A Matter of Trust

Chapter 41





It happened again that night—Brooke screaming in terror, Mia unable to wake her, Gabe hovering, helpless and wide-eyed, at the end of his sister’s bed. The only difference was that Mia knew she would be seeing their pediatrician the next day. She just prayed that Dr. Gibbs would know what was going on.

Mia had gotten the earliest doctor’s appointment that she could—eight thirty. As she parked in front of the medical office, part of her worried that Frank would note her absence and be unhappy. But she was no Frank. Her kids came first.

When Dr. Gibbs came into the exam room, Mia immediately felt her shoulders loosen. As she looked into his calm gray eyes, caught in a net of wrinkles, she let her breath out in a whoosh. Dr. Gibbs was nearly seventy. He had once told Mia that he even had a few former patients whose grandchildren now came to him.

He patted the exam table. “Okay, Brooke, do you think you can get all the way up here for me?”

Excited by the challenge, Brooke scrambled up. Dr. Gibbs was a small man, nearly elfin, so he was only a few inches taller than Brooke as he listened to her lungs and heart and looked into her ears. Then he handed her a picture book from the rack on the wall. “Why don’t you look at this while your mother and I talk.”

He turned to Mia. “Has her father’s death greatly affected her?” His soothing voice still held the hint of a Scottish burr.

“She was sad when it happened. But she’s so young, I’m not sure how much she understands.” Mia tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. It thickened when he patted her shoulder.

“Since this problem began, has she seemed different during the daytime? Is she unhappy? Lashing out?”

Mia thought back. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“And does she ever remember these episodes when she is truly awake?”

“No.”

He nodded. “I think I know what we’re dealing with.”

Mia braced herself. Was it some kind of seizure? Mental illness? A brain tumor?

“What Brooke is experiencing is something known as night terrors.” He patted her hand. “But they’re more terrifying for the parents than the child. About one or two kids out of every hundred get them. They’re not nightmares, and they’re not the result of bad dreams. Some children’s brains simply haven’t learned how to transition from deep sleep to light sleep. The result is a night terror. It presents in a manner similar to sleepwalking. The brain waves, the sweating, the tachycardia—accelerated heart rate—and the increased respiration rate are similar.”

Mia remembered what her dad had said. “My father told me I used to sleepwalk.”

“There you go.” Dr. Gibbs nodded. “There may be some genetic predisposition. But just as you did, Brooke will eventually grow out of it. You can help her by keeping a regular bedtime. Try putting her to bed at eight or eight thirty every single night. Don’t let her fall asleep earlier than that, and don’t keep her up later. And if she continues to have night terrors, you should pay attention to how long after she goes to bed they occur. Then try waking her up fifteen minutes before that time and keeping her awake for about five minutes. In a few months her brain should catch up with her sleep patterns and the night terrors should stop altogether.”



Even though she barely made it back to the courtroom for her scheduled time in front of the grand jury, Mia felt oddly relaxed. Brooke was okay.

She began by bringing the grand jury up to speed on the events of the last few days. She put Charlie on the stand to testify about what Gina Miller had said about being near Colleen’s house the night of the murder.

“And Gina Miller volunteered for a polygraph?” Mia asked.

“Yes.” Charlie nodded. “I observed as it was administered. According to the examiner, she passed the test with no signs of deception.” While the polygraph results weren’t admissible in court, they could be helpful when considered in totality with other evidence. “We also took possession of a .22 caliber pistol that had been stored in a shoe box. She claimed the gun had not been fired in several years, but there is no way to test for that.”

He also talked about the homeless girl who lived across the street from Colleen.

“And what efforts have you made to find her?” Mia asked. In a way, she was asking for herself as much as for the grand jury. She hadn’t touched base with Charlie since they had spoken with Ophelia.

“I went to the local high school and determined that Ronni Slate has been attending this school year. However, Friday was the last day she was in school. I talked to several of her friends and encouraged them to have her contact me, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”

Finally Mia asked him to explain to the grand jury about Willy Mercer, who had been prosecuted by Stan for a little girl’s murder and who himself had been murdered, targeted for a killing it later turned out he actually hadn’t committed.

“And what have you learned since then, Detective Carlson?”

