Page 96 of His Surrender
I sat with a hand at my mouth, bouncing my knee. Damn. Cross was good. I glanced at the jury to get a read on them.Shit.They seemed to be eating up his every word.
“Mrs. Wilson didn’t premediate killing her husband,” Emery continued. “She did what any of us would do in her position. She’s a survivor. Today, I ask you, the jurors, to give a verdict of not guilty. Thank you.”
Emery returned to his seat and looked at me. It was my turn.
Members of the Sebastian County police department sat behind me, and I saw some of them shift in their seats from the corner of my eye. The victim had been their colleague. Their friend. The pressure was on.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” I said, stepping toward them. “I won’t show you any more smiling photos of this family. I won’t argue whether the defendant is acaring,charitablewoman. Because when it comes down to the facts, none of that matters.” I changed the slide to show a crime scene photo. Terry was facedown on the ground with a hole in the back of his head. Blood splattered on the wall, some of the splashes farther down and others going higher. “You’ve heard the expert testimony. Those splashes weren’t caused by a single hit. They were caused bymanyhits. Forceful ones. The degree of splatter shows the aggressiveness of the attack.”
I moved to the next slide which was a copy of the coroner’s report. “The coroner labeled this death as a homicide. That’s a fact. Here’s another. The body was moved postmortem. Why? And since a judgment should be made on facts and not speculation… here’s another fact. The toxicology report says there was no alcohol found in the victim’s blood. If Terry Wilson was drunk as the defense claims, where’s the proof?”
I paused to move my gaze along the jurors’ faces. “Self-defense is a valid claim in some cases. However, the defense has not given credible evidence to state that this was the case here. The evidence shows a man with no criminal record, no history of abuse, and who spent his free time going golfing with his friends and having cookouts in his backyard having been murdered in cold blood.”
“You bastard!” a female voice exclaimed.
I turned to see Lindsey Wilson jumping up from the defense table and charging toward me. Emery grabbed her, and she knocked him aside before being restrained by the bailiff.
Judge Meyers yelled and banged his gavel.
“How dare you defend that monster!” she spat at me. Her face was red, and tears glistened in her eyes. “I hope you burn in hell, you arrogant prick! He beat me until I couldn’t walk! He said no one would ever believe me because of who he is!”
“Don’t say another word,” Emery said to her, his eyes wide.
“One more outburst, Mrs. Wilson, and I’ll have you removed from my courtroom,” Judge Meyers said.
“Yes I wanted him dead!” she shouted like a madwoman. “I killed the bastard just like he deserved! I don’t regret it either!”
Judge Meyers ordered to have her taken from the room. The courtroom was then filled with people speaking and standing from their seats. The judge called for order. It was a goddamn disaster.
“Counsel, meet me in my chambers,” Judge Meyers said before exiting through the door behind him.
Emery and I exchanged a look before following him.
“I move to have it declared a mistrial,” Emery said to the judge once we were in the room.
“Well, I object to that,” I responded.
“On what grounds?” Emery growled. “My client just incriminated herself! She has rights.”
“She does,” I countered. “But she willingly said those things. No one forced her. She wasn’t testifying and offered the information willingly, so that protection doesn’t apply here. There was no violation of her rights.”
“Enough,” Judge Meyers interjected, sitting in the chair behind his desk. He looked like he’d just aged ten years. “I will instruct the jury to disregard her statements.”
“That’s not fair, Your Honor,” Emery said through clenched teeth. “The harm has already been done. There’s no justice to be had now.”
The judge squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You are correct, Mr. Cross. It’s tainted, and I can’t in good faith allow the jury to render a verdict after witnessing such a circus.”
After more back-and-forth, I proposed a plea bargain agreement, and Emery said he’d take the offer to his client once it was drafted to see if she’d accept it. So much time and resources had already been put into the case, and neither of us wanted to go through the motions of having another trial. I’d lose my damn mind.
“How did it go?” Remi asked over the phone as I left the courtroom. School had just released.
“It was going well for a while,” I said, unlocking my car before sliding inside and starting it. “Then it turned to shit.” I gave him a summary of what happened. “Now I have a headache from hell. How was your day?”
“Better than yours. What do you say we order dinner in and relax at your place? I’d offer to cook, but we know how that will turn out.”
I chuckled. A few days after we returned from New Orleans, Remi had invited me over to his apartment for dinner. He’d cooked pork chops and burned them so bad it smoked up the entire kitchen and made the fire alarm go off. We’d had to open the door and all the windows to usher the smoke out before the damn thing would shut off.
It reminded me of the story Cason had told me about Emery burning steaks on one of their dates. Maybe it was a rite of passage for every relationship. I smiled at the thought. Then I had an idea.
