Paper Castles (32 page)

I watched her coming up the courthouse steps,
they’d say.
You could see it in her eyes. Cold-blooded killer.

Savannah moved to one of the chairs and sat, before she fell down. Phil and Cecily were poring over notes. Kip came into the war room and drew his sister into a tight hug.

“We’re going to get through this, Savvy,” he said.

“Dead or alive?”

Phil came over, straightening his tie. “It’s time. Ready?”

Savannah could only nod.

Phil nudged her elbow. “Remember. You’re innocent. We’re about to prove it. Try not to look at the jurors too much. It’s fine to let them see your face, but don’t engage their eyes. All right, let’s go.”

He walked into the courtroom, as if he were escorting Savannah to the best table in a five- star restaurant. Moving up the aisle, he was Moses parting the Red Sea. Both sides of the courtroom were filled to overflowing. People stood up and craned their necks to get the first look.

All those years of pretending
, Savannah thought.
Finally put to good use.

She walked with all the confidence she could muster through the little gate separating the litigants from the onlookers. She took her seat between Phil and Cecily, glad to have her back to the crowd.

Almost immediately she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around she saw her support team, lined up and ready for duty. Her father, Beverly, Kip, Cheryl, Rebecca and Ben. All of them there, for her.

Daddy.
She mouthed the word without sound as she looked into his gray eyes. She’d balked at the idea of having her family at the trial, instinctively wanting to shelter them.

But her father was adamant.

“What kind of parents would we be if we weren’t standing beside you?” Jack said “You’re overruled, Daughter. Your family will be right there in the courtroom, showing the world and each and every juror we believe in you.”

Next to him sat Congressman Kipling Kendall, nodding to his constituents as if there were nothing unusual about a relative being charged with murder. To hell with career concerns and pictures splashed all over national papers and TV news. He was here to support his little sister. Kip winked at Savannah when she caught his eye, Rebecca blew her a small kiss and Beverly reached out and patted her shoulder. Savannah was lifted up on the love of this family. They were hers.

The jurors filed in from a side door, the weight of their task dragging behind them. Phil and Cecily weren’t thrilled about the final make-up of the jurors: too many men.

Faces of the jury looked at Savannah, anxious to get a first impression. She looked back. Her peers. Twelve people who would listen to two stories and decide which one they believed. Their call would send Savannah to prison or send her home.

The bailiff’s deep voice rose above the noise. “All rise.”

I
N HIS opening statement, Nathan Briggs stood before the jury box, assuring them in plain language how he was going to prove Savannah Palmerton had murdered her husband. Twelve pairs of eyes followed his finger when he pointed to her. Savannah caught her breath and Phil gently nudged her foot under the table.

Nathan Briggs was so persuasive she wondered why there was any reason for a trial. His words fell around her in a cold rain.
Savannah Palmerton, spoiled...pills...drinking...cheating on her husband...temper... murderer.
He took bits of truth and twisted them into unrecognizable shapes. When he told the jurors Phil would ask them to look the other way in the face of common sense evidence, Savannah was ready to give up.

But then it was Phil’s turn. This was the first time Savannah had seen him in action. He was brilliant. She managed to sit up a little straighter, watching, fascinated, even proud, as he worked the jury like a hypnotist. She could tell they were skeptical at first, wary of this Yankee lawyer with his funny accent. He kept his opening statement brief and his confidence spilled into the jury box. By the time he walked back to the defense table, several people were nodding with much warmer expressions.

Briggs came back swinging at the first bell with enlarged photos of the murder scene. Savannah felt like she was at a drive-in horror movie. After one glance, she stared down at the table, afraid to look up and see Price staring back at her in a pool of blood.

Every inch of the crime scene was painstakingly detailed by Briggs, followed by expert testimony. Forensic professionals explained the process of identifying fingerprints—matching up whorls, ridges, arches, and loops to confirm the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belonged to Savannah Palmerton.

“Mrs. Palmerton’s fingerprints weren’t found on the trigger, is that correct?” Phil said at the cross-examination.

“That’s correct,” the forensic examiner said.

Savannah nodded to herself, remembering when Price let her hold the gun. She cupped her hands around the cold metal, loathe to place her finger around the trigger. Price laughed at her as he retrieved the gun from her awkward grip.

Phil looked over his documentation. “And several unidentified smudged and half prints were found as well, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“And there’s no way to tell if a fingerprint is three months or three hours old, is there?”

“Well…not at this time, but—”

Phil dismissed him. “That will be all.”

Next the cleaning ladies testified they’d done a thorough job cleaning Price’s office the night of the murder. None of them had seen a diamond and pearl earring on the floor. Phil didn’t even bother cross-examining them.

The jeweler, Murray Feldman, attested to his jewelers mark on the back of the earring found at the scene. He confirmed it as one of a set specifically designed by Price Palmerton as a Christmas gift for his wife. Phil didn’t have questions for Feldman, either.

Pictures of Savannah at the New Year’s Eve country club dance were submitted as further evidence. In them, she smiled and laughed, Price on one side, Kip on the other, and the diamond and pearl earrings flashing at her ears. Unfortunately no pictures proving she wore gold heart earrings the night of the murder existed. In the face of such damning evidence the most Phil could do was, ignore it, get them off the stand, and deal with it in his closing argument.

