Page 58 of The Accomplice
‘I’m ready. I’ll be there,’ said Peltier, and I ended the call.
Harry and I went back into court, took our seats just as Jerry called out, ‘All rise,’ and introduced Judge Stoker as the presiding judge. White didn’t take his eyes off me until the jury came in, and it was at this point I knew we had a problem on the jury.
Eleven of the jurors looked okay.
But it only takes one to poison an entire jury room. I wasn’t the only one who had spotted our problem juror. Harry scratched at the flop of white hair on his head, leaned over and said, ‘Look at juror five. The one in the floral dress.’
Juror five was a white lady in her late sixties. She wore a blue patterned floral dress, wore her silver hair pulled back so tightly you could see it stretching the skin around her small, black eyes. Large, thick glasses framed those eyes, and made them seem even smaller. Her lips were pressed tightly together, pinched as if she’d just licked napalm off a cactus. She held a small beige purse in front of her like a riot shield, both hands on the handle. You didn’t want to mess with juror five. She had a build that could make a college linebacker jealous. And she looked mean. Pissed. Except when she looked at the prosecutor. When her gaze fell on Drew White her features softened, but only for a second. Then, she shifted in her seat, moving a little to the left, and gave the juror on her right a filthy look. This juror was an African American lady about the same age as juror five.
‘That lady looks like she just wants the world to burn,’ said Harry.
‘Don’t marry her, is my advice.’
‘You know I like getting divorced, but she wouldn’t have me. Did you see the look she gave juror six ?’
‘She isn’t throwing any dirty looks at white jurors,’ I said.
‘Doesn’t seem like the shy, retiring type either. She’ll be real noisy in the jury room.’
I brought up the juror list on the iPad. There were some rudimentary notes below each juror, which Peltier had made during jury selection.
‘Her name is Ethel Gorman. Former manager at an abattoir in Jersey. Never married. Spends her spare time fundraising for her local church and the NRA. She’s a registered Republican and firmly against face masks and the coronavirus vaccine.’
‘She’s a … what do you call it ? A Karen ?’ said Harry.
‘She’s like the alien queen of the Karens,’ I said.
I looked at the list of alternate jurors. First alternate was Clay Dryer. He sat beside the jury box with the other two alternates. He was about the same age as Ethel. He’d lost most of his hair, apart from a thick white band that surrounded the shiny dome. He wore glasses in a red frame, had a checked shirt, navy blazer and chinos. There was something around his wrist, just in front of his watch. A bracelet of brightly colored beads with a leather tag hanging from them. I was close enough to the alternates to make out the lettering on the tag. I couldn’t read all of it, but I read enough to know it was a single word – Grandpa.
Peltier’s notes said Clay was a retired carpenter, married fifty years and had seven grown children. He and his wife now looked after the grandkids while their children and their spouses worked. They enjoyed taking large family vacations. He owned three dogs. All seven kids, their spouses, and his thirteen grandchildren, came to a set of cabins upstate where they spent the summer together as one big family.
‘We have to eighty-six Ethel and get Clay on the jury,’ I whispered.
‘Agreed. We can’t take any chances. Ethel will be a firestorm in that jury room. Jesus, this is a shit show, and Kate …’
His voice faltered as he pointed to the jury list on the screen.
‘Kate’s relying on us. How do we bump Ethel ? We can’t object now.’
I had to put my head down into the work. This trial. The witnesses. The DA. The judge. Now, the jury. My mind was focused on destroying the case against Carrie Miller. Because it had to be. It was the only way of saving my friend. I had to put away the fear, the torturous anxiety, and laser my attention on doing the one thing within my power to bring her back.
But sometimes, like just now with Harry, I caught myself thinking about her. Where the hell was she ? Was she hurt ? Was she afraid ? What was going through her mind ?
Across the aisle, Drew White stood and moved around the prosecution table to take his place in the well of the court, facing the jury, and began his opening speech.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Drew White. I am the person who is going to guide you through the prosecution evidence against Carrie Miller. This is an unusual case. I can’t think of one quite like it. And like all unusual cases, it requires special attention. Your attention. By the end of this trial, we believe there are two reasonable opinions that can be formed. The first is that Carrie Miller actively participated in the murders along with her husband, Daniel Miller, better known to most people as the Sandman. She had the same intention as her husband – that intention was to kill. And knowing her husband was a killer, she intentionally aided his crimes. We have evidence to demonstrate her intentions and we will prove she gave aid to her husband. In other words, she is an accomplice. And that makes Carrie Miller a murderer.
‘If, however, you are not sure beyond all reasonable doubt that she shared her husband’s intention to kill, there is an alternative charge, that she facilitated his crimes. Both charges carry life sentences. One thing is clear, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there can be no doubt whatsoever that Carrie Miller knew her husband was a killer. She did not contact the police, nor the FBI. Instead, she confided in her lawyer. And what did she do after receiving legal advice ? She kept her mouth shut, and she aided and abetted her husband in evading capture, and allowed him to kill again and again and again. Carrie Miller is not here today. She has jumped bail. She’s on the run. From justice. From you. You may ask yourself why an innocent woman would go on the run ? The answer is simple. She is guilty. We can all see that. Your job is to make that official.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BLOCH
There are several private labs in New York. Some of them have links to databases managed by law enforcement, some don’t. Bloch parked outside a modern building in an area slap bang at the edge of Soho, the Civic Center and Tribeca. Lake went inside, and ten minutes later he came back out.
‘Thirty-six hours,’ he said. ‘They’ll check for fibers, DNA and any other traces left on the syringe cap. They’re good. If there’s something there, they’ll find it.’
‘They had better. We need the break,’ said Bloch, and pulled into the street. She brought up her cell phone on the dash of the Jeep, dialed a number that read ‘Parks.’
