Light from a Distant Star (41 page)

Mr. Cowie made a show of flinching, as if startled. “And then what happened?”

“Well, then Henry had to get stitches. Twenty-two, I think.” Seeing one of the lady jurors cringe, she looked at her as she continued. “It was really deep. And now he’s more scared of dogs than ever.”

“And who can blame him?” Mr. Cowie said, obviously trying to score points with her, but it wasn’t going to work. She was way too quick for that. He wanted to depict Max as a violent man, but she’d shown his heroism.

Had
she
ever been afraid of Max, Mr. Cowie asked. No, she said quickly. He asked if she considered him a friend. She told him she did. What kind of friend?

She thought a moment. “Well, not a friend friend. I mean, well, you know, he’s a grown-up.”

“Yes, a grown man. An adult. But, still, you liked him, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And did he like you?”

“I think so.” She couldn’t help smiling at Max who was hunched over the table.

“Did he ever do anything?” He paused. “I mean, to show that he liked you?”

“No.” The way he’d said that gave her the creeps. “He was just nice, that’s all.”

“Did you enjoy his company?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Even though you weren’t supposed to be alone with him. Your parents had told you that, right?” He tried to look puzzled.

She shrugged. Everyone was watching. Including her mother. Wide-eyed, she was straining to tell Nellie something. But it’s not that easy, she tried to tell her mother with her return stare, not that cut-and-dried. She couldn’t find her tissue. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

“Well, they never really said it, I mean they didn’t actually tell me, but …” Again, she shrugged.

“But you knew. You knew there was something. You knew they didn’t want you alone with him, is that right?” Cowie was trying to get Max’s sex offender status into the testimony, but she wouldn’t know this until later. Meanwhile, she was walking the tightrope of not putting her parents in a bad light while still helping Max.

“I don’t know. I mean, well, they might want me to do things sometimes, but they don’t always say why.”

“But if you asked, they’d certainly tell you, right?”

“Actually, we’re not supposed to ask why. We’re supposed to just do what they say, that’s all.”

A few people chuckled, and Mr. Cowie rubbed his chin. She’d thrown him off balance. She wiped her nose again. “Here,” the judge said, looking a little squeamish as she held out a tissue box. She took one and thanked her. She gestured for Nellie to take more.

“Good idea,” Nellie said, trying to blow her nose, not easy to do with everyone watching. And Mr. Cowie waiting. And soiled tissues piling up in her lap.

“Well, in any event, on the day in question, Monday, August 19, the day of the murder, you and your brother Henry were home alone …”

Details: the hot-water tank in the truck, the two staircases at either end of the house leading into the cellar, theirs and Dolly’s, the huge commercial fans and how loud they were in the cellar, the same things he’d asked weeks before in his office, only this time she was prepared. Where was she standing, what was she doing, what was Max doing? And had she heard any sounds coming from Dolly’s apartment? Not then, but before, she said. Before Max came. Really? He seemed surprised. Like what?

“Like thumping, bumping kind of sounds. Then, like, kind of, maybe a voice, I don’t know.”

“And whose voice was it?”

Her eyes locked on Mr. Cowie’s. She didn’t dare look anywhere else, and it seemed by his fierce gaze back that he understood and wanted to help. This was her chance, both their chances. She needed him to peel back the layers and let the truth shine through. Her heart was pounding. “I’m not sure.” Which was true. She hadn’t been sure. Not then, not until she saw Mr. Cooper out by the bushes.

“Was it a woman’s voice?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes, magnets to his.

“So, could it have been a man’s voice?”

“Maybe.”
Ask me
, she silently urged.
Ask me the rest. Ask if there was anyone else there that day. Ask who was trying to disappear into the lilacs, because I can’t just say it on my own
.

As if with a sudden thought, Mr. Cowie frowned and walked back to the table.

Max sat up and folded his arms. This had to be the first he knew she’d heard noises in the apartment earlier that day. She wanted him to be encouraged but couldn’t tell if he was or not. He did seem more attentive, though, watching Mr. Cowie turning page after page in his note book, then watching him return with his next question.

