Missing Pieces (22 page)

“What about the testimony of the witnesses who placed you near some of the victims at around the time of their disappearances?”

“They’re m-mistaken, sir.”

“You never attended a party at 426 Lakeview Drive in Boynton Beach?”

“No, sir.”

“You never spoke to a young woman named Angela Riegert?”

“No, sir.”

“And yet she positively identified you.”

“She m-must be confusing me with s-somebody else.”

“You never left the party with Wendy Sabatello?”

“I wasn’t at the party, sir,” Colin Friendly replied clearly. “Why would I be there? I’m a l-lot older than those kids.”

“And what about Marcia Layton, who testified having seen you in Flagler Park on several occasions?”

“It’s p-possible she saw me,” he admitted. “Sometimes
when I’d be working, I’d go to a nearby p-park to have my lunch.”

“Did you meet Marni Smith in the park?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ask directions from Janet McMillan?”

“No, sir. I’ve l-lived in Florida all my life. I pretty much know where everything is.”

“So, you’re saying that, to the best of your knowledge, you’ve never had any contact with any of the murdered women?”

“None, sir.”

“And all the witnesses who have positively identified you are mistaken,” Howard Eaves stated rather than asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Seems strange, doesn’t it? That so many people would have identified you incorrectly.”

“A l-lot of people look the way I do,” Colin Friendly volunteered.

“You think so?”

“There’s nothing very special about me.”

“Unfortunately, that’s all too true,” the prosecutor said.

Jake Archibald immediately objected, and Howard Eaves retracted his comment.

“How do you explain the seventy percent probability that it was your semen found in many of the victims’ bodies?”

Colin Friendly shook his head, his lips a cruel snarl. “Seventy percent’s barely a passing grade.”

“Are you disputing the conclusions of the medical examiner?”

“If he says it’s my semen, then he’s wrong.”

“And the bite marks on several of the victims? How do you explain how closely they match the mold taken of your mouth?”

“Close only counts in horseshoes,” Colin Friendly said without a trace of stammer. The snarl twisted into a smirk. He winked boldly at my sister, then settled back in his chair, as if he’d somehow gained the upper hand.

“How do you explain the close matchup with your saliva?”

“It’s not my job to explain it, Mr. Eaves.”

“But if you had to make a guess …”

“I’d say that someone obviously made a mistake.”

“I suggest that someone is you, Mr. Friendly.”

“I suggest that someone is you, Mr. Eaves,” came the immediate retort.

A slight gasp rippled through the courtroom.

“You think you’re smarter than I am, don’t you, Mr. Friendly?”

“I can’t say I’ve given the matter much thought, Mr. Eaves.”

“In fact, you think you’re smarter than most people, isn’t that correct?”

“Most people aren’t very smart,” Colin agreed, clearly starting to enjoy himself.

“And it’s fun tricking them, isn’t it?”

“You tell me, Mr. Eaves. Seems like you’re the one interested in tricking people.”

“It’s a great feeling having the power of life and death over people, isn’t it, Mr. Friendly?”

“You’re the one here with that kind of power, sir, not me.”

“No. That power rests with the members of the jury.”

“Then I can only hope they’ll be more interested in the truth than you are,” Colin stated coolly.

“And the truth is?”

“That I’m not guilty, sir.”

Jo Lynn leaned toward me. “He’s very polite, don’t you think?”

The prosecutor thrust a large color photograph of one of the dead girls into Colin Friendly’s face. “You didn’t do this?”

Jake Archibald was immediately on his feet. “Objection, your honor. This is unnecessary. The witness has already answered the question.”

“Overruled.”

“Your honor,” Jake Archibald said, “may we approach?”

The two adversaries approached the bench.

“Damn that Mr. Eaves,” Jo Lynn whispered. “He’ll stop at nothing to get a conviction.” She crossed, uncrossed, then recrossed her legs, her skirt flipping back and forth, exposing first one thigh, then the other, then the first again. “But I don’t think the jury’s buying it. See that woman, the one in the middle in the second row, I think she’s on our side.”