“Colleen Miller prosecuted the girl’s real killer two years ago.” He explained how the girl’s stepfather had been the man who really murdered her. “The parents of Willy Mercer divorced after his death. I’ve spoken with his mother, and she denied any involvement in Mr. Slavich’s or Ms. Miller’s death. Willy’s dad, Seth Mercer, has moved since his son was killed, and I’m trying to locate him for questioning.”

Mia turned to the grand jury. “Do you have any questions for Detective Carlson?”

“How could everyone believe that poor boy was guilty?” a woman with red-framed eyeglasses asked.

Charlie sighed. “It’s unintentional, but sometimes people see what they want to see. Given the previous charge that Willy Mercer had been a Peeping Tom, Stan Slavich focused on the things that linked him to this case. Unfortunately, Mr. Slavich was wrong.”

Mia wondered if Stan had paid the ultimate price for his blindness. Public defenders like Eli Hall were often asked how they could defend a murderer or a rapist: what if a guilty man went free? But no one seemed to realize that the prosecutor faced a similar dilemma: what if an innocent man was imprisoned? Even if Stan had been right 99 percent of the time, that still meant that out of a hundred cases, one defendant he prosecuted might have been innocent, sent to prison for a crime he or she hadn’t committed.

The same horrible statistic applied to Mia.

When there were no more questions, Mia said, “Okay, people, we’ll take a ten-minute recess and then we’ll turn to the case of Darin Dane.”

Mia remained at her table, although she could hear the babble of the grand jurors’ voices as they took their chance to grab a snack and discuss what they had just seen and heard.

Ten minutes later the court reporter swore in Reece Jones. Today he was dressed in a navy blue suit that set off his blue eyes and dark hair. The suit was perhaps a mistake on the part of his attorney, because it made him look several years older than fourteen.

“Now, Mr. Jones, could you please tell us where you go to school?” Mia asked.

Reece looked down at a yellow piece of paper that he clutched in his hand.

“On the advice of my attorney,” he said, “I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.” His voice started out small and then got louder as he went along.

Reece might have an attorney, but the attorney was not allowed to accompany his client into the grand jury room. Instead he was forced to wait on one of the narrow benches in the hall and hope that his client didn’t decide to disregard his script.

“You seem to be reading from a piece of yellow paper, and there is some writing on that paper,” Mia said. “Is that writing what you have just read to us now?”

Reece hesitated, then finally said, “Yes.”

“And did your attorney write that out for you this morning?”

After a moment’s pause, he looked back down. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.”

The jurors looked at each other with raised eyebrows and shakes of the head.

“Did you know Darin Dane?”

Another glance at the paper, although by now Mia thought Reece should have had it memorized. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.” When Reece raised his face, he was smiling.

No, scratch that, Mia thought. He was smirking.

She fought to keep her own voice neutral. “Did you ever physically strike Darin Dane?”

A hint of singsong crept into Reece’s voice. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.”

Murmurs now.

“Did you ever hack into his Facebook page and put up malicious postings?”

Reece’s eyebrows drew down. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then finally read his prepared statement again. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.”

As he spoke, a few jurors began to mutter impatiently.

“Okay, Mr. Jones, I understand that your lawyer has instructed you to not answer today. We”—she indicated the grand jury—“would like to hear from you if you change your mind. Until then, thank you.”

Reece left with a bounce in his step.

Next, Brandon Shiller was brought into the room and sworn in. His hair, so stiff with gel it angled straight out from his head, made Mia think of a character from one of the video games Gabe liked to play. She wondered how seriously he was taking all of this. But then she looked into his wide-spaced brown eyes and saw fear. Secretly Mia was glad. How frightened must Darin have been of Brandon?

“Mr. Shiller, where do you go to school?”

“Independence High.”

“What year are you in?”

“I’m a freshman.” He kept his eyes on his folded hands.

“And who are your close friends at school?”

“I don’t know. Reece, I guess. And Conrad. Zane.”

“Could you please give me their last names, Mr. Shiller?”

“Um, okay. It’s Reece Jones, Conrad Silcox, and Zane Appall.” His fingers were still folded, but now the knuckles were white.

“And are you involved in any sports at Independence High?”

“Right now I play football.”

“And those other boys you mentioned, do they also play football?”

He nodded.

“Mr. Shiller, would you mind answering that question out loud for the court reporter?”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Okay. They all play football.”

