Missing Pieces (7 page)

It was the same whenever I went anywhere with Sara. Men craned their necks to get a better view of my daughter, visually pushing me out of the way. Why was I wasting my money on expensive designer fashion when it obviously didn’t matter what I looked like? No one saw me anyway.

I pictured Sara, still flopped across her bed when I left the house, which meant she’d be late for school again today. Of course, her lateness yesterday had been my fault, she claimed. I was the one who started the fight, who had to butt my nose into her business. I reminded her that her business became mine when I got phone calls from the school. She told me to get a life. Despite the insights I’d received at the coroner’s office, despite my best intentions and newfound resolve, the discussion went downhill from there. It ended with the front door slamming, Sara’s final words reverberating down the otherwise quiet street: “Thanks for making me late for school,
Ms.
Therapist!”

A man approached, medium height, slightly scruffy in jeans and a lightweight navy sweater. He told Jo Lynn he was going across the street for a cup of coffee and asked if he could get her anything.

“Coffee would be great, Eric,” she told him. “How about you, Kate?”

“Coffee,” I agreed, smiling my appreciation. He didn’t notice.

“Cream and two sugars, right?” he asked Jo Lynn.

“You got it.”

“Just black for me,” I said, but he was already on his way. “And who is Eric?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Just a guy I met in line the other day. He’s been coming since the beginning of the trial.”

The trial was in its second week. According to news
reports, it was expected to last until Christmas. I looked around, casually perusing the faces of the others waiting behind me. Just a bunch of ordinary people, I realized, awaiting their opportunity to glimpse into the heart of extraordinary evil. The young outnumbered the old; the women outnumbered the men; the young women outnumbered everybody, undoubtedly drawn here by the powerful twin magnets of revulsion and attraction. Did being here make them feel safer, I wondered, more in control? Were they confronting their own worst fears, staring down their demons? Or were they here, as was my sister, to ask for the demon’s hand in marriage?

It was the first time I’d been inside the new courthouse, which had been completed in May 1995. My eyes swept the foyer, trying to see it as Larry might, with a builder’s appreciation for detail, but all I saw was a lot of glass and granite. Maybe I was too nervous. Maybe I already regretted my decision to be there.

Eric returned with our coffee. Mine, like Jo Lynn’s, contained cream and enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma. I smiled my thanks and held the undrinkable thing between my palms until it grew cold. At least Eric had remembered I was here.

About an hour later, a large contingent of men and women appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, and swept past us through a set of glass doors. “Press,” Jo Lynn whispered knowingly as my eyes trailed after them, my attention focusing on the profile of one man in particular, thinking he looked vaguely familiar. He was about fifty, slim, maybe five feet ten inches tall, with autumn-brown hair that matched his expensively tailored suit. My gaze accompanied him through the metal detectors and around the corner until he disappeared. “Too bad the judge won’t allow TV cameras into the courtroom,” Jo Lynn was saying, sounding very knowledgeable about the
whole proceedings. “Of course, if there were cameras, I’d have to buy a whole new wardrobe. White doesn’t photograph very good on TV. Did you know that?”

“White doesn’t photograph very
well,”
I corrected, trying to decide whether or not she was serious.

She looked stricken. “Well, who died and appointed you Mrs. Grundy?” We didn’t speak again until we’d passed through the metal detectors ourselves and were in the crowded elevator on the way to the courtroom on the top floor.

I didn’t know what to expect, and I was astonished when I stepped out of the elevator and found myself staring out an expansive wall of windows at a truly spectacular view of the city, the Intracoastal Waterway, and the ocean beyond. A dreamscape, I remember thinking, as I proceeded down the long corridor, knowing I was walking into a nightmare.

The spectacular view continued inside the courtroom itself, where the entire east wall was made up of windows. The trial was taking place in Courtroom 11A, the so-called ceremonial courtroom, and the largest courtroom in the building. I’d never been inside a courtroom before and was amazed to discover how familiar it all felt. Years of watching fictional trials in the movies and on TV, plus the relatively new experience of Court TV, had rendered the arena more accessible, if not downright cozy. There was the judge’s podium, flags to either side, the witness stand, the jury box, the spectator’s gallery with room for about seventy-five people, everything exactly where I’d known it would be.

