Mad Honey: A Novel (44 page)

“My mom was anemic,” Jordan lies. “She took iron pills. Is this the same kind of thing?”

“No, it looks different from that kind of anemia…and it’s much more life-threatening. In fact, to scientists, you only see this kind of anemia in two specific underlying conditions: TTP, and DIC—disseminated intravascular coagulation. But DIC almost always has a precipitating cause, like severe infection, cancer, amniotic fluid
embolus. My understanding is that the deceased had none of those, which means it would be logical to deduce that she had TTP.”

“What happens to a person who has TTP?” Jordan asks.

“When you have platelets clumping together, it means that there are fewer platelets in other parts of the body to help with clotting. As a result, someone with TTP will bruise very easily. He or she often has bleeding under the skin—in fancy pathologist speak, we call that
petechiae—
little clusters of tiny round brownish red dots. Someone with TTP would also have low counts of red blood cells due to the way the cells break down. They also often have kidney, heart, or brain dysfunction.”

“How do you get TTP? Is it contagious?”

“No,” Dr. Oluwye explains. “You can inherit it genetically, or you can acquire it. There’s a gene called ADAMTS13 that helps with clotting. If you don’t have ADAMTS13, you get that weird platelet clumping. So, if you inherit a mutated gene, the enzymes that create the protein for clotting aren’t made—boom, you get clumpy platelets, and a diagnosis of TTP. But even if you don’t inherit that mutated gene, you can still acquire TTP.”

“How?”

“Certain diseases—like cancer and HIV—can cause you to acquire TTP. So can surgeries like blood or marrow or stem cell transplants. Sometimes women acquire TTP during pregnancy. Or by taking hormone therapy and estrogen.”

“Hormone therapy,” Jordan repeats. “Like the kind a transgender girl would be on?”

“Precisely.”

“Can someone who has never shown evidence of TTP suddenly…show it?”

“Yes. TTP is extremely variable from patient to patient, but five classic symptoms are fever, anemia, thrombocytopenia, and renal and neurological symptoms. The patient might acutely exhibit all of these or just a fraction of them. Even if they’ve never manifested before.”

“Can you cure TTP?” Jordan asks.

“You can, if you diagnose it.”

“And if you don’t?”

“The patient can die.”

Jordan lets this settle. “What evidence did you see in the autopsy and the slides, Doctor, that led you to believe Lily had TTP?”

“I examined slides of the pancreas, liver, and brain to see if there was any indication of thrombotic microangiopathy—that clumping of the platelets. It looks like pink…stuff. Almost like paisley. The slides from the autopsy indeed showed classic evidence of the platelet clogging indicative of TTP.”

“Is that something a medical examiner might have overlooked?”

“It happens,” Dr. Oluwye says, shrugging. “Especially if you’re not thinking to look for it. The degree of thrombosis is different from patient to patient, which means that at first glance the microscopic slides of the organs might not have seemed unusual…and yet if the medical examiner had looked more closely he’d have seen evidence of TTP.”

“Did Lily’s body show any of the other calling cards of TTP?”

“From what I understand, she had a fever that kept her home from school that day. She had no evidence of renal failure. I can’t speak to neurological abnormality.”

“What about those petechiae—the little dots? Wouldn’t the medical examiner have noted those?” Jordan asks.

“There were no petechiae found on the deceased’s body. However, the cadaver was twenty-four hours old at the time of autopsy and they could very well have faded and gone unnoticed if you didn’t know to look for them. Not seeing petechiae in and of itself would not discount having TTP.”

“Are there any further tests that could be performed to prove the diagnosis of TTP in Lily Campanello?”

“If the medical examiner had retrieved some blood serum during the autopsy, tests could have been done…but that only would have happened if TTP had been suspected prior to death. That isn’t possible now, since no serum is available.”

“If someone had undiagnosed TTP,” Jordan asks, “what would happen if you grasped her arm?”

“She’d bruise easily. Having TTP means your platelets aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do. For that reason, bruising occurs even when pressure is applied at a low threshold.”

“You mean a girl with TTP might wind up bruised, even if she was barely touched?”

“Yes, exactly,” the pathologist says.

