The Victim (57 page)

The bored look in some jurors’ eyes made him think that their minds had already been made up and that any further testimony was just an exercise in futility. A few looked ready to return a verdict right then.

“
Good morning,” Sylvia began. “Can you please introduce yourself to the men and women of the jury?”

She leaned in, putting her lips too close to the microphone. “Daniella Avery.”

That meek voice, so contrived, well rehearsed. Anton knew it; even Bryan knew it. But it was the only voice that the jury had heard.

Sylvia walked her through the basics. Age, brief biographical summary. She moved onto how she met Bryan and the early stages of their courtship. Sylvia was following the roadmap she had laid in her opening to a tee. Her theme of the case resonated with every question. She was truly a pro. She kept her witness on a tight leash, guiding her through the questions, asserting her control over the courtroom.

It didn’t take long for Daniella to start crying.

She was subdued at first, her wet eyes catching the light, dabbing occasionally with a wad of Kleenex. As Sylvia got into the events leading up to the crime, the emotion sullied her voice, made her words thick and phlegmy.

Melissa got up and wheeled a television screen in front of the jury. It was a flatscreen television strapped to a rolling cart. Melissa jammed the plug into the outlet panel in the floor and controlled the DVD menu while Sylvia positioned herself halfway between the television and the witness box.

Anton knew what she was doing. She was going to play the surveillance video from the Templeton, effectively taking the sting out of Anton’s cross. Whereas Anton would emphasize Bryan’s calmness and the seemingly consensual nature of the visit, Sylvia would weave the same set of facts into her own theme. That Bryan, with his sociopathic composure, was planning to kill Daniella if she wouldn’t take him back.

Melissa stopped the DVD. The Porsche Boxster was a yellow blur; the screen paused while the car was still in motion. A fuzzy valet stood in the background.

Sylvia asked, “What’s happening here, Daniella?”

“
Well, um, I pulled up to my building. I drove because I hadn’t had anything to drink.”

“
Did you ask the Defendant to come in with you?”

“
Yeah. But not, like, to stay the night or whatever. I was okay if he wanted to walk me upstairs.”

Melissa caught Sylvia’s nod and continued to play the footage. The glass doors parted and Bryan and Daniella entered the Templeton lobby. Bryan hung back, rocking on his heels, while Daniella chatted with the security guard at the desk and signed the guest register. Sylvia signaled for Melissa to pause the frame as she pointed to Daniella’s and Bryan’s respective locations, seeking an explanation from the witness that could shed light on the otherwise silent image.

Anton nervously rapped his pen against his legal pad. The former prosecutor in him quickly realized that the same set of facts could go either way. Bryan’s demeanor in the lobby and in the quiet elevator ride up to the thirty-sixth floor easily played into Sylvia’s narrative.

The final frame showed the two stepping off the elevator and disappearing into the boxy shadow of the hallway.

“
What happened when you two got to your door, Daniella?”

Anton had heard her recitation of this event twice before, but never with a jury watching. He thought back to their first meeting, before he was aware of the charade. He feared the jury would be as compelled by her story as he had been.

To Anton the tics and nervous fidgeting seemed methodical on her part, but gauging the looks on the jurors’ faces, he could see that they believed it. In their minds, it must have seemed so farfetched that she would endure the pain of testifying just to come into court to lie.

Sylvia paced the examination, allowing brief intervals between questions so that Daniella could collect herself.

Anton noticed that Sylvia walked her through nearly the same line of questioning as she had with Vicki. The crimes were nearly identical.

Melissa stopped the DVD player and wheeled the cart away. Sylvia retrieved a CD player from underneath the prosecution table and set it on the railing before the jury box. She laid the proper predicate for admitting the 911 tape, to which Anton did not object.

“
911, police, fire, or medical?”

“
Oh God, please hurry. He’s still here. He’s gonna kill me. Please.”

“
Is someone in your home?”

“
Yes. My husband Bryan.”

“
Has he hurt you? Do you need Fire Rescue?”

“
Yes, yes. He tried to kill me. Oh God, Oh God…Please help…”

“
Ma’am, I need you to stay calm. Are you somewhere safe?”

“
I’m locked in my bedroom. Oh my God! He’s right outside. Please please please hurry. Oh God.”

“
Ma’am, I need you to take a deep breath and just stay on the phone with me. Police have been dispatched and are en route. I’ve also alerted your building’s security staff.”

The audio cut to white noise. Sylvia stopped the CD player.

“
Daniella, was that a fair and accurate recording of your call to 911 on the morning of January 14th of this year?”

“
Yes,” she whispered through her shudders and sniffles.

Anton looked over at the jury box. Two of the women were wiping their eyes.

Sylvia introduced the color photographs of Daniella and published them to the jury, allowing them to see her injuries, first hand.

Satisfied that she’d laid all of the groundwork, she said, “Nothing further, Your Honor.”

