Lies of the Heart (7 page)

As they cruised through the darkened water, Katie reviewed her night. Spent mostly like this, quiet and alone and lost inside her own thoughts—but she wasn’t alone right now, was she?

—At least . . . at least there was the night, Katie said almost to herself. —I like listening to its sounds.

Nick turned to look at her then, closely, like he knew her from somewhere but couldn’t place her.

They slid through the bay without speaking for a few minutes, the cold water spraying their faces, the sound of the engine humming along with the water as the boat crashed through the crosscurrent that led back to the marina.

—There’s this stretch of beach at Point Judith where that’s all you can hear, Nick said, finally breaking the silence. He kept his eyes on the water, and she shook her head in confusion. He turned to her again, not bothering to hide his impatience.—The night, he said.—That’s all there is.

She only nodded, trying to match his cool demeanor, and he shrugged and turned his attention back to the water. Katie was afraid she had failed some sort of crucial test, even if she didn’t know what the test was; she scrambled for a recovery.

She moved closer to Nick, her mind clamoring, and then she saw: his hands tensing on the wheel, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

It made her feel suddenly courageous, so she turned all the way around and closed the space between them. Allowed herself to openly admire him in the moonlight. The deeply tanned smoothness of his back; the broad, slightly freckled shoulders; the thick black hair full of salt and sand that curled up at the ends. Nick didn’t move, didn’t shift an inch, but his face said that he was aware of her attention—that he liked her eyes on his body.

—I’d love to see it, she said.—That stretch of beach.

He kept his eyes on the water, nodded slightly. Spun the wheel. The bright lights of the Jamestown Bridge winked at them in the distance; beyond them lay Narragansett Bay, and the jutting cliffs and dark beaches of Point Judith.

He beached the skiff on a small block of sand enclosed between two towering cliffs. Nick’s dark eyes shifted shyly to the moonlit beach, an invitation, and Katie finally understood, for the first time in her life, the possibility of not always feeling alone in the world.

T
he hallway outside the courtroom is quiet today, now that Judge Hwang has ordered the television crews out of the building. Katie pretends to listen to Richard, she doesn’t turn away from him, but most of her attention is focused on the large group of people from the Warwick Center huddled about twenty-five feet from where she and Richard consult, just outside the courtroom doors. Every time Richard pauses or stops to shuffle through papers, she strains to catch a word or two of the group’s discussion.

“It’s definitely a risk,” Richard says to her, “but Carly’s really the only viable witness.”

Katie nods, tries to assemble the last clear memory she has of Carly and Nick together.—Has anyone seen my baseball glove? Nick had asked after the yearly picnic ended and everyone was engaged in the chaos of gathering things up.—I’ve lost it and—Oh! maybe it’s in here, he said, and then his hands were plunged deep into the mass of curls on Carly’s head, searching.—Okay, I think we’ve got someone’s keys in here, he called out, and Carly had laughed for five seconds, a miracle, before she punched Nick squarely in the gut.

“If it backfires with this girl,” Richard says now, “we’ll have plenty of time to make up for it.”

“Right.”

Katie’s eyes skip back to the Warwick Center employees. She can easily imagine the words that are being shared in that group, the certainty in the speaker’s eyes.
We are a team, we are a family, we are strong. Nothing and no one can change that.
And she can see the nodding heads, too, the faces full of pride and confidence from these people who stand so close to her, who so diligently ignore her.

“Katie?”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, at the very least the jurors will see the emotion and horror of that day firsthand through this girl’s eyes. We have that going for us, even if she is technically for their side—Hey, you okay?”

Richard’s eyes have a dull, plastic look of concern in them as he reaches out to touch her arm, and Katie flinches before she can catch herself. She is rewarded by the quick pulse of recognition in Richard’s face, the brief flicker of understanding that he’s aware of her opinion of him. He doesn’t miss a beat, though, just reaches down to retrieve his black briefcase from the floor between them. When he raises his head, his face is neutral, calm.

He points the briefcase toward the courtroom door. “Ready to go in?” he says, pushing the door open for her.

She heads inside, knowing that the Warwick Center group is ready to move into the courtroom as well, now that they don’t have to pass by her and make small, contrived signals of surprise and greeting.

She can’t believe she’s forgotten to warn Richard about Carly, knows she should motion to him right now, whisper it in his ear. But as she leans forward, struggling to catch his eye, she sees Richard bowing his head at the defense table, suddenly trying his best to look concerned and grim as Carly makes her way up the aisle. So Katie leans back in the middle of the front row, folds her hands neatly in her lap. Feels the anticipation starting to build slowly, despite herself.

Her attempt to keep her eyes trained on the front of the room falters for only a moment. A quick glance at the defense table confirms that Jerry has the same yellow tablet in front of him, the same confused, sleepy look in his blue eyes. It’s unnerving, the blank stare he gives Katie before she turns back to watch the bailiff swear Carly in—as if overnight Jerry has forgotten what Katie looks like. And then a second later, she understands: Donna must have instructed him to take out his contacts, but Katie’s not sure what Donna hopes to keep from his field of vision. Her? Carly? Everything?

Judge Hwang, who has looked perpetually hungover and sullen since jury selection—dark purple circles under her eyes, a permanent scowl on her face—is actually smiling for once. She adjusts her wire-rimmed glasses, softens her normally raspy voice.

