Act of God (62 page)

“We’re at nine for guilty, two for not guilty, and one still undecided,” Stuart replied as he finished tallying the vote they
had just taken.

“That’s the same as it was last night,” Eliot said with some exasperation. “At this rate, we’ll be here till Christmas. Has
it occurred to anyone but me that the day after tomorrow is already Election Day?”

“Well, what are we supposed to do about it?” Elizabeth asked.

“I think we have to talk some more,” Stuart replied with a
sigh. He looked at Kitty, and Rose, and Allison. “Those of us who believe he’s guilty have been pretty much doing all the
talking. Maybe we should hear from those of you who don’t. Maybe you can tell us what’s hanging you up.”

“I’m not hung up, young man,” Rose said archly. “I just think Mr. Latham is too fine a person to have done such a terrible
thing.”

“And I still have too many doubts,” Kitty added.

“I had doubts, too,” Aaron said. “But after we looked again at all the evidence, I realized it couldn’t add up any other way.”

“I’m sorry,” Allison said. “I don’t know what to say except that I’m just not sure in my own mind yet.”

“It’s funny,” Karleen said. “Of everybody here, I was certain you’d be the first to find him guilty. I guess I don’t understand
why you won’t.”

“It’s not that there isn’t a lot of evidence,” Allison tried to explain. “And it’s not that I think the defendant isn’t guilty.
I still suspect he probably is. But I keep doing what the defense attorney asked us to do. I keep stepping into Corey Latham’s
shoes, and asking myself if I’d want to be convicted of this crime based solely on what was presented by the state. So far,
my answer is no, I would not.”

Karleen shrugged. “I forgot all about that.”

“So did I,” Elizabeth agreed.

“Well, I expect most of us did,” Rose said.

Aaron Sapp looked at Allison. “You’re a mystery writer, aren’t you?” he inquired.

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you generally have all the loose ends tied up at the end of your books?”

“I try. I prefer not to cheat my readers.”

“Well, may I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” Allison agreed, “anything.”

“Why don’t you pretend that this is one of your stories. Play it out for us the way you would if you were writing it.”

“You really want me to do that?” she asked.

“It can’t hurt,” Aaron said, “and it might help to see where you’re coming from. It might help Kitty and Rose, too.”

“Anything to get this over with,” Eliot said.

Brian Ayres knew he didn’t have to be in his office on a Sunday afternoon, that there was a telephone at home, and that nothing
would happen before he could return to the courthouse. But he sat at his desk anyway, alternately moving papers around and
staring at the wall.

“You did everything you could do,” Mark Hoffman told him.

And Brian knew that he had. But he also knew he had been counting on a quick verdict, and it hadn’t come.

“Do you think you did the best with what you had?” the King County prosecutor asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then that’s all you have to worry about.”

It was heartening to know that his job wasn’t going to be on the line, whichever way the verdict went. But it didn’t stop
the nagging feeling that, despite the polls, despite all the rhetoric, despite the climate of the community, he had somehow
misjudged the most important case of his career.

The jury notified Robert Niera that they had reached a verdict at ten o’clock Sunday evening. Contacted at his Kirkland home,
Abraham Bendali instructed his bailiff to send the jury back to the hotel for the night, and to inform everyone that court
would convene at ten o’clock Monday morning.

Seattle was braced for the verdict. A formidable police presence greeted Dana on her way into the courthouse. Decked
out in full body protection, and armed with tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber-pellet-firing weapons, they lined the streets—an
estimated one for every two demonstrators. The chief of police had issued direct orders that gave his personnel the go-ahead
to use whatever force was deemed necessary to maintain order.

Local networks covering the crowds had moved their camera crews to the safety of windows and rooftops. Inside the building,
the ninth floor was chaos, with reporters and their cameras jamming the corridor, knocking into one another, almost blocking
the entrance to Abraham Bendali’s courtroom. In New York, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw were all standing by.

Robert Niera knocked lightly on his judge’s door.

“Come in, Robert, come in,” Bendali invited.

“We’re ready, Your Honor,” the bailiff said. “Whenever you are.”

“Everyone present and accounted for?”

“Yes, sir.”

The judge heaved his massive frame out of his chair. “Well then, let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

“No, sir,” Robert said with a grin, because he knew it was one of Bendali’s favorite pleasures to keep attorneys waiting.

Five minutes later, court was called to order. The gallery was packed. The Hill House section overflowed. The space that had
been provided for forty reporters was crammed with close to sixty. More than a dozen of Corey’s supporters were in attendance,
including his father, who had flown in on Saturday. Zach Miller had gotten permission to attend. Elise Latham had taken time
off from work. There was standing room only.

“Mr. Foreman, do I understand that the jury has reached a verdict in this matter?” the judge inquired.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Stuart Dunn replied, rising.

At a nod from Bendali, Robert walked over to the jury box, secured the multipaged jury form, and passed the document up to
the bench.

Neither the judge’s expression nor demeanor changed as he read through the pages. After a moment, he returned the document
to Robert, who then handed it back to Stuart.

“The foreman may read the verdict,” Bendali instructed.

At the prosecution table, Brian Ayres sat almost at attention. At the defense table, Dana grasped her client’s hand as they
rose and found it icy.

“On the first count of the indictment, the death of Susan Marie Abbott,” Stuart read, “we the jury find the defendant, Corey
Dean Latham—not guilty.”

There were verdicts on one hundred and seventy-five other deaths and numerous lesser charges to be read, but it didn’t matter.
The first one told the tale. The courtroom exploded.

Joan Wills grinned like a Cheshire cat.

Dana allowed herself a little smile and one small pump of her right arm, and wondered, fleetingly, why, when she had just
won the biggest case of her career, she wasn’t more elated.

