Something in Fairview’s eyes flickered, just for a second. The rest of his face remained impassive. As the tape began to play, he made his disinterest obvious, at one point even yawning as seconds ticked by and nothing happened.
But then the woman appeared with the dog. The jurors leaned for-ward in their seats. And finally, there he was, Senator Fairview, running in a panic. In a panic from the mess he had just left behind.
When the tape ended, Fairview was slumped in the witness chair. He looked, Allison thought, broken. In a voice so small she had to strain to hear it, he said, “I would like to consult with my attorney.”
“All right, Senator.” She turned to the grand jurors. “Okay, people, we’ll take a ten-minute recess.”
Allison remained at her table, although she could hear the excited babble of the grand jurors’ voices as they took their chance to grab a snack and gossip about what they had just seen and heard.
When the break was over and Fairview had returned to the stand, she said, “Senator, would you care to explain what we just saw?”
He put his palm over his heart. “I swear to you, I am innocent. I did not kill Katie Converse. She was already dead when I found her.”
Allison said, “Why do you expect us to believe that?” 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.
Most people’s inclination was to explain and convince and to try to make the prosecutor see it their way.
But Fairview said simply, “I expect you to believe me because I am telling the truth. I panicked when I found her body, and I ran away. You look at that videotape and you can tell that I was startled and afraid. But I did not kill Katie Converse. She took her own life.”
They had not released the results of the autopsy publicly for this very reason—to help them flush out a killer. Katie’s parents knew the truth, as did the investigators—and now the grand jurors—but no one else.
“Then tell us what happened,” Allison said. “Tell us what really happened.”
He sighed and pressed his hands against his face. “It’s true that Katie and I had developed a relationship while she was a page. I didn’t seek it out—it just happened. It was really more her idea than mine.”
Behind her, Allison heard an angry hiss. Was Fairview testing his strategy for the future trial just as she was testing hers? Because if he was, it had just backfired.
“We met each other at that spot in Forest Park a couple of times over Thanksgiving break, when we were desperate to see each other. Katie knew the park well—she grew up only a few blocks away, and she and her dad went for walks there all the time. She had found this clearing that was off the main trails.
“But this time, instead of going there together, she called and demanded that I meet her there. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was very angry. She threatened to tell my wife what had happened between us. So finally I agreed. The other times, we had walked there together. At first I thought I was lost. I couldn’t see Katie anyplace. I was calling her name. And then the dog ran up to me. I wasn’t even sure it was hers at first. It didn’t have its leash. It was barking and running around in circles, all excited. And then it started racing up the path and stopping to look at me. Like it wanted me to follow. And so I did.” Fairview’s voice shook. “And—and there she was. Lying on the ground with a noose around her neck. Katie had killed herself. She had wanted me to find her like that. She was hell-bent on punishing me.”
It would have been a clever twist—had the autopsy not put the lie to Fairview’s claim.
“Punish you?” Allison echoed. “Why would she want to punish you?”
“Because earlier that day she had seen Nancy and me Christmas shopping. We were—we were holding hands. Katie called me, screaming that I was cheating on her.” His voice rose indignantly. “Cheating on her? With my wife?”
And suddenly Allison knew that there had been something more. The blog entries, Katie’s anger and sadness—it all added up.
“You got her pregnant, didn’t you?”
A couple of the grand jurors gasped.
“And then you forced her to have an abortion.”
“No! It wasn’t like that at all.” Fairview held his hands out, pleading with Allison and the jurors. “I tried to talk her out of having the abortion, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“So you paid for the abortion? Drove her to the clinic?”
“Katie was desperate. She said she would kill herself rather than have the baby.”