“You testified that one of the hallmarks of TTP is neurological symptoms,” Jordan reiterates. “Could a girl with undiagnosed TTP get dizzy and stumble—even in a familiar place like her own bedroom?”

“Absolutely, the central nervous system symptoms could cause that. In fact, seizures occur in about twenty percent of TTP patients.”

“Could this girl with undiagnosed TTP be athletic and graceful one day and feel dizzy the next?”

“Yes, with the onset of symptoms.”

“Could a girl with undiagnosed TTP have accidentally fallen down the stairs?”

“Yes.”

“And could that fall—particularly on
wooden
stairs—cause blunt force trauma?”

“Yes.”

“In the circumstances of this case,” Jordan says, stringing the beads together, “if Lily Campanello fell down a flight of uncarpeted steps and struck her head on a stair tread, could the fact that she had undiagnosed TTP have led to a brain hemorrhage that would produce an abnormally large amount of blood for a skull that had not been fractured?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” the prosecutor calls. “We are not living in a fantasy world of hypotheticals.”

“Judge, Dr. Oluwye has been qualified as an expert witness in pathology and I am asking questions about a possible cause of death in this particular case,” Jordan argues.

“You may answer the question, Dr. Oluwye,” Judge Byers rules.

The pathologist nods. “Yes, that is exactly what I’d expect to find. In fact, it’s really the only explanation for that excessive amount of
blood within an unfractured skull. A brain hemorrhage would be more severe in a person with undiagnosed TTP.”

“If Lily was unaware of her condition, and not receiving treatment for TTP, could she have become dizzy and fallen down the uncarpeted stairs, hit her head, bled excessively into her brain, and subsequently died?”

“Yes.”

“In that scenario, is the boyfriend of the girl with TTP involved in any way?”

“Objection!” the prosecutor says, rising from her chair.

“Sustained.”

“Withdrawn,” Jordan says, glancing at the jury. “Nothing further.”

ON THE CAR
ride to court, Jordan had explained the history of the legal concept of reasonable doubt.

It traces back to the United Kingdom, to jurist William Blackstone, who said—in the 1700s—“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” This idea was meant to protect not only the defendant but also the jurors. Since only God could judge a man, it was a mortal sin for a juror to convict the wrong person.

It is, therefore, the prosecution’s responsibility to remove reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury. The fun fact, though, Jordan said, is that there’s no formal jury instruction that defines reasonable doubt. So if you can produce a different theory—an alternative explanation of a series of events believable enough to lodge in one juror’s mind—then they legally should not convict your client.

Should
not
,
he’d said.

Not
will
not.

THE PROSECUTOR IS
up and moving toward Dr. Oluwye before Jordan takes his seat. “If Lily had TTP, would it change the cause of death?”

He considers this. “It would still be blunt force trauma to the head, with massive underlying brain hemorrhage caused by that trauma—the only difference would be the additional evidence of the blood disorder exacerbating the hemorrhage.”

“Could a girl with undiagnosed TTP still be hit in the head by her boyfriend, or pushed down a flight of stairs by him, and still have the same unfortunate fatal outcome?”

“Objection!” Jordan calls.

“Sustained.”

But the pathologist doesn’t have to answer for Gina Jewett to have made her point. “Nothing further,” she says.

I look at the jury. Some of them are writing on their notepads. Some are looking at Asher with open suspicion.

Jordan stands. “Your Honor,” he says. “The defense rests.”

AFTER THE JURY
is sent out, Jordan and Gina Jewett speak with the judge about jury instructions. Selena, who has been sitting beside me, heads to the restroom. I lean forward until I am only inches away from Asher, who remains facing forward, watching the conversation at the bench, patently ignoring me.

When I sense someone taking the empty seat beside me, I turn. Mike Newcomb is there, his hands balanced on his knees. “How are you holding up?”

I try to smile but fail. “I’ve been better,” I admit.

He nods, then glances toward the counselors at the bench. Judge Byers is on her feet, pacing, shoeless, listening to the lawyers in turn. “First time I ever testified in court,” Mike says, “I went down in flames.” He shakes his head. “I’d been a cop for maybe three months. My partner pulled over and searched a guy he thought looked suspicious. Guy was clean, and when we got back in the car, he stood in front of our cruiser to take down the license plate. My partner drove forward and hit the guy. In the official report, he said the guy jumped on his car, and that the car was in reverse at the time. I was too new
and too scared to contradict him, but in court, I panicked and could barely speak, much less give testimony. You don’t know real shame until your own AAG asks if you have a head injury.”