Judge Morales cleared her throat. “Thank you, State. Mr. Mackey?”

Jack and Anton shared a brief but telling glance as Anton stood. He brought nothing to the podium with him. No transcript from the Arthur Hearing. No reports. Not even a notepad.

“
Good afternoon, Ms. Avery,” he began.

She blotted her eyes with her Kleenex. “Good afternoon.”

Anton closed his eyes and breathed deep into the pit of his belly. He knew what he had to do.

“
You know a young girl by the name of Kelsie McEvoy, don’t you?”

Sylvia was on her feet. She held up her hands in confusion.

“
Umm, objection?” she said with a sarcastic rising inflection. “Outside the scope of direct examination…relevance. Shall I go on?”

Judge Morales didn’t appreciate the attitude.

“
No, Ms. Kaplan. Overruled. Please sit down.”

Anton continued, “I’ll repeat. Do you know or have you ever known somebody named Kelsie McEvoy.”

She cocked her head, as if to say
really?

“
Yes.”

“
You also know a young man named Evan Rangel.”

“
I do.”

“
You ever known anyone by the name of Lola Munson?”

“
No,” she said without hesitation.

Anton looked over his shoulder at Jack, who nodded encouragement.

“
You certain of that?”

Her eyes tensed. “Yes,” she said, her lips trembling. “I said I’m sure.”

“
If Kelsie McEvoy was going to walk through that door right now, what would you say?”

Anton swept his arm toward the courtroom door, pointing. The jurors’ eyes instinctively followed.

“
She wouldn’t.”

“
That’s because Kelsie is dead, right?”

“
Objection, Your Honor.”

Morales held up a hand, curious to see where this was going. “Overruled.”

“
Kelsie is dead, right?”

“
Yes. She is.”

“
And so is Evan, right? He wouldn’t come walking through that door?”

Anton flung his hand, dramatically extending it toward the door. Eyes watched with anticipation.

“
No,” she said softly. “No he wouldn’t.”

Anton angled toward the courtroom door. “What if I said Lola Munson is going to come walking in right now?”

All eyes turned toward the door except Daniella’s. She gazed dead ahead, remained seated in the witness chair. She knew Lola Munson would not be coming through the door.

Because Lola Munson was already sitting in the witness chair.

CHAPTER 62

“
I didn’t take you for a fan of Italian Renaissance literature,” Anton said, turning back toward the podium. “Isn’t that what you have tattooed on your wrist?”

Sylvia bolted out of her chair and requested a sidebar, which Morales denied.

“
Answer the question please,” Anton said.

Daniella wrapped her hand around her Cartier watch. “I have a tattoo if that’s what you’re implying.”

Anton thought about Jack’s words to him on the plane ride back to Miami. It was a risky move to call her out in open court. He had to walk a fine line between exposing the witness for who she really was without exposing himself.

“
The tattoo. Five letters, correct?”

“
Yes.”

“
B-A-E-B-A.”

“
Yes.”

“
Before all else, be armed. That’s what it stands for, am I correct?”

She glared at him with palpable shock, her mind trying to catch up with what was happening.

“
That’s correct.”

“
A tattoo that you and two other people share. Kelsie McEvoy and Evan Rangel.”

“
Yes.”

“
A tattoo that the three of you got to commemorate a traumatic experience the three of you endured together.”

She blinked away the tears. “Yes.”

“
Miles of Mountains. A wilderness therapy program in Flagstaff. You and Kelsie and Evan were all sent there when you were seventeen. The three of you endured starvation, freezing, beatings, and much worse, I can imagine.”

“
Yes.”

“
So once the three of you were able to escape, you all tattooed yourselves. A Niccolo Machiavelli quote: Before all else, be armed.”

“
That’s right.”

“
A Machiavelli quote had special meaning between the three of you.”

“
I guess.”

“
You guess? Isn’t that because Machiavelli proposed the idea of faking one’s death to fool their enemies? That’s the hidden irony in that tattoo. Isn’t it, Lola?”

She said nothing.

“
You are Lola Munson. Am I right?”

Silence.

Sylvia lurched forward but held back. She wanted to object, to do something, but she wasn’t sure what. It was such an easy question yet the witness was hesitating.

Anton smiled coyly and walked to the defense table. Jack followed the unspoken cue and handed him a manila folder bearing the contents of the court file for Lola Munson’s Flagstaff arrest.

Anton opened the folder and sifted through the contents, locating the arrest affidavit. He skimmed it over. In January 2003, at the time of her misdemeanor arrest, Lola Munson was listed as five-one, one hundred-four pounds. Anton shifted his eyes from the paper in his hand to the woman seated in the witness box. The girl described in the 2003 arrest affidavit was nothing close to the heavyset, stringy-haired sixteen-year-old depicted in the missing persons photo.