Act of God (30 page)

Corey had asked his minister to look out for Elise, and so
the man had, picking her up at her front door and bringing her downtown, running interference for her both outside and inside
the courthouse, and now sitting protectively at her side.

“I’ve taken a one-month leave from work, so I can be here every day,” she told Dana, her voice sounding somewhat defensive.
“After that, I don’t know. I can’t afford to lose my job.”

Dana nodded her appreciation. It was important for Corey’s wife to be in the courtroom, visibly behind her husband. But the
attorney had to acknowledge that the young woman, without benefit of assistance from her family, had to earn a living.

“Well, we aren’t going to worry about that now,” Sheridan said, gently patting her hand. “God has a way of providing.”

“Thank you,” Dana murmured, and then turned to smile at her client’s parents. “It’ll mean the world to Corey to have you here,”
she said.

“I’m here for the duration,” Barbara said, “but Dean will have to go back.”

Although Dana knew that Elise had invited her in-laws to stay at the house on West Dravus, they had instead chosen to stay
at a hotel within walking distance of the courthouse. Sheridan had arranged it, and secured a special rate for them, as well.

“It gives us twenty-four-hour room service, if we need it, and a lot less public exposure,” Dean explained, looking at her
from eyes that were very like his son’s.

Worry lines had creased the man’s face, etching themselves deep into his skin, aging him well past his years. The kind of
worry lines that, no matter the outcome of this trial, would never go away.

Across the aisle from the defendant’s supporters sat a large contingent of what Dana would come to regard as the Hill House
people, that poignant mixture of survivors and relatives of those who had not survived. Even eight months after the tragedy,
she still saw canes and braces and wheelchairs. What
was not so visible were the broken lives that would never be repaired.

It was unavoidable, she knew. They had every right to be here, however prejudicial their impact on the jury, and Dana knew
enough to know it would be considerable. It was a futile effort to file a motion to have them excluded, and Bendali rejected
it outright, as she knew he would. But she was obligated to do it on behalf of her client.

On the heels of that thought, Corey Latham entered the courtroom. The khaki officer’s uniform was intended to make him look
clean-cut and upstanding, but the effect was all but overshadowed by the shackles on his hands and the escorts at his side.

A sudden hush fell as Corey walked slowly down the aisle, past the reporters in the back rows, past the general public, past
the survivors’ section, and past his own contingent of family and friends, to the table where Dana was waiting. At her nod,
the escorts removed the shackles and retreated.

Despite Corey’s prison pallor, his face lit up when he saw his parents, and he practically fell into their arms. Barbara couldn’t
help herself. Tears ran as freely down her cheeks as they did her son’s. Even Dean made no effort to hold them back.

For perhaps five minutes, the people who loved and believed in Corey Latham embraced him, something they had not been allowed
to do since his arrest, as the people of Hill House looked silently on. Dana had no idea what was going through the minds
of those who saw, but she hoped that it was a scene they would remember, down the road, when it was time for the real healing
to begin.

At exactly nine-thirty, Robert Niera called the court to order and everyone stood as Abraham Bendali appeared. The
judge made his way to the bench, taking a moment to adjust himself in his chair, and then peered down at those assembled.

“Be seated,” he directed, in his most magisterial tone, and waited until the scraping and scuffling in the gallery subsided.
Then he glanced at his bailiff. “All right,” he said with a nod, “let’s have the jury in.”

Robert walked to the back of the room and through the door in the rear wall. A moment later, he returned, escorting sixteen
people down the aisle, and directing them into the jury box. They took their seats according to the sequence of their selection.
Allison Ackerman, selected ninth, sat in the third chair in the second row, with Karleen McKay to her right, and John Quinn
to her left. The four alternates were then seated in the last two chairs of each row.

It was the first opportunity for most of those in the courtroom to see the jury. The reporters hoped they would be expressive,
the Hill House people hoped they would be resolute, and the defendant’s supporters hoped they would be fair.

Abraham Bendali contemplated the packed house before him. All the players were present and accounted for, he determined, and
the audience was in place. For the last time—for him anyway—the show was about to begin. He raised his gavel.

Tom Sheridan, holding Elise’s hand on his right, and Barbara’s on his left, closed his eyes and said a prayer. The gavel came
down sharply. The trial of Corey Latham was under way.

“Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.”

—
Emmeline Pankhurst

B
rian Ayres rose to his feet and faced the jury. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for being here,” he said
in his best courtroom voice.

In response, sixteen people mumbled a self-conscious “Good morning.”

The prosecutor smiled. “When I tell you how grateful I am that you
are
here, because the system wouldn’t work without you, I’m not trying to flatter you, or gain an advantage of any kind. I’m
simply telling you the truth. You represent the protection that is guaranteed to every American under the Constitution. Without
you, doing what you’re about to do, none of us is safe, and that’s the truth. And that’s what this trial is all about, too—the
truth. And your ability to hear it, and recognize it, and act on it.”

He paused for a moment, and Dana smiled to herself. She had to admit he was not only brilliant, but in his element. This was
his theater, he had already taken center stage, and he had hooked the jury with his very first lines. And as if that weren’t
enough, he looked terrific in his gray suit and blue shirt. Dana
watched the jurors closely. As expected, the women were leaning just a little bit forward, while the men were sitting just
a little bit taller, and both were listening just a little bit harder.

