Act of God (61 page)

His wife brought him fresh underwear. “How many days are you packing for?” she asked.

“I haven’t a clue,” he replied happily. “But I can fit enough for three days in here, so I guess that’s as good a place to
start as any.”

She shook her head and smiled. “You’re just like one of the kids,” she told him.

The history teacher shrugged. “I guess some people would consider this a burden,” he said. “I consider it a privilege.”

Rose Gregory’s granddaughter packed the suitcase for her grandmother, while Rose sat on the edge of the bed and directed.

“No dear, not that dress, it’ll get too wrinkled. Not that one, either,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It isn’t flattering.”

“And just who are you trying to impress?” her granddaughter asked with a mock frown.

“Well, there’s a nice gentleman named Ralph, who’s a barber,” Rose replied with a little giggle. “And I’ve noticed he has
an eye for the ladies.”

“Oh now, you stop,” her granddaughter chided. “This isn’t any church supper you’re going to, you know.”

Rose sighed. “I certainly do know that,” she said. “And I don’t mind telling you, it’s been keeping me up nights.”

“I’m not surprised,” her granddaughter said.

“I know it’s my civic duty to serve on this jury, and I’ll see it through. But between you and me, I’d really rather be someplace
else.”

Karleen McKay’s idea of packing for the weekend did not include spending the better part of it in a courthouse jury room.
It had more to do with sun and sea. Nevertheless, she dutifully ironed a selection of blouses, and matched them up
with skirts and sweaters, and then added a slinky negligee, just to satisfy her own sense of humor.

She had no idea how the rest of the jurors felt about this trial, but she was tired of it all. There had been too many witnesses,
saying too many things, for the defendant, against the defendant, and now it was all a muddle in her mind. It wasn’t that
she didn’t take jury duty seriously. She knew how important it was to put away the bad guys and exonerate the good guys. It
was just that she didn’t want to be the one to make the decision.

John Quinn’s wife was nervous as her husband packed his battered suitcase. Although there had been no further harassment after
the grisly photograph incident, she didn’t like the idea of him being gone from home overnight.

“I can talk to you every day on the telephone,” he assured her. “If anything’s wrong, you can tell me, and I’ll report it.
You and the kids will be fine.” As if to underscore his words, the family dog bounded into the bedroom and began to wag his
tail. “See,” Quinn said, “you have Mutt to protect you.”

“Do you really think serving on this jury is going to help your business?” his wife asked.

“It can’t hurt,” he told her with a shrug, “unless we come out with the wrong verdict.”

“What’s the wrong verdict?” she asked.

Quinn shrugged. “I guess we won’t know that until we come out with it.”

It took the judge most of Friday morning to charge the jury, explaining to them what they could and could not consider, and
what they could and could not do, and how they had to do it. As soon as he finished, court was adjourned. The four alternates
were excused but asked to stand by. Robert Niera then led the group of twelve into the jury room, where the
smell of fresh coffee wafted from a large percolator, and two big platters of sandwiches sat on the table, along with twelve
pads and twelve pens. The luggage they had brought with them had already been tagged and removed to the nearby hotel where
they would stay as many nights as necessary.

Robert made sure the door leading into the corridor was properly secured and then turned to leave. “I’ll be locking this door
behind me,” he said, referring to the courtroom entry. “If you need anything, just press the button here on the wall.”

With that, he was gone, and the jurors heard the sound of a dead bolt sliding into place.

“I hope none of us is claustrophobic,” David Reminger, the computer programmer, worried. “It could get pretty tight in here.”

“At least we won’t go hungry,” Allison observed.

“It’s a good thing we all sort of like each other,” Ralph Bergquist, the barber, said tentatively.

Eliot Wickstine grinned. “So far, anyway,” the pilot said.

“I guess the first thing we should do is pick a foreperson, shouldn’t we?” Elizabeth Kwan, the technical writer, reasoned.

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Aaron Sapp, the community college professor, suggested.

Glad to have a starting point, they pulled their chairs up around the table.

“How do we pick a foreperson?” Kitty Dodson, the cosmetician, asked.

“We elect one,” Stuart Dunn told her. He glanced around the table. “Any nominations?”

“I nominate you,” Karleen McKay said.

“Why me?” Stuart asked.

“Because you’re levelheaded,” Karleen told him, “and because you already know how to work with kids.”

“I agree,” Allison said.

“Then let’s make it unanimous,” Ralph declared. There
was no dissent, and the barber promptly vacated his seat. “The foreman gets to sit at the head of the table,” he said, and
exchanged places with the history teacher.

“What do we do now?” Kitty asked.

“Have a sandwich?” Eliot offered, helping himself to a ham and cheese on rye.

“Maybe we should take a preliminary vote,” Stuart suggested. “Sort of get a feel for where
we
stand.”

Kitty looked at the pad and pen in front of her. “Should we write it or just say it?” she asked.

“Write it, I think,” Stuart said.

“What do we write?” Elizabeth wondered. “Guilty or not guilty?”

Stuart nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s done.”

There was a general murmur of assent, and each of them proceeded to write something down, and then tear the page off the pad,
fold it in half, and pass it down the line. Eleven pairs of eyes fastened on the foreman as he read each vote.

“We have seven votes for guilty,” Stuart summarized, “four votes for not guilty, and one vote for undecided.”

“Undecided?” Eliot Wickstine complained. “Who said undecided?”

“I did,” Allison replied mildly.

“That wasn’t an option.”

“Maybe not, but it’s how I voted.”

“Now what do we do?” David Reminger asked.

“I guess we talk,” Stuart told him.

“Where do we start?”

“I have an idea,” Eliot said. “Why don’t each of us—if we want to, that is—just say how we feel, and why.”