Corey Latham, after almost eight months of uncertainty, sat down in his chair, drained of all emotion, his head in his hands,
tears falling unheeded onto the table in front of him.

Brian sank slowly back in his chair, wondering why he wasn’t more surprised.

Mark Hoffman shook his head in disbelief.

Among those in the Hill House section, Marilyn Korba gasped, Frances Stocker shrugged, Joseph Heradia nodded, Betsy Toth Umanski
sighed, and Joe Romanadis groaned.

“How could they have done that?” Ruth Zelkin demanded.

“What happened?” Helen Gamble asked.

“It’s over,” Raymond Kiley told her, shaking his head in disgust. “Let’s go home.”

Corey’s family and friends rejoiced, while other spectators
alternately cheered and jeered. Reporters dashed out, tripping over one another in their haste. And Abraham Bendali, his face
a perfect mask of impartiality, watched it all.

It was well into the afternoon before the formalities and the paperwork were done, and Corey was truly a free man, but he
didn’t mind. What were a couple more hours, when he knew he would sleep beside his wife tonight?

After a quick courtroom embrace, duly noted by the cameras, Elise made her apologies. “I have a project at work that absolutely
has to be finished today, but I’ll see you at home,” she murmured to her husband, and escaped.

If Dean and Barbara Latham thought that odd, they didn’t mention it. At three o’clock, they took their son out to a late lunch,
insisting that Dana and Joan accompany them. It was a joyful occasion, filled with the kind of food Corey hadn’t seen since
his arrest, a lot of laughter, and champagne. Despite uncontrollable bouts of grinning, Corey couldn’t stop eating, while
Dean and Barbara were so ecstatic they could barely get a bite past their lips.

“We owe you everything,” Dean said to Dana and Joan, but mostly to Dana. “In spite of the bumps and the detours, you stayed
on course and never wavered, and you gave us back our son. We can’t ever express our gratitude.”

Reaction to the verdict came swiftly.

In the privacy of his office, Roger Roark tore up his final check to the law firm of Cotter Boland and Grace.

The governor of Washington expressed disappointment that there would be no closure for the families and friends of the victims,
or for the people of Seattle who had lost their clinic.

The mayor of Seattle urged the public to stay calm.

The chief of police made it clear that he saw no purpose in reopening the investigation. “However, the file will remain active,”
he said. “Should any new information come our way, we will certainly look into it.”

Coming up on an election that was too close to call, the Democratic presidential candidate also publicly expressed concern
over the lack of closure for the victims of Hill House. A spokesperson for the Republican candidate suggested that the absence
of a conviction signaled a clear shift in the country’s attitude about abortion. Privately, both candidates were furious.

Across the country, religious leaders on both sides of the issue counseled restraint.

In Port Townsend, Jefferson Reid leaned back in his chair, brought his feet in their heavy brown boots down on top of a stack
of files on his desk, and grinned.

Craig and Louise Jessup took Al Roberts and his wife out to dinner.

When he heard about the verdict, Detective Dale Tinker went out and got drunk.

“I thought you were going to be on that jury forever,” Allison Ackerman’s daughter declared. “What do you think? A book about
the experience?”

“No,” Allison told her firmly. “I have no intention of ever talking—or writing—about anything that went on there.”

“Are you at least satisfied with the verdict?”

Like mother, like daughter, Allison thought. The young woman had a knack of always digging the tip of the knife right into
the softest part of the meat.

“Yes,” she replied. “And no.”

“Well, after all was said and done, did the trial turn out to be everything you’d hoped for?” Stuart Dunn’s wife asked.

The jury foreman considered for a moment. “I think my students are going to learn a lot from what I have to tell them,” he
said, finally.

“I must admit, I never really thought you’d find him innocent.”

“We didn’t,” Stuart told her. “We simply found the state not to have proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Is there a difference?”

At that, Stuart sighed. “There’s supposed to be,” he said.

“Our prayers have been answered,” Jonathan Heal told his flock during the Prayer Hour. “Young Corey Latham is free, and a
mighty blow has been struck against the forces of evil that would have condemned him for an act of deliverance. To those of
you who helped support his cause, be proud tonight, very proud.”

Rose Gregory shook her head, and snapped off the television. “The man’s a fool,” she told her granddaughter crossly. “I don’t
know why I ever admired him.”

“Well?” Larry King asked his two special guests for the evening.

“As you can imagine, Larry, I held my breath all morning until I heard the good news,” Prudence Chaffey of AIM exclaimed,
“and I’m positively elated. The jury sent a very clear message. This is a day of true vindication for the rights of the preborn.
Now all we have to do is carry the message through tomorrow’s election.”

“We have yet another horrible miscarriage of justice, on a growing list of such occurrences,” Priscilla Wales of FOCUS retorted.
“This acquittal declares open season on women’s clinics for every lunatic in the country. Nothing good is going to come of
it. I hope people will remember that when they go to the polls.”

“I’ve heard a lot of talk since the verdict came in,” King said, “about jury nullification, and bad police work, and shaky
evidence. But do either of you ladies entertain the possibility that Corey Latham might in fact be innocent?”

Both women seemed surprised by the question.

Prudence shrugged. “What difference does it make?” she declared.

“Who cares?” Priscilla echoed.

W
hen Dana and Joan returned to Smith Tower, they found a magnum of champagne cooling on Angeline Wilder’s desk.

“It’s for you, of course,” the receptionist cooed. “You’re the talk of the office, you know. The phones have been ringing
off the hook with new clients. Mr. Grace wants you for two meetings on Thursday. And I’ve already taken calls for interviews
from
Dateline, 60 Minutes,
and the
Today
show. Between you and me, low-profile be damned. Everyone around here is just tickled pink.”