“I can’t be there.”
I dropped my coffee. The cup clipped the island and chipped. Coffee spilled onto the floor. But I couldn’t worry about it just then. I felt faint. Like my life raft had deflated. And I was sinking into the abyss. Deeper and darker. Blotches of black covered my sight until there was nothing but night sky. Roman caught my shoulders before I fell off the island stool. He helped me flop my head in between my knees.
Jesula came in through the front door. She had her own key. And today was one of her cleaning days. There was much less to do now, without Jason, but of course I still wanted to employ her twice a week. She saw Roman, shirtless, a sheen of sweat on his back, standing in the kitchen. And she saw me barely on a stool with my head flopped down. I was unconscious then, but I later worried she had thought she walked in on something untoward, and had lost respect for me.
Roman turned to her and explained, “She just fainted.” Jesula rushed over. She knelt under the sink and grabbed some cleaning products. Opened one and sprayed it on the floor beneath me, letting the strong ammonia smell waft up. I could feel my color coming back, my clammy skin return to its normal texture. The black blotches receding. I lifted my head and saw her face. I weakly smiled. “Thank you.” She nodded and looked at the spilled coffee. She said, “I’ll take care of it. Go lie down.”
And without a word Roman gallantly and effortlessly scooped me off the stool and up into his arms. To an onlooker it would have seemed romantic. The start of a fantasy. A steamy sex scene so perfect it only happens to other people. A gesture as elegant as a handsome gentleman seamlessly leaning over at the perfect moment and lighting a cigarette for a beautiful girl at a bar in the 1940s. But that cigarette later causes cancer. And I didn’t feel sexy in Roman’s arms. I felt like a rag doll. And then, because of the way he was carrying me, I felt like a bride.
“Put me down.”
He put me down. Immediately.
“I can make it to the couch myself.”
I did make it, and sat in the living room upright. I felt my personality returning to me. My strength and my fury. And I said, “What the fuck? Why can’t you be at the grand jury?”
“Because it’s not a trial. Or a police interrogation. You won’t be there yourself. So, you don’t get any advocates. Or have any rights.”
This sank in. A man would be saying the worst things about me to a group of well-meaning citizens. While hauling in people from my past. I had never felt so out of control. Roman tried to comfort me. He sat next to me on the couch and nudged me into him. So I rested my weight onto the side of his still-shirtless body.
He said, “We are already ahead of this. Because usually the target of grand juries never even knows there is one happening behind their back.”
“Target?”
“Yeah. That’s what the defendants are called.”
“Doesn’t sound very diplomatic.”
“It’s not. But I know the drill. Just hang in there. And trust me.”
I watched Jesula through the doorway as she mopped up the spilled coffee. And I contemplated my options. I really had none. A grand jury would happen. An indictment was bound to come next. And I was now referred to as a target. Trusting Roman and his process would have to be enough.
CHAPTER 40
SMOKE
Even though I was not allowed to watch the grand jury proceedings, I was able to piece together what was being said and insinuated and then fill in the rest of the blanks with my worst fears. I could do this because unlike a lot of targets, I still had allies among the many witnesses that the assistant district attorney called to the stand. People like Dr. Don and Marco Hamilton and Ellie. If my wedding was heaven, all my favorite people surrounding me in a cocoon of love and support, the grand jury trial was hell. Many of those same people were now being ruthlessly questioned against their own will, and their testimony was being twisted and turned to use against me. And although they were cautioned to keep the content of the questioning confidential, they were outraged to be subpoenaed and dragged in there. And were therefore happy to give me and Roman any advantage they could by giving us every detail they remembered. Roman would use all this information to serve him later. I, however, wanted to know everything they could tell me about the inquisition so I could build up my tolerance to pain.
The first thing that became clear to me was that the ADA, fueled by Detective Jackson’s evidence and Gertrude’s suspicion, believed that Jason’s murder was not a crime of passion, but premeditated first-degree murder. He planned to prove that I was exceptionally capable of executing the whole thing and that Mr. Cat was my accomplice. According to him, once my cat was diagnosed with diabetes, I concocted what I thought was the perfect way to get away with murder. I was well versed with using needles, since I had to give the cat two shots a day. And since I was a “type 3 diabetic,” the term for someone who lives with and cares for a type 1, I was also well versed with how insulin affects blood sugar.
The prosecutor believed and planned to convey to the nice folks on the grand jury that I took one of Mr. Cat’s extremely thin needles, filled the syringe with insulin from either a backup vial of Jason’s or from Mr. Cat’s stash, and while Jason was sleeping, I inserted the needle into a place on his body that would be easily missed by the coroner. Probably into a tiny hole from a previous place he had inserted his insulin pump. And because he had been conveniently cremated, under my orders, there was now no chance for the coroner to go over Jason’s body again to specifically check for a suspect needle mark.
It was in this manner that I pumped my husband, Jason Hollander, full of insulin. Causing his blood sugar to go dangerously low. His continuous glucose monitor did start beeping a warning, but Jason was already too disoriented to help himself. And I stood by callously and waited until he died. Then I called 9-1-1, shoved some sugar into his mouth once I knew it would do no good, and put on an act and pretended to be upset. Jason’s chronic but manageable disease gave me the perfect excuse for his death. Leaving me the freedom to collect his life insurance, as well as his inheritance and condo, and run off with my lover, veterinarian Marco Hamilton. The prosecutor would also make sure to tell the grand jury that the cops who arrived on the scene that early morning did note in their report that I was stunned and in shock but could have been, and this is a quote from the official notes, “merely going through the motions.”
Roman assured me that in my actual trial, he would point out that Jason had clearly stated in his own will that he wanted to be cremated, so it was not under my orders at all, but under his. And their entire case against me was ridiculously circumstantial. Not to mention Jason and his mother, the very woman who we have on record calling the police station and first accusing me of his murder, were estranged, and it was her misguided anger that was wasting hardworking taxpayers’ money by callously and wrongfully using the justice system for her own petty revenge.