Lies of the Heart (46 page)

Later in the day, there is a short recess after Judge Hwang excuses the forensic expert. Katie checks the clock behind the bench—4:07—amazed at Richard’s perfect timing. After the break there will be just enough time to introduce Katie and watch the footage before court adjourns for the day. Tonight, Katie thinks, the jurors will fall asleep with pictures of Jerry’s spiraling fury lodged inside their heads, pondering the implications, making subconscious decisions about a man they’ve never met.

Katie squeezes Dana’s hand, leans over to whisper in her ear. “Do you remember when you said that I always know what people will do?” Katie asks her. “If I spend time with them, how I can figure them out?”

“Yes, in the conference room that day. After Richard touched Carly.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Because it’s true. Most of the time.”

“I’ve lost it, you know.”

“What?”

“I’m watching, and I’m paying attention, but I’m getting it all wrong.”

“Good,” Dana says. “It’s a start.”

Every eye on her now, sitting on the witness stand, the center of the spotlight. She’s halfway through the prayer in her head before she realizes what she’s doing—asking God to see her, to guide her through this. She folds her hands around the videotape in her lap to stop the shaking.

If she keeps her eyes on Richard, does that staring trick that makes everything around him go out of focus, the rest of the room will stay shapeless. It helps a little, and so do the sympathetic faces and smiles on the jurors’ faces after she turns to them and tells them her name.

“You are Nick Burrelli’s wife?” Richard asks her.

And just like that, the small comforts are gone—Katie stumbles, the word “are” catching her off guard.
Is
she still Nick’s wife? Even if he’s dead?

“Katie?” Richard asks.

“Yes, Nick was—
is
my husband.”

The brief glint of victory in Richard’s eyes explains the wording of the question, how he has achieved exactly what he wanted: her hesitation, an opportunity to show his concern.

“We’re sorry for your loss, Katie,” he says. “Do you need a minute?”

“No,” Katie says. “I’m okay.” She hates how theatrically brave she sounds.

“Good. Now, you and Nick were very close with the defendant, weren’t you?”

“At one time, yes.”

“ ‘ At one time,’ ” Richard muses. He walks over to the jurors, who track his progress along with Katie. “Katie, would you please tell the courtroom what you do for a living?”

“I’m a documentary filmmaker.”

“And at one point you intended to make a documentary about the defendant?”

Katie looks over at Jerry. He is gaping in her general direction as though he can sense she is in the room, facing him.

“Yes.”

“And the videotape you’re holding contains footage for that documentary?”

“Yes,” Katie says, holding it up for the jurors to see.

It takes a few minutes to cue up the video, and then there is an issue with one of the TVs. When they finally straighten it out, Katie only listens, keeping her eyes just above the top of the TV. She listens to Jerry’s laughter, to his innocent question (“We go to a movie tonight?”) and to other sounds she heard just this morning, but suddenly she can’t recall the order of the footage anymore. Is that Jerry drawing? Making his bed? Jerry stretched out on the floor watching TV, a mesmerized look on his face? And then she hears the children, the sound of baby goats bleating, and, within seconds, Jerry’s grunting cry, a struggle, and then Nick’s voice telling Jerry to calm down, he’s okay, his voice mixing with Jerry’s groaning wails and the staticky sound of arms and legs colliding. She hears the shocked intakes of breath in the courtroom, and then more indecipherable noises from the TV—legs stamping (Jerry running through Goddard Park with his kite?), a soft giggle, and then people on the video singing “Happy Birthday,” her father’s loud voice ringing above the rest. And then the table in her apartment crashing over, glass breaking.

A few minutes later, she hears Jerry out on the boat—“Kay-tee, is God come
now
?”
—
and she finally looks at the slanted picture of Jerry holding on to her, her holding him back. She sees it on the TV, filling the screen, and then inside her head, her brain automatically plugging in the missing elements. The beautiful sunset over the ocean, the approaching storm.
Here, Jerry, I’m right here.
She sees Patricia in her basement, too, thanking Katie for taking care of Jerry, and then she sees Nick’s face, his brooding frustration with Katie because she did not want to offer up Jerry’s pain to the world. Knowing that sharing it with strangers would be a betrayal.

Her eyes move from the TV to the jurors, and then to the ceiling. She silently asks the question that used to fill her nights before she met Nick on Patience Island—that summer long ago, when she sat on the dark beach away from the glow of the fire, believing that she was too small for God to see her.
Are You there?

Katie is rising from the witness stand when Donna tells Judge Hwang that she has a few technical questions of her own about filmmaking.

Katie freezes in a half stand, waiting for Richard’s heated objection, but he simply turns a composed face to Judge Hwang and halfheartedly argues about timing and finishing for the day. Judge Hwang refuses his mild objections, and then Richard is strolling back to the prosecution table without a glance toward Katie. She sits back down.

