Category: #BestRevenge

Whitney:
Chapter XXXIV – Strength and Knowledge

“He’ll make the right call,” said Eight, squeezing my hand. “You can trust him.”

“I’m scared she’ll leave,” I said nervously. “It would be so awful if she gets away. I tell you right now I’d never sleep another night.”

“Mr. Wilmot and the marshals won’t let that happen. Strength to Strength,” he said. “It’s a Native American expression. To know is to believe and to believe is to know.”

I knew strength as a Tarot card. Strength is important. But there isn’t a knowledge card. There should be. Facts. God, they are beautiful.

“I feel better,” I said. “But I’m embarrassed.”

“Peyote on the first date?” he teased. “Sorry. I won’t even mention getting naked.”

“Asking you to marry me on the first date. That’s what’s really bothering me.”

“Hey, don’t you know that wolf spirits mate once and forever? I’m a Gemini – I’ve been looking for my soulmate my whole life.”

And what have I been doing my whole life? Fighting Charmian. That’s what it feels like.

Eight picked up my hand where it lay in his and kissed the back of it. “I was waiting for someone who knew what it was like to grow up in the heart of a monster,” he said. “I just didn’t know it.”

“I have two sisters,” I told him. “They’re a lot older. They’re always telling me – they used to tell me – that I was just like her. They referred – I mean, obviously they didn’t mean in the physical or in my relations with men –“

“I get it. They really meant that you were determined,” said Eight. “Goal-focused.”

It feels so much better to be recognized! “They just felt that – since Dad wouldn’t want Charmian exposed –“

“What does it matter what “they” think?” asked Eight. “They’re two different people, so in spite of what they might want you to believe, they don’t really think together.”

And that is incontestably true. McKenzie’s bossier. Darby’s more of a rabble-rouser. Darby might be following McKenzie…some of the time. Don’t I sometimes get more of a hint of “You go girl” from the glint in Darby’s eyes?

“People talk about “they,” Eight was saying, “But there’s no “they” there. People’s lips may say one thing, but their eyes say something else. And their actions may be completely different. Who knows what their hearts say? We have to go our own way, on our own path.”

“As long as its the right path,” I agreed. “I felt like, even if my father had begged me, back there in the sweat lodge, to let Charmian go, I couldn’t have done it.”

“She’s too dangerous,” said Eight. “People like that are just too dangerous.”

Beat. So, as the old joke goes, enough about me. What do you think about me? At a certain point a girl had better start showing some interest in her date, other than caring only about how fantastically sensitive he is to her.

“So you grew up in the heart of the monster,” I started. “How did you escape?”

“I almost didn’t,” he admitted. “It was completely the church elders. They just rescued me. It was like I was drowning and they set up life buoys. Lifeboats.”

“So, I guess your Mom’s a member.”

There I touched it. The pain. The exposed nerve. He looked away.

“No,” he said. “She’s really not. She’s eaten out inside from the drugs. There’s not much left.”
What he described was horrible. But I’ve seen it. In my own father.

“I have to be straight edge,” he said. “There’s too much addiction on both my family trees.”
A straight edge peyote taking visionary? I could see it.

The inner door burst open and Justice’s Avenging Angel – in the person of Mr. Wilmot – stood before us.

“I think you may have landed the big one,” he said.

“The big one?” We rose, as if before a verdict.

“Female serial killer,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be great? Female serial killers are very hard to catch. They lie low. They don’t have the need to show off. They’re very astute at blending in.”

My stepmother without the need to show off? I wouldn’t recognize her. On the other hand, if she hadn’t been “showing off” for Eight, would we ever have nailed her?

“I need a judge to sign the arrest warrant,” said Mr. Wilmot. “Fortunately we’ve got one waiting right around the corner.”

“Arrest warrant for murder?” I asked. It was too good to be true. Nothing was proven.

“For jury tampering and obstruction of justice,” said Mr. Wilmot. “And that’s just to begin with. Wait till Judge Kozlowsky discovers she swore a false oath in his court! We’ve got her dead to rights on her own words. I’ve got to notify the other side that we’ve got a mistrial. They’ll be jubilant.”
“Won’t she just bond out?” I asked wearily. “I mean, Charmian?”

