Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 01 - Blood on White Wicker (28 page)

The camera swung over to Mr. Crocker who was rolling his shoulders and straightening his tie. Then it looked like about a hundred reporters were talking at once.

Mr. Crocker held up his hand and they quieted down. “My client is innocent of these charges. The FBI has nothing to link him to these crimes. He adopted Julia through a reputable firm and has the paperwork to prove it. He didn’t even know who she was or where she came from. As for the testimony of Hannah Rogers, you know what they say about a woman scorned.”

“So are you saying that it’s just a coincidence, that Julia McCain turned out to be who she was, and he just happened to adopt her?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Coincidences happen every day. And I repeat again, they have nothing to tie my client to these crimes. That’s all.”

The reporters were trying to crowd him and ask more questions but he ignored them and went back inside.

Julia sat quietly for a few minutes staring off into space.

“The FBI doesn’t even know yet what he did to me,” Julia said. “Wonder if that would make a difference, if I testified against him.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Mimi asked, “So far, you’ve only talked about this in group and to both of us. You would have to tell millions of people on national television. Are you sure you’re up for it? Why don’t you talk to Dr. Anna about this?’

“I’m supposed to meet with her tomorrow morning before going to court. I’ll talk to her then. It would help if she could be there though.”

Julia got up early the next morning and walked over to meet with Dr. Anna. When she got back, Dr. Anna was with her.

“I have mixed feelings about this, as I’ve told Julia. I won’t make the decision for her but my feeling is that, the sooner she can confront him, the sooner she can get out of the victim role. It would be a major step in her recovery.

On the other hand, if this is too soon for her, it could set her back tremendously. It hasn’t been that very long since she was in total denial about what he did to her and was in fact convinced that what he did was to show her the highest level of love a parent could show a child.”

Dr Anna took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “The bottom line? Julia is the only one to make this decision and the only one to determine if she is ready. Now she has asked me to be there and I can arrange to do that, but I would need to have some notice.”

Julia seemed determined to go through with this. When we got to court, Mimi leaned over and spoke to the prosecuting attorney. He looked shocked and glanced over at us.

When Mimi sat back down she said, “He has to look it up but he thinks he can file a new charge with the Judge. He said he would do this during the first break of lunch.”

When court convened, Mr. Graham called Mackey to the stand. They brought him in wearing the orange jumpsuit and heavily shackled. I noticed that Mr. Graham stood so that Mackey’s view of us was blocked.

Mackey described his initial meeting with Mr. Reynolds and the offer. He said that Mr. Reynolds first offered him fifty thousand dollars, which he turned down because he had to split it with his buddy at the time, now deceased. So he told Mr. Reynolds he wanted double that.

“Describe for the court what happened the night of the kidnapping.”

“Hannah had put the ladder up against the window and opened the window. She was supposed to make sure no one else was in the room. I should have known the stupid old cow wouldn’t be able to get it right.

“I had told Mr. Reynolds that she was a loose cannon but he said she would do as she was told. When we got to the top of the ladder, the parents were there. I guess it was the necklace that held them up.”

Mr. Crocker wasn’t objecting to anything and I wondered why.

“What do you mean about the necklace?”

“Well, their daddy was trying to fasten it on their mama’s neck. He was concentrating so hard that they didn’t see us. As soon as they saw us, we popped them and I grabbed one twin in each arm and Hannah said, ‘he only wants one’ and I said ‘we’re not leaving a witness.’

“I handed one of the twins to my buddy and I hit Hannah over the head with the butt of my gun and she was out. We heard someone coming up the stairs and we went down the ladder lickity split.”

“What did you do next?”

“We got the twins in the front of the truck and covered them with the blankets we brought.”

At this point, Mackey laughed, “They were wiggling like a couple of fishing worms, but they were only whimpering. It wasn’t until we were on down the road that they started crying full volume.”

I could have killed him, describing us like we were nothing. Our hearts were broken and he acted like he was on a picnic.

“We drove all night and most of the next day before we got to the Reynolds’ house. I thought he would pay me double since I took both little girls, but he said he didn’t want but one and I could do what I wanted to with the other one.

“So I took the other one to my sister who thought she wanted a kid. After a few days, she called me to come get the kid. She said the brat did nothing but cry. So I took her and put her out along the highway like any stray.” He actually laughed when he said this.

You could have heard a pin drop in the court room. Mr. Graham was looking at Mackey like he was trying to make up his mind whether to kill him or not.

Then he said, “I have no farther questions for this witness.”

Mr. Crocker strutted up to the witness stand, “That was an interesting story you just told sir.”

“No story, all true.”

“How old were you when you first went to prison?”

“You mean real prison or Juvy Hall?”

“How old were you when you first went to Juvenile Hall?”