“You understand what’s expected of you, miss?” she asks Carly, whose pudgy, four-foot-ten stature makes her look like a doll next to the bailiff.

“Course I do,” Carly says in a nasally, clipped voice that sounds like she’s hearing-impaired—a speech pattern common with Down syndrome.

Carly hikes up her long pink dress into both fists and settles into the chair. Her small, pinched face is full of determination, her normally wild curly brown hair pulled into some order by a large clip on the top of her head.

“I’m ready, let’s go,” Carly announces, crossing her arms over her chest.

There are nervous chuckles in the courtroom, especially in the rows behind the defense table.

“Your witness,” Judge Hwang says to Richard.

“Thank you,” Richard says. He rises, buttons his suit coat. “My name is Richard Bellamy, Carly,” he says, offering her an avuncular, “I’m sorry I have to do this” smile. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yah, I know,” she says with a little toss of her head.

“Okay, good,” he says. “So then you know that I have to ask you some questions today, right? And that some of them might be really hard?”

“Bring it on, buster, I don’t care,” Carly says, lifting her chin.

Richard turns to the jury, eyes wide, as the laughter bubbles up around the courtroom. Judge Hwang glares, her gaze shifting left and right, and the laughter stops instantly. She squints at the back of the room, and Katie hears the whoosh of the door closing; most of the courtroom turns to see Dana sheepishly make her way down the aisle.

“Sorry,” Dana whispers to no one in particular.

Even though Katie has asked her not to come, she is suddenly relieved that her sister has ignored this request. There clearly isn’t any room for Dana in the front row, but she glides through anyway, squeezing in between Katie and Richard’s assistant, Kristen—a stylish young woman with a blanket of blond hair draped over one shoulder—who lets out an indignant huff, then a louder one when Dana ignores her. Dana leans into Katie’s shoulder with her own, keeps her eyes glued to the front. The air around Katie fills with the comforting smell of fruity perfume and cigarette smoke.

“Hey,” Dana says out of the side of her mouth.

“Hey.”

They both watch Richard wink conspiratorially at Carly, his smile widening.

“Okay, Carly, I can see that you’re a smart cookie,” he says, walking toward the witness stand.

“Uh-oh, did you tell him not to—” Dana whispers, pulling her arms out of her coat, but Katie shakes her head quickly, pretends she doesn’t see her sister’s questioning look.

“I know better than to try to fool you,” Richard says. “So I’ll just ask my questions, and then we’ll be all done, okay?” He pauses for a moment, doesn’t even blink at the suspicious look on Carly’s face. “Can you tell me how you know Jerry LaPlante?”

Katie feels her sister’s hand move on top of her folded ones and squeeze twice. Their signal since Nick’s death:
I’m right here.

“Jerry is my good friend,” Carly says, forehead rippling.

“Is he
just
your friend?”

“No, ’cuz of we work together, too.”

“Do you know him from anywhere else?” Richard’s voice is mischievous; he raises his eyebrows and smiles like he knows a secret.

Carly’s face suddenly lights with curiosity, as if they’re playing a game. “Oh, dumb!” she bursts out, slapping her forehead, “I almost forgot. And he’s my roommate. Yup.”

“So Jerry lives in the same house as you?”

“Yah, in the same group home. He . . . he . . .” There is a fleeting look of confusion, a small shake of the head. “He did, I mean.
Before
.”

“Before what, Carly?”

Carly stares blankly at him.

“Before what?” Richard repeats softly.

“Before . . . before that day.”

Carly lowers her chin, and her lips begin to move almost imperceptibly—counting her fingers, over and over, a relaxation technique Nick taught her shortly after her mother was killed in a car accident.

“Carly?” Richard’s voice is soft, apologetic. “I’m so sorry, but I need you to tell me what you saw that day when you were playing basketball with your friend Nick.”

Carly raises her head, and Katie sees that same look on her face, the one she used to see years ago, right after Carly moved into the small house on Dixon Street in Cranston, where Jerry already lived with two other clients. Katie and Nick would drop Jerry off on a Sunday night, and they would see Carly, her face filled with that same strange mixture of ferocious anger and helplessness as she sat on the wooden stool by the phone. Waiting for her sister Jennifer to call from Tacoma, even though, week after week, she never did. Vivian and Eric, the weekend house staff, would nod and whisper,
Since ten this morning,
or
Eight hours and counting
, and Katie would have to keep herself in check and remember that she couldn’t just reach out and hug this small, vulnerable girl with the fierce eyes. That she had to somehow earn her trust first.

Richard sees this look, sees Carly’s eyes searching and then fastening in on the defense table, so he shifts slightly, blocking her view of Jerry before he speaks.

“I want you to just take your time now, okay?” Richard says, but his voice has assumed a slow, encouraging tone, as if Carly were a small child, or worse, an idiot. It’s his first mistake, and Katie is actually glad for it, glad when she sees Carly lean forward and glare at him, her hands coming up to rest on the banister like she’s trying to gain leverage to jump over.

Richard instantly sees his mistake—he lowers his head apologetically, scratches at the back of his head in discomfort. He shifts his weight from his left foot to his right, shakes his lowered head.
I’m such a jerk
, his whole body says, and Katie has to admit it’s perfect. When he lifts his head and sighs, Carly squints suspiciously at him, but the tension begins to leave her body.