And then there would be – literally – hell to pay. And I would be the one to pay it. Charmian’s first call would be to Nicholas Rudoff, our trustee. He takes her calls, wherever he is. She has him on speed dial.

“Impossible. She’s really outsmarted herself this time. She has to prove who she is just to get out of jail. The criminal justice system doesn’t recognize “uxes”, let me assure you. We don’t bond out “Jane Does.” By all means, let her prove she’s Pearleen Purdy. That will help us make our case. And by the time she’s ready to do that, we will have dug up a certain catalpa tree dedicated to Robert Garvin, Junior.”

The marshal knocked on the door to the jury deliberation room. Eight grabbed my hand tightly in reassurance and solidarity. For the few seconds that we waited for the door to open I actually felt sorry for Charmian. She was so wrong about everything. She made the very mistake she wanted everyone else to make; she judged by appearances.

Some woman in glasses opened the door. The jurors were seated around the table, papers strewn, faces heated – obviously we interrupted them in the midst of an intense discussion. All faces but one turned to us in calm surprise, taking this to be some ordinary interruption, as if we had come with coffee or cookies. But the woman at the door saw the marshals had their hands on their pistols and she stepped hurriedly behind the door as if it was the only safe place in the world. Charmian’s eyes flickered over me and saw Eight. Saw our joined hands, and rose to her feet with her teeth bared in a snarl.

Mr. Wilmot spoke the words.

“Jane Doe, also known as Pearleen Purdy, also known as Charmian Carr, also known as Charmian Quantreau, you are under arrest for perjury, jury tampering, and obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent –“

He read the whole Miranda warning, asking her “Do you understand?” She said nothing, never taking her eyes off me. Eight and I stood there calmly and faced her. She wasn’t to know about our clenched guts and our dry mouths.

The trees know where they are. The trees are not afraid.

He read numbers and statutes as the marshals handcuffed her. I saw her pupils recognizing, swiveling, hypnotizing, trying to suck me inside to join her in the yawning abyss that was left of her soul. But there was still enough of a human being left in there to feel pain. I saw the agony of her loss as she recognized that Eight had never been hers, that she had never known him, that he had chosen me. I almost wavered at the sight of so much suffering.

Then I remembered how she used to torture my father when he wanted a drink of water. “You’ll only piss your pants.”

“We’ll take this,” said Wilmot, darting forward to grab her juror’s notebook. I saw the panic in her face.

“You can’ take that! It’s private!”

“It’s the property of the court now,” said Mr. Wilmot dryly. “Who else does it belong to? Pearleen Purdy? Charmian Carr? Jane Doe?” he faced the astonished jurors, saying, “Judge Kozlowsky thanks you for your service, but he has declared a mistrial in this case. The clerk will be in momentarily to take your statements.”

It knocked the wind out of them. It would have silenced anyone else, but as they dragged my stepmother past me, she mouthed words. At me. “Well played. All Hail the New Queen!”
What a bitch!

Eight pulled on my arm. “Now what were we talking about when we were so rudely interrupted?” he demanded, turning my body to face him, forcing me to focus on his face.

I felt like a drowning swimmer pulled away from the undertow. Pulled out of the riptide. Life buoys. Lifeboats. Wasn’t that what we’d been talking about? How just when you think you’re going under for the final time –

I wiped my tears away. “Infinity?” I suggested.

“Before that,” he countered. We were walking now. Every step was taking us farther away from what was left of my stepmother. Farther away from the jail, from this courthouse in the heart of the city.
He prompted, “Weren’t you saying something about wanting to get to know me?”

Out on the steps we paused a moment to enjoy the magnificence of the soft spring night. The stars were out, every single one of them. Even the ones that had been dead for years.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “I remember now.”