“I know I don’t have to tell any of you what happened at Hill House on the first Tuesday in February,” Brian continued smoothly.
“The details have been in all the newspapers and newsmagazines and on every television channel in the country, if not the
world. You would have to have been off the planet to miss it. So, the primary focus of this trial isn’t going to be on the
devastation of Hill House. It’s going to be on the person who caused that devastation. It’s going to be about the state of
Washington, represented by me, proving to you, beyond a reasonable doubt, maybe even beyond any doubt, that the man sitting
at that table over there,” and here he pointed directly at the defendant, “planted the bomb that blew up Hill House, and killed
one hundred and seventy-six men, women, and children.”

As if on cue, it seemed that everyone in the courtroom exhaled. Brian took the opportunity to walk slowly over to his table
and pick up a sheet of paper. When he turned back to the jury, the conversational tone of before was gone.

“Susan Marie Abbott, twenty-eight,” he read from the paper. “Jean Arnold, forty-four. Melanie Kay Aronson, thirty. Eleanor
Nash Barrington, fifty-three. Richard Bucklin, twenty-two months…”

“Oh, my God,” Corey gasped, when he realized what the prosecutor was doing.

Dana reached over and put her hand on his arm, squeezing as hard as she dared, to steady him as best she could, while Brian
Ayres slowly read aloud into the record the litany of the dead.

The prosecutor’s opening statement leapfrogged the lunch hour and lasted into the afternoon. By the time he had finished laying
out the evidence he planned to present in the coming
weeks, it was past three o’clock, and time for the afternoon break.

Half an hour later, Abraham Bendali looked at Dana.

“Do you wish to proceed at this time?” he asked her. “Or would you prefer we adjourn until tomorrow?”

“If it’s all right with the court, I’d prefer to proceed, Your Honor,” she replied.

The judge nodded, and Dana stood up. She had chosen a tailored burgundy gabardine suit for her first appearance before the
jury, and added small gold hoop earrings and a thin gold necklace. Her skirt was not too short and her heels were not too
high. She referred to her choice of outfit as dressing down, and she would continue to dress down for the entire trial. While
it was important to look professional in the courtroom, Dana knew it was just as important not to keep reminding everyone
of the high-priced attorney that she was.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” she began, in a voice that was soft but modulated to carry clearly to the back of
the courtroom. “Contrary to popular opinion, I am not here to get my client off at all costs. That’s not what I do. Our courts
are based on an adversarial system, which means the right of a defendant to compel the state to prove its case beyond a reasonable
doubt. Mr. Ayres and I are the adversaries in this case.” She paused for a moment to point an index finger at the prosecutor.
“I’m the one who keeps him honest,” she said.
“That’s
what I do. And in doing that, I protect not only my client, I protect each and every one of us against undue persecution
and prosecution.”

“I see she memorizes, too,” Mark Hoffman whispered to Brian.

“Taught her everything she knows,” Brian whispered back.

“It’s my job to question, in your behalf, every single piece of evidence the state presents,” Dana continued. “It’s my obligation
to kick it, stomp on it, discredit it if I can, try to tear it to
shreds, and then see if it can still stand up and walk. If enough of it does, then it’s your job to convict my client of the
crime for which he stands accused. But if it doesn’t, then it will be your duty to tell the state it’s got the wrong man.”

At that, some of the jurors blinked.

“Now, in this case, I realize that won’t be an easy thing for you to do,” Dana told them. “The death of one hundred and seventy-six
people can’t be readily discounted. The presence here in this courtroom of some of those who survived can’t be casually dismissed.
What’s more, you’re an unsequestered jury, which means the pressure on you from the media and from the advocacy groups that
are congregating right outside the courthouse door will be enormous, and difficult, if not impossible, to ignore.”

To her surprise, Allison Ackerman discovered there was something about the defense attorney that she liked, even if, unfortunately,
it wasn’t her client. It was a kind of in-your-face determination to tell it as she saw it, good or bad, and hang the consequences.
It made her appear rather vulnerable, and Allison had always had a soft spot in her heart for underdogs.

“If you think you wouldn’t want to be standing in my shoes, you might be right,” Dana continued. “I’m probably not going to
be very popular in this town for a while. But then, I’m not so sure I’d be happy standing in
your
shoes, either. The world wants a resolution here, a fitting end for the victims, closure for the survivors, relief for the
rest of us. We all want someone to pay for Hill House. The question is—how much do you care whether that someone is the right
one?”

At that, several jurors stirred in their seats.

“Does that make you uncomfortable?” Dana asked. “It should. I can assure you it makes my client uncomfortable. Because it’s
his life you’ve got in your hands. And the wrong decision here isn’t going to make up for those who were lost. Not one of
them.”

Allison sighed. Impartial as she was going to do her best to be in this matter, the prosecution’s presentation had struck
a chord in her. With his opening statement, Brian Ayres had begun making the case that she had been anticipating, one that
was meticulously prepared, logical, credible, and inescapable. What the defense attorney was now saying was not what she wanted
to hear.

“As you listen to the state’s case,” Dana said, looking straight at the mystery writer as though she had read her mind, “I’d
like you to do something, if you can. I’d like each of you to put yourself in Corey Latham’s shoes. Walk around in them for
a while. Decide whether you’d be willing to be convicted of this crime, based solely on the evidence that the prosecution
is going to present. I believe you’ll find the answer is no. I believe you’ll come to the same conclusion I have—that Corey
Latham is innocent.”

With that, Dana turned to go back to her table and take her seat, pausing just long enough to glance up at the bench. “We
can adjourn now, Your Honor,” she said with a little smile.

The point was not lost on Bendali. The defense did not intend the jurors, or the media for that matter, to sleep on the prosecutor’s
unrebutted remarks. After admonishing the jury not to discuss the case among themselves, or with anyone else, he recessed
his court until ten o’clock the following morning.