“The first time I was just a baby. Twelve years old.”

“Objection, your Honor. I fail to see the relevance in this line of questioning.”

“It is relevant, your honor, I promise.”

“I’ll allow it for now but get to it.”

“Thank you, your Honor. So, would it be fair to say that you have been in and out of prison most of your life?”

Mackey had a clear line of vision to us now so he grinned at us.

“I have. I can do time standing on my head. It’s no big deal and it turns some chicks on.”

“The jury will ignore that last statement.”

Now I understood why Mr. Crocker didn’t object before. He was going to wait for Mackey to discredit himself. The other thing I noticed was that Mr. Crocker kept calling Mackey, sir, like a mock of respect.

“Sir, did the FBI offer you a deal to testify against the defendant?”

“Yeah, but I think I would have, on principle. I know what I am and I’ve done a lot of bad things but if I had known what he had planned for that little girl, I would have never kidnapped her.”

There was total silence in the court and I noticed the reporters were writing about a hundred miles an hour.

“Your Honor, I move to strike that last statement.”

“So stricken. Is everybody done with this witness? Bailiff, get the guards to take him back to his cell.”

Mackey was smiling and rubbing his hands together like he was proud of what he had done.

After we adjourned, Mr. Graham said to us, “I remember now. You caught me off guard before although I shouldn’t have been surprised. Here’s the deal. I could add the new charge now or I could charge him afterward and get a new trial.

“I would personally like to have a separate trial. That way, the sexual battery on a child under twelve would be the whole focus. To add it to this trial would kind of dilute it.”

We thought that made a lot of sense. We wanted this one to be over. Then we would have the one last hurdle before we could move on with our lives.

 
CHAPTER 28

Now it was time for the defense to start calling witnesses. I figured I wouldn’t like this part because they would probably have people getting up there telling what a saint Mr. Reynolds was.

We always had to wait when we got to court. If the judge said the day before we would start at nine a.m. the next day, it could be as late as ten before we got started. I didn’t understand this. But on this particular morning we waited for hours and hours.

We got up and walked around. We went to the ladies room. We came back and sat down and waited some more.

It wasn’t until almost noon, and we were standing in the hall talking, when Mr. Graham came out with Tracy.

“Mackey was beaten to death in the shower last night,” Mr. Graham said. “We think he became a threat when he hinted around yesterday about the reason Mr. Reynolds had you taken, Julia.”

“We can’t prove it but we think someone paid someone off to take care of him and I think we all know who that someone is.” Tracy said.

Mr. Graham had been nodding the whole time and now he spoke up, “The trial has been delayed until they investigate this.

“There are going to be some inmates wanting to come forward to try to get their sentence reduced by telling what they know about this and we’re going to have to try and figure out what’s true and what’s not. It’s a real mess. You can go on home and we’ll call you when we’re going to reconvene.”

 
On the way back to our bungalow, Mimi said, “This is really frustrating. This could go on forever. I think we all deserve a break from all this mess. How would you two feel about taking off and going on down the coast? We could keep checking back with Mr. Graham and letting him know where we are and we could hop on a plane and come back when we need to.”

“Why do we need to come back at all?” Julia asked. “I mean, we don’t have to testify or anything, and this next part is where Mr. Crock-of-shit starts bringing in people to tell what a good man my father is. It isn’t something I want to sit through. What about ya’ll?”

I let out a long breath that I had been holding, hoping she was going to say something like that.

“I’m all for skipping at least that part, how about you Mimi?” I said.

“Thank God,” Mimi said, “I was hoping someone would say that. Let’s go talk to Dr. Anna and see if she’ll agree.”

Dr. Anna agreed. She said she thought it would be the best medicine she could prescribe for all of us. We decided to leave the next morning. We were going to drive and not worry about where or for how long we’d be in any one place. I was so excited about it.

That night we were sitting on the porch, all three of us sitting in the swing, just swinging and not saying a word, all lost in our own thoughts. It was so nice and peaceful. Tracy drove up and got out of the car. I dreaded what she had to say and didn’t want anything to disturb our peace. But when she got out of the car, she ran up the steps smiling.

“It’s over,” She said, “We didn’t even have to listen to any bull from any of the other inmates. We took Mr. Reynolds into an interview room, and sweated him. It didn’t take long. His lawyer was there and had already advised him to take the plea.

“I think he was scared about what might come out, and almost came out, about what he did to you, Julia. He was ready to take anything, probably because he knows what they do to pedophiles in prison. He’s getting life without the possibility of parole.

“The only thing he asked in return was that he sees you one last time, Julia. He said that if you won’t see him, he didn’t care what happened to him.”

Without hesitation Julia said, “I’ll see him. I wanted to anyway, but only if I can have Judith and Mimi with me.”