I looked toward the middle juror in the second row. She was younger than the other members of the jury, maybe thirty years old, with pale skin and badly styled blond hair that did nothing to enhance her generally nondescript features. I realized that I’d never noticed her before, and wondered if not being noticed was something she’d grown used to. Would she be the type to be charmed by the likes of Colin Friendly? Was this trial her chance to step into the spotlight, to grab for her fifteen minutes of fame, to force a nation’s attention her way by being the lone holdout for an acquittal? Would her obstinacy force a retrial?

I shuddered, not having considered the possibility of a hung jury until now. Anxiety tugged at my heart. Why couldn’t the forensic evidence have been more conclusive? “Close only counts in horseshoes,” I heard Colin repeat. All it took was one not-guilty vote, I realized. And then what? Another trial? More months of anguish for the victims’ families and friends? More months of headlines and
depressing news reports? More months of my sister haunting courtooms and visiting jails? I sighed deeply. I didn’t think I could go through it again.

“Something the matter?” Jo Lynn asked, eyes scanning the room.

“It’s hot in here.”

“No, it’s not. You’re just warm because your boyfriend’s here.”

“What?” I spun around. Robert smiled at me from his seat at the back. Oh God, I thought, perspiration breaking out across my forehead. When had he come in?

“Relax, Kate. Nobody’s going to spill your little secret.”

“I don’t have any secrets,” I hissed between clenched teeth.

Jo Lynn smiled. “Tell it to the judge,” she said.

“The objection is overruled,” the judge was saying, sending the lawyers back to their battle stations. “The witness may answer the question.”

“This isn’t your handiwork?” Howard Eaves repeated immediately, handing the photo to the defendant.

“No, sir.”

“What about this?” The prosecutor pushed a series of pictures into Colin’s hands. “You didn’t leave those bite marks on Christine McDermott’s buttocks? You didn’t slit little Tammy Fisher’s throat?”

“No, sir. I c-certainly did not.”

“And yet, I notice that you have no trouble looking at the photographs.”

“Objection, your honor,” Jake Archibald protested.

“Sustained.”

“I c-could never do anything like that.” Colin Friendly looked directly at my sister. “You have to believe me, Jo Lynn.”

“I believe you, Colin.” Heads snapped toward us as my sister rose to her feet.

“Sit down, young lady,” the judge ordered, banging on his gavel, as excited whispers spun circles around us.

“It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks,” Colin continued, “as long as I know you believe in me.”

The entire courtroom now pivoted in our direction. I found myself holding my breath. Oh God, I thought, please let this be all a bad dream.

“I love you, Jo Lynn,” Colin Friendly was saying over the mounting din. “I want to marry you.”

“Order in the court,” Judge Kellner bellowed.

“I love you too,” my sister cried. “There’s nothing I want more than to be your wife.”

The courtroom erupted, people laughing, hooting with surprise, reporters scrambling for the door, everyone on their feet at once.

“Sit down,” the judge ordered my sister, “or I’ll hold you in contempt.”

“Please, no,” I muttered, feeling sick to my stomach.

In the next instant, I was pushing past my sister into the aisle and out of the courtroom.

“We’ll take a half-hour recess,” I heard the judge shout as I reached the darkness of the small anteroom.

“Kate, hurry,” a voice beckoned. “This way.” An arm pulled me into the corridor, guided me into the sanctuary of the empty courtroom next door.

“Oh God,” I cried, my body heaving, my breath coming in short, angry bursts. “Were you there? Did you see what happened?”

“I was there,” Robert said.

“Did you see what they did? Did you hear what they said?”

His arms reached for me. “Kate, try to calm down.”

“She told that monster she’d marry him. Right out in
open court, my sister stood up and told the world she loves a crazy man, that she wants to marry him.”

“Kate, it’s all right, it’ll be all right.”

I was sobbing now. “Why is she doing this, Robert? What is she trying to prove? Does she want the publicity, is that it? Does she want to be a star on
Hard Copy?
Does she want to make the front page of the
National Enquirer?
What is the matter with her?”

His arms were around me. “I don’t know what her problem is, but you can’t let it get to you.”

“You don’t think that she’ll really marry that monster, do you? I mean, you don’t think that the jury will actually find him not guilty, that there’s any chance they’ll let him go.”

“I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of that happening.”