“So, then, Nellie, after you heard those disturbing noises and what might have been a man’s voice in the apartment, how much time would you say passed before you saw Max Devaney come out—”

“Objection,” Attorney Wright called out. “That’s not at all what—”

“Rephrase the question, please.” The judge stared over her glasses at him.

“Of course,” Mr. Cowie said with a respectful nod. “All right now, Nellie, when you next saw the defendant at the crime scene, what—”

“Objection!” Attorney Wright said, and the judge called both men to confer with her.

She’d been trying not to look at the jury but now was intensely aware of their scrutiny. One, an older lady with dull black hair and dangly turquoise earrings, was smiling at her. When she smiled back, the woman glanced away, and Nellie realized it was the conference at
the bench everyone was so focused on. Judge Vasquez was reprimanding Mr. Cowie. Nellie could only make out snatches of the conversation, but Mr. Cowie was clearly annoying her.

Attorney Eggleston returned to his seat with a fair bit of swagger. Mr. Cowie resumed his questions. He asked Nellie if she’d noticed the cut on Max’s hand when he arrived with the hot-water tank. No, she answered, explaining that there hadn’t been a cut then because he got it while he was working on the pipes. She glanced at Max, but couldn’t tell if he was looking at her or at the judge.

“Oh, okay,” Mr. Cowie allowed. “And how do you know this? Did you actually see it happen? Did you see him cut himself?” He was standing in front of her, arms folded, a wall between her and her parents.

“I saw the cut. It was from, like, a jagged pipe or something, I think he said.”

“Oh. So, he
told
you, he
explained
how he got the cut. You didn’t actually see it happen, did you?”

“Well, not the actual pipe.” She crossed her ankles to lock her tapping foot in place. He had her cornered. “The cellar, it was kind of dark down there,” she said so weakly she hated herself.

“Were you down there the whole time with the defendant, while he was there?”

“Pretty much.” She was surprised he’d ask this. He already knew what she’d say, knew it wouldn’t help his case against Max.

“Pretty much? Hm, I’m not sure what you mean, Nellie. Did you leave? Were there times when Max Devaney was alone down in the cellar?”

“Sometimes I was on the stairs. Like, looking down. Watching.” She hung over the railing to show what she meant.

For a moment, Mr. Cowie continued staring at her. “Now, I know you come from a fine family, Nellie. And you’ve been raised to tell the truth, haven’t you?”

She nodded with a dry swallow. “Yes, sir.”

“But there’s a discrepancy here. According to Max Devaney’s own statement to the police, there were times down in that cellar when he
was
alone. Once, you went outside to check on his dog, he said, and
the other, he wasn’t sure where you went, just that you were gone, that he was alone down there. So which is it?” he asked, his back to her, walking now to stand at the corner of the jury box. “Did you leave the cellar while he was there?”

He looked at her. Everyone did. It was them against her. Even Max. The rushing noise in her head was like wind.

“I was on the stairs.” She barely heard her own words. Less than the truth, less than a lie.

“So were you in the cellar the whole time Max Devaney was there?”

“Well, I guess … I mean, if I was on the stairs.” Shriveling inside and getting confused, but she couldn’t show it.

“What is it? Why can’t you answer yes or no? Maybe it’s because you’re so young. Maybe you don’t understand the seriousness of this.”

“I understand.” She wished he’d come closer. His standing over by the jurors now and close to the spectators had left her feeling stranded. It was all of them, and her here, alone, the only kid.

“Are you afraid of Max Devaney?”

“No.”

“Do you want to protect him?”

“No.” She wished she hadn’t shrugged.

“But you have feelings for him, I mean, you care what happens to him. You do, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Yes.”

Nodding, he was quiet for a moment. “Nellie, did something happen in the cellar that day? Something that Max Devaney said or did to you that you’re afraid to tell us. Did it?”

“No!” she said, sickened by what he was suggesting.

Across the way Max stirred angrily. His feet shuffled under the table. Both bailiffs turned as his chair scraped back. He muttered something and Eggleston patted his arm.

“Then why did he say he was alone down there for part of the time?”

“Because … because …” She took a deep breath, and even the court stenographer looked up. “Because—”

“Just tell him the truth, girl. It’s okay!” Max called out. The judge was tapping her gavel. “I can handle this.”