THE END

TOMORROW: Cuck’d – Alysse Aallyn’s play “Othello in an American High School”

Whitney
Chapter XXXII – The Ace of Swords

I was so full of delicious barbecue, berry cobbler and spinach lasagna that I could barely run. But Eight and I managed to power walk down the courthouse hallway. As long as we were hand in hand, my connection with this total stranger was strong and fierce. Mr. Wilmot, whom I recognized as the prosecutor giving the closing argument I listened to just this afternoon, thrust his head outside his office.

“So Zach,” he asked, “What’s the emergency?”

“We’ve got some facts about one of your jurors that you really need to know,” said Eight.
I felt a strange exhilaration that the prosecutor, whom Eight called a “friend”, nevertheless didn’t know – or use – Eight’s secret name. The club I belonged to was way more exclusive.

In the prosecutor’s office was a nightmarishly uncomfortable Danish “Oldern” sofa bearing a single needle-pointed cushion bearing the legend: “The meek may inherit the earth, but without you they won’t keep it very long.”

“My wife made that,” said Wilmot. “Come on in. Have a seat.” I felt kind of guilty for bothering him, he looked so harassed. He wore his gray suit pants but no jacket, had removed his tie and his collar was undone. His pepper and salt hair stood up all over his head like a bulldog’s fur, and he peered at us over his bifocals as Eight said,

“First tell him about your stepmother’s identity problems, Whitney.”

But first I looked around. You are not lost; the trees know where they are. The walls were covered with plaques, awards, framed certificates and degrees. In a painting of justice the blindfolded goddess holding the scales pulled her blindfold down just enough for one eye to peek out. Made me think of Charmian’s mesmerizing tarot cards. I didn’t like thinking about them.

We sat down together on the uncomfortable sofa. It was all right because Eight and I were together.

“I’m Whitney Quantreau,” I said. “My stepmother’s on your jury. Charmian Quantreau. But that’s not her real name. I just came back from Cold Creek, Texas, where I found out that the real Charmian Carr has been missing for the past ten years. Her family just had her declared dead. I have a picture of her here,” I gave him my manila envelope with the copy of Charmian’s book and the Firewalker material, but he made no move to open it. “Her real name is Pearleen Purdy and I think she stole Charmian’s identity.”

“She stole your stepmother’s identity?” he asked me.

This was going to be a touchy story to tell. But I had Eight beside me. I swallowed, took a breath and went on, “She was pretending to be Charmian Carr seven years ago when she married my father. Now he’s dead and she killed him. She admits it all in this book.”

“It’s a love letter to me,” said Eight. “She thinks I killed Rafe Zanelli. She thinks I’m a fellow spirit.”
Wilmot sat down. I think he fell into his chair.

“It’s all in the book,” said Eight. “She murdered her stepfather first, and then she cut Charmian Carr’s throat and buried her under a catalpa tree in Texas. Then she murdered Whitney’s father.”
“I made a copy,” I offered. “It’s in there.”

“I have a mistrial,” said Wilmot. Not looking happy about it. “Mistrials are expensive.”

“Sorry,” I squeaked. More guilt!

He recovered fast. He was a fast recoverer. Probably how you get to be prosecutor.

“It has a good side,” said the prosecutor. “It’s like moot court. We get to find out how the jury was tending. Does anybody else know about this?”

“Only my church elders,” said Eight. “They won’t speak to anybody.”

Wilmot rose decisively. “I need the original. I always need the original.”

So I had been right about that. Could it just be fate that I stole the book on the very day Charmian didn’t go home? The last day of the trial? I guess sometimes fate works one way, and sometimes another.

Eight gave him the book. Now he had everything. It was literally out of our hands.
“Excuse me,” said Wilmot, and he proceeded through a glass door into an inner office.

Eight and I were alone. We looked at each other. I swear to you we recognized each other. But what did we see? Who did we recognize?

Whitney:
Chapter XXVIII – The Knight of Pentacles

Thanks to Charmian, I knew where Zach Tobin lived. I parked on the street and saw him sitting on the steps, white earbuds suggesting he was listening to music. But he looked right at me as I parked, and when I stepped out of the car, he stood up, picking up a backpack that seemed to contain schoolbooks. I was carrying both Charmian’s book and the copy I had made, but he didn’t look at them. He looked at me.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Charmian’s description of him was surprisingly accurate. Maybe when she’s not looking at herself (which is rare) she actually sees. I knew he was my age but he looked older, a big soft-faced guy hiding his head under a bandana. Not any scarf that could ever have belonged to Charmian, I was glad to see.