On and on it went, with Briggs lining up witnesses and grilling them for hours, followed by Phil asking one or two pointed questions.

Each time Nathan Briggs got up to speak, she felt doomed. The roller coaster ride was doing a number on her nerves.

So was the heat. August in Georgia was Mother Nature at her bitchiest, her hot breath rolling up from the center of the earth and melting city streets. Even the natives had a hard time in her unrelenting glare. Philadelphia Hannigan didn’t stand a chance. Every break in the war room was a backstage wardrobe change: one of Cecily’s jobs was having a large stack of dress shirts at the ready.

Perception was everything. A lawyer in a sweat-drenched shirt, wasn’t the impression Phil wanted to leave with the jury.

“I don’t know how you people live down here,” he said drinking his second glass of ice water. “It’s a sauna.” He’d donned a crisp white shirt but not buttoned it yet.

“It’s purely scientific, Philadelphia,” Savannah said, picking at a ham sandwich. “A true southerner is a product of evolution. We’ve evolved over time to adapt to our tropical surroundings. It’s a clear case of survival of the fittest and those who can’t handle it are expected to crawl back up north.”

Phil rolled an ice cube around his mouth. “I’ll let you have that one. I’m too hot to argue. Besides I don’t know how you can look so cool in this anteroom of hell.”

Cecily came into the room. “Five minutes.”

Phil took a huge bite of sandwich, buttoned his shirt and took the tie Cecily handed him.

Savannah took out her notepad as they sat back down at the defendants table. Phil said if she ever needed a job she could get one as a courtroom sketch artist. She flipped through the drawings she’s made these past three days: Judge Houser, glasses hanging off the tip of his nose. Nathan Briggs with a permanent smirk, and several of Phil. She ran her finger over this morning’s sketch, Phil’s hand holding a pencil in his fingers. She turned to a fresh page as Phil glanced down at her. Court was called to session.

“The people call Adam Vincent.”

The name caught her by surprise. She knew Adam would be called to testify at some point, but not today. Hearing his name ring out in the courtroom was having the royal decree of her guilt read in public. Her parents and her family would now hear the ugly details. She struggled to keep her composure as Adam walked to the stand.

When he looked over at the defendants table the corners of his mouth turned up in the faintest recognition. Savannah felt Phil stiffen beside her.

Nathan Briggs smiled at his witness. “Please state your full name, for the court.”

“Adam Jerome Vincent.”

Briggs led Adam through a series of innocent questions before he dug in.

“Mr. Vincent, do you know the defendant?”

“Yes.” Buttoned into a suit and tie, Adam looked uncomfortable, his free spirit chafing at the restraints.

“How did you meet?”

“She took an art class I was teaching at Chatham Community College.”

“I see. Did the two of you have any relationship outside of the classroom?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Savannah saw several jurors glance her way. Heat stung her face and began spreading down her neck.

“We were friends,” Adam said.

“Friends?” Briggs grinned. “Friends who met outside the classroom?”

“Yes. We met for coffee a few times.”

“Are you sure that’s all, Mr. Vincent?”

Adam stared back, refusing to offer up anything unsolicited. Briggs stood in front of the jury and looked back at Adam.

“Did she ever come to your apartment?”

The slightest hesitation. “Yes.”

Briggs signaled to his assistant who pulled the drop cloth off the large exhibit near the judge’s bench. The room gasped as the portrait of Savannah stared defiantly at the courtroom over her naked shoulder, her lips parted in a sensual tease.

Briggs was all business as he entered the peoples exhibit into evidence and she could hear Phil swallowing and pretending to write something important on his legal pad.

“It seems like you knew Mrs. Palmerton well enough to paint this picture.” Briggs walked slowly back across the courtroom, giving everyone time to stare at the painting. He let the heads swivel back and forth between Adam and Savannah. Let the truth settle around the room and squeeze between the jurors, like a fat latecomer angling for the last seat on a crowded bus. Savannah could see them moving sideways in their seats, making room for it.

Still, Adam said nothing. Offered nothing. Briggs moved to the next exhibit board and turned it around displaying enlarged photographs—the same ones the detectives had spread before Savannah all those months ago. She and Adam holding hands, laughing, kissing. They had caught her off guard then, and they had the same effect now, lined up next to her naked portrait, in a display of her guilt. Copies were handed to the jurors, so they could inspect her infidelity up close.

“Stare straight ahead,” Phil whispered out of the side of his mouth.

Savannah stared and wished the polished floor would crack beneath her and swallow her whole. The hairs were standing up on the back of her neck. Antennae picked up the sound of her family shifting in their seats.

Relishing the moment, Briggs asked the obvious. “Are these pictures of you and the defendant?”

“Yes.”

Savannah could almost hear the shrug of Adam’s shoulders in his voice.

“Do you know why we have these pictures, Mr. Vincent?”

“No.”

“Because the deceased, Mr. Price Palmerton, hired a private detective to follow his wife. He was certain she was being unfaithful to her marriage and he wanted documentation—“

Phil was on his feet. “Objection Your Honor, Mr. Briggs has a lot of talents, but I don’t believe even he can speak for the deceased.”

“Sustained,” Judge Houser said.

“No further questions, Your Honor.” Briggs walked back to his table, land mines strewn in his wake.