Missing Pieces (20 page)

“You’re skinny,” Brandi Crowe was saying. “You can eat that. If I were to eat it, it would go straight to my hips. I have to work like the devil to keep the pounds off.”

“You look great,” I told her, and meant it. Despite what the media tries to tell us, not everyone has to be six feet tall and a hundred and twenty pounds. Immediately, I pictured
Sara, wondered whether she was in school, what she was doing. Couldn’t be any worse than what her mother was doing, I realized.

“That looks delicious,” Brandi said, eyeing her husband’s piece of pie. “Let me just steal a forkful.”

“What about your diet?”

“You’re right. I’ll hate myself in the morning.” She sat back in her chair, watched me shoveling the Key lime pie into my mouth with the same abandon with which I’d earlier attacked my seafood pasta. In seconds, the whole thing was gone. Brandi Crowe looked vaguely stunned. “So, how did this whole idea come about?” she asked. The look on her face told me she was beginning to doubt my credentials.

“Actually, I knew Kate from high school,” Robert said. I couldn’t help but admire his cool. He was sipping his coffee and eating his Key lime pie just like normal people do.

“Really? You mean in Pittsburgh?”

I listened to Robert’s account of our accidental reunion at the courthouse, watching his wife’s reactions, searching for any signs of intimacy between them, for telltale clues as to whether or not they were sleeping together, subtle glances, furtive touches. But aside from that first pat on the hand, the jolt of which I still felt in my palm, there was nothing to give them away. They might be sleeping together; they might not.

What difference did it make? I asked myself angrily, swallowing my coffee in one prolonged rush and jumping to my feet. “I’m sorry, but I really have to get going. I’m supposed to meet my husband,” I lied, glancing at my watch for added authenticity.

“Maybe the four of us could get together one night for dinner,” Robert’s wife suggested.

I must have mumbled something positive, because she said she’d call and we’d set something up. Then I went out and bought my husband the most expensive set of golf clubs I could find.

F
or the next few weeks, Colin Friendly was everywhere: on television, on the front pages of the newspapers, on the covers of both local and national magazines. The trial was winding down and there was much speculation as to whether Colin Friendly would take the stand in his own defense. The rumors were contradictory and many. According to the
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel,
he would most assuredly take the stand; according to the
Miami Herald,
his lawyers would never allow it. The
Palm Beach Post
came down solidly in the middle: Colin Friendly would take the stand, and it would be against his lawyers’ advice.

About one thing, almost everyone was certain—Colin Friendly would be found guilty. The only real question was how many minutes it would take the jury to arrive at its guilty verdict. Of course, my sister remained unshakable in her belief not only that Colin Friendly would be found not guilty but that he
was
not guilty.

“Did you see the profile in the
Post
this morning?” she asked me, her voice on the phone low and threatening tears. The trial had adjourned for lunch, and she’d caught me in between clients. “They had so many things wrong. Really, half their information was incorrect. And it makes
me so mad because they think they can just get away with it, and of course, they can, because what’s Colin gonna do—sue them?”

I said nothing, knowing no response was required.

“They said he’s six feet two inches tall. Since when? The fact is he barely tops six feet. They say he weighs a hundred eighty pounds. Well, maybe he weighed that before he was arrested. He’s lost at least fifteen pounds in that awful jail because the food’s so bad. But the newspapers like to paint a picture of this big, threatening guy, so they add an inch here, a few pounds there, and pretty soon he’s Hulk Hogan. Well, you saw him, he’s not threatening-looking at all.”

“I don’t think his height and weight are really major issues,” I ventured.

“They’re deliberately misleading. And, what’s more important,” she countered, “they’re indicative of the kind of shoddy reporting that passes for journalism in this country these days. They said his mother’s name was Ruth. It wasn’t. It was Ruta. At first, I thought maybe it was a typo, but they kept repeating it, so, obviously, it was just carelessness. They said he came from poverty, but his great-grandparents were really rich. They lost it all in the Depression, of course, but still, they could have mentioned it. I mean, if they can’t get the simplest of facts right, then how can you believe anything they print? How can you take anything they say seriously?”

“I thought the reporters were your friends.”

“Oh, please, you tell them one thing, they print something completely different. They’re always getting their quotes wrong or taking things out of context. They have their own agenda.”

