When Smiles Fade (53 page)

“
Fuck
! How much more is there that I don’t know about?” she yelled at Emma.

“How much time do you have?” she retorted calmly. “This is going to be a long, long story.”

Over the weekend, Emma sat with her legal team and gave them the details of her life. She talked about her childhood and the abuse she and Gracie had suffered at the hands of Pepper and Jake. She discussed the kind of life she had shared with Ethan and the cruel indignities he had inflicted on her, but was careful never to reveal Pete had raped Gracie and her. And she didn’t utter a word about her involvement in the deaths the prosecution had tried so hard to link her with. That was something she intended to take to her grave.

When Emma came to the end of her story, Alexis and her assistant sat in silence, gravely contemplating the facts that had been laid before them. They now had the vital information they needed to set the stage anew so that the judge and jury could examine the case from a different perspective altogether. Emma’s defense lawyer began planning the line of questioning they would use to cross-examine Valerie Murphy about the real reason that had driven her daughter to disfigure her face. They needed to evoke the jury’s sympathy for Emma before its members decided her fate.

On Monday, when the court reconvened, Valerie was called back to the witness stand. Alexis Fairburn repeated the account of the events the witness claimed had led to her daughter’s attack on her. Then she turned to Valerie and asked gently, “Mrs. Murphy, is it a fact that Emma hurt you in retaliation for refusing to rescue your younger daughter, Gracie, from a shallow grave in the basement of your home where she had been buried for several days, although you knew that by doing so you were putting her life at risk?”

Valerie sat silently for several moments, stunned at the question. Then she started to cry. “I was afraid to defy Jake’s orders,” she whimpered. “He’s the one who did those horrible things to Gracie, not me! I couldn’t do anything about it, because I’m not like Emma. She never seems like she’s afraid of anything.”

Alexis now found her chance to hone in on her target, turning relentless as she questioned the witness in detail about the atrocities Pepper had inflicted on Emma.

Valerie now burst into sobs. “My husband was a good man!” she blubbered. “It was his drinking that made him so mean. I always reassured my girls that their father loved them. It was just that his life hadn’t turned out the way he’d planned.”

“So you did nothing to prevent these two men in your life from physically and verbally abusing your daughters?” Alexis persisted.

“Objection, Your Honor,” Elliot Lawes intervened. “Mrs. Murphy isn’t on trial here. Let’s remember this is a murder trial and the line of questioning adopted by the defense has nothing to do with the murder in this case.”

The judge considered for a moment. “Overruled,” he finally said. “While I agree that the line of questioning isn’t directly related to this case, I believe it’s important for the jury and
me
to understand the character of this witness.”

Without losing her composure or coming across as discourteous, Emma’s attorney proceeded to humiliate and belittle Valerie for her role in the systematic abuse of her children. By the time she left the witness stand, Valerie Murphy’s involvement in the abuse of her minor daughters had been irrevocably established and her integrity as a witness was in serious doubt.

Only two days earlier, most of the jury had perceived Emma as a ruthless rogue assailant, but within hours, Alexis Fairburn had established her point convincingly enough that there was more to her client’s story than met the eye. The jurors now felt compassion for the woman they had regarded as unfeeling as she sat through the trial without a change in her expression. The women jurors, in particular, were not only horrified by the ordeals the accused had endured from a tender age, but moved enough by her suffering to blame her choice of career as a stripper on her childhood tribulations.

A day later, in her closing argument, Emma’s attorney pointed out that the prosecution had failed to produce in court the weapons allegedly used to kill and mutilate Peter Somers. The police had not recovered the gun and the knife purportedly used in the slaying. She further reminded them that there was a reason for Emma’s fingerprints in Pete’s car and strands of her client’s hair being found on the victim’s clothes: Emma Murphy had never denied being at the bar with the victim on the evening of the murder. She had also stated that she accompanied him to his car later, where she kissed him, a fact that had been corroborated by witnesses at the scene. That did not, however, prove that her client had killed the victim.

Alexis Fairburn walked across the courtroom and stood directly in front of the jurors.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, gearing up for her closing speech, “I will ask you to consider the following facts: first, that no murder weapon has been recovered; second, that no one actually saw Miss Murphy kill Mr. Somers. My client left him in the backseat of his car, after they had, as she put it, ‘messed around for a while.’ She has admitted in court that they didn’t have intercourse and, in fact, stopped ‘fooling around,’ because she realized that Mr. Somers wasn’t ready for the long-term relationship she had been looking for. Now the decision is in your hands—and yours alone. You need no reminder, of course, that as jurors in this case, it is your duty to be absolutely certain that my client did, indeed, commit this murder. If there is even a shadow of doubt in your mind, it would be a grave injustice on your part to convict her. I repeat that my client is innocent. She has suffered much injustice from the time she was a small child, as you are now aware. Please ensure that you are not responsible for doing her yet another injustice. Please don’t destroy an innocent young woman’s life by sending her to prison.”

Two weeks later, after the jury had considered all available evidence and the testimony of witnesses, Emma was pronounced not guilty. During the trial, the local and national media had gone to town with the story. With the catchy label of “serial killer” having come up, the media had stayed riveted to the case, “improving” on the available tag and describing Emma as the “Serial Stripper—a killer who sought her own type of justice.”

Even though she had not been convicted of murder, the infamy of the trial would continue to haunt her long after the verdict had been delivered. But now that the facts from the case were public knowledge, Emma was praised for the resilience she had displayed in persevering through the dismal circumstances of her traumatic childhood and taking care of her younger sister. True to its unpredictable nature, the media now turned its venom on Valerie, portraying her as the most vicious mother that ever lived. Emma quietly enjoyed her mother’s disgrace, savoring every word she read in the newspapers about how society viewed her as an utterly despicable person.