“What happened?”

“Partner got fired for
testilying,
as they called it. I got a desk assignment for three months.”

“I lost my son’s trust,” I murmur, “so I guess I win.”

He considers this for a second. “I lose shit all the time,” he says after a moment. “But you know, it always turns up.” He pats the arm of the chair. “You mind? If I sit here?”

“It’s a free country,” I say, shrugging.

But maybe not for Asher, not for long.

JUDGE BYERS IS
still in her stocking feet, pacing behind her chair, as she addresses the jury. “Asher Fields,” she says, “has been charged with first-degree murder. A person is guilty of murder in the first degree if he purposely causes the death of another.
Purposely
shall mean that the actor’s conscious object is the death of another, and that his act or acts in furtherance of that object were deliberate and premeditated.” She looks at the twelve men and women, letting them process that. “A person convicted of murder in the first degree shall be sentenced to life imprisonment and shall not be eligible for parole at any time.”

A shudder runs down my spine. I imagine what it will be like to watch Asher growing old behind bars.

I glance across Mike Newcomb’s profile to the other side of the gallery, where Ava Campanello sits. As if she can feel the heat of my gaze, she turns and looks directly at me.

“Your verdict needs to be unanimous,” the judge says. “You need to listen to everyone else’s opinions, but come to your own conclusion.”

How ironic. Keep an open mind…but shut it, once you’ve decided.

“We are now going to hear closing arguments from the attorneys, beginning with the defense and ending with the State,” the judge says, slipping into her chair again. “Mr. McAfee?”

Jordan rises. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he says, “I’m going to start with the law, and finish with the facts. In every criminal case in this country, the State has the burden of proving every element of the charge, and proving them beyond a reasonable doubt. That means if you have
any reasonable doubt
about Asher’s role in this tragedy, you
must
vote not guilty.”

If the law is about
reasonable doubt, I think,
then—conversely—what do I know
for sure
?

“The evidence that you’ve heard describes a relationship between Asher Fields and Lily Campanello. It began with mutual attraction; it blossomed into mutual respect.”

What I know: Once upon a time, this boy fell hard for a girl.

“They went to school together. They went to movies, and out to eat. They shared texts and calls and private moments. They became intimate.”

What I know: There is no punishment that could be worse for Asher than the loss of Lily.

“But unlike in many other relationships, this girl told the boy she was transgender. And then what happened? The prosecution would like you to believe that Asher felt betrayed and lashed out angrily. Instead, he showed great maturity. He thought about what she had told him, and came to the conclusion that he loved
who
Lily was, not
what
Lily was. He again showed great maturity by trying to get her to reconcile with her estranged father. The State wants you to connect the dots one way. But is it possible to connect them an entirely different way?”

What I know: You don’t remove from your world the one person who fills it.

What I know: Asher can’t be guilty.

I feel this certainty flood me, like a light switching on. The prosecution made this a case about Asher’s deceit. But there’s one thing he has consistently told the truth about: his feelings for Lily.

“You know,” Jordan says, “when I was a kid, I was fascinated by optical illusions. I’m sure you have seen them. The vase that, when you blink, looks like two people in conversation; the wavy lines on a page that look like they’re moving. There’s one where you think you’re seeing a profile of a young lady, until someone says,
No, look again
. It’s a hag, with a hooked nose, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Today, I am asking you to blink. I am asking you to see a completely different scenario from the one the prosecutor has directed you to see. Because the evidence you have heard proves there is
also
a scenario in which there wasn’t a struggle, but instead a sick girl with an undiagnosed condition called TTP, one whose acute onset led to dizziness that had her staggering around her room, knocking over furniture, and falling tragically to her death. A condition where bruises blossom so easily that even a gentle touch might create what looks like a mark of violence. A condition where a blow to the head during a fall might lead to a brain bleed and instant death. A situation where the defendant was not an abuser, was not arguing, was not lying—only grieving, like he’s told us all along.” He turns, focusing on Asher. “Blink, and see what I see: a boy who fell in love with a girl.”