Stand Your Ground: A Novel (27 page)

This time, Wyatt nodded and grunted.

“My plan is for you to be in jail for just a few hours. Overnight, tops.”

Those words woke my husband up.

“Jail?” he said. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

“Don’t panic. Remember I told you last week that this could happen. But we’ve got it under control. I’m thinking that there may not even be a trial. I’m thinking that a good part of this is symbolic.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, tomorrow is June twelfth, a month later . . . you know.”

“Are you sure that I’m going to get bail?” Wyatt asked.

“In Pennsylvania, every defendant has the opportunity for bail. You’re white, no other offenses, you’re not a flight risk, you’ll get bail. It may be high, though.”

Wyatt raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t worry,” Newt said. “You’ll be able to handle it. About a million, though I’m going to get it as low as possible because it has to be in cash.”

“I don’t have that kind of money sitting around. It may take a few days.”

“We’ll handle it. I’m not going to let you sit in there.”

Wyatt released a long breath and held his head in his hands.

“Listen to me, buddy,” Newt said. “I need you to be strong. Because it’s important that you show nothing but confidence. Everybody has to believe that you know you’re innocent. And then everybody will know that, too.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I closed my eyes because I didn’t know it.

Newt said, “It’s going to be a simple case, a self-defense case.”

“Good,” Wyatt said. “I wanna tell everyone that I was standing my ground.”

“That’s not a defense. Self-defense is the legal defense, and we’ll talk about Stand Your Ground as part of that.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“The other side wants to put this law on trial, but they’re making a mistake. They have no basis for attacking Stand Your Ground. As soon as Marquis brought that bat out, it was over. There was nothing else that you could do.”

“Right. Right.” And then, my husband added, “I want to testify.”

But he’d
hardly gotten the words out when Newt said, “I can already tell you that’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?” my husband asked, with a tinge of that confident rage that he always had. “It’s self-defense; won’t I have to testify?”

“No, there are plenty of ways around it. And I have a feeling that the prosecution is going to put you on the stand via your taped interview versus your statements.”

“Is that bad?”

Newt shrugged. “It’s not good. You contradicted yourself, but I’ll be able to handle that.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, I want to get on that stand and tell everyone exactly what happened.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? And that’s one of the reasons why I won’t let you testify. You, my friend, don’t do a good job of listening to other people and you certainly can’t always hold in your anger. The DA will rip you apart.”

“No, he—”

Newt didn’t even let him finish. “That’s a definite, dude. You’re not testifying.” And then he paused, and looked at me. “We haven’t decided, but we are thinking about having Meredith take the stand.”

“What?” Wyatt and I said together.

“I thought a wife couldn’t testify against her husband.”

Newt frowned. “Of course she wouldn’t be testifying against you. She’d be one of our witnesses, part of the defense, testifying for you.”

I swallowed, I shook, and I thanked God that I didn’t faint right there.

“When the jurors take a look at her,” Newt said as if I weren’t there; and then, his eyes roamed over me as if Wyatt wasn’t there,
“no one is going to believe that a man married to her would kill anyone.”

“Really?” Wyatt asked. “That kind of stuff works?”

“In cases like this, it’s all about theatrics. Never forget Johnnie Cochran and the glove. All drama and that’s what we’re going to do, too.”

Finally, I found my words. “But I can’t testify.” When both of them frowned, I said, “I’d be too nervous. And . . . I don’t want to do anything to hurt Wyatt.”

Newt nodded and Wyatt once again took my hand. “Don’t worry about that, Meredith,” Newt said. “We’ll have you so prepped, you’ll be fine. We haven’t decided yet; I just wanted to put it out there, give you a heads-up.”

“Okay,” Wyatt said, and squeezed my hand as if he were speaking for me. “She’ll be ready.”

“I know she will be.” Newt stood. “Well, if you don’t have any other questions, I want to get going. There’s lots of work to do before tomorrow.”