“And what is that?”

“To see Colin Friendly in the electric chair. But it isn’t
going to happen. You’ll see. He’ll be acquitted. And when he is, I’ll be right there waiting for him.”

“I have to go now,” I told her, not wanting to hear the familiar litany again.

“The only thing they got right,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “is that he had a terrible childhood. You couldn’t help but cry when you read it. Wasn’t it sad? Didn’t you cry?”

“I didn’t read it,” I lied. A mistake. Jo Lynn now felt compelled to provide me with all the details I’d supposedly missed.

“Well, his mother was crazy. I mean really crazy. She got kicked out of the house when she was fifteen, got pregnant at sixteen, and was already a drunk and a doper by the time Colin was born. She’d shoot up right in front of him, have men back to her room, and have sex with them while Colin was watching. She didn’t even know for sure who Colin’s father was.

“When he was really little, she used to lock him in the closet whenever she went out. Sometimes she’d disappear for days at a time, and Colin wouldn’t have anything to eat. And if he had to go to the bathroom, well, he’d just have to go in his pants. Isn’t that pathetic? No wonder he was a bed-wetter until he was eleven. Of course, she’d punish him whenever he wet the bed, do awful things like rub his nose in it, like a dog. And she kept moving all the time, so Colin never got a chance to make any friends, and he was really shy. He started to stutter, and his mother would make fun of him and beat him. She was really awful.”

“No wonder he hates women,” I said.

“Oh, but he doesn’t hate women,” Jo Lynn exclaimed. “Which is really an amazing thing, when you think about it. He loves women.”

“He loves women,” I repeated, my voice as dull as a matte finish on a photograph.

“He had this great neighbor, Mrs. Rita Ketchum, and she was really nice to him. She taught him that most women weren’t like his mother.”

“I thought you said they moved around all the time.”

“This was later, when he was a teenager, living on his own in Brooksville.”

“I don’t remember the article mentioning her.”

“You said you didn’t read it.”

“I glanced at it,” I qualified.

“You read every word. Why won’t you admit it?”

“How does he explain the kittens he tortured as a child?”

“Colin never tortured anything. Some other kids had been at those kittens. Colin just put them out of their misery.”

“And the fires he started?”

“Kid stuff. Nobody ever got hurt.”

She had all the answers. There was no point trying to argue. For whatever her reasons, my sister had decided that Colin Friendly was nothing more than a sadly misunderstood young man, and no amount of logic or evidence to the contrary was going to convince her otherwise.

“Is he going to testify?” I asked.

“He wants to, but his lawyers don’t think it’s a good idea. Not because they think he’s guilty,” she added quickly. “It’s because when Colin gets nervous, he stutters, and his lawyers don’t want to put him through the ordeal of a cross-examination.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“I think the stutter’s kind of sweet. And I think it would show the jury how vulnerable he is, that he’s a human being, not this awful monster they keep hearing about.”

“So you’ve advised him to testify?”

“I said I’d support him no matter what his decision. But I think it’s really important to him that he makes people understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That he didn’t kill those women.” Jo Lynn’s voice was filled with exasperation. “That he could never do the awful things they say he did.”

“When do they think the trial will be over?” I didn’t think I could take too many more conversations like this one.

“Two weeks tops. The prosecution should wrap things up tomorrow, and then it’ll be the defense’s turn. If all goes according to plan, Colin will be out by Christmas.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“He will be.”

“And then what?”

“Then we can get on with our lives.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Will you come with me to court on Wednesday?”

“Not a chance.”

“Please. It would mean a lot to me.”

“Why?” I asked. “You know I don’t share your high opinion of the man.”

“I want you to hear what Colin has to say firsthand. I honestly think if you just listen to him, I mean
really
listen to him, like you do with your clients, then you’ll change your mind about him.”

“I doubt that.”

“It’s really important to me, Kate.”

“Why is it important?”

There was a second’s silence. “Because I love him.”

“Oh, please …”

“I do, Kate. I really love him.”

“You don’t even know him, for God’s sake.”

“That’s not true. I’ve been sitting in that courtroom for almost two months. I know everything about him.”

“You know nothing.”

“I’ve been visiting him every week.”

“You talk to him through a glass partition.”

