Lies of the Heart (17 page)

Office workers, laborers, full-time and part-time employees from the center—even Alicia, the silly college girl who worked for a single semester last spring—all of them talking, heads nodding, lips moving, eyes skipping repeatedly to the side door where Jerry will emerge. All this concern, all this love and attention and energy. All for Jerry.

Katie turns away, checks the hall to her left. She hears a quiet ping behind her and turns toward the three elevator banks on the right, expecting Dana to come rushing off one, full of apologies and trailing cigarette smoke. But when the middle elevator door opens, Patricia is standing alone in it, reading from an opened folder. She looks up briefly, steps off the elevator, her attention immediately sucked back to the pages inside.

It seems impossible that this woman and all the employees of the Warwick Center were once Katie’s friends. But even before Nick had packed his things and moved out of their house, there was a noticeable change in their behavior toward her—stilted conversations, air space on the phone, eyes averted when Katie showed up at the work program unannounced. It seemed as though the moment she and Nick started to have problems, the entire staff not only knew about them but felt the need to take sides. Suddenly it was just Nick who was their friend, just Nick who was the one they cared about and supported. As if all the cookouts and holiday parties and time spent laughing and talking in one another’s homes were erased, forgotten.

She turns back to the courtroom.
Look at them, Nick. Now we’re both erased
—

“Katie?”

Patricia’s deep voice is right at Katie’s ear. Katie spins around, and there Patricia is, towering over her, the folder tucked under one arm; the woman gazes down at her without blinking, and Katie thinks that just yesterday the thought of coming face-to-face with Patricia made her stomach lurch. Now she returns Patricia’s insistent stare.

“How are you, Patricia?” she asks.

“Dottie told me she ran into you last night at the market,” Patricia says. An annoying habit of Patricia’s, not answering questions or bothering with small talk.

“And?”

“And of course I want your reaction,” Patricia says, thrusting one foot forward.

“To what?”

The skin around Patricia’s mouth tightens. “Visiting Jerry.”

“I thought my reaction was pretty clear last night.”

Patricia frowns at her. “I didn’t expect any of this from you, Katie. I honestly didn’t. I thought I knew you better.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Katie says quietly, turning back to the courtroom.

Inside, Jerry materializes from the side door, and the rows behind Donna Treadmont collectively shift and come to order. He shuffles to the table, a sleepy, drugged look on his face as Donna gathers him into a bear hug. Veronica reaches over the banister to touch his arm and speak softly into his ear, and the rest of the Warwick Center people lean forward with encouraging smiles. Jerry rests his head on Donna’s shoulder and a confused half smile forms as he looks at his eager audience.

Patricia’s hand lands on Katie’s shoulder. “Katie,” she says in an unsteady voice, “look at him.”

Jerry’s chubby face becomes serious, and he lifts his head to scan the rows behind Richard, eyes squinting; he doesn’t have his contacts in again, but he’s still searching for Katie, for the fuzzy outline of her body in the front row. And then his eyes settle on the floor, where her feet should be, and Katie sees him squint even more: looking, apparently, for her shoes. A quick tug of guilt comes—
has he told anyone about the shoes?
—but then she takes in a deep breath. They have nothing to do with all of this, she thinks, and pivots out from underneath Patricia’s grip.

Patricia’s eyes are like rifles, pointing her out. “You still have the power to help him. You could turn this whole thing around if you wanted to.”

“What exactly are you asking me to do?”

Patricia’s eyes narrow. “This isn’t just about Nick. You know that.”

A man from inside the courtroom walks through the doorway, regards both of the women with open curiosity. They step aside.

“Katie, if Jerry did this to someone else from the program, if he walked into my office and shot
me,
you and Nick would fight tooth and nail for him. And that’s what I’d expect from both of you.”

“Don’t presume—”

“You have a responsibility to do what’s right here,” Patricia says. She shoves a finger toward Jerry. “Look at him, Katie.” A command now.

Jerry draws on his yellow notepad, face close to the page, his tongue sneaking out of his mouth as he concentrates. Donna points to something on the pad, and Jerry giggles, covers his mouth with one hand.

“We
all
loved Nick,” Patricia says quietly.

Katie turns, sees Dana finally rounding the corner, smiling at her; her sister’s eyes instantly shift to Patricia, and she speeds up her step. Katie turns back to Patricia, expecting, if not a fumbling apology, at least some sort of recognition of Katie’s grief. But Patricia’s gaunt face is hard and unforgiving.

“This isn’t about you, Katie,” Patricia says.

“Excuse me?”

“None of this is about
you.
And it isn’t about Nick leaving you, and it certainly isn’t about this need of yours to reclaim him somehow through this trial—”

Patricia waves away her words. “None of that is important anymore. This is Jerry’s life we’re dealing with, his entire future. You honestly believe he belongs in a jail cell for the rest of his life?” Patricia’s face is red with indignation. “Where is your heart, Katie?”

Katie glares back at her. “Where the hell is
yours
?”

It’s difficult to keep her attention at the front of the room, to completely ignore the Warwick Center people whispering to each other across the aisle. Katie fights the urge to turn around and face them, maybe even cut her eyes at Patricia just for effect.

