Lies of the Heart (42 page)

“Please state your name for the jurors.”

“My name is Patricia Kuhlman.” undaunted, Patricia keeps her gaze level with Richard’s.

“You are the acting program director at the Warwick Center?”

“I am.”

“Your duties include overseeing both the work and recreation components of the center?”

“Yes.”

“And that includes supervising all the employees, and the clients, and keeping things like accounting and client files updated and organized?”

“Yes.” Patricia doesn’t break eye contact with Richard.

“You are ultimately accountable for every piece of paper that crosses your desk?”

“Of course. I read each one.”

“And that includes incident reports?”

“Yes.”

“So how do you account for the missing reports from the defendant’s file?”

“I can’t.”

Richard waits for more, but Patricia just raises her eyebrows at him:
Next question?

“You understand that removing those reports from his file is illegal? That keeping them from the prosecution is considered an obstruction of justice?”

“I do.”

“And that their absence could potentially help the defendant’s case because of their incriminating nature?”

“Incriminating?” Patricia asks, musingly. “No. No, I don’t believe they are.”

“No? Reports detailing the defendant’s violent outbursts wouldn’t incriminate him? Even if they included medical reports of, say, Nicholas Burrelli’s fractured wrist or his broken finger—”

“Objection,” Donna says. “Judge, the reports have gone missing, and that is unfortunate, but we can’t simply speculate what
might
be in them.”

“Sustained.”

“Did you remove those reports from the center’s file yourself, Ms. Kuhlman, and did you direct or request DCYF to do the same, because you knew that reading them aloud to jurors would be shocking? That Nick’s resulting injuries from the defendant’s—”

“Objection!”

“Sustained,” Judge Hwang says, lifting her glasses at Richard. “Move on, Mr. Bellamy.”

“Okay. Well, Mrs. Kuhlman, are you aware, then, that the defendant fractured Nick’s wrist—”

“Objection,” Donna says, standing. “We’ve covered this.”

“Your Honor,” Richard says, “this is a reasonable question. By her own testimony, this woman is privy to every piece of paper that moves within the Warwick Center administration. She’s read the missing reports, and she can at least verify what was in them.”

“I’ll allow it.”

“Thank you, Judge,” Richard says, and turns back to Patricia. “Did you, in fact, read the incident reports that included medical records of Nicholas Burrelli’s injuries?”

“I read Jerry’s incident reports, yes,” Patricia says, “but there weren’t any medical reports attached to them.”

Richard stares for a moment. “If a staff member is injured—”

“If a staff member is injured, then yes, medical records are attached to the reports, but that is rare. Very rare. I can assure you that while Nick did suffer minor bruises from trying to contain Jerry, he didn’t need medical attention. I assume you subpoenaed his medical records from Kent County Hospital, Mr. Bellamy, so I’m also assuming you know that the injuries you just mentioned had nothing to do with Jerry.”

Katie remembers their trips to the emergency room, Nick sitting in the curtained room, charming the nurses who smilingly wrote everything down.
I was lifting the anchor up on my boat, and then I tripped. Guess I’m getting clumsy in my old age.
Protecting Jerry back then—protecting him now.

“So you’re actually denying that Nick’s visits to the ER had anything to do with the defendant?”

“I certainly am. It’s completely false.”

“Even if we have an eyewitness who observed Nicholas Burrelli sustaining serious, multiple injuries at the hands of that defendant?”

He is pointing to Jerry now, but Patricia has finally broken her staring match with Richard. She is looking directly at Katie.

“I can tell you, with utmost certainty, that anyone who claims that Jerry seriously injured Nick is lying for his or
her
own personal, confused reasons.”

“And do you also understand, Ms. Kuhlman,” Richard says angrily, “that if
you
lie in a court of law, you could be prosecuted for perjury?”

Patricia flicks her eyes back to Richard. “I do, but I can assure you that Jerry never purposely or critically harmed Nick.”

“So murdering Nick, intentionally executing him—”

“Objection!”

“Withdrawn.”

Veronica is on the stand for less than a minute when Richard begins his attack.

“Mrs. Holden, is it true that clients’ personal and private files at the Warwick Center are openly discussed with people who don’t even work there?”

“Our client files are always confidential,” Veronica says.

“By ‘confidential’ do you mean it allows you to discuss a client’s past or progress with people who aren’t professionally affiliated with the center?”

“No, we don’t. We can’t.”

“But didn’t you and other staff members in fact discuss the defendant’s history and his progress with Nick Burrelli’s wife, Katie?”

“Oh, well, if people are close to the clients,” Veronica says, looking quickly at Katie, “sometimes we would.”

“So you and other staff members
did
share information from his files?”

“A little,” Veronica admits.

“But I assume that there is a process for this disclosure? A thorough discussion among the staff first to determine that being ‘close’ to someone is enough to reveal private, legal information? And then meetings with, and official clearances from, their social workers? Lengthy administrative procedures to determine it’s okay to break confidentiality?”

“Everyone knew Katie was like a mother to Jerry—”

“And was she also a mother to”—Richard picks up a piece of paper, reads—“ a ‘Joseph Capaldi’?”

