Lorrington straightens his gown and glances up at the ceiling, as if bored.
“The defense will attempt to malign the hard work of police officers. The defense will try to serve up surrogate suspects. All just to create the faint possibility of reasonable doubt. To believe the defense will be to allow a woman to get away with the murder of her husband. You cannot do that. You are here to perform a civic role. You are here to correct a wrong. And what has been done here is a serious wrong. Let us set it right.”
Konikova takes her seat and reaches for a glass of water.
“Mr. Lorrington?” the judge, Geraldine Parr, says. “Do you have anything to add?”
My barrister rises slowly. His height becomes evident. The atmosphere shifts. His is a commanding presence. Everyone is awaiting his performance, his rebuttal. He smiles. He goddamn smiles. And I almost want to smile, too—from silly relief, from the knowledge that this formidable legal presence has my back—along with a reputation of turning courtrooms and judges and juries into putty in his elegant, pale hands.
“Something amusing, Mr. Lorrington?” Judge Parr peers over the tops of her reading glasses. “Or are we actually going to outline a defense?”
I’m aware that my barrister’s opening will be extremely brief and general. It behooves the defense to hear the prosecution’s entire argument, and to hear all the prosecution witnesses before committing too rigidly to any specific version of events.
“Your Honor,” says Lorrington in his booming baritone as he clasps the sides of his lectern. “It appears that Madame Crown here has taken the liberty of outlining my defense for me.”
Laughter erupts from the gallery. I see smirks on a few jurors’ faces. The sketch artist hurriedly flips a page, works faster.
“Order,” calls the court officer.
“But indeed,” says Lorrington, turning to the jury, “Madame Crown is correct in that there is an alternate version of events. One that better fits the evidence. We shall demonstrate to Your Honor that all is not quite what the prosecution might have you believe. Madame Crown is also absolutely correct in something else—keep your eye on that ball. Read between the lines of her argument. And do not for an instant let your guard down, because your civic duty is to not send an innocent person away for a crime she did not do. That is your call to justice. That is the weight that now rests upon your shoulders.”
With an elegant flick of his robe, he takes his seat beside his assisting solicitor.
“Your first witness, Madame Crown?” says the judge.
Konikova stands. “Your Honor, we call Detective Senior Constable Laurel Bianchi of the South Coast Police District.”
The court door swings open.
A female detective with frizzy orange hair and a freckled, sunburned face enters. Her cheeks are ruddy. She looks overheated in her dress pants, white blouse, and ill-fitting blazer. A tight fist forms in my gut as Lozza makes her way to the witness box. She’s stocky and walks with the swagger of confidence, her arms held away from her hips as though allowing for an imaginary gun belt. As she nears I see the scar across her brow.
She takes her place in the witness box near the jury bench. She doesn’t look at me.
The court officer calls out loudly to the court, “Silence, please.” He turns to Lozza, who has asked to swear by affirmation. “Do you solemnly, sincerely declare and affirm that the evidence you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? To adopt this affirmation, say, ‘I do.’”
“I do.”
And you will regret it.
My gaze is fixed on that scar across her temple.
Because your past mistakes, your hot temper, your quickness to violence will help me, Lozza Bianchi. Lorrington is going to cut you down. So I can win.
Too bad your little girl will see what her mother really is. A Monster.
Adrenaline rides hot into my veins. It’s game on now. I can taste blood.
Konikova’s hands flutter around her folder. “Will you state your full name for the court?”
The cop leans toward the mike. “Detective Senior Constable Laurel Bianchi. Jarrawarra Bay. South Coast Police District.”
“Detective Bianchi, can you describe to the court where you were on November eighteen just over a year ago?”
Lozza flicks her gaze to me.
Mistake. I’ve got you now.
But as the cop’s gaze locks on mine, a thin, quiet blade of dread passes through me. Perhaps I’ve misread Lozza Bianchi, too.
Just like I misjudged how badly things would spiral out of control between me and Martin from that cold January night on the other side of the world over two years ago.
THEN
ELLIE
Just over two years ago, January 9. Vancouver, BC.
It was a blustery day, a sharp wind ticking the bare maple branches against the windowpanes, when I finally folded Chloe’s party dress.
I placed it carefully, gently, in a suitcase atop a few of Chloe’s other belongings I still could not bear to part with. I stared at the small clothes, listening to the wind, memories welling inside me. The dress had little dancing elephants on it. My daughter, for some reason, had loved elephants.
Chloe had worn that dress on her third birthday. Just thirty-six months old and all of life ahead of her. Her limbs still infant-chubby. Her smile so full. Dewy skin. The sense of promise, of a future, vibrated around her. The memory of her infectious little chuckle when her daddy tickled her tummy filled my soul. In my mind I suddenly saw her fist clutched around wilting wildflowers offered up to me on a lemony-sunshine spring day. I could almost smell my baby girl, feel her body in my arms. A scraped-out sensation gutted my stomach, leaving a hollow of hurt. The sense of loss—it was still physical two years down the road. The accident had happened three months and two days after that birthday celebration. After she wore this dress. Thirty-nine months and two days was her life on this earth.
For what?
What in the hell did it all mean? Why bother to keep going?
For a while I hadn’t bothered.
Part of me died—drowned—with my child that day. And in the outfall of the tragedy, my relationship with Doug, our marriage, had withered like grapes never picked on a winter vine.
I’d taken it out on Doug. I’d taken it out on myself. Doug’s ultimate betrayal was a punishment I’d brought down on myself, I guess. My therapist had said my lashing out at him was an outward manifestation of my own guilt. She’d said I was hitting at my husband to make him hate me as a way of punishing myself, and that I needed to let go of all that guilt because Chloe’s death was not my fault.
I wasn’t so sure about that.
Perhaps a buried side to me would never be sure.
My therapist had helped me, but not in time to salvage our marriage. Our life together had been built around my falling pregnant, around prenatal yoga classes, celebrating ultrasound images, baby showers, baby shopping, a gender-reveal party, readying Chloe’s room, fretting over breastfeeding and introducing solids, reserving a preschool spot . . . just being parents. We were a family of three planning to grow into four, or maybe five. Then suddenly we weren’t. The mother, the wife, the me, no longer existed. I slowly lost my friends from my mom-and-tot groups. I had no one to read all those beautiful kids’ books to. Doug would never get to take the training wheels off Chloe’s little bike and teach her to ride like a pro. My job was illustrating children’s books, and I was suddenly no longer able to do it, and had to step away.