Next to her is the defendant, Alistair Kennedy, scribbling notes, rogue teacher, abuser of little girls. The picture of respectability in his nicely pressed whiter-than-white shirt and crimson polka dot tie. He could have been one of the lawyers and not the client. Behind him, the public gallery is full and restless. All eyes are on me. Expectant. Sitting in the second row from the front I spot Detective North in his crumpled shirt. He flashes me a frown of concern.
I get it. I’m concerned too. My peculiar set of neuroses is getting in the way of thinking straight, let alone doing my job.
This morning my intention had been to speak with Eileen Mercer before court and come clean about Susie’s previous allegations. I had arrived at the conclusion that I would have to tell the truth and face the consequences and hope that the judge excluded the admission on the grounds it was historical.
But then I saw Susie in the corridor. Claire Watson had put a pink ribbon in her hair, which made her look more like nine than eleven and all the more vulnerable. I thought about what Susie had gone through, which was at least as bad as what I had experienced if not worse because of her age, and how courageous she was for wanting to confront the monster who took away her innocence.
Detective North was waiting with them. He’d stood when he saw me.
“You okay?” he’d asked.
“Fine. I’m fine. Just running a bit late.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye. I felt so duplicitous.
“I think they’re waiting for you in there,” he’d said.
I’d glanced through the window. Everyone was seated apart from the judge. According to the Lawyers Rules of Professional Conduct and Ethics my overriding duty was to the court, so it was clear what the proper course of action should be—go in there and call for a sidebar and inform the court of Susie’s previous allegations and let the chips fall where they may.
But I didn’t do that. Instead, I put on my game face and reached for the handle and entered the room and waited until Judge Brown took her seat. Then I delivered my opening and listened to Eileen Mercer deliver hers. I called the first of my two witnesses—the hospital medical examiner—and stepped her through her evidence, and took note of the jurors’ appalled expressions when they saw the graphic nature of the diagrams. And then…well, then the time finally arrived, the point of no return, when I had to choose whether or not to call Susie as a witness or call a sidebar instead.
So here I am now, with Judge Brown looking at me over the top of her glasses with her penetrating gaze and the whole court is waiting and I know this is my very last chance to act. I feel the weight of Eileen Mercer’s stare. She knows. Everyone knows. I am playing with fire. I will get disbarred. I will cause a mistrial. Part of me is screaming for a sidebar. If I do it now the case could still be salvageable. My addled brain can’t handle this mess. If only I had gotten some sleep. My lips go numb and I smell something, the stale air of the subway, and for one God awful minute I think I’m going to pass out, right there in the middle of the courtroom.
Eileen Mercer gets to her feet. “Really, Your Honor?”
“Indeed,” says the judge, giving me a steely look. “Ms. Kellaway, either present your next witness or rest your case.”
There’s still time. I could still call for an adjournment. I could still make the disclosure. A murmur filters throughout the court. Everyone is waiting. I fight the urge to flee and never come back.
“Ms. Kellaway.”
I rise to my feet. It’s a miracle we’ve made it this far, to trial, after the tentative early days of the arraignment, the defense’s pathetic attempts at a plea agreement in return for a suspended sentence, the eventual withdrawal of each witness, apart from one.
“Your Honor, I call Susan Angela Watson to the stand.”
10
I look at poor Susie in the witness box. A smile forms on her lips. A kind smile for a kid. As if she can feel my terror and wants to reassure me that everything’s going to be okay. Prior to Susie taking the stand, the witness screen had been wheeled into court. The lightweight laminate partition is effective in its simplicity, and completely obstructs any view that Susie has of Alistair Kennedy and him of her, although the jury, who are seated to Susie’s left, can see her clearly, including, I hope, the same slightly trembling chin that I’m witnessing.
I take a breath and begin. We start with the easy questions first, her name, date of birth, where she attended school. Then we get into the evidence proper. The tough stuff. The kind of stuff that makes juries cringe. I steer her through her evidence-in-chief, one painful incident at a time. Four incidents, in particular, that mirror the charges brought against Kennedy. Susie confines herself to answering the questions, just as we talked about during her pre-trial prep, offering no more information than necessary. She does well, leaning into the microphone and speaking clearly so everyone can hear. A slight quiver thins her voice but she holds herself together in a way that is both admirable and heartwarming in its sincerity.
We get to the storeroom incident at the school involving the digital penetration and I hone in on the details. There are intakes of breath. People shift in their seats. It’s unpleasant and hard to listen to but critical for everyone to hear. I look at the jury. Seven men. Five women. Three Latino. One black. One Korean. One Lebanese. The rest white. A good cross-section overall. Two are crying.
“Susie, are you able to identify the man who did that to you?”
“Yes.”
I enter in a large poster-sized six-person montage as Exhibit 12.
“Can you point him out in this montage labeled Exhibit 12?”
She raises her hand and points to Alistair Kennedy’s face.
From his chair to the right, Kennedy shifts uncomfortably, his mouth a grim flat line. In the row directly behind him, his loyal wife and three grown sons are stone-faced in their seats.
“Susie, is what you’ve told us here today the truth?”
Her reaction is immediate. Shoulders back. Chin raised.
She nods. “Yes, Ms. Kellaway, it is.”
I turn to the judge. “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
There’s a short recess and then Susie is back on the stand. Eileen Mercer gets to her feet. I study the worn carpet in front of the witness box and begin to shake. This forty-plus-year veteran once worked for the same prosecution office as I did but turned her back on the public service for a career defending the indefensible. She was an idealist and believed everybody deserved a defense no matter what they were accused of. Mercer played by the rules and firmly expected that everyone else should too. If she ever found out that I had not disclosed something I should have, there would be hell to pay. A complaint to the Bar, the loss of my practicing license in the district of New York, possibly the entire length of the United States. Mercer was a powerful woman in the legal profession and she would never let it go.
I had studied her as a law student, attending six of her trials. She was renowned for her cross-examination techniques. And she certainly had a talent, that was for sure, and could unravel witness testimony like no other lawyer I had ever encountered. One strand at a time, methodical, ruthless in her action but soft in her tone. She would peer at the jury over her glasses every time a witness faltered as if to say “see, he’s not telling you the truth.” She was a skilled operator and juries loved her sharp wit and her grandmotherly demeanor. Hiring her was the smartest thing Alistair Kennedy could have ever done.