“I think so,” I said, my voice going all quavery at the thought of what these documents contained.
“Let me call my ride,” he said, texting rapidly with his phone.

“Am I interrupting something?” I asked, still feeling awkward because I knew so much about him that he didn’t know I knew. And he knew nothing about me.

“No,” he said. “I was waiting for a ride to the courthouse but I’m telling them I’ll find my own way there.”

“I can drive you,” I said. Thinking, that’s if you still want to go after reading this. A few more minutes and I might have missed him! I have to get this over with.

“OK.” He said. “Come on back.”

When he turned I had the nerve to study him. He wore a Bull Durham t-shirt and a pair of multi-patched jeans that had definitely seen better days – probably in someone else’s lifetime. Obviously if he was going to the courthouse, it was as a spectator.

He had big muscles. His “bruiser” physique” and his youth, and I guess their original connection must be what had turned my hard-ass stepmother into a “lovestruck girl.”

But there was also an aura about him I couldn’t put my finger on, an air of having come out of some other world. Some foreign place where things are different. That was what made Charmian see him as a knight.

He took me back to the shack she had written about – more of a shed, really. I knew it had no running water but it didn’t look so unrespectable. In the back yard, a pair of basket chairs looked out on an unkempt jungle of yard and a panorama of distant mountains. Native American blankets were thrown over the basket chairs. He picked up mine, shook it out and flipped it.

“My lady,” he said. On top of a rusty airconditioning unit was a miniature refrigerator. He took out a pitcher and two frosty glasses.

“Sweet tea?” he offered.

“Sure,” I said, still uncomfortable. The tea was full of mint. It was not too bad. I began to relax. When I sat down, so did he.

“I guess you’re not serving me with papers,” he commented, “Or you would have done it already.”
“So I look like a process server?” I was really upset.

“No,” he answered. “You look like a person in trouble.” And he reached out and touched my hand.
A galvanic thrill ran through me. I jumped.

“So you felt that?” he said. “Wow.”

“I did feel it. Are you – magic?”

“No,” he said. “I’m definitely not magic. But you are.”

I shook my head. “Can’t be,” I said. “Believe me.”

“So,” he offered, “Maybe we’re magic when we’re together. My spirit touching your spirit.”
Maybe so. I didn’t understand any of this. Did it make what I had to do harder or easier? I decided it made it easier. We seemed to need fewer words with this current of understanding that was passing between us.

“I’m here about my stepmother,” I started, gesturing with the book, hoping it would take it from me. It lay in my lap like a stone.

But he wasn’t looking at the book. He was looking at me with his deep, soft, liquid green eyes.
“Do I know her?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” I admitted, “You do.”

There was silence between us for a moment. But it was different from any other silence I have ever experienced. It was weirdly, as if we knew each other already and were both trying to remember. I felt more like a person coming out of a coma, who looks around for clues, trying to figure out who she is.

I shook the book at him. “She wrote it down,” I said, “It’s all in here.”

Still he didn’t take the book. Had he figured out that I didn’t really want him to read it? He said instead, “Tell me about her.”

I looked out toward the mountains to break the connection between us, summoning up my nerve.
“She’s a juror on the Sivarro trial,” I told him. “Your father introduced you to her on your fifteenth birthday.”

His eyes widened, his faced reddened and he gasped. “What goes around comes around,” he said. “My father is a demon.”

“Well my stepmother is a demon and that’s for sure,” I agreed. “In this book she admits murdering three people. It’s a love letter to you.”

He looked at the book, appalled. I could see he really didn’t want to read it now.

I went on, “One of the people she killed was my father. I stole this book from her house. And now I don’t know what to do. It was all so long ago, I’m afraid the police won’t investigate. She’s a very powerful person.”

“A witch?” he asked me.

