Claim of Innocence. Laura Caldwell
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and then Zavy Miller. When she looked back at me, she was grinning. “I think he’d say go ahead. You’re an adult and a lawyer, and you should do what you think is ethically right.” She laughed quietly. “I also think he’d say go ahead and piss off the state’s attorneys. It’ll throw them off their game.”
“Great.” I turned, pushed open the Plexiglas door and stepped into the gallery.
More people had gathered now for the opening arguments and all eyes went to me. Zavy Miller looked at me expectantly, too.
I stepped into the pew where he sat and took a seat, making sure to be a respectful distance away from him. “Mr. Miller,” I said, my voice low, “I want to introduce myself. I’m Izzy McNeil. I’ll be representing Valerie Solara, along with the Bristols.”
I held out my hand to him. He looked at it, then back up at me.
I waited for a look of hatred or maybe revulsion. But he only nodded, as if he respected the gesture. He stuck out his hand. Our shake was firm, friendly even.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the state’s attorneys staring at us. Ellie was giving Tania a shove on the arm, pointing to me. Tania headed for the Plexiglas door.
“Mr. Miller,” I said, “I don’t know if this will make sense, but I just wanted to tell you I hope that whatever is supposed to happen here, whatever is right…well, I hope that happens.”
He nodded. Sadness crossed his face and he swallowed, as if gulping something down. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”
I stood and almost ran into Tania, who had a stern look on her face. “Excuse me,” I said, trying to move around her.
But Tania didn’t move. “Everything okay?” she said to Zavy.
He gave a simple nod.
“Mr. Miller,” she said, “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to step out of the courtroom until we call you as a witness. After that you can stay. I know that’s difficult, but those are the court rules.”
“That’s fine.” Zavy Miller stood. “Nice to meet you,” he said to me with a kind smile.
“Likewise.”
When he was gone, Tania leaned in and whispered to me, “Ellie wants you to know that we looked into your background last night.”
“Excuse me?” I pulled away.
“Your background.” As if that explained everything.
“Okay.”
“You’re not a criminal defense lawyer.”
“Just a lawyer,” I said with an easy tone. I shifted toward her, sure she would move now, but again she didn’t budge.
“Things are different here than they are at the Daley Center.” She said Daley Center with a mocking air, as if she were saying, Things are different here than they are at that day care center.
Normally, I took the high road. But not when I was on trial. “Yeah,” I said, “the difference is that attorneys there intimidate with talent.”
Zing. Tania actually took a step back, and I moved around her. As I pushed through the Plexiglas wall, Ellie Whelan was glaring at me.
I smiled in return and went to the defense table. “See,” I said to Maggie, “that wasn’t so bad.”
17
“F or most of us, best friends are safe havens. Best friends provide a place where we can let ourselves be who we really are, where we are supported, where we are loved.” Ellie Whelan paused, as if having a hard time with her words. “But this woman…” She turned and pointed at Valerie. “This woman is pure poison. For her friendship was merely a disposable relationship where she could shop for a new husband. And kill any obstacles. Any at all.”
Valerie sat on the other side of Maggie, but even from that distance I heard her whimper. Maggie put her hand on Valerie’s forearm for a brief second. I saw a couple of jurors notice the movement.
Ellie Whelan patrolled the courtroom, moving back and forth in front of the jury, often pointing at Valerie and combining the gesture with damning words. She told the jury that Valerie and Amanda were best friends, or at least Valerie let Amanda think that. She told them that they would hear all about the friendship from another best friend, Bridget. They would hear how Bridget and Amanda and Amanda’s husband, Zavy, had supported Valerie after her own husband, Brian, died years ago. They’d become her second family.
“Because for Bridget and Xavier, and especially for Amanda, friendship meant something,” Ellie said.
She gestured toward Tania, who strode forward with a few poster-size exhibits. Tania placed them on an easel and went back to their table.
“Friendship and family,” Ellie said. “That’s what was important to Amanda Miller.”
She turned the first exhibit to face the jury. “This was Amanda Miller.”
I stood and walked to a side wall, where I could see a photo of a lovely brunette with green eyes and a big smile.
“You will hear from Amanda’s husband about the importance of friendship to Amanda Miller. He will tell you how much she loved her two girls, Tessa and Britney.” Ellie put the first exhibit on the floor, revealing a blown-up photo of Amanda and two toothy, gorgeous girls. “Xavier will tell you how the girls are now motherless. He will tell you they are having a very, very hard time of it. And all because of…” She didn’t have to say her name this time; she just turned and pointed toward Valerie.
From my vantage point at the wall, I could see the jury from the side. I was standing not just to see the photos, but also to try and determine the jury’s reaction to the state’s opening. For now, they were calm and attentive. But if I was looking for a reaction, I was about to get it.
“Here,” Ellie said, beginning to slowly remove the photo of Amanda’s kids, “is Amanda Miller on the day she died.”
As the next blown-up photo was revealed, the jury gasped.
I couldn’t help it—I winced. Maggie shot me a dirty look from across the courtroom, and I composed my face.
The photo was a “death shot.” Amanda, naked on a stainless-steel counter, a sheet draped across her lower half, her skin white as pearl, her mouth open, rigor mortis making her neck look stretched and rigid, like she was screaming into eternity.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from the photo. Out of my peripheral vision, I could tell that the jurors couldn’t, either. That poor woman, I heard one say. Horrible, murmured another.
“Quiet, please,” the judge said.
I glanced at Valerie. Had she killed Amanda? Had she done that to her friend? And if she had, constitutional rights or no, what was I doing representing her?
The courtroom felt chilly suddenly, as if sinister air had entered through a back door and wound its way through the place.
“You will hear from the coroner who examined Amanda’s body after her death, and you will hear how he came to the diagnosis of death by poisoning.” Ellie took a step away from the photo, letting the image of the dead woman speak volumes to the jury. “From Bridget, you will hear that just weeks before Amanda’s death, Valerie asked her about poisons, which Bridget had researched as part of a novel she was writing. And you will hear Xavier Miller tell you about the day…” A heavy pause. “About the day he came home from work and saw Valerie put something crushed, something blue, into the food she was cooking. She said it was an herb. It was not. It was a drug that, given at high doses, acted as a poison, and that poison would kill Amanda Miller before the day was done.”
Another pause to let all the information settle.
“Why would Valerie want to kill her ‘best friend’?” Ellie asked the jury.