“I want him to die,” I cried. “I want him to die and get out of our lives.”

“Ssh,” Robert said gently as I buried my face against his chest. “Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.”

He held me tight against him, one hand stroking the back of my hair, as if I were a small child who’d scraped her knee and needed comforting. My own arms reached around him, clung to him as if I were drowning, as if he were the only thing keeping me afloat. His lips grazed the sides of my cheeks, kissing away my tears, assuring me without words that everything would be all right, that he was there to ensure that nothing bad could ever happen to me again.

And then he was kissing me, really kissing me, full on the lips, and I was kissing him back, with a passion that astounded me. Suddenly, I was a sophomore in high school and he was a senior, and our lives were just beginning and everything was right with the world.

Except that we were no longer in high school, our lives
were half over, and my world was quickly disintegrating into dust. “This is the last thing I need,” I told Robert, breaking free of his embrace, trying to make sense of what was happening.

But even as I regained my composure and walked from the room, past the throng of reporters who crowded the corridors clamoring for my sister’s attention, and toward the bank of waiting elevators, I knew it was too late, that there was a very good chance my world would never make sense again.

I
tried burying myself in my work. It wasn’t easy. Everywhere I looked, there were my sister and her “fiance,” as she had taken to referring to him on television and in print. Their pictures tormented me from the front pages of every newspaper and tabloid in town; Jo Lynn gave interviews to
Hard Copy
and appeared twice on
Inside Edition,
although on both broadcasts she mercifully refrained from mentioning she had a sister. Since our last names were different—she went by her second husband’s name because she liked the sound of it with Jo Lynn—no one made the connection between us. Because we never traveled in the same circles, her newfound notoriety was not a problem to me either socially or professionally. Still, I was embarrassed—I like to think more for her sake than for mine, but truthfully, I’m not sure—and deeply concerned about both my sister’s mental state and her well-being.

Sara, of course, pronounced the situation “cool”; Larry, as usual, ignored the whole business; Michelle asked simply, “What’s
wrong
with her?” As for my mother, she seemed oblivious to the commotion raging around her younger child. She never commented on the many stories in the newspapers or the ubiquitous interviews on TV. When I asked if she’d seen Jo Lynn’s picture
on the front page of the
Palm Beach Post,
she said only that I should save her a copy, then never mentioned it again. Only Mrs. Winchell called to voice her concerns, her main worry being that all the publicity might adversely impact on the Palm Beach Lakes Retirement Home should it become known that Jo Lynn’s mother was a resident, and perhaps we might consider moving her someplace else. She needn’t have worried. Jo Lynn showed no inclination to share the spotlight.

Robert phoned on an almost daily basis, but I was afraid to return his calls. Surely my life was chaotic enough without the addition of an extramarital affair, although his messages made no mention of what had happened between us. He asked only if I’d come up with any ideas, professionally speaking, and said nothing about the decidedly unprofessional kiss we had shared. Actually, I did have an idea I thought was pretty good, but I was growing increasingly fearful of both him and the media, and was no longer sure I wanted any part of either. Besides, if I were to have my own show, then surely, at some point, some ambitious reporter would discover the connection between my sister and me. Indeed, Jo Lynn would probably be my first caller.

“My sister’s always criticizing me,” I could hear her shout across the airwaves. “She doesn’t approve of my choice of clothes or my choice of men. She doesn’t think I’m capable of making an adult decision without her input. Just because she’s a professional, she thinks she knows everything. She’s always telling me what to do and I’m sick of it. What do you advise?”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” It was almost six o’clock one evening, and Ellie and Richard Lifeson, a young couple in their late twenties, were staring at me expectantly across the coffee table in my office, obviously awaiting some inspired words of wisdom to tumble from
my lips. I realized that I had no idea what we’d been discussing, and silently cursed Jo Lynn, blaming her for my inability to concentrate. Immediately, I was back in the courtroom, watching as the accused serial killer proclaimed his love for my sister for all to hear. What had Colin Friendly hoped to prove with his little stunt? What had he been trying to gain? Sympathy? Support? What? “What?” I asked again, as Ellie and Richard Lifeson exchanged worried glances. “I’m sorry, could you repeat what you just said?”