His language – a word that revealed his understanding – was making this easier. What I had instinctively known – that only he could understand –was coming true. “Well, yes. She believes in magic anyway. She calls herself the Queen of Swords.”

He nodded. “There’s only one way to defeat magic.”

“How?” I asked helplessly.

“You need bigger magic.”

I breathed a relieved sigh. “And you’ve got … that?”

He touched my hand again. “I’m sure I do.”

When he was touching me I couldn’t think of anything but his skin, his lips, his strong thighs. It was all I could do not to launch myself at him. I began to shiver, as if the hot day was freezing cold.
“So what do you want?” he asked me softly.

“I want to erase the past,” I spat, “Before my father had his stroke, before she came into our lives. She was supposed to take care of him, but she ruined him. First she made him get rid of me and then she destroyed him. She robbed me. She stole everything I have.”

Humiliatingly, I started to cry. Did I know he would hug me? Was I trying to force his hand? Over-thinking things again! I despised myself. It’s my usual feeling.

He took me into his arms. His sweat smelled like a field of thyme. I sighed blissfully, feeling I could be safe there forever.

“You want your father back before he began to suffer,” he said. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“She corrupted him,” I insisted, but feeling that I was lying. My father wanted to be corrupted. Still, it wasn’t fair.”

“You know, your father’s perfect spirit still exists,” said Zach Tobin, holding me on his lap and rocking me – hideously huge old me, like I was a baby! He could lift me up as if I was a feather. “Concentrate on that. His spirit is bigger than his life.”

I struggled with the concept, summoning up everything I’d learned at the prep academy, and at college.

“Our spirit is bigger than our choices,” said Zach. “Our spirit weeps when we choose the wrong thing.”

I wanted to have sex with him right there in that basket chair. Was that the wrong thing to want? But I didn’t feel confused. I was beginning to see that clarity was possible.

“I stole this book out of her house,” I said. “I made one copy, but I’m afraid a copy has no value. It’s almost too crazy a story for anyone to believe. She’s stuck at the courtroom now – I looked at my watch – but when she comes home tonight she’ll see it’s missing and she’ll do something. Something awful.”

“We won’t let that happen,” said Zach.

“But you don’t know her. She’s powerful. She feels things. She’s fixated on you. She’s going to know that I interfered and drop everything to come after us!” My teeth chattered.
“Stop being afraid of her,” he said. “It gives her power. Repeat after me, the trees are not afraid.”
My teeth were still chattering. “They’re not?”

“Repeat after me. I am not lost. The trees know where they are.”
I repeated it. “I am not lost, the trees know where they are.”
“The trees are not afraid.”

“The trees are not afraid.” I did feel better. Imagine if I was a tree! What could Charmian do to me? It would take her a long time to cut me down. She probably couldn’t do it! She’d get blisters on her hands.

“So,” I asked him, “No police?”

“We need bigger magic than the police,” said Zach. “We’re going to get Mr. Wilmot, and Mr. Wilmot’s going to get the police. But first, we have to have a sacred ceremony.”

“A sacred ceremony?” I repeated hopefully. A sacred ceremony! You bet that was just what we needed. Plus the police, and the prosecutor. Then we’d have everything covered. I liked this magic. Charmian could never be ready for this. Firepower.

“And she will be destroyed?”

“If she’s a demon,” he said,“She will be destroyed. Put your number in my phone. Your name is –“

I flushed, painfully. Talk about not taking care of business!

“I’m Whitney Quantreau,” I told him, taking his phone. And you’re … Zach Tobin?” I still knew too much about him.

“My legal name is Zach Zanelli,” he said. “Because those people lost a son. Whatever can be repaired is repaired. Whatever can be made whole is made whole, even though the river rushes on. My friends call me Eight.”

“Eight…” I breathed. I felt better that he had a magic name. Two names that Charmian didn’t know. “Why Eight?”

“Because I was so happy when I was eight years old.” He smiled, and when he smiled he looked like an eight year old. “Until now.”

“I need a magic name,” I said.

“We’ll get you one,” said Eight.

