Lies of the Heart

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

Michelle Boyajian

Viking

VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in 2010 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Michelle Boyajian, 2010

All rights reserved

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Boyajian, Michelle.
Lies of the heart : a novel / Michelle Boyajian.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-19007-4

1. Trials (Murder)—Fiction. 2. Widows—Fiction. 3. Grief—Fiction. 4 Married people—Fiction.

5. Marriage—Fiction. 6. Speech therapist and patient—Fiction. 7. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

PS3602.O924L54 2010
813’.6—dc22 2009044783

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

For Mom and Dad

Prologue

I
t’s one of those surreal moments in life, sitting there in the courtroom and staring into the eyes of her husband’s killer. Katie wasn’t at the recreation center the day Jerry LaPlante shot Nick, but looking into Jerry’s light blue eyes she actually sees Nick’s face jerk with confusion and pain as the bullet tears into his brain by way of the soft skin between his right eye and the bridge of his nose. She sinks into the blueness of Jerry’s eyes and follows the bullet’s path as it rips through Nick’s frontal lobe, instantly severing memories of their boating trips to Cape Cod, their wedding day, and late nights curled up together in bed, whispering. She sees the bullet careen off the back of his skull, exploding and fragmenting, the shards of graphite destroying his sense of taste and smell, his ability to blink and smile, his capacity to match images and feelings with words. She watches the bulk of the tiny bullet puncture Nick’s hypothalamus—what the regional pathologist has called the center of all human emotion—where it finally comes to rest. In her mind she imagines that this fragment explodes every happy feeling Nick has ever experienced, that in the seconds before death claims him his shattered brain has one last gray-matter extravaganza, and that she is in there somewhere, smiling and touching his arm with love. One last cerebral orgasm before he leaves her world and she ends up here, in court, staring into the eyes of her husband’s killer.

I
t would only take about twenty seconds—twenty-five, tops. But Katie times it in her head again anyway, because Richard is really on a roll now, he’s pacing back and forth in front of the jurors and unbuttoning the jacket of his dark suit. Katie knows exactly what this means, knows that now he’s presented her husband to the jurors—Nick’s faithful service to the speech-pathology community, his selfless behavior with his clients, his devotion to the mentally handicapped population—it’s time clients, his devotion to the mentally handicapped population-it’s time to tell them about that day, it’s time for Richard to take Nick away again. So she closes her eyes and carefully counts it out again:

Five seconds to rise and make her way to the end of the front row. She will be polite, of course, she will say
Excuse me, excuse me
the whole way, but she has to be quick so she won’t hesitate if she accidentally tramples a foot or two. Another five to push open the little gate, to step through, and then walk around to the right and face the defense table. At least a full ten seconds to throw herself directly across the table and onto Jerry, to dig her right index finger into one of his eye sockets, hooked and pulling, or to slam the heel of her palm up on the underside of his nose, hard. Yes, about twenty seconds. But possibly another ten if the bailiffs are quick, if they beat her to where Jerry is sitting there, hunched over a yellow writing tablet with a pen.

Add a few more seconds to wrestle it out of his hand, to raise it high and then plunge it—

“And then that defendant walked into the Warwick Center gymnasium on May fifth of this year, at approximately two-thirty in the afternoon, where Nicholas Burrelli was playing a game of pickup basketball with two of his clients,” Richard says in his confident, sonorous voice.

Katie opens her eyes, because she knows what will happen if she keeps them closed, how the words will begin to form and take shape, how she will see it all over again: her husband sidestepping with the ball, his face flushed with happiness, the beads of sweat forming. And then, always too soon, the blind rush of film moving forward—her husband flat on his back, face ghostly, fading. Dark blood pooling underneath his head, the fingers of thick liquid slowly escaping from underneath.

Richard stands in front of the jurors, his arm outstretched and pointing at Jerry. Jerry’s lawyer, Donna Treadmont, places her hand lightly on Jerry’s back, but Jerry stays bent over the pad.