“Colin sits there.” Jo Lynn indicated the long, dark oak table and three black leather chairs of the defense team with a nod of her head. “In the middle.” She was already sitting on the edge of her seat, straining her body forward to get a better look, although there was nothing yet to see.
We were in the third row of the middle section, just behind the prosecutor’s table and the two rows reserved for the families of the victims. “We get a better view of Colin from this side,” she explained.

I watched the courtroom fill, wishing that she would stop referring to the accused serial killer as if he were a close personal friend. “Wait till you see how handsome he is,” Jo Lynn said. The shoulders of the woman sitting directly in front of us stiffened, her back arching, like a cat’s. I turned toward the back of the room, stared absently at the cloudless blue sky, my face flush with embarrassment and shame.

It was several seconds before I realized that someone was staring back. It was the man I’d noticed outside, the man with the autumn-colored hair and expensively tailored suit. In profile, he’d appeared lean and angular, intense and inaccessible; full-face, he appeared kinder, softer, less formidable. Too many years of Florida sunshine had rendered his handsome face somewhat leathery, and there were crease lines around his full mouth and hazel eyes.

How could I know his eyes were hazel? I wondered, looking away, then immediately back again, staring at him outright, watching in awe as the years fell away from his features, like layers of paint being stripped from the side of a house. The grown man vanished; a boy of eighteen took his place. He was wearing a white track suit, a bright red number 12 stamped across his chest, the sweat of victory from his final race trickling down his cheeks and into his smiling mouth, as he accepted the congratulations of the adoring crowd around him.
Way to go, Bobby! Hey, guy, great race.
“Robert?” I whispered.

Jo Lynn’s elbow pierced the side of my ribs. “That’s the prosecutor, Mr. Eaves, coming through the door. I hate him. He’s really out to get Colin.”

Reluctantly, my focus shifted from the past back to the present, as the assistant state’s attorney and his associates made their way up the left aisle of the courtroom to take their seats in front of us. They began opening and closing assorted briefcases, noisily setting up shop, ignoring our presence, as if we weren’t there. Mr. Eaves was a serious-faced man with thinning hair and a gut that strained against the jacket of his dark blue suit. He undid the top button as he sat down. His associates, a man and woman who looked young enough to be his children, and enough alike to be siblings, wore similarly grave expressions. Their clothes were simple and nondescript. Rather like mine, I realized with a start, deciding I should have worn a scarf to brighten things up, wondering why I was even thinking such inane thoughts. Slowly, I let my gaze return to the back of the room.

The boy in the red-and-white track suit was gone. Back was the grown man in the expensive suit, now engaged in earnest conversation with the man beside him. I waited for him to turn back in my direction, but after a few minutes, he was still talking to the man next to him. No doubt I was mistaken, I told myself. Robert Crowe was a boy I’d dated back in high school, and hadn’t seen since his family left Pittsburgh for parts unknown. I remember being so grateful they’d left the state—it made having been dumped slightly easier to bear. What would he be doing here now?

I shook my head, exhaled an angry breath of air, and stilled the foot that was tapping nervously on the floor with an impatient hand, my heart pounding unaccountably fast. It had been over thirty years since I’d last laid eyes on Robert Crowe. Could he really still have this effect on me?

“Here he comes now,” Jo Lynn announced anxiously, twisting around in her aisle seat, crossing one leg over the other, maximizing the effect of the slit in her skirt.

A concentrated hush fell across the courtroom as Colin
Friendly entered the court from a door at the front of the room and was directed to his seat by an armed police officer. Immediately, his attorneys rose to greet him. The accused killer was dressed in a conservative blue suit with a peach-colored shirt and paisley tie, his dark wavy hair combed neatly off his face, looking exactly as he had in the photo in the weekend paper. I watched his eyes sweep effortlessly across the room, a hunter searching for his prey, I thought with a shudder as his eyes rested briefly on Jo Lynn.

“My God, did you see that?” she whispered, grabbing my hand, her long nails cutting into my flesh. “He looked right at me.”