“She calls me the Princess of Wands. I don’t want to be the Princess of Wands.”

“Well, she’d wrong right there,” said Eight. “You’re not the princess of anything. You’d be the Queen.”

“I would?”

“Look at your strength, going up against her. Hell, yeah!”

“You’ve got better magic, right?” I stood up uncertainly. “I mean, you’ve got the trees. But –“
“And I’ve got the mountains,” said Eight.

“You’ve got the mountains?”

“The mountains aren’t afraid. And I’ve got all the animals.”

The tears came back in my eyes. “That is a lot,” I agreed. “She’d nothing but a pack of cards.”
He pried the book from my hands.

“You’re going to the courthouse,” he said. “Make certain she’s still there.”

I didn’t want to tell him I was afraid after he’d worked so hard to build me up. But what can I say? I was scared. “Without you?”

“I have something else to do. I’ll text you where to go. And when.”

One look at my face and he repeated, “She cant touch you. I’ll tell Wilmot to keep her there.”
He’ll tell…the prosecutor! This kid! This kid who had seen his father murder a man. Whose father tries to tell everyone who will listen that his son is the murderer!

“We have right on our side,” said Eight.

Hmm. True. Plus the trees and the mountains. And the animals. But in the courtroom…she will look at me.

“It’s important to let her see you,” he said. “It will help the ceremony. If she’s shaken just a little bit.”
It would surprise her.

“It’s important to do what you fear,” he encouraged. “Face her. We’re going to take her down.”
I shook my head a little. I’m not a knight. I’m not a queen.

“If it’s any comfort to you,” he continued, “She can’t really see you. Because she is blind. If she’s made herself into a demon, the spiritual world is closed to her.”
That did help.

“Mr. Wilmot says this afternoon are closing arguments. Then the jury usually wants to start deliberating right away, and they have dinner sent in, because they don’t want their dinner ruined. Trust me. We’ll get her.”

And he kissed me. That was where I received all my courage.

Charmian:
Chapter XXVII – The King of Swords

Surprise! There was no defense! So often that’s the case. That’s why, when you’re in doubt, the best policy is always to attack, because quite often the defensive posture is a sham. The other side disintegrates into a hasty and undignified retreat. The defense’s only witness was Haymaker’s psychiatrist. Lacey would be disappointed. I know she hoped O’Hara would put Karen Sivarro on the stand.

But the man is wily. He has the manner of a Prince of Swords; since he kills no one himself. I began to wish that I had googled his birthday, so that I could give him an astrological chart and a full reading. He must have realized that as long as sweet little Karen sits there at the defense table looking pretty and piteous she at least has some benefit of the doubt. If she gets on the stand Mr. Wilmot can trap her into admitting – or at the very least seeming to admit – that some of what Haymaker said was true.

Mr. Wilmot stood up to give his closing argument. I wish you could have been there to see it. A king of Swords at bay is a magnificent sight, even though any knight worth his armor could cut him down in a moment.

This must explain why the courtroom was more crowded than it had ever been, why even Whitney took an afternoon out of her boring schedule snoop through my spoor to bother to attend. It’s as if everyone has been notified by the press, here comes the “juicy stuff.” When Mr. “Push” – in the person of Mr. Wilmot – gets to go for the jugular of Mr. Shove! Who doesn’t enjoy a good hand-to-hand?

“Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” began the prosecutor, “You have heard an open and shut case of murder for hire. The state has conclusively proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Reuben Haymaker hired Barry Tobin to empty bullets into Rafe Zanelli until he was dead, and that in fact that is what happened. Reuben Haymaker got up on this stand to testify that the plot originated with his then-girlfriend, Karen Sivarro, that she asked him to do it, and that once the murder was accomplished she behaved in a manifestly guilty fashion, leaving the country as fast as she could go, and relying on extradition treaties to keep United States justice at bay.

How likely is it that Haymaker, beset as he was with financial, sexual, family and addiction problems, suddenly decided to commit this crime for a woman who had already become his lover, merely as a surprise for her? Without informing her about it or keeping her apprised? If he really intended to bind the defendant to him for life, wouldn’t divorcing his wife be a more practical step? Yet we know he made no such gesture. I maintain the secretive murder that the defense is forced to posit is extremely unlikely. And that is what you have to consider.