“That’s right, I do. And he talks to me. And we really understand each other. He says I know him better than anybody.”

“That’s because he’s killed everybody else!” I shouted in total frustration.

There was another, longer pause. “That was beneath you,” Jo Lynn pronounced. “I would have thought that with your professional training, you’d have a little more compassion.”

“Look, Jo Lynn,” I said, trying another approach, “you’re the only one that matters to me in this equation. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

Her voice softened. I could almost see the relief in her face through the phone lines. “But I’m not going to get hurt. He loves me, Kate. He says I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”

“I’m sure you are,” I told her honestly.

“You know what he told me when I went to see him on Friday?”

I shook my head, said nothing.

“He said I looked as sweet as the first strawberry in spring.”

I smiled despite myself.

“You’re smiling. I can tell you’re smiling. Isn’t that just the most darling thing you ever heard? I mean, when was the last time that Larry ever said anything that romantic to you?”

It’s been a while, I thought, but didn’t say. I felt a sudden twinge as my thoughts shifted from Larry to Robert.

“So, you can stop worrying about me. I’m gonna be
fine. If Colin and I can get through this, then we can survive anything. I want you to be happy for us, Kate. And I need you to be there for me. Can you do this for me just this one last time? I’ll even go visit Mom with you this weekend. How’s that for a deal?”

I closed my eyes, lowered my forehead into the palm of my hand. “Okay, you got me,” I said softly.

“Thank you, Kate,” she said. “You won’t regret it.”

“I’ll see you Wednesday,” I told her, knowing she was wrong.

Some interesting facts about the Palm Beach County Courthouse: With almost 700,000 square feet of floor space, it is the largest such structure in the state of Florida and one of the largest in the nation; it was designed by Michael A. Sniff and Associates and Hansen Lind Meyer, Engineers, and built by the George Hyman Construction Company; the exterior portico arch is 52 feet high and the interior waterfall is 30 feet tall; the vaulted roofs atop the building were designed to echo the twin towers of the Breakers Resort Hotel directly to the east in Palm Beach proper.

I gleaned this knowledge from a brochure I’d taken from the information desk in the lobby, while waiting to get into court on Wednesday morning. I also learned that the courthouse was designed with 44 courtrooms and the potential to expand to 60 when two empty floors are built out, and that a central recording studio handles audio from all the courtrooms piped to the studio and put on long-playing tapes. To review a portion of testimony in a courtroom, the judge merely phones the studio and asks for a playback. Amazing, I thought, smiling at the gray-haired old man standing behind the information desk. He was wearing a bright red vest emblazoned with the words

“Clerk of the Court, Volunteer.” He winked. I felt ancient.

Some other interesting data: There are now 3,780 attorneys practicing in Palm Beach County; the county’s courts handled 311,072 cases filed the previous year, two-thirds of them traffic-related; more than 3 miles of shelves are needed to house the 3.6 million court files; there are 55 miles of telephone cable and 40 miles of computer cable; there are 56 holding cells for prisoners standing trial.

According to the brochure, the prisoners enter the building via jail buses that park in their own garage. They reach the courtrooms through a maze of holding cells, electronic lockdowns, special elevators and corridors. The deputies guarding the prisoners are outfitted with special infrared sensors that sound an alarm and automatically seal off an area if a deputy is knocked down. The state-of-the-art security system includes 274 video cameras, more than 200 infrared detectors, 200 intercoms, and more than 300 card-key doors.

At eight o’clock that morning, we were permitted entry into the main corridor. We stepped through the tall, heavy glass doors and through the metal detector, heading toward the bank of elevators to our right. The crowd was bigger than usual, although I recognized numerous faces from my previous visits. Eric was still supplying my sister with her morning cup of coffee. According to Jo Lynn, he hadn’t missed a day. There were several others, and she pointed out each one, who showed up faithfully every morning. I wondered what these people would do once the trial was over. Did they have jobs or families to return to? Or would they simply find a new courtroom to visit, a new prisoner to focus their attentions on? In a way, the trial was a kind of drug, I understood, glancing across the wide corridor at the large auditorium-like room where potential jurors waited to hear if their names would be called.
Would these judicial groupies experience a kind of withdrawal when it was all over? Would I? I wondered, realizing how much of my own life this trial had absorbed.