I struggled for air but found none. Without even trying, Colin Friendly had sucked up all the oxygen in the room.

“Did you see that?” Jo Lynn pressed. “He saw me. He knows I’m here for him.”

The woman seated directly in front of us spun around angrily in her seat, then turned immediately away.

“What’s her problem?” Jo Lynn asked indignantly.

“Good God, Jo Lynn,” I stammered. “Would you just listen to yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying?”

“What’s
your
problem?”

The judge entered the room a few minutes later. Dutifully, we all rose, then retook our seats. Judge Kellner was suitably gray and judicious-looking.

Next came the jury, seven women, five men, two more women who served as alternates, all of them wearing badges that identified them as jurors. Of the fourteen, eight were white, four were black, two were somewhere in between. They were neatly dressed, although surprisingly casual. At least I was surprised. Of course, I was also the only one in the courtroom, other than the lawyers and the defendant, who was wearing a suit. Except for Robert Crowe.

Again, my head spun toward the back of the room. This time, Robert Crowe was looking right at me. He smiled. “Kate?” he mouthed.

I felt my heart leap into my throat, my lungs filling with sudden dread, as thick as smoke. There is nothing to feel anxious about, I told myself. Just because you’re in the same room with an accused murderer
and
an old high school sweetheart, this was not something to get unnecessarily worked up about.

In the next second, it was as if someone had taken a match to my insides. I felt my inner organs shriveling and disappearing inside invisible flames. Sweat broke out across my forehead and upper lip. I pulled at the collar of my beige blouse, debated taking off my jacket. “It’s very hot in here,” I whispered to Jo Lynn.

“No, it’s not,” she said.

The clerk called the court to order and the judge directed the prosecutor to call his first witness. The temperature in the room returned to normal. Jo Lynn squirmed excitedly in her seat as a studious-looking young woman named Angela Riegert was sworn in.

“Look at her,” Jo Lynn muttered under her breath. “She’s dumpy and homely and just wishes she could get a man like Colin.”

As if he’d heard her, Colin Friendly slowly turned his head in my sister’s direction. A slight smile played at the corners of his lips.

Jo Lynn crossed, then uncrossed her legs. “We’re with you, Colin,” she whispered.

His smile widened, then he turned his attention back to the witness stand.

“I’m gonna give him my phone number.” Jo Lynn was already fishing inside her white straw purse for a piece of paper.

“Are you crazy?” I wanted to swat her across the back of her head, physically knock some sense into her.

Just like dear old Dad, I thought with disgust, marveling at the baseness of my instincts. I’d never hit anyone in my life, wasn’t about to start now, however tempting it might be. I glared at the back of Colin Friendly’s head. Obviously, he brought out the best in me.

Jo Lynn was already scribbling her name and number across a torn scrap of paper. “I’ll give it to him during a break.”

“If you do, I’ll leave. I swear, I’ll walk right out of here.”

“Then I won’t come with you to Mom’s,” she countered, bringing her fingers to her lips to quiet me.

She had me there. The only way I’d been able to persuade her to attend the afternoon’s meeting was to agree to accompany her to court, although she insisted we change the time of the meeting to four o’clock so that she didn’t have to “abandon Colin,” as she put it, before court let out. She didn’t know I’d already decided to tag along.

I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what exactly I was doing in that courtroom. Did I really think I might learn anything that might help Donna Lokash? Or was I trying to watch out for my sister, to protect her from Colin Friendly, to protect her from herself? Or was it simple curiosity? I don’t know. I probably never will.

“State your name and address,” the court clerk instructed the witness, a short, slightly overweight young woman, who looked nervous and uncomfortable, her small eyes refusing to look at the defense table.

“Angela Riegert,” she said, barely audibly.

“You’ll have to speak up,” Judge Kellner said gently.

Angela Riegert cleared her throat, restated her name. It was only slightly louder the second time. The entire court-room
shifted forward, straining to hear. She gave her address as 1212 Olive Street in Lake Worth.

The prosecutor was on his feet, doing up the button of his dark blue jacket, the way you always see them doing on TV. “Miss Riegert, how old are you?” he began.