Wyatt and I stood with him, though only Wyatt walked him to the door. I didn’t have the strength. I had to use all the energy I had to figure out how to stay off the stand.

W
hy was the door open?

I took two steps down the stairs and heard Wyatt’s footsteps, rushing along the marble.

And then I saw him. Running toward the door. But he slipped and dropped what he was carrying.

A bat.

Billy’s baseball bat.

I frowned and wondered what was he doing with that?

Wyatt bent down, then looked up and into the glass that surrounded our door. That served as a mirror at night.

His back was still to me as he looked into that reflection.

A second passed, then another, and another.

And then he rushed out the door.

What was he doing with that bat?

I shot straight up in my bed, panting. It took a few seconds before I realized I was home, in my bedroom, in my bed, next to Wyatt.

Moving as gently as I could, I eased out of the bed, then scurried across to the bathroom. I took great care in making sure the door made no sound as I closed it, then I assumed the position.

But nothing came out. I was empty. Of everything.

I lowered the cover of the commode, sat on it, held my head in my hands, and remembered the rest of May 12. How I’d come downstairs, just in time to peek out the door. Just in time to see Wyatt trot to the end of our driveway, then watch him roll Billy’s bat under a car parked in front of our home.

Then, only a couple of seconds after that, two police cars appeared with flashing lights and parked next to the car. I wanted to go outside and stand by Wyatt; I wanted to know what was going on. But I couldn’t leave Billy alone.

So from the window, I watched as Wyatt spoke to the police, and watched the police help a young girl out of the car.

Then my eyes widened as Wyatt walked up our driveway with one of the officers.

“What happened?” I asked when he was still feet away.

“I just shot someone.”

“Oh, my God, Wyatt.” I tried to get a glance out the door, but he blocked me from seeing. “What happened?”

“I was trying to help a girl, and this thug came after me. With a baseball bat.”

“A baseball bat?”

Wyatt spoke over me. “I have to go down to the police station. To give a statement.” He leaned over and gave me a long, long, long kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. They just need to ask me a few questions.”

The officer nodded as if what Wyatt was saying was true. Then, the two of them walked away. And as I watched the policeman escort my husband down the driveway, then open the door of the squad car, I wondered about that baseball bat. And I wondered if Wyatt knew that I’d seen him.

For weeks now, I’d been asking myself that question—did Wyatt know that I’d seen him?

I heard just the slightest creak and I looked up and gasped when Wyatt stepped into the bathroom.

“You scared me!”

“Really? I’m sorry, sweetheart.” His gaze was filled with curiosity. “What’s wrong with you?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

He sighed and waited a moment before he asked, “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

My heart swooped down to my feet. “Tell you what? I just wasn’t feeling well, and didn’t want to disturb you.”

He reached for me and I was so afraid to touch him, but I did. I took his hand and he raised me up. Then, closing the gap between us, he placed his hand on my belly, and I stopped breathing.

When he leaned over and kissed my stomach, I closed my eyes.

He knew!

“I hope it’s a girl this time,” he whispered. “That would complete our family. A girl and a boy.”

I said nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“Because with all that’s going on, I didn’t want this to be a burden.”

His voice was soft and gentle and kind when he said, “How could a child with you, the woman I love, be a burden? I’m thrilled about this.”

“I was worried . . .”

“This is perfect timing, sweetheart. We’ll have to tell Newt tomorrow. So that he can expedite the trial. Because in court, everyone needs to see that you’re pregnant. And then they will know that there is no way they can take a man away from his pregnant wife.” He held my face between his hands and kissed me. “When they see your beautiful face and your swollen belly.” He kissed me again. “I know you’re scared, sweetheart, but we’re going to get through this together. You won’t have to worry; I’m not going to prison. This is a blessing. It’s a sign that God doesn’t want me in jail, that God knows my heart, that God knows what I did was right.”