“Joey?”

“Yes, the client who witnessed the defendant shooting Nicholas Burrelli?”

“Katie wasn’t close to Joey, no—”

“But you and others at the center discussed Nick’s problems with Joey, his communication difficulties?”

“Well—”

“So then you weren’t exactly truthful just now, were you? Outsiders don’t actually have to be close to a client at all to hear about that client’s personal and confidential information, do they?”

One by one Richard calls the staff up to the stand and begins all over again: Did you ever discuss private information about the defendant’s therapeutic and social progress at the center? Did you tell Katie Burrelli, before she had clearance to film a documentary about the defendant, that his mother had abused him? Is this normal procedure for staff members to carelessly mention confidential information about the clients to anyone who walks in the front door?

By late afternoon Richard has painted a disturbing picture of the Warwick Center staff—unprofessional, gossiping people who thought nothing of breaking rules that were meant to protect an innocent and challenged population. Donna’s objections come frequently, and Judge Hwang dismisses them each time in a sullen voice.

Dottie is the last to take the stand. She settles herself in the chair, looks directly at Katie, and offers her a gentle smile. Before Katie can process this act of kindness, this unexpected generosity—before she can stop herself, her hand comes up to chest level, and she waves at Dottie shyly, as if they are meeting for the first time. Dottie’s smile deepens, and Richard’s head snaps back toward Katie, who feels the guilty rush of blood climbing up her neck and into her cheeks.

Some of the jurors’ eyes follow Richard’s, and out of the corner of her own eye Katie can see the staff, across the aisle, turning her way, too. She clamps her hands together, the room contracting inward.

“Mrs. Halverson, can you please tell me what information, if any, you illegally shared with Katie Burrelli about the defendant?”

Suddenly the air in the room becomes thick, strangling—Katie jumps up, scrambles to the end of the row. Comes face-to-face with the Warwick Center employees, stops short: sees, in Billy, and Eddie, and Jan and even Veronica the once-familiar looks of concern playing across their features. Not for Jerry this time, but for Katie—they look like they’re actually worried about
her.
Katie stares back until Veronica leans forward, nods, a signal that seems to say,
I’ll come with you if you want.

Katie shakes her head, lurches up the aisle—the stunned silence propelling her onward. Outside the courtroom she bends at the waist, blows out short breaths. When she hears Richard’s angry questions—“Did you tell Mrs. Burrelli, before she gained permission to hear the defendant’s history, that his violent outbursts were actually good? Did you relay this information that the program director shared with you in privacy?”
—
Katie races to the elevators, her heart clamping inside her chest.

Something silly and unimportant, that’s what she needs. Not to think, not to remember, not to try to understand why, for one overwhelming moment in the courtroom, she imagined falling into the rows packed with her former friends. Knowing then, knowing right now, that they would have caught her—after everything,
still.

In Sandy’s driveway she plays back their faces, not from today but from last spring, when no one cared, when the faces all seemed to turn away from her.
Remember that!
she commands herself, and jumps out of the car.

She knocks on the front door, realizes only when it opens that her car is still running in the driveway.

“Hey, girl!” Sandy steps back with Emily on her hip to allow Katie in. In the background Sandy’s two sons, dressed up as cowboys, chase their way into the kitchen, waving toy bows and arrows.

“I killed you!” the bigger one says.

“You didn’t, I ducked!” says his little brother.

“We have a visitor,” Sandy says brightly, and the smaller one, slipping in red plastic cowboy boots, throws an uninterested wave over his shoulder before he disappears around the corner after his brother. “Good God,” Sandy says, smiling after them. “Well, get in here and make yourself at home.”

Katie steps over the scattered toys on the floor, threads her way to the couch. She pushes a Tupperware container filled with cookies off to the side, sits.

“You are exactly on time. I just made coffee.” Sandy plops the baby on the couch next to Katie, heads to the kitchen. “Two sugars and extra light, right?”

Katie nods, turns to Emily, who stares back at her, a pacifier working up and down in her mouth.

“Hi,” Katie says in a shaky voice, and the baby’s forehead wrinkles up.

“Court already done for the day?” Sandy calls from the kitchen.

Before Katie can answer, there is a cry from one boy, protests from the other.

“We do
not
stick arrows in our brother’s ear,” Sandy says in the kitchen.

Emily stirs on the couch, tired of Katie already; she slaps her legs with her fists, makes a long squeal that grates against Katie’s nerves.

In the kitchen Sandy quiets the boys (both crying now, with fresh accusations about other places they’ve been poked), and Emily sits gurgling and laughing quietly to herself.

Sandy emerges with two mugs, her eyes moving from Katie to Emily and back again. The boys trail behind, shoving each other.

“She likes you, Katie,” Sandy says, winking, and hands her a mug. She sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, and blows into her mug. “So fill me in. What’s going on?”

Katie shakes her head, one hand coming up like a shield; a bad idea coming here, the mess of toys all over the place, the boys’ pushing back and forth, the gold sheriff’s badge on one boy’s vest too shiny as Emily makes squeaky, scraping noises right next to her. Katie looks at the door: can she just get up now and run? And if so, where will she
go
?