STEFAN TATE"S TRIAL began in earnest the following morning at eight o"clock sharp. The jury of eight women and four men had been empaneled the week before, and Judge Erasmus P. Varney lived up to his reputation for keeping his courtroom moving at a brisk pace.
The place was packed for the opening arguments. Our family turned out in force. Pinkie was there with his mother. I sat with Aunt Hattie and Patty Converse, directly behind Naomi and Stefan, who came into court acting rattled.
He seemed particularly upset by the people sitting behind the prosecution. Cece Turnbull was there, drawn, weak, and holding on to Bree"s hand. Bree had spent the whole night with her and made sure she"d shown up sober.
Chief of police Randy Sherman sat on Cece"s other side and kept glancing at Bree, as if he were trying to figure out how she fit into the equation. Behind them were several reporters up from Raleigh and Winston-Salem, and another from the a.s.sociated Press.
Harry and Virginia Caine, the well-scrubbed couple I"d seen on Cece"s porch the prior day, were on hand in the third row. Her parents were dressed for business and seemed relieved to see their daughter"s sober condition.
Stark County Sheriff"s Office detective Guy Pedelini came in just as the opening arguments began and sat in the back near city homicide detectives Joe Frost and Lou Carmichael.
District attorney Delilah Strong gave the prosecution"s opening argument with Matt Brady as her cocounsel. Strong"s presentation of the case against my cousin was clear, concise, and d.a.m.ning.
She depicted Stefan Tate as a troubled individual thrown out of several schools and jobs because of substance abuse, then as a liar who hid his past on his application to teach in the Starksville school system, and then as a teacher who"d relapsed, dealt drugs to his students, and raped a student before s.e.xually a.s.saulting and butchering Rashawn Turnbull after the young boy rejected him.
When Strong was done, the jury members were taking lethal glances at my cousin. Cece Turnbull went berserk, screaming, "You"ll go to h.e.l.l for what you did to my boy, Stefan Tate!"
It took Bree and a bailiff to get the victim"s mother out of the courtroom. When they brought Cece past her parents, she was bent over and weeping, and Harry and Virginia Caine looked tortured and lost.
Naomi asked Judge Varney for a recess and to instruct the jury to ignore Cece"s outburst. The judge gave the instructions but denied the recess and demanded she make her case.
My niece got uncertainly to her feet, saying, "The district attorney paints Stefan Tate as a drug-fueled homicidal maniac. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Gaining confidence, Naomi depicted my young cousin as a man who"d gotten off track, fought demons, and kept the circ.u.mstances of his addictions private on his school application because it was his right under the law. He"d come home to Starksville and found his pa.s.sion as a teacher, and he cared deeply about his students. She described the drug overdoses at the school and Stefan"s efforts to fight and expose the drug dealers.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it is the defense"s contention that Stefan Tate was getting very close to uncovering the presence of a major drug ring operating in and around Starksville," Naomi went on. "For that, my client was framed, as a drug dealer himself, as a rapist, and as the brutal murderer of a boy he loved like a son.
"When you"ve heard the hard evidence, when you see how manufactured it all looks on close examination, you"ll realize without a doubt that Stefan Tate is no drug dealer, no rapist, and most certainly no murderer."
CHAPTER 41.
JUDGE VARNEY CALLED for a recess at noon.
My poor aunts and Nana Mama were exhausted. Patty Converse drove them home. After taking Cece Turnbull home, Bree joined Pinkie and me for lunch at the Bench, a barbecue joint that catered to the courthouse crowd.
"You thought any more about Finn Davis?" Pinkie asked after we took a booth and ordered.
"A little," I admitted.
"What about Finn Davis?" Bree asked.
As he had with me the evening before, Pinkie filled Bree in on Sydney Fox"s ex. Born and raised in Starksville, Finn Davis had been orphaned when his parents died in a car crash. Marvin Bell, the man who"d hooked my parents on drugs, took Finn Davis in, treated the boy like his son.
"Marvin spoiled Finn, trained Finn, probably abused Finn," Pinkie said. "You ask me, Finn turned out just like his adoptive dad. They can both turn on the charisma, make you forget what they are deep down."
"And what"s that?" Bree asked.
Pinkie started to speak, but then stopped and stared over my shoulder. He muttered, "The devil himself just walked in."
A thin, angular man, Marvin Bell put me in mind of the actor Bruce Dern as he walked up to our booth. Longish steel-gray hair. Gaunt, narrow face. Sharp nose. And opaque green eyes that, as Bree said, roamed all over you.
Marvin Bell ran those weird opaque eyes over me and then Bree, showing no reaction. Then he leveled his gaze at Pinkie.
"My two cents, Parks?" he said. "At funerals, all grudges are off. My boy had every right to grieve for Sydney and pay his respects."
"Unless your boy shot her," my cousin said. "Which, in my mind, goes along with his threat to p.i.s.s on her grave."
The muscles in Bell"s cheeks flickered with tension, but his voice remained calm when he said, "Finn signed the divorce papers. He"d moved on. There is no reason he"d do something like that to his ex-wife."
"Oh, I think a case could be made for obsession," Pinkie said. "But I"m thinking spite. You and your boy have never liked to lose face."
Bell stood there a moment, looking as if it was taking all his control not to smash my cousin in the face. "Finn"s no murderer."
Then he walked across the room to another booth.
"Think I"ll go introduce myself," I said.
Bree said, "That a good idea?"
"Sometimes, you shake something, it rattles," I said, getting up.
The waitress set a cup of coffee in front of Bell and walked away. I slid in across from him. If I unnerved him at all, he didn"t show it. If he"d been shaken by Pinkie"s accusations, he didn"t show it.