He leaned back and he peered into my eyes. And what I wanted to see in his was love. But that’s not what I saw. His voice, his words, were the opposite of his hard stare. His warning.

I trembled.

He took two steps back and smiled. Held my hand and led me away. Back to bed.

He whispered, “It’s going to be all right,” over and over as he pulled back the duvet and tucked me into bed.

I wanted to run. Truly. But where would I go?

Wyatt smoothed the covers over me, and as he went to his side, I talked to the God that Wyatt said approved of what he’d done.

Seconds later, he was beside me, his body pressed against my back, and he wrapped me in a tight hug.

I trembled some more.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, though my voice shook in rhythm with my body.

“Your heart—it’s racing.”

I was just glad that it was still beating.

He said, “I told you, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Okay.” My voice sounded as high as my three-year-old’s.

There was a long moment of silence before he said, “Just remember when you get on the stand, how much I love you, how much you love me.” A beat. “And a wife cannot testify against her husband.”

I pressed my lips together. Wyatt knew.

Wyatt totally knew.

And I was so scared. For so many reasons.

I PROMISE . . .

TO TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH

AND NOTHING BUT . . .

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Janice

P
ushing the clutch onto the back of my earring, I stepped into my bedroom and stopped. Inside, I moaned. How many more times would I walk into this scene?

Tyrone sat on the edge of the bed, the remote hanging from his hand as he stared at the television screen. Long seconds passed between each blink, as if he were afraid that he would miss something.

Not even when he watched the Eagles playing on one of their losing Sundays did he stay in such a trancelike state. There was only one story that made him like this.

I walked to the bed and sat next to my husband before I reached for his hand, and the remote, but Tyrone moved both away from me. He did press pause, though, stopping the live coverage of the reporter who was already staked out at the courthouse.

Freezing the television was worse than letting the story play. Because now the screen was frozen on Clarissa Austin, holding the microphone right beneath her chin.

But I knew Tyrone wasn’t looking at Clarissa. His eyes were on the upper corner—on the photo of me.

I let a couple of moments go by. Then, “I’m sorry.”

Tyrone didn’t turn to look at me. With his eyes still on the TV, he said, “What are you apologizing for?”

“You know.”

“Well, if you’re apologizing about what happened with you and Pastor Brown, you apologized already.”

“I’m going to keep apologizing. Until it’s enough.”

He nodded like he agreed, but he didn’t say that he did.

I asked, “Why do you keep watching this over and over?”

He pressed his lips together as if he wanted to keep in the first words that came to mind. Finally, “They’re going to make this an issue in court,” he said, not answering my question. Then came what felt like a bombshell to me. He said, “Maybe you shouldn’t testify.”

I was one of the fifty-six people on the prosecution’s witness list. Not that I could give any kind of information about what happened between Wyatt Spencer and my son. But the DA told me that I needed to testify in order to bring Marquis alive—in a truthful manner. I needed to be on the stand to combat the thug-living, drug-dealing, juvenile-delinquent boy the defense had made Marquis out to be. I had to fight their lies with the truth that could only be told by a mother.

“I have to,” I said to Tyrone. “I have to testify for Marquis.”

Even though he shook his head, his eyes didn’t turn away from that dang television. “No, you don’t. They’re never going to convict him anyway. He’s white, he’s rich; that cracker’s never going to prison, and all of this has been nothing but a waste of time.”

If I thought not testifying would provide Tyrone with relief from the pubic humiliation he felt, if I thought it would help my marriage, I would have run straight to the DA as soon as this news about my affair had come to light.

But over the last few months, I’d seen what keeping silent against the machine that worked for Wyatt Spencer had done. Silence did nothing—except give more room for lies to be told and lies to be heard. And they had told so many lies, making it seem like Tyrone and I were absent parents who’d had a child out of wedlock. They never mentioned that we’d married before Marquis turned one or that we’d been married for almost seventeen years.