The defense, in their closing, will doubtless make much of the words, “reasonable doubt”. Ladies and gentlemen, we chose you because you struck us – both sides, I might add – as exceptionally reasonable, and it is to your reason. We expect no less of you when you assemble to deliberate together.

The defense agrees that the murder was performed for Karen Sivarro. It is her culpability you will question, knowing that Rafe Zanelli had been a thorn in the side of her family for months and when he died, was threatening to take a loved child out of state – as was his perfect right. Mr. Haymaker would have never even heard of Mr. Zanelli if it hadn’t been for her. By the way, the beloved grandchild now lives under her grandparents’ roof. This murder achieved its aim. In the annals of murder, it ranks as a partial success. If Karen Sivarro is found guiltless by you, she will have gotten away with it. How reasonable is that?

The defense in the person of my esteemed colleague, Mr. O’Hara, has leaned heavily on the blemished character of Mr. Haymaker. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Haymaker will be in prison for the rest of his natural life. He will not even be considered for parole until he’s 82. That’s appropriate, because without him. Mr. Zanelli would never have died. The evidence you have heard makes it plain that Karen Sivarro refused to soil her hands to that extent. A pretty, adored and intelligent child, she has been accustomed all her life to finding someone else to perform all her messy, dangerous and laborious jobs.

What Mr. Haymaker could not help but make plain as he sat on the witness stand, was that she owned him. He would have done anything for her. She gambled that the law would not hold her accountable; although this murder benefited no one but her family, she felt safe, because she thought herself too far removed from the bullets and the gun that fired them ever to face justice. Who would believe Reuben Haymaker, busy stealing from his clients, and drug dealing Barry Tobin over her?

But who do you think sat in the saddle of this relationship, giving orders, and who do you think was the listener, the performer, who took directions? Mr. Haymaker paid for all her living expenses, he gave her a car, he pretended she had a cushy, well-paid job with no actual expectations. And when the time came, he found a hitman. Or a person who said he was a hitman.

That person is in jail, now too. He has confessed. He won’t even get the chance of parole. The judge will explain to you that if you find her guilty, she is even more guilty than the man who fired the gun. In this state we punish the central conspirator – the one who set the murderous ball rolling – with death. But that will be up to you. You will have lesser included offenses to consider.
What else but guilt explains her long flight through Europe, in search of a country that has no extradition treaty with the United State?

The defense called Haymaker’s own psychiatrist to the stand to testify that he suffers from “anti-social personality disorder.” That was pretty much all Dr. Loden could testify to, since he knew nothing about the crime itself. He told us Mr. Haymaker is a liar and an addict. Well, we already knew that.

A jury hears from a lot of liars in the course of the average case and it is the apex of their duty to sort the lies from the truth. We can pretty much assume that Haymaker said whatever he had to, to keep that supply of Adderall and Xanax coming. Dr. Loden is very free with his prescription pad.
When his relationship with Karen Sivarro started to heat up, Mr. Haymaker had a new painkiller, and he didn’t need Dr. Loden any more. Dr. Loden has testified in this courtroom that there is virtually no treatment for what he deigned to diagnose as Mr. Haymaker’s “disorder”, yet he was apparently willing to keep treating him forever. “Keeping an eye on him,” he said, not simply to feather his own nest. Does that sound reasonable to you? I think in your good old-fashioned common sense all of you are familiar with practitioners like Mr. Loden. They regard whatever they have to sell as exactly what we need, and we pay the bill – or our insurance company does – but we don’t get a say in it.

Dr. Loden admits people with personality disorders are never really cured. But does Mr. Haymaker even exhibit the formal markers of this condition? You will recall that I got him to admit on the stand that Haymaker does not match one of the central qualifications of anti-social personality disorder; adolescent crime. His career path is just the opposite: he was a pillar of the community until he discovered he couldn’t pay for his private thrills legally.