Stuart looked around the table. “Any objections?” he asked. There was no response. “Okay, Eliot, you want to begin?”

“Sure,” the pilot said. “He’s guilty. I think the prosecution proved its case.”

“Beyond reasonable doubt?” Aaron Sapp asked.

“Beyond any of my doubts,” Eliot replied. “He had the motive, his wife’s abortion. He had the means, he knew how to make a
bomb. And I figure he found the opportunity, even if his wife
was
a light sleeper. I think they even showed he was one of those religious nuts who thought he was answering the call of God.”

“I voted guilty, too,” Karleen said. “I think the prosecutor pretty much did his job. Some of the testimony may have been
a little flaky, but most of it was solid. And I think he did it.”

“So do I,” Ralph Bergquist declared, “for the same reason as Karleen just said. I think he had some good answers when he got
on the stand, but it didn’t change my mind. Certainly not after listening to the medical examiner’s testimony.”

“I voted guilty,” Elizabeth Kwan said. “I have questions about some of the testimony we heard, and about what his real motivation
was, but on whole, I think he probably did it.”

“I voted not guilty,” Kitty Dodson said. “I listened very hard to what the defendant said, and I believed him. I believed
what he said about the aspirin and the battery acid, and stuff. I thought about all the products I use in my work. I know
some of them must be deadly, and I’m sure there are traces of them all around my apartment and in my car, and I don’t even
realize it. So what he said made sense to me.”

“I voted not guilty as well,” Rose Gregory said. “I liked the defendant, and I didn’t like the police detective. I think he
coerced the testimony from that poor homeless man, and that makes me wonder what else he did that was wrong.”

“I voted guilty,” John Quinn said. “When I added it all up, there were just too many things that pointed at the defendant,
circumstantial or not. And I think he could’ve drugged his wife’s cocoa.”

“We’re not allowed to consider that,” Stuart reminded him.

“Why not?” John asked.

“Because the prosecutor can’t make a statement that he has no evidence to back up.”

“Well maybe not,” John grumbled. “But I heard it anyway.”

“I liked the prosecutor,” David Reminger said. “But I didn’t like the way he tried to slip that in. I didn’t think that was
fair. I could tell the judge didn’t like it, either. And I had questions about some of the other evidence he presented, too.
Like the anonymous letter just showing up like that. It seemed awfully convenient to me, and no one could explain where it
came from. So I voted not guilty.”

“I also voted not guilty,” Aaron said. “It’s not that I don’t think he did it. To be honest, I actually think he did do it.
But I’m not sure the state proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Well, I voted guilty,” Bill Jorgenson, the Boeing worker, said. “I thought that defense attorney was a little too slick,
like she wanted us to think she had all the answers. Whatever the prosecution witnesses had to say, she always had a comeback
ready to trip them up, make them seem stupid or dishonest. When the prosecutor finally had the chance to lay out all the evidence
at the end, I realized just how overwhelming it was.”

“And I voted guilty,” Stuart said. “I think the defense attorney did a good job trying to refute the evidence, but there was
just too much of it. Too many coincidences, as the prosecutor said. I listened very closely when the defendant was testifying.
I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I have, but a lot of what he said sounded a little too rehearsed to me.”

Eleven pairs of eyes turned to Allison.

“I think he may be guilty,” she said. “Or maybe it’s just that I want him to be guilty, because it was a monstrous crime,
and I feel that somebody ought to be held responsible for it. But I
can’t vote to convict unless I’m certain he’s guilty. And I’m not yet. The medical examiner’s testimony was powerful, yes,
but he couldn’t implicate the defendant in any of those deaths. The bomb expert’s testimony was also effective, but he couldn’t
connect the defendant to that bomb. I believe the eyewitness saw something, but it’s not clear to me what he saw. And as for
all the trace evidence, I thought the defendant had reasonable answers for a lot of it. On the other hand, I feel as some
of you do—how many coincidences do you pile up before it isn’t coincidence anymore?”

F
riday became Saturday, and still there was no word from the jury. Dana split her time between Magnolia and the jail, her cell
phone always on, and never out of reach.

“The waiting is always the hardest part,” she told her client. “After you’ve done all you can do, and it’s out of your hands.”

“What does it mean,” he asked, “that they’re taking so long?”

“It means they aren’t unanimous yet,” she replied.

“Is that good or bad?”

“Well, there’s an old maxim that says the longer the jury is out, the better it is for the defendant. But all things considered,
I wouldn’t put too much faith in that.”

“You mean, I’m guilty until proven innocent?”

Dana shrugged. “Given the circumstances, probably something like that.” She could have said that she was growing more cautiously
optimistic as each hour went by, but something stopped her. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to get his hopes
up, but she knew it was more that she was afraid to get her own hopes up. She had likely lost her career, her best
friend, and her husband because of this case. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing the case as well.

“But what if they can’t get to unanimous?”

“Then we have a hung jury,” she said. “And we start all over.”

Corey shuddered. “You mean, go through another whole trial?” he said.

“If that’s what the state decides, and I’m fairly certain it would.”

“I don’t think I want that,” he told her. “I think I want a verdict right here—whatever it is. It’s the not knowing that’s
driving me crazy.”

“Well then, let’s hope that we get one, and that it’s the right one,” she said, as much to bolster herself as to bolster him.

The jury was still at it. They had debated for six hours on Friday and ten hours on Saturday, and they were beginning their
fourth hour around the table on Sunday.

“It feels so strange, not going to church,” Rose observed.

“I know what you mean,” Ralph said. “But I’m sure God will forgive us.”

“Well, where are we with this thing?” Karleen asked, thinking that it wasn’t church she was missing, it was the income she
was losing.