Malice (10 page)

The prosecution eventually rested their case, and then it was David's turn to bring witnesses forward to testify about her character and her behavior. But there were so few people who knew her, a few teachers, some old friends. Most people said she was shy and withdrawn, and David explained exactiy why that was, she was hiding a dark secret at home, and living a life of terror. And then he put the resident who had examined her at Mercy General on the stand. He explained in graphic detail the extent of the damage when he'd seen her.

“Could you say for certain that Miss Adams had been raped?” the prosecutor asked on cross-examination.

“Not with absolute certainty, one never can. One has to rely to some extent on the reports of the victim. But one could definitely say that there had been abusive sex over a long period of time. There were old scars of tears and damage that had been caused, and of course extensive new ones.”

“Could that kind of ‘abuse’ occur in normal sex, or sex of an unduly energetic, or even somewhat degenerate nature? In other words, if Miss Adams was masochistic in any way, or liked to be ‘punished’ by any of her supposedly various boyfriends, would it lead to the same kind of results?” he asked pointedly, with flagrant disregard for the fact that everyone who knew her said she had never gone out with anyone, or had a boyfriend.

“Yes, I guess if she liked it rough, you could say that the same damage might occur … it would have to be very rough though,” the resident said thoughtfully, and the prosecutor smiled evilly at the jury.

“I guess that's how some people like it.”

David objected constantly, and he did a heroic job, but it was an uphill struggle to battle their claim of premeditation. He put Molly on the witness stand, and finally, Grace herself, and she was deeply moving. In any other town, she would have convinced anyone made of stone, but not in this one. The people of Wat-seka loved John Adams, and they didn't want to believe her. People were talking about it everywhere. In stores, in restaurants. It was constantly all over the papers. Even the local TV news carried daily reports of the trial, and flashed photographs of Grace on the screen at every opportunity. It was endless.

The jury deliberated for three days, and David and Grace and Molly sat waiting in the courtroom. And when they got tired of it, they walked the halls for hours, with a guard walking quietly behind them. Grace was so used to handcuffs now, she hardly noticed when they put them on, except when they put them on too tightly on purpose. That usually happened with deputies who had known and liked her father. And it was stranger than ever to realize that if the jury acquitted her, she would suddenly be free again. She would walk away from all of this, as though it had never happened. But as the days droned on, it seemed less than likely that she would win her freedom. David tormented himself over the obstacles he'd been unable to overcome. And Molly sat and held Grace's hand. The three of them had become very close in the past two months. They were the only friends Grace had ever had, and she had slowly come not only to trust them, but to love them.

The judge had instructed the jury that they had four choices for their verdict. Murder, with premeditated intent to kill, which could call for the death penalty, if they believed that she had plotted in advance to kill her father, and knew that her acts would result in his death. Voluntary manslaughter, if she had indeed wanted to kill him, but not planned it, but believed falsely that she was justified in killing him, because she felt he was harming her at the time. Voluntary manslaughter would require a sentence of up to twenty years. Involuntary manslaughter if he had been harming her, and she had intended to hurt or resist him or cause him great bodily harm, but not kill him, but her “reckless” behavior had caused his death. Involuntary manslaughter would put her in prison for anywhere from one to ten years. And justifiable force if they believed her story that he had raped her that night and over the previous four years, and she was defending herself against his potentially life-threatening attack on her person. David had addressed them powerfully, and demanded justice in the form of a verdict of “defense with the use of justifiable force” for this innocent young girl who had suffered so much and lived a life of torture at the hands of her parents. He had made her tell all of it to the jury. That was her only hope now.

It was a late September afternoon when the jury finally came in, and Grace almost fainted when she heard the verdict.

The foreman rose solemnly, and announced that they had reached a verdict. She had been found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. They believed that John Adams had done something to her, though they were not quite sure what, and they did not believe that he had raped her, then or ever. But he had hurt her possibly, and two of the women on the jury had been insistent that even good men sometimes had dark secrets. There had been enough doubt in their minds for them to shy away from murder one and the death penalty. But the next step down from there was voluntary manslaughter, and that was how they had charged her. They believed, as the judge had explained in his instructions to them, that Grace had believed
falsely
, and therein lay the key, that she was justified in killing her father. Because of his glowing reputation in the community, they had been unable to accept that her father had been truly harming her, but they did believe that Grace had believed that, though incorrectly. Voluntary manslaughter carried a sentence of up to twenty years, at the judge's discretion.

And in the end, because of her extreme youth, and the fact that Grace herself had believed it to be both a crime of passion and of justifiable defense, the judge gave her two years in prison, and two years probation. Considering the possibilities, it was something of a gift, but it sounded like a lifetime to Grace as she listened to the words, and tried to force herself to understand it. In some ways, she thought death might have been easier. The judge had agreed to seal her records too, because of her age, and in the hope of not damaging her life any further when she got out of prison.

But Grace couldn't help wondering what would happen to her now. What would they do to her in prison? In jail, she had had the occasional scare, of other women threatening her, or taking her magazines or her toothpaste. Molly had been bringing things like that to her, and Frank Wills had reluctantly agreed to give her a few hundred dollars of her father's money, when David asked him.

But in jail, the women came and went in a few days, and she never felt truly in danger. She was there the longest by far, and on the worst charges. But prison would be filled with women who really had committed murder. She looked up at the judge with dry eyes and a look of sorrow. She was a person whose life had long since been lost, and she knew it. She had never had a chance from the first. For Grace, it was already over. Molly saw that look too, and she squeezed her hand as she stood beside her. Grace left the courtroom in handcuffs and leg irons this time. She was no longer merely the accused, she was a convicted felon.

