Chapter 59
THERE WAS NO LONGER the slightest doubt in Deanna’s mind. Wallace Barrett was innocent.
She knew it. She felt it in her head, her heart, and her gut.
The question was: What was she going to do about it?
She’d been dwelling on this ever since she left the courtroom and got back to her hotel room, retracing the same thoughts, running the same futile arguments over and over in her brain.
Wallace Barrett’s reputation was already shot, she rationalized to herself. His life was irrevocably ruined. Even if he beat this rap, he could never again run for public office, could never again live in the public spotlight, and probably wouldn’t want to.
But Martha still had her whole life before her. All her opportunities were still possible; all the doors were still open.
Unless Deanna closed them.
Could she do that? Could she do it to her own flesh and blood? Even to save an innocent man?
It would be so much easier if she could just talk this out with Martha, discuss it, plan what to do together. But that was no longer a possibility. She was sequestered now, and there was no way the deputies were going to let her talk to Martha just so she could ease her conscience. Whatever decision she reached, she would have to reach on her own.
She would have to shoulder all the responsibility.
And all the blame.
She rolled over on her hotel-room bed, cradling the pillow in her arms. How had she gotten into this situation? She’d been a fool to let herself be put on this jury. She should have told them something, anything, to make sure she would be removed. But she had thought she was doing what was best for her daughter, trying to protect her.
What she’d forgotten was to protect herself. Now, as a result, she’d been forced to go into that courtroom every day. Been forced to stare out at that man sitting at the defense table, stricken, scared, on trial for his life. Been forced to harden her heart and to try not to think about what this must be doing to a man accused of committing a nightmarish crime she was almost certain he had not committed.
Because she was almost certain she knew who had.
It was just too much to be a coincidence. The camera, the photos. Buck’s constant flow of unearned wealth. His presence in the neighborhood at the time of the killings. He may not have acted alone; in fact he almost certainly was acting at the instruction of some other, richer person. But he was definitely involved.
It had been painful sitting in the courtroom today, watching that man plead to be believed. Watching the prosecution cut him and hurt him in all the most vulnerable, most personal ways. Despite the way the prosecutor battered him, she thought he did an amazing job of maintaining his dignity, of refusing to play the prosecutor’s games. He was a noble, honorable man. Surely that would be enough, surely the tide would turn and the other jurors would see him as she did.
But she knew that was not the case. She had heard two of the jurors whispering in the elevator, had heard a telling remark from another in the food line. They thought Barrett was guilty. They were leaning toward conviction.
And she knew why, too.
Bullock had brought all their reasonable doubts to a standstill by asking that one overwhelming question.
If you didn’t kill your wife and children, Mr. Barrett, who did? Who could have?
That was the question that dominated the trial now. And that was a question that she could answer.
She could remain quiet. She could say nothing, but refuse to join in a guilty verdict, hanging the jury. But what would that accomplish? Everyone would still believe he was guilty, just as they did now, conviction or not. He would always live with the stain, and eventually they would retry him and get a conviction, and he’d be executed or spend the rest of his life in jail. She wasn’t sure which would be worse. Put the man out of his misery, or let him live fifty or sixty more years with the knowledge that the world believed he had killed his own wife and children.
And if by some miracle they didn’t convict him? Then the investigation would continue, they would find Buck, and then Martha. And for that matter, they’d find Deanna, and they’d realize why she had refused to convict Barrett when she’d been on the jury. That she’d been withholding information.
Great. Maybe she could share a cell with her daughter.
If she went to the judge and told her what she knew, she didn’t know what would happen. Maybe a mistrial. Maybe some criminal charge. And there would certainly be an investigation of Buck.
And Martha.
But if she didn’t …
She kept thinking of that man, that face, those two brown eyes peering out from the witness stand, begging people to believe him, to believe that he did not and could not have committed this hideous crime.
And no one believing him. Not because of anything he had failed to do, but because she had failed to tell them what she knew.
Deanna threw the pillow down on the floor. She still wished she could talk to Martha first. She wished she could consult a lawyer, or at least a friend. But as she had told her daughter so many times before, if wishes were horses …
She cracked open her hotel-room door. A deputy was posted in the corridor outside, just a few feet from her door.
“Is something wrong, Ms. Meanders?”
“No. Well, yes. I mean—”
He stepped toward her. “What do you need?”
She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I need to see the judge.”
The deputy frowned. “Now?”
She nodded. “Right now.”