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Authors: Fern Michaels

BOOK: Betrayal
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“Nor am I,” Alex added.
“Trust me, I think this will work to our advantage.” With that, James thumbed through several papers his investigator had brought in during the recess. He seemed upset at their contents.
The media returned to the courtroom with barely a minute to spare. Reports were filed, and news was made for the first half of the day.
Chapter 16
T
he hum in the courtroom was like a low note being held by a choir. After the recess, the judge asked all members of the media to leave her courtroom. She instructed the bailiff to observe as a technician provided by Court TV turned off the camera. She wasn't going to tolerate any mistakes in her courtroom, especially during a trial of this magnitude.
An audiovisual technician set up a screen and the VCR for the jurors to view. The courtroom was empty except for the attorneys, the family members of the victim, and the accused.
The jurors were given pads of paper to write their notes on. They would see the video only once.
Kate held her breath as the judge instructed the bailiff to dim the lights.
“Is the court reporter ready?”
“I am, Your Honor. I have all the extra equipment you requested.”
“Thanks, Janice.”
“I'm told the video testimony is approximately four and a half hours long. We will view the first hour, then we will take a lunch break.”
Kate leaned over the banister, her hand on Alex's shoulder. She couldn't imagine being in his place. Her heart broke a little more for him with each passing day. Her Alex. Good, salt-of-the-earth Alex.
“Are the prosecution and defense ready?” Judge Stowers asked.
Both replied that they were.
“You may begin the tape.”
A few seconds later the projection screen, at least eighty inches high, showed a huge Sara sitting on a dark green leather sofa. She wore a pale peach sundress with white sandals. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with a white ribbon.
The picture of innocence,
Kate thought. Sara never wore dresses and rarely combed her hair.
“Sara, this is Mr. Wykowski. He works for the state of Florida. He's going to see that the bad man who hurt you is punished. He is going to ask you some questions, okay?” Dr. Sheffield spoke as though she were talking to a mentally challenged two-year-old.
 
“I guess so,” Sara replied.
 
“Remember, Sara, Mr. Wykowski is one of the good guys that we talked about. You do remember us talking about good guys and bad guys, don't you?” Sheffield asked.
“Yes, of course I do. I'm not stupid!”
 
Sara being her usual self.
 
“Of course you're not stupid. Did anyone call you stupid, Sara? Did the bad man call you stupid?”
 
Kate grimaced. Now Alex was “the bad man.”
 
