Just when I started to accept the new normal, that every morning while I forged ahead with my life there was a roomful of people listening to nonsense about me, Roman called my cell. He knew I was in session at work, so I knew it must be important. I usually allowed people an extra five or ten minutes in their session, schedule depending, but technically a visit with a psychologist is fifty minutes. So at that mark, I ushered my patient out, planning to call Roman back. And instead was surprised to see him standing in my waiting room. He had never been to my office before. His presence made it look smaller. I remained quiet, saying nothing until he was well inside and I had closed my door. In case there were people in the hallway who could hear us from the waiting room. Because I was an eavesdropper, I assumed everyone else was too.
Roman placed his laptop on a side table and told me to sit down. He pressed play with a heavy finger. I had no idea what I was watching at first, but I saw grainy footage of the busy corner of Forty-First Street and Royal Palm Avenue. It was raining, water drops glided over the security camera that caught the images, obscuring some but not all of the movement below. Then I saw the Witch, looking down at her cell phone. And I knew exactly what I was watching. Something that was not ridiculously circumstantial.
On tape, I saw myself standing near her. Our shoulders close enough for her to sense my forward movement. The whole event played out. Me confidently stepping into the street from the crosswalk while the Witch blindly followed me into the road. Then me quickly hopping back to safety and her getting crunched by a giant truck. The footage wasn’t clear enough to read facial expressions, but I remember playing the part, feigning panic and quickly looking away from the carnage.
Before Roman could say a word, I defended myself. “She wasn’t looking. It’s not my fault . . . Besides, if it is my fault, it’s ‘implied malice’ under the law. Which is much harder to prove than second-degree murder, or manslaughter. Nearly impossible, actually.”
Roman’s unhappy concern was briefly overshadowed with a look of pride. He was impressed. I told him I did pick up a few things while helping him study for his LSAT. Then my moment of showing off ended, and the hurricane of worry hit me. Roman also got serious again and said, “This footage is how Detective Jackson knew you were on that corner. He knew long before we went into that interrogation room to chat.”
My mind raced. “This is bad.”
“It’s not great.”
I asked, “How did you get this?”
“I got it because I know how to do my job. After you wondered aloud how the detective had placed you there, I told the private investigator I had hired to look into every possibility. The PI learned there was a crime-deterrent surveillance camera set up on that block. And that the city had long ago gotten rid of the old footage. But the large grocery store chain, guarding against lawsuits, kept the footage all this time to prove their truck driver was not to blame in case any distant relative of Evelyn W.’s decided to ask for a settlement.”
I knew this video might not land me in prison, but if it was leaked to the press, posted online, turned into a gory GIF, it would certainly ruin my life. What people think they know and what people can see with their own eyeballs are two very different things. I would be canceled.
I glanced at Roman. A lump of anxiety in my lungs. “So, what happens now?”
Roman said, “I’ve made sure the few people at the grocery store chain who had access to this will never let it surface to the public, beyond the police.”
“Made sure? How?”
“My firm is very persuasive. And I’ve also made it clear that if anyone in the police department leaks this to the press, or shows this to anyone outside the investigation, we will sue them and declare a mistrial before they even have a chance to arrest you for Jason’s death. My gut tells me Jackson wants to do this the right way. And sending this to the news is not the right way.”
I nodded, comforted a little.
Then Roman said, “Let’s just hope no more footage, of any kind, surfaces.” This felt pointed. And the hurricane around me raged. Before I could let it whisk me away fully, or before I could reach the calm center of the eye, the little light in my office clicked on, signaling my next patient. Other people’s problems didn’t stop just because mine were overwhelming.
Over the next couple of weeks, I was told “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” was the assistant district attorney’s favorite phrase. I imagined the ADA informing the grand jurors all about Evelyn W. A woman with some problems, yes, but who was taking the time to work on herself by going to therapy. A woman brave enough to confront her anger issues fifty minutes at a time. Dr. Don, under oath, had to admit that I did call Evelyn W. “the Witch” on numerous occasions. The ADA hammered home that I was her therapist, which made what I did to her even more egregious and obscene and downright evil. I was supposed to be the one to help her, not call her mean names and inch her toward getting horrifically run over by a giant grocery store truck. And of course the ADA would play the video for the grand jury, several times in a row, because people do love a visual aid.
I was sure the prosecutor was telling the grand jury how a little boy, an innocent little seven-year-old named Duncan Reese, drowned tragically and “accidentally” in the ocean. And how I was in the ocean that day too. Yes, I was only five years old. But I was already in the gifted program in my school. Cunning and intelligent, known for eavesdropping and learning grown-up words. And he would explain how that very boy had apparently been bullying my sister, who, by my own admission, I loved more than anything in the world. Protecting one’s family was a strong motive for murder, to be sure. When Ellie was called in, she was forced to open old wounds and concede that Duncan Reese had ruthlessly bullied her and yanked a curl from her head and that I was, as everyone already established, in the ocean when he drowned. “But the ocean is so big!” she yelled to the nameless faces deciding my fate. “And Ruby was so little!”
Ellie was then escorted out. Her work was done. But as she left the building, she told me she saw Hannah Vale striding in. Head held high. And I could imagine exactly what would happen next. The ADA would continue, “And speaking of family, Ruby Simon’s best friend’s father, Richard Vale, also suffered an untimely death while she was in the vicinity. Yes, Mr. Vale was allergic to peanuts, but beyond the horrors of his throat closing up, depriving him of life-sustaining oxygen, there was a little gash on the man’s eyebrow, unexplainable at the time of death. However, now looking back at it through a different lens, it speaks to foul play, perhaps a struggle with a homicidal teenage girl who had some sort of pointy object in her hand.”
Based on the chilly meeting I recently had with her in her boutique, I knew Hannah would be more than eager to confirm that what the prosecutor was saying was all true. I was sleeping at her house the night her dad died. And she was so drunk she doesn’t remember anything. So therefore, technically, anything could have happened. Maybe I wasn’t in her bedroom with her the whole time. Maybe I had crept downstairs and murdered her father. My motive? This was a grand jury—a motive was entirely unnecessary. Just an added cherry on top of the sundae.
Then Dr. Marco Hamilton was brought in to serve two purposes. He vehemently denied having an affair with me. But just having to be there testifying to our strictly platonic relationship demoralized him and made him seem unsure of what he was saying. He was also relentlessly questioned about my ability to understand the use of insulin. He had no choice but to testify to the fact that he did teach me how to administer insulin to Mr. Cat and that I seemed very comfortable and adept with the syringe.