Why’d you kill Rachel?” she shouted at Navarro. “She came back, didn’t she? You didn’t expect it, but she came back to Lynn and threatened to expose you. She was blackmailing you, wasn’t she? How many others are there? How many other female clients did you extort so you could get what you wanted? How many?”
“Grace … Grace, calm down now … you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Navarro said with his back to the judge and witness.
Two guards came at Grace from both sides, and given the limited space in which to maneuver, there was nothing she could do to avoid them.
A male court officer jammed his foot into the back of Grace’s knee, causing her body to buckle as if it were made of paper. As she went forward, a second officer cupped her right elbow with one hand and her neck with another, making it a controlled descent down to the floor. Ryan was on his f
eet in a flash, coming at the court officers like a charging buffalo.
A male court officer with the build of a trash can stepped in front of Ryan to block his way. The officer instinctively put his left leg back, widening his stance to give him more stability should Ryan try to go low. Indeed, Ryan did lower his shoulders as he barreled forward.
When the moment of contact came, Ryan had few options available to him. He grabbed the guard’s front knee, but with one leg behind him, the court officer easily maintained his balance. With his hands free, the officer struck Ryan repeatedly with several forceful blows to the back of his head.
Ryan endured the pummeling as he attempted to stand. He managed to right himself, taking the officer’s leg with him, when a second officer hit him from behind, dumping all three of them in a tangled heap on the ground.
Utter pandemonium broke out. Mitch sprang from his seat in time to see Vince Rapino fleeing through the rear doors of the courtroom. Through the crush of bodies packing the front of the gallery, he could see court officers snapping handcuffs around Grace’s wrists. She somehow managed to keep her head turned so that her focus stayed on Navarro, who had wisely decided to sneak out with the crowd exiting from the rear of the courtroom rather than try one of the side doors, through which more court officers were arriving.
“Don’t let him get away!” Grace cried out, in a pleading, desperate voice, and by “him” Mitch knew she meant Navarro. The mass exodus afforded Navarro plenty of cover in which to make his escape. He crossed over into the gallery section without attracting much attention—except from Mitch, who had sidled to the end of his row to ready himself for engagement. He stole a glance at the front of the courtroom and Attorney Johnson, who had had the foresight to go to Isabella.
Mitch rose up on his toes in an effort to locate Navarro, whom he saw pushing and shoving his way through the crowd. As fortune would have it, he was headed his way. Mitch waited until Navarro got three steps from him before he stepped out from his row and put his body in the center of the aisle, effectively blocking the only exit. He had expected Navarro to pause and think about his next move, but such was not the case.