“Yes, and he called me bad words, too.” Sara smiled.
“Why don't you let Mr. Wykowski ask his questions now.”
“What's he waiting for, anyway? I want to hurry. I want to go home. I hate this place. I didn't want to be here in the first place. Mommy said I had to. Hurry up, Mr. Wyk—whatever your name is.”
“Sara, I know you don't want to be here any more than I do. It's big, brave girls like you that put bad men in jail. Now, I want you to tell me about the first time the bad man, Mr. Rocket, touched you. Can you do that?”
“Sure, I can. I was in bed in my room, sleeping. He was visiting us like usual. I woke up and saw this scary-looking man sitting on the edge of my bed. He was smoking a cigarette. I hate smoking. Mommy smokes all the time. It stinks. But there was this man. I couldn't really tell what his face looked like until he puffed on the cig. He was all aglow then. It was Uncle Alex.”
“Then what did you do?” the voice of the ADA asked.
“Nothing. I just pretended to go back to sleep.”
A sigh could be heard, but you couldn't tell who it was. The video camera moved away from Sara, then back again.
Wykowski's voice. “Why did you pretend to go back to sleep?”
“I don't know. I think I was scared. Yes, that's it. I was very afraid of the man, Uncle Alex, on the bed. I wanted to scream for my dad, but I knew Uncle Alex would hurt me if I tried.”
“Why did you think this? Had your uncle Alex hurt you before?”
“Lots of times. He hit me, pinched me, one time he burned me with a cigarette. I never told Mommy or Daddy 'cause he was their best friend. He never hurt Emily, though. I think he liked her more than me. Mommy said he had good reason to, but she never said what it was. He's a very mean man.”
“Let's get back to the night you saw him sitting on the edge of your bed. Can you think back to that night and try to remember what grade of school you were in?”
The ADA was trying to establish a time period, Kate assumed.
“I told you before that I didn't! Why do you keep asking me the same thing over and over?”
“Your Honor, can we pause the recording for a moment?” James asked.
“Yes.”
The judge instructed the bailiff to pause the VCR.
“May I approach?” James asked.
Judge Stowers nodded in the affirmative.
“Judge Stowers, I was told the state would have one opportunity to question the child, same as the defense. It appears from what the child is saying that the state has questioned her on more than one occasion.”
“Mr. Wykowski, is this true?”
“Yes, it is, but only to the extent of allowing the child to get an idea of what she could expect. In no way was she ever told what to say by me, Dr. Sheffield, or her parents.”
“Mr. Conroy, does the state's answer satisfy you?”
“Yes, it does.”
“We'll continue to view the testimony.”
The VCR was turned on, and Sara's face lit up the screen.
“I'm sorry, but this is what the court needs to find out in order to put the bad man away.”
“I was in third grade. I remember now. That's right.”
“So in third grade, was this the first time the bad man, Mr. Rocket, came to your room and frightened you?”
“I don't really remember. He was mean all the time. He always wanted to play with Emily. I bet he touched her, too, and she liked it. I'm going to ask her. You should, too. Emily won't tell even if he did. Mommy says—”
“Let's not worry about what your mother says, Sara. Let's get back to the night you woke up when you were in the third grade. You saw Mr. Rocket sitting on the edge of your bed smoking. What happened next?”
“I hate this, but I have to do what's right.
Mommy told me always to tell the truth, right, Mommy?”
“Of course, dear. Now tell Mr. Wykowski what happened.”
“Okay. Well, I watched him sit there for a while. I think he thought I was asleep, but I was secretly peeking out through my eyes. You know how you close them, and they're like slits? That's what I was doing. He reached beneath the covers and put his hand on my . . . You know . . . on my privates.”
Kate tried to see the expressions on the face of the jurors, but the room was too dim.
“Did you have your pajamas on?”
“No, I just had on a long T-shirt and my panties. He pulled my panties down, too. Right to my knees. By then I didn't know what to do. I was just so scared I thought I should keep pretending I was sleeping. I did, and after that he rubbed me . . . there. Then after a while he stopped. I saw he was rubbing his underwear, too.”
Kate's stomach climbed high into her throat. She wanted to vomit at the smug look on Sara's face. Though Kate would never know if Don or Debbie coached Sara, she was sure Sara knew much more in the sex department than she'd let on to her parents. She remembered a conversation she and Emily had when Emily had got her first period. Sara seemed more knowledgeable than Emily. She'd even remarked that she'd better not have sex or she could get knocked up. Kate thought Sara must've been around nine at the time.
“Was there another time Mr. Rocket came to your room?”
“Yep. Lots of them. Every time him and Aunt Kate came to visit he came in my room. He would come into the bathroom, too. I was afraid to tell Mommy; she didn't want me to lock the door just in case I fell or something. I never did. Uncle Alex knew this, and he'd come into the bathroom. Once he got in the shower with me. He got his hands all soapy, then he rubbed his . . . his man part. It got all big and stiff. He made me touch it, too. It was all slimy and had these big old veins popping out. I started crying, then he made these terrible noises and turned away from me. When he looked at me again his part was all flat. He said if I told, he would kill my dad. I stayed in the bathroom so long I was wrinkled. I think Mommy had to come and get me out of the tub. I was just so scared.”
Kate couldn't stop herself. She bolted from the courtroom in search of the nearest restroom. At the end of a long hall, she found the ladies' room. She shoved her way into a stall. On her knees, she vomited until there was nothing left. She flushed the toilet, then dragged herself to the sink. Splashing cold water over her face helped a bit, but nothing would ever remove the words she'd just heard from the mouth of the most evil child on earth. After she'd composed herself, she went back to the courtroom.
James and Alex were waiting.
“After you left, the judge thought it was time for a break. Let's go to lunch.” James guided Kate through the throngs of reporters lining the halls. They were in attack mode. “There's a back entrance we can use.”
The trio raced to the basement, then back up two flights of stairs that led them to an alley.
“My car is just around the corner. Wait here, and I'll be right back.”
James raced to his car, leaving Kate alone with Alex for the first time since they'd entered the courthouse.
“Kate, I don't know what to say. I'm beyond shocked. I had no idea Sara had it in her to destroy me in such a deplorable manner. I wonder what Don was thinking as he listened to this bunch of malarkey.”
“I don't care what he thinks, or his miserable wife. I care what those twelve men and women in that jury box think. Beyond that, I just can't go there now. Alex, this is worse than I thought.”
He agreed. “I'd pay big bucks to find out how Sara learned all that sick stuff. Emily sure as hell wasn't a party to it, I know that. Did she look like she was delighted or something to you? It was almost like this was a big game to her. The more she talked, the bigger the tale.”
James pulled next to the curb. “Let's get out of here. We've got a couple of hours before we have to be back in court.”
They drove for fifteen minutes, then pulled off Highway 41 into the parking lot of what looked like an abandoned strip mall. “I hope the media hasn't found this place. I discovered it last week. They have the best conch fritters in the state. Or so I'm told.”
Inside the mom-and-pop restaurant, James ordered boiled shrimp, the famous conch fritters, and bowls of she-crab soup. The waitress handed him a ticket with a number, telling him they'd call when their food was ready. They sat at a rickety table in the corner. The place wasn't much in the way of decorations. Fish netting, with fake fish, sand dollars, and starfish, was plastered on the knotty pine walls. Pictures of men with humongous blue marlins and fish that were unidentifiable were placed haphazardly throughout the restaurant.
“Thirty-two,” the waitress called.
“Be right back.” Alex left the table to get their order.
Kate had her chance. “Quickly, James, how does it look for Alex?”
“Hard to say, Kate. We'll know more after the jurors view the video in its entirety.”
“Talking about me behind my back, huh?” Alex teased.
“No, Alex. I was just asking . . . Never mind.
Let's eat.” Food was the last thing on Kate's mind. For Alex's sake, she'd eat and like it. The forced cheerfulness between them was starting to frazzle her nerves. She and Alex had always been comfortable with one another. Now it seemed not only had they lost the life they shared, they'd lost the ability to be at ease with one another. Sara had taken more than she realized.
 
 
When James tried to drop Alex and Kate off behind the courthouse, the media spotted them. They ran alongside James's vehicle as he slowly nosed his way through the throng of reporters.

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