“And Jerry LaPlante reached into the pocket of his windbreaker”—Richard mimes this, puts his hand into his pocket and then pulls it out with his index finger pointing, thumb up in the air—“and he pulled out a gun. He raised the gun to eye level and walked across the basketball court toward Nick, who had his back to him.”

Richard holds his finger-gun in front of him and slowly walks to the defense table. Donna’s hand makes wide, swirling motions on Jerry’s broad back, but he’s still focused on the pad, the pen moving carefully across the page.

“And he didn’t stop until he got to within three feet of Nick.”

Richard stops, gun trained on Jerry’s lowered head, and there is complete silence. But it’s too late for Katie, because his words have already taken form—she sees Nick’s face, his dark eyes squinted and filled with laughter, and she hears the sound of the bouncing basketball echoing off the walls, the squeaky shuffling of sneakers on the court. And then the inevitable happens, in the precious seconds before the bullet takes Nick to the floor: he is suddenly in the room with her, she feels Nick’s hand in hers, his warm breath against her neck. Her entire body full of him, of who he
still is,
until Richard’s dramatic sigh intrudes.

She checks on the jurors, turns quickly to follow their intent stares: Richard has become a statue in front of the defense table, body frozen in place, gun still pointing. Katie stares, too, and then a sudden anger zippers through her body, a hot scraping on the inside of her skin—Richard’s pose so theatrical, so deliberately staged that she has to turn away. She flicks her eyes over to the jury box, focuses on an elderly male in the middle of the back row—his hand flat over his heart, mouth slightly open.
Better,
she thinks.
We should all have our hands over our hearts.

“And Nick turned around,” Richard finally says, glaring briefly at Jerry’s lowered head, dropping his finger-gun and walking back to the jurors, “and he sees the defendant standing there, aiming the gun right at his face. And Nick says, ‘Hey, buddy.’ ”

There is a sharp intake of breath from a juror in the front row, a heavy, middle-aged woman with thick mascara and penciled eyebrows. Richard nods at her:
I know.

“And do you know what that man said, ladies and gentlemen?” A weary arm rises in Jerry’s direction, palm facing upward. Richard’s voice is soft with disbelief as he shakes his head. “Do you know what that defendant said right before he pulled the trigger and shot Nicholas Burrelli in the face? He said, ‘Time to go, Nick.’ ”

Richard grips the banister with both hands, lowers his head, offers the courtroom another exaggerated sigh. Again there is silence, and the anger returns—pinballing inside Katie’s head now, ricocheting with short, fierce thumps against her skull.
This is real!
she wants to shout as she watches Richard’s pretense of composing himself. She wants to stand, walk through the little gate, step up behind Richard. Poke him on the shoulder with one finger. Say quietly, but firmly,
That’s enough, Richard. Really.
It would only take about fifteen seconds.

Richard tips his head up at the jurors. “ ‘Time to go, Nick,’ ” he finally says, softly, almost wistfully.

The laden quiet that follows expands inside Katie’s body, clogging her throat like a thick yellow wax.

“Then do you know what he did next?”

Katie can barely hear him now. Even Judge Hwang is straining forward.

“The defendant, Mr. LaPlante, smiled.”

Richard stands straight, rubs his face with both hands. There is a fierce buzzing in Katie’s ears, in her chest, as she watches the affected, incredulous look form on Richard’s face.
It isn’t just a story,
she thinks,
It isn’t
your
story.
But then she sees the court reporter, stationed between the jurors and the witness stand. How her fingers are poised over the keys, waiting for Richard to continue.

“He
smiled.
”

It’s a whisper this time, then Richard raises his right hand and slams it down on the banister. “And BAM!” He rushes to the defense table again, suit jacket flapping, finger-gun pointing. Donna grips Jerry’s shoulder now, her knuckles white from squeezing, but Jerry’s attention never leaves the page before him.