Donna consults the legal pad in her hand, looks up. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Burrelli,” Donna says.

“Good afternoon.”

“Just a couple of questions before we leave for the day.”

Katie skips her eyes from Richard to the clock: 4:50. Only ten minutes, but enough time for her to admit it. She decides right then and there: if Donna asks why she held Jerry on the boat, Katie will be honest, she will just say it.
I loved him. He was scared, and he needed me. He was like a son.

“Now, you said earlier that you’re a documentary filmmaker?” Donna says. “That’s how you earn a living?”

“Yes,” Katie says, the panic rushing up into her chest.

“Could you tell us how long you’ve worked at this profession?”

“About eight years or so.”

“And could you tell us about some of your projects?”

Richard doesn’t rise from his chair. “Objection. Relevance?”

“Goes to credibility, Your Honor.”

“Overruled.”

“Mrs. Burrelli?” Donna prompts.

“I’ve worked on several. The housing crisis in Providence, Save the Bay—”

“And how much money does a documentary filmmaker earn?”

“Objection,” Richard says much too coolly. “How does salary speak to credibility?”

Judge Hwang eyes Katie with curiosity. “I’ll allow it.”

“Thank you, Judge,” Donna says. “Mrs. Burrelli? How much has eight years of documentary filmmaking earned you? Roughly.”

“It’s very difficult to make a lot of money at first.”

“Well, how many projects have you worked on in the past eight years?”

“Five.”

“Does that include the one you’re working on now? About Holocaust survivors?”

“Yes,” Katie says, locking eyes with Patricia in the front row.

“Okay, well, of the four documentaries that you’ve already completed, how many of those will you or have you sold to earn your living?”

Katie looks at Dana, who is sitting up in the front row, tense, her hands on the banister. Her sister’s eyes flash at Richard’s back as he idly jots notes.

“Let me word this another way,” Donna says, taking advantage of Katie’s silence. “Of the all the documentaries that you’ve worked on in the past eight years, not including the one you’re working on now, how many of them have you actually
completed
?”

Impossible to do the trick of staring now, nowhere safe to look.

“Mrs. Burrelli?”

“I haven’t.”

“Oh,” Donna says with artificial shock. “You’ve worked for eight years on five different projects, and you haven’t completed even
one
of them?”

“No.”

“In fact, you never even finished your degree in filmmaking, did you? You met Nicholas Burrelli the summer before your last semester and then dropped out of college halfway through the fall, didn’t you?”

“I was pregnant, I miscarried and it affected me—”

“I’m sure it was a difficult time,” Donna says, “and you certainly have the court’s sympathy. But what about afterward?”

“Afterward?”

“Mrs. Burrelli, don’t most documentary filmmakers today use computers to make their films? Don’t they normally transfer footage directly from a camera onto a computer, and use sophisticated editing and sound programs to produce the final product?”

“I suppose so.”

“But you still use storyboards, an obsolete editing machine and sound box, don’t you? Isn’t that incredibly old-fashioned and outdated?”

“That’s what I was taught—”

“Is that before or after you dropped out of college?”

Katie waits for Richard’s objection, but he only scribbles onto the pad in front of him.

“Mrs. Burrelli, you use antiquated methods to work on your unfinished documentary films because you don’t even know
how
to produce a film using computers and sophisticated filmmaking programs, do you?”

“No.”

“Would you tell the jurors, Mrs. Burrelli, how much time you spent at the Warwick Center when your husband was alive? When you could have been working on your documentaries, or learning new and more efficient filmmaking techniques, or possibly even finishing your degree?”

“I don’t know—”

“In fact, you spent an inordinate amount of time there, didn’t you? Sometimes three or four times a week?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“One last question, then,” Donna says. “Mrs. Burrelli, is it fair to say that you were obsessed with your husband and that it interfered with every aspect of your life? And that your judgment has been clouded concerning Jerry LaPlante because you can’t see around the extenuating circumstances involved in this case, and you need to blame someone,
anyone,
for your losing your husband—”

Richard rises halfway out of his chair. “Objection.”

“—when in fact your husband left you just a month before this unfortunate accident due to your fanatical behavior—”

“She’s badgering this witness, Your Honor,” comes Richard’s calm objection.

“Sustained,” Judge Hwang replies, then peers over the rim of her glasses at Richard.

They’re sprawled out on the sofa in Katie’s living room, head to toe, Jack wedged in by their knees and gnawing a massive bone Katie bought for him at Stop & Shop.

“Therapy lying down,” Dana says, “I can see the benefit.” She pokes her head up to check on Katie, who smiles weakly at her. “How’re you doing over there?”