“I can’t believe she’d confront you like that,” Dana whispers a little too loudly beside her. Detective Mason glances over at them from the end of the row.

“I took care of it,” Katie whispers back.

“Listen to you,” Dana says, eyebrows raised. She examines Katie’s face closely. “Hey, are you wearing blush?”

“Huh? Why?”

Dana moves in closer. “You
are.
”

“So?”

“You never wear blush.”

“Richard said that the jurors will be watching me,” Katie says, “and that during dramatic testimony they’ll turn to me to gauge their own reactions. Richard said this morning that I’m a vital presence in this courtroom. So I am.”

“Okay, sorry,” Dana says. “You just never do, that’s all.”

A woman in the row behind them taps Katie on the shoulder. She introduces herself—a childhood friend of Nick’s—and tells Katie how sorry she is, asks how Katie is holding up. This woman knows Richard a little, a friend-of-a-friend sort of thing, and she knows his skills in the courtroom. “We’ll be just fine,” she says, and Katie’s head reaches out and embraces the word “we,” a confirmation that she’s an integral part of this process, too.

One of the bailiffs moves across the front of the room with determination—any minute now. The anticipation makes the quiet descend, amplifies every small sound; behind them someone coughs, and a few seconds later another person slowly unwraps a candy or mint. Heads turn at the loud plastic crinkling that draws out forever.
Just rip it open,
Katie thinks.
Jesus.

“You look pretty,” Dana says beside her.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And by the way, Mom called me before she went over last night, and for the record I told her it was really shitty timing.”

“I don’t even know what all that was about. Do you?”

“Sort of.”

Katie shifts to face Dana. “Well?”

“Maybe we should get through today before we tackle that, huh?” Dana’s tone is too casual.

“Just tell me.”

“It’s a little complicated.”

Katie holds her palm up, looks around the room and at her sister: more complicated than this?

“Later, okay?” Dana turns her attention to the front of the room, a dismissive gesture that reminds Katie of their mother.

Katie sits back, has a fleeting feeling of being a child again, sitting in church: the same restless shuffling, the same hard, pewlike benches, Dana’s hand finding hers. When they were younger, their ostensibly pious hand-holding quickly degenerated into thumb wrestling, or their favorite game, tracing letters into each other’s palm.
T-H-I-S S-U-C-K-S.
Back then it seemed like it was always Katie’s turn to guess and Dana’s right, as the older sister, to offer the words.

She wriggles her hand away from Dana, turns her attention to the defense table. Jerry’s wearing a new suit today, a shiny blue one that hugs him tightly at the shoulders. He flips the end of his wide burgundy tie back and forth until Donna whispers something to him; lower lip pushed out, Jerry drags his yellow pad closer to him. At this angle Katie can see just the hint of something blue in his left ear. Ear-plugs? She’ll have to tell Richard about this: not only is Jerry sedated and virtually blind without his contacts, but he also can’t hear most of what takes place in the courtroom. Donna hands him a pencil, pats his hand.

Katie turns to Dana. “Richard got a letter from Candice yesterday.”

Dana shifts around to face her.
“And?”

“She isn’t coming. He only read one line from it. ‘Why would I want to relive my son’s death?’”

“I can’t believe she wouldn’t want to be here. Are you surprised?”

Katie crosses her arms. “It’s her life,” she says, shrugging indifferently.

The side door at the back of the room opens, and the bailiff steps forward.

“Are you okay?” Dana whispers.

“I’m fine.”

“Kate?”

“Let it go, Dana.”

The jurors look almost festive as they file into courtroom, legal pads pressed against their chests. The only person who seems even remotely somber is the tall, elderly gentleman who moves into the back row and bends himself into his chair with difficulty—the same man who held his hand over his heart when Richard summoned the picture of Jerry and Nick standing face-to-face in the gym that day, only the barrel of the gun between them. The women on either side of him lean across to whisper to each other, and the man glances in Katie’s direction, nods slightly before turning away.

The jurors have been sequestered at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Providence—no TV, no newspapers—so this man can’t possibly know about the newscaster’s speculations regarding Katie’s cooperation. Still, it’s a good sign. So are the small smiles she gets seconds later, one from the juror in the center of the front row, the heavyset woman with too much eye makeup, the other from the youngest juror, a Hispanic man in a tight blue T-shirt who sits at the end of the front row, closest to the prosecution table. He shoots a guarded look at Donna and Jerry, who lean into each other, their heads lowered over Jerry’s pad.

Of course Richard doesn’t miss any of this. He swivels in his chair to the front row, raises his eyebrows at Katie.

“You catch that?” he whispers.

“It’s good, right?”

“You’re the filmmaker,” he says. “You know how to read people. What do
you
think?”

“They’re sympathetic?”

“I think you’re right on the money,” he says, smiling.

Katie feels her face flush with pleasure, turns to her sister. But Dana is glaring at Richard.

He catches this look, gives Katie a quick smile, and moves back to the table.

“What’s wrong?” Katie asks her sister.

“Nothing.”

“He respects my opinion, Dana. Why would that bother you?”

“It doesn’t,” she says uncertainly, her eyes moving back to Richard.