As the judge admonished him, he held out his hands in exasperation, whether with Nellie or the judge, or both. Wilting in the chair, she closed her eyes. The judge asked if she was all right and she nodded. “Are you sure?” Not a sound in the courtroom, silence before the avalanche. Nellie covered her face, and the judge called a brief recess.

Miss Chapley escorted her into the ladies’ room. She waited by the door. A woman left the stall next to Nellie’s and turned on the water in the sink. The hand dryer blasted on. Nellie sat there crying as the enormity of her foolishness became clear. She kept flushing the toilet. If she could have, she would have stayed in there forever. What had she done? What had just happened? She’d never seen her mother look so distraught or her father so sad. She’d ruined everything for everyone. Miss Chapley knocked on the door and said they’d better go back in. Crying had made her even more congested and her glasses were filmy.

When she was back on the witness stand, Judge Vasquez asked if she was okay. Nellie said she was. She recognized the loyalty in her mother and father’s strained smiles. Disappointment she might be, but she was theirs. Mr. Cowie’s approach was as hesitant as his voice. He began by saying how difficult it must be, being so young with all this pressure on her to recall so many details. Especially under the burden of perjury. “Even adults get mixed up sometimes. It happens,” he added.

“I’m not mixed up.” He couldn’t hear her, so she had to repeat it.

“All right then, Nellie. So,
did
you leave the defendant alone in the cellar?”

She nodded. “But not for long. Just two times.” A male juror smirked so she looked right at him as she spoke. “Max didn’t do anything wrong and I’m the only one that knows that. The only one that can help him.” She could tell by all the lowered eyes that people felt bad. Embarrassed as they were, her parents continued to smile.

“Nellie,” Judge Vasquez urged, the wide sleeve of her robe grazing her shoulder as she leaned close. “You’re not here to
help
anyone. You’re here to tell the truth, and that’s all you have to do. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” She’d really messed up. Now her every word would sound like a lie. That she’d admitted to perjury meant nothing then. She didn’t even know it was a punishable offense. Later she would realize how kind everyone was trying to be. For her parents’ sake.

Testimony resumed with Mr. Cowie’s checking his notes, particularly when it came to the discovery of Dolly’s body.

“So Max Devaney asked you to open Miss Bedelia’s door, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he ask you to?”

“Because he thought it was locked. I did, too.”

“And was it? Was it locked?”

“No.”

“And when the door opened, what did you see?”

“Dolly.” A shiver of memory tore through her. “She was on the floor, and things were all tipped over. Chairs and things.”

“And did you know she was dead?”

She nodded sadly. “Yes,” she whispered with a sharp metallic taste in her mouth.

“How did you know?”

“Because … because you could just tell.”

She’s dead
. That’s what he’d said from behind. Just like Boone, he already knew. He’d known before she even got there, waiting for her, for his witness, for
her
hand on the knob. But she couldn’t tell anyone that. They wouldn’t understand how things aren’t always what they seem. That just like the best holds, words can be used against you, and once you’re down, they can kill you.

Mr. Cowie asked a few more questions, the call to her father, the police arrival, and where was Max Devaney during that time?

“In the truck with Boone.”

“His dog?”

“Yes.”

“And what was he doing?”

“Nothing. Just sitting there.” Waiting. Same as then, staring, looking out at nothing. Looking empty.

“That’ll be all, Nellie. Thank you. I know this hasn’t been easy,” Mr. Cowie said quietly as if it were just the two of them in this huge courtroom. He started to turn then looked back at her. He knew. There was something she wasn’t telling him.
But it’s not what you think!
she was silently screaming.

Attorney Eggleston Jay Wright came next. His thin, nasal voice was a relief after the pressure of Mr. Cowie’s low, slogging intensity. The first few questions he asked she had already answered. Some he kept rephrasing, like a cloudy glass he was trying to get clean, rubbing, then holding it up to see, rubbing some more, checking again. He brought up the two times she’d left Max alone in the cellar. For how long? Not long, she said. A couple minutes, that was all. And what was he doing when she got back? Same thing, still working on the pipes.