As the bedlam surrounding the trial subsided, all Emma could think about was her need to get back to Izzy. Sydney and the herd had watched some of the highlights of the trial on the news. None of them could believe what was being said about Emma. And hard as she tried, Syd couldn’t shelter Izzy completely from the facts. When Emma was declared innocent, they all cheered and hugged each other and Sydney was finally able to announce to Isabella that her aunt was coming home to her.

Infected by the excitement of the teenagers around her, Izzy looked at her and asked, “So when will Aunt Em be here?”

“Soon, Iz,” Sydney promised, secretly relieved to be free of the responsibility of caring for the child. She shuddered to think what she would have done if Emma had been found guilty and given a life sentence.

Later that afternoon, Emma walked out of the prison gates, a free woman, to find that Salvatore had a cab waiting to pick her up and take her back to Kensington. She called him when she got home.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now, Isabella and I can start over.”

“Good idea, Bella,” he said encouragingly, wishing that he were a part of Emma’s new beginnings, but respecting her need to figure things out on her own.

Emma recognized the sadness in his voice. “I’ll be in touch with you soon,” she promised him.

It was nearly two months to the day Emma was released from prison that she left Izzy with Sydney, explaining that she needed to run an errand. She was on her way to fulfilling a promise she had made to herself while counting the long hours in prison, often lost in contemplation of what awaited her. Emma had known that if she were found innocent, she would have to go and face her mother. It was a chore that she could no longer avoid.

She parked on Chain Street and approached her childhood home on foot, noticing the slight changes that had taken place in the neighborhood while she’d been away. A lot more children lived on the street now compared to the time she was growing up there. She climbed the rickety steps and knocked lightly on her mother’s front door.

Valerie opened the door, peeked out, and froze.

“I don’t need any shit, Emma,” she said coldly.

“It’s okay, Mom,” her daughter reassured her. “I understand that you did what you thought was right at the time. It’s taken me all these years to realize that you were just too scared to help Gracie and me. I’m not here to start any trouble, I promise. I’m here to find out if you wanted to give our relationship a second chance.” Emma’s voice was tender with a new understanding.

Valerie looked at her suspiciously. “Why the change of heart?” she asked, her tone still skeptical.

“Well, for starters, you have a granddaughter. Gracie gave birth to her before she died,” Emma told her, remembering her sister with a twinge of sadness.

“I do?” Valerie perked up. “I have a grandchild! Oh, all of my friends will be
so
jealous of me! They all want to become grandmothers, but now I’m going to be the first! What’s her name?” she exclaimed.

The fact that Valerie had exhibited no signs of grief over Gracie’s death had not gone unnoticed by Emma. The news of Gracie succumbing to her injuries from a fatal car accident years ago had come up during the trial, but the death of her younger child seemed to have left Valerie unmoved.

Emma pushed herself to keep talking. “Her name is Isabella. We call her Izzy. So how about if I bring her over to see you tomorrow? Would that work?” Emma asked, looking for a commitment from her mother.

“Yes, of course,” Valerie assured her. “That’ll be fine. I’ll need to go out and buy some things. Why don’t you come for lunch? What does Isabella, I mean Izzy, like to eat?” she persisted, her mind on the phone calls she would make to her friends as soon as Emma left.

“Lunch would be great!” Emma said warmly. “Izzy likes pizza or macaroni and cheese. Either one will make her very happy.”

As she walked back to her car, she wondered how she would explain Valerie to Isabella. Her niece didn’t even know what a grandmother was, let alone that she had one.

Emma was back at her mother’s place the next day with Izzy in tow. She knocked on the front door and Valerie, excited about meeting her granddaughter, flung it open. She was delighted to notice how beautiful the child was. She also observed what a strong resemblance she bore to Emma.

“Well, hello there!” she smiled at Izzy. “I’m your grandma.”

“What’s wrong with your face?” Izzy asked with the directness of a child, backing away fearfully from what was a frightening sight to her.

Valerie looked nervously at Emma. “Grandma had an accident, honey,” she explained to Izzy.

“If you want to come in, I’d like to show you a picture of what I used to look like
before
my accident,” Valerie offered, glancing uneasily at her daughter.

“Okay,” Isabella agreed hesitantly, her hand going up to clasp her aunt’s in a firm grip.

“We’re having homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch,” Valerie told her granddaughter, trying to win her over.

“I love that!” the child said simply. Then she turned to her aunt. “Aunt Em, is this where you grew up?”

“Yep. In this very house,” Emma replied. “Want to see the room I shared with your mom when we were kids?” she asked, trying to divert the child with something she thought would interest her.

Isabella nodded, and the two of them climbed the stairs to the second floor together, while Valerie went off to the kitchen to tend to last-minute chores. Up in her old bedroom, memories of Gracie flooded Emma’s mind.

“This is where your mom and I would pretend we were princesses,” she told Izzy. “We imagined having beautiful clothes and lots of servants to order around. It was a lot of fun.”

Emma gave the child a tour of the rest of the house before finally entering the kitchen, where Valerie was waiting to serve them lunch. Izzy chatted about her books and games, telling her grandmother all the things she’d read about. Valerie listened attentively, taking it all in so that later, after they had left, she could call her friends and brag about having such a smart granddaughter.

She also asked Emma routine questions about where she’d been and what she’d done with her life since she left home. Then she quickly turned the focus of the conversation on herself.

“I’ve been really lonely since everyone left me,” Valerie said in a self-pitying tone. “My looks don’t exactly pull the men to me like they used to, if you know what I mean. And I still don’t sleep too well at night.”