That night, Molly went to see her in jail, before they transferred her to Dwight Correctional Center the next morning. There was so little she could say to her, but she didn't want Grace to give up hope. One day, there would be a new life for her. If she could just hold on till she got there. David had been to see her too, and he was beside himself over the verdict. He blamed himself for failing her, but Grace didn't blame him. It was just the way her life worked. He promised her an appeal, and he had already called Frank Wills, and he had negotiated a very unusual arrangement. With a great deal of prodding from David, Wills had agreed to let her have fifty thousand dollars of her father's money, in exchange for which she would agree never to return to Watseka, or interfere with him in any way, or anything he had inherited from her father. He was already making plans to move into their home in the coming weeks, and he told David he didn't want her to know that. As far as he was concerned, it was none of her business. He wanted no trouble from her, and he was planning to keep all of their possessions, and all of the house's furniture and contents. He had already thrown most of Grace's things away, and all he was offering her was the fifty thousand in exchange for staying away forever. He didn't want any hassles or arguments with her later. David had agreed on her behalf, knowing that one day, when she was free again, she'd have good use for the money. It was all she had now.

Molly tried desperately to encourage her that night when she saw her. “You can't give up, Grace. You just can't. You've made it this far. Now you've got to go the rest of the way. Two years isn't forever. You'll be twenty years old when you come out. It'll be time enough to start a whole new life, and put all this behind you.” David had told her the same thing. If she could just hang on, and stay as safe as possible in prison. But they all knew that wouldn't be easy.

She had to be strong. She had no choice now. But she had been strong for so long, and at times she wished she hadn't survived it. Being dead had to be easier than what she'd been through, and going to prison. She said as much that night to Molly, that she wished she had shot herself, instead of her father. It would have been so much simpler.

“What the hell does that mean?” The young psychiatrist looked outraged. She strode across the room nervously, with her eyes blazing. “Are you going to lie down and give up now? Okay, so you've got two years of this. But two years is not a lifetime. It could have been a lot worse. It's finite. You know exactly how long it will last, and when it will be over. You never knew that with your father.”

“What's it going to be like?” Grace asked with a look of terror, as the tears filled her eyes and then ran down her cheeks in two lonely rivers. Molly would have given anything to change things for her, but there just wasn't any more she could do now. All she could do was offer her love and support and friendship. She and David had both grown extremely fond of Grace. They talked about her for hours sometimes, and the injustice of all she'd been through. And now there was going to be more. She was going to have to be very strong. Molly held her in her arms that night as she cried, and prayed that somewhere she would find the strength to survive whatever she had to. Just the thought of it made Molly tremble for her.

“Will you visit me?” Grace asked in a small voice, as Molly sat next to her with an arm around her shoulders. Lately, she had talked about her constantly. Even Richard was tired of hearing about Grace, and so were all of Molly's friends and fellow doctors. Like David, she was obsessed with her, and only he seemed to understand what she was feeling. But the injustices she'd suffered for so long, the pain, and now the danger she would be in night and day were a constant worry to both David and Molly. They felt like her parents.

Molly cried when she left her too, and promised to drive to Dwight the following weekend. David was already planning to take a day off to see her, to discuss her appeal, and make sure she was as comfortable as possible in her surroundings. It didn't sound like a pleasant place, from all he'd heard, and like Molly, he would have done anything he could to change it. But their efforts hadn't been enough for her, no matter how hard they had tried or how much they cared about her. No matter what they had done for her, and they had done all they could with whatever resources had been available to them, it hadn't been enough to save her, or win her an acquittal. In all fairness to David, the cards had been stacked against her.

“Thanks for everything,” she said quietly to David the next morning when he came to say goodbye to her at seven in the morning. “You did everything you could. Thank you,” she whispered, and kissed him on the cheek, as he hugged her, willing her to survive and remain as whole as possible during her two years in prison. He knew that, if she chose to, she could do it. There was a great deal of inner strength in her. It had kept her going, and sane, during the nightmarish years with her parents.

“I wish we could have done better,” David said sadly. But at least it hadn't been murder one. He couldn't have stood it if she'd gotten the death penalty. And as he looked at her, he realized something he had never let himself think before, that if she'd been older than eighteen he'd have been in love with her. She was that kind of person, there was something beautiful and strong hidden deep inside her, and it drew him toward her like a magnet. But knowing all she'd been through, and how young she was, he couldn't allow his feelings to run wild, and he had to force himself to think of her as a little sister.

“Don't worry about it, David. I'll be fine,” she said with a quiet smile, wanting to make him feel better. She knew that a part of her had long since died, and the rest of her would just have to hang on until a higher force decided that her life was over. Dying would have been so easy for her, because she had so little to lose, so little to live for. Except, somewhere, deep inside of her, she felt that she owed it to him to survive, and to Molly. They had done so much for her, they were the first people in her whole life who had really been there. She couldn't let them down now. She couldn't let go of life yet, if only for their sakes.

Just before they led her away, she gently touched his arm, and for an odd instant, as he looked at her, he thought there was something almost saintly about her. She had accepted her fate, and her destiny. And she looked dignified beyond her years, and strangely beautiful as they led her away in handcuffs. She turned once to wave to him, and he watched her with eyes blurred by tears that ran slowly down his cheeks as soon as she left him.

Chapter 4

A
t eight o'clock they put her on the bus to Dwight in leg irons and chains and handcuffs. It was just routine to transfer prisoners that way, and no particular reflection on her. And oddly, she found that once she was all trussed up in chains, the guards no longer spoke to her. To them, she had ceased to be a real person. There was no one to say goodbye to her, to wish her well. Molly had come the night before, and David that morning before she left, and the guards watched her leave without a word. She'd been no trouble for them, but she was just another convict to them, a face they would soon forget, in a daily lineup of felons.