“Did you know a boy named Darin Dane?”

His shoulders tensed. “Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“Since sixth grade, I guess.”

“What did you think of him?” Mia asked. Brandon might look like a cartoon character, but he probably wasn’t stupid. He knew he was suspected of bullying, so he would try to minimize the distaste he had felt for Darin.

“I don’t know.” A shrug. “I didn’t know him that well.”

“You just said you’ve known him since sixth grade.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we hung out.” He pressed his lips together. “We were never friends.”

“You seem pretty adamant about that. Did you dislike Darin?”

“No.” He shook his head a little too hard.

“No?”

“We were just different types of people, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I play sports, like you said. Darin isn’t like that. Wasn’t.”

“Well, what was he like?”

“He was different. All his friends were girls.”

“It seems like a boy your age might like to have a girlfriend.”

His face reddened. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, it was like he was a girl too.”

“And did you ever verbally tease him about these differences?”

“No.”

“Really?” Mia said. “Remember, you swore to tell the truth. It’s an oath. Is there anything you want to change about what you said, anything at all?” She would have loved to have leaned into his face when she asked the question, but in a grand jury trial the prosecutor always remained seated for the questioning.

“Well, maybe I teased him a little bit. But it was just being funny and stuff. Anyway, if he had tried harder to act normal, maybe nothing would have happened.”

A few jurors recoiled. Mia knew she had them now, that they were already making up their minds about this boy.

“These things that just happened—did they involve any physical contact?”

Brandon played dumb. “What do you mean?”

“In PE, for example, did you ever snap him with a towel?”

“Maybe a couple of times.”

“Did you ever push him in the showers?”

Brandon was silent for a long moment. “Maybe. Maybe once or twice.”

“Did you ever trip him?”

Silence.

Mia repeated, “Did you ever trip Darin Dane, Mr. Shiller?”

“A few times. Not that many.”

“And did you ever strike Darin with a closed fist?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember.” She said it flatly, not phrasing it as a question.

“I might have, once,” Brandon said. “But other people did that too. It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one.”

“Can you tell me their names?”

“Those guys I said before. Reece. Zane. Conrad. A few more.”

“Tell me, Mr. Shiller, is there a name for people that Mr. Jones beats up?”

“Yeah.” His voice was nearly inaudible. “We call them Reece’s Pieces.”

One of the jurors gasped.

“I’d like you to look at three notes, Mr. Shiller.” She leaned forward and handed them to him. “They are numbered exhibits 39, 40, and 41. Now, first, looking at number 39—and please don’t take it out of the plastic—do you recognize the handwriting?”

“Maybe. It’s hard to say.”

“Whose handwriting does it resemble?”

“Reece’s. Maybe.”

They already had a handwriting expert who would testify the handwriting belonged to Reece, but there was no point spending the money twice on an expert witness. She would save it for the trial. Mia felt she had more than enough for the grand jury to indict. When it came to the grand jury, they weren’t looking for guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They were simply looking for a preponderance of evidence.

The exhibits were passed from hand to hand. A couple of the jurors shook their heads when they read the more violent threats.

“And do you know what happened after Darin received the note labeled number 41?”

“He went out to the track and someone beat him up.”

“Do you know who did it?” she asked.

Brandon bit his lip. “You won’t tell him what I said?”

The jurors were quiet now, listening intently.

“These grand jurors are all sworn to secrecy. They can’t talk about what happens in this room. So you are safe telling them everything you know and everything you believe.”

“Reece beat him up.” He was talking to his lap now, shoulders slumped.

“And what about Darin’s Facebook page. Did you ever post on it?”

“A couple of times.”

“What specifically did you post?”

“Called him some names. You know, like queer.”

“And did you hack into his Facebook page and post invitations as if you were Darin for boys and men to come to Darin’s house?”

He looked her in the eye. “No, I didn’t do that.”

If it hadn’t been Brandon, it had to have been Reece, although it really seemed more like something Brandon would have done. “Do you know who did?”

The rule of thumb was that you should never ask a witness a question to which you didn’t already know the answer. But there wasn’t really a way around it when you had a hostile witness in front of the grand jury.

“Yeah.” He looked up at her. “It was Jeremy. Jeremy Donaldson did it.”