Another one of the characteristics of anti-social personality disorder is a complete lack of remorse: is that how Reuben Haymaker appeared to you? I don’t think so. I think Mr. Haymaker is a narcissistic, opportunistic individual whose every crime was committed as part of a short-term effort to make his life easier. How likely do you think it is that a person who doesn’t care about other people – another marker, you note, of antisocial personality – would risk his own neck to personally personality mastermind a dangerous, expensive, secret surprise -which might – or might not — delight his current girlfriend, or would he simply give in to her pleas in order to get her in the mood for love? To turn off the crying machine? I assert that he did what he had to to keep her gratifying him, and he didn’t care one way or another about Mr. Zanelli, or even the traumas of the Sivarro family, except as if affected the availability and intensified the cooperation of his current sex partner.

I think once his supply of joy-juice was cut off and it hit him how he had destroyed the lives of everyone around him in a short term quest for personal thrills he was damn sorry. But is that the way Mr. Haymaker struck you? Did he blame his wife or girlfriends for his financial situation? It seems to me he realizes the blame lies squarely with himself. He knows he’s in prison for life, and he deserves to be there. He admitted hiring Barry Tobin, he admitted planning the crime, but he’s also telling us is that he did it on the direct request of his girlfriend, who wanted help with her family situation. You need to talk that out, and decide how realistic, how reasonable that course of events seems to you. In that effort, you have an unexpected source of help: the testimony of the defendant herself.

Our jury system is the pride of the world, and this is why: because it’s very hard to fool twelve ordinary hard working citizens. Abraham Lincoln says, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” And that’s what any jury trial in this fair country of ours proves again and again. Some of you will be fooled, some of you will be forgiving, some of you will be doubtful and some of you will be generously inclined. But when the twelve of you get together and talk it out, I am confident that the true picture will emerge. Guaranteed. Your honor, the state rests.”

Charmian:
Chapter XXV – The Hermit

After lunch I was astonished to see Whitney in the courtroom, sitting right up front in the “cheap seats” along with the rest of the public. I was so flooded with rage that if we had been alone you would have had your sacrificial victim right there.

The defense was putting on its case beginning with the testimony of Haymaker’s psychiatrist, a bald-headed bumbler in a cheap suit who babbled on at length about what a psychopath Haymaker was; that in fact his diagnosis was “anti-social personality disorder.”

I could barely focus on his nonsense. I attempted to calm myself by scrying – seeing distant or past events in my crystal ring. It’s a well-accepted form of astral travel for adepts. After a moment’s clarity I began to see how it could have happened. What if Whitney went to my house; found me absent and engaged the judge in conversation? She couldn’t have talked to the gardeners. They don’t know where I go each day. Judge Sugarman on the other hand is a born blabbermouth. That’s a problem with arriving at the top of the tree. Things become so easy for you there’s a tendency to forget how tentative a winning position really is. The fact that all your underlings are looking at you adoringly doesn’t mean they’re not plotting your overthrow.

I also think the judge’s vision is defective. Whitney is sufficiently youthful to qualify as “pretty” in his book. She’s no dummy. Most likely she could get any fact out of him that she wanted to know. He might even have been stupid enough to suggest he had a hand in my privileged position.

I should have been better prepared for this turn of events. My morning’s card was the Hermit, but I was distracted by my horoscope. My horoscope offered such a vision of joy and power: “Glimpse of future revealed. You will perceive possibilities and opportunities. Romantic relationship beckons. Do not give your trust to anyone who reveals a secret. What seemed a setback boomerangs in your favor.” And it could still be coming true, if I could put the Hermit in his rightful position.

The Hermit is a special card others lacking gifts often interpret incorrectly. Beginners see his sad face, his rough clothing, hard path and cave dwelling and are frightened. They allow their intelligence to be clouded by fear. When terror threatens to rule you, its time to double down.

In my case I know the Hermit card must mean a cycle of depression is ending and one of success is beginning. I am coming out of the sacred loneliness in which my power was ordained. I will leave the cave behind, drop my monkish disguise and assume my royal prerogatives. With you at my side.