"Didn"t know I"d invited you to sit down, stranger," Bell said, tearing open a sugar packet and tapping it into the coffee.
"We"ve met, Mr. Bell," I said. "A long time ago."
"That right?" he said, stirring the coffee and turning his weird green eyes on me. "I don"t recall you."
"Alex Cross," I said. "Jason Cross was my father."
Bell c.o.c.ked his head in reappraisal, tapped the spoon on the side of the cup, and smiled softly. "There now, I see the resemblance."
"I"m a homicide detective in Washington, DC."
"Long way from home, Detective Cross," he replied, setting the spoon down. "And funny, I don"t recollect ever meeting you."
"I was young," I said. "It was about a year after my mother died."
"You mean after she was murdered, don"t you?" he said in a straight tone delivered with an expression that revealed nothing.
"I remember that night," I said. "You tied my father to your car with a rope, dragged him through the streets."
Bell sipped his coffee, never taking his eyes off me. "It was another time. It was what you did to a man who"d kill his own wife in cold blood and call it good."
I hadn"t expected that and said nothing while Bell talked on.
"I gave your father some of the punishment he deserved. And then I did the right thing and immediately turned him over to the police. Sad what happened next, but probably for the good of all. Even you. Even your brothers."
I hadn"t expected that either, and it took a few beats before I could reply.
"You sold my mom and dad drugs," I said. "Got them hooked."
Eyes still, Bell smiled with precision. He altered the position of his cup on the saucer by a quarter turn.
"That statement is not true," he said. "I have never sold drugs or been involved with them. Your mother and father, I actually tried to get them clean, and anyone who says otherwise is lying."
"Never been involved with drugs?" I said.
"I am involved in business," Bell said, sipping the coffee. "I have several enterprises, all successful. Why would I need to pursue something risky like drugs?"
"I don"t know," I said. "But every time your name comes up, people tell me that I should be looking at you."
Bell seemed amused. "Looking at me in what way?"
"As some kind of criminal mastermind," I said.
Bell laughed, reached for another sugar, said, "That"s a small town with a lot of poor folks for you."
"What does poor have to do with it?"
"Everything," Bell said. "Most poor people think that anyone who becomes successful couldn"t have done it legitimately, with initiative, with hard work. It"s just not part of the myth most poor people want to believe. So they sit around and invent bulls.h.i.t stories to explain things when someone makes it in the world."
"So there"s nothing to the charge?"
"Zero to the charge," Bell said, holding my gaze. "How"d you come to be back in town, Detective Cross?"
I had the feeling he knew this, but I played along, said Stefan Tate was my cousin.
"Butcher," Bell said, hardening. "Sorry that he"s your cousin, but based on what I"ve read, I hope that boy fries."
"It"s a popular sentiment."
"There you go."
"You heard the defense"s position?"
"Can"t say that I have," Bell said, reaching up to pick a coffee ground off the tip of his tongue.
"Stefan came to believe that there is a large and complex criminal organization operating in Starksville," I said.
"If there is, I haven"t heard a thing about it," Bell said.
"They run drugs," I said. "Maybe more."
"Maybe more?" Bell said. "Sounds like maybe more bulls.h.i.t to me. Sounds like a fantasy designed to muddle the facts, which, as I understand them, are conclusive beyond a reasonable doubt. Your cousin murdered that poor boy, and he"s gonna pay for it. I had my way? Someone would rope him up and drag his a.s.s through the streets on the way to the death chamber."
"If you were running a criminal enterprise, I imagine you would," I said.
Bell flicked the coffee ground away, leveled his green eyes at me, and said, "If I were you, Detective Cross, I would not be casting aspersions that are unfounded. It looks bad. It looks like you are desperate. If I were you, I"d face the facts about your cousin, pack your bags, and leave the sonofab.i.t.c.h to his fate."
"That"s not happening," I said, standing. "Sorry to have taken your time."
"Anything for the son of an old friend," Bell said. "But you tell your niece there that if she tries to bring my name up in this trial in any way, I will surely sue her a.s.s from here to Raleigh and back."
CHAPTER 42.
I REMEMBERED BELL"S words as Judge Varney gaveled the court session to a close at five thirty that Monday after four hours of testimony that made my cousin sound like a monster.
Detective Guy Pedelini had gone on the stand first. He"d testified about discovering the body and identified evidence that the district attorney wanted admitted. Chief among them was the s.e.m.e.n sample collected off Rashawn Turnbull"s body. It matched Stefan"s DNA. The prosecution also introduced blood matching Rashawn"s that was found on the pruning saw discovered in my cousin"s bas.e.m.e.nt.
Naomi did her best to get the sheriff"s detective to say these things could have been planted, but he was skeptical in the extreme, and the jury took note.
Even more damaging to Stefan"s case was the testimony given by Sharon Lawrence, a teenager I recognized as one of the Starksville girls Jannie had trained with the prior Sat.u.r.day. On the stand, she was pretty, articulate, and devastating.
Strong began her examination of Sharon Lawrence by getting her to admit that she was ashamed to be there but determined to tell the truth "for Rashawn"s sake."
The jury reacted sympathetically. I reacted sympathetically.
Sharon Lawrence had been in one of Stefan"s twelfth-grade gym cla.s.ses. She said there was something between herself and my cousin right from the start.
"Coach Tate was always looking at me," she said.
"Did you like that?" Strong asked.
Lawrence looked in her lap and nodded.
"Coach Tate make advances toward you?"
The girl nodded again, flushing and kneading her hands. "I knew it was wrong, but he was ... I don"t know."