Katie rolled her eyes. “This is Pirates in Paradise. You have avid historians around here. Vanessa, Marty sent me out to ask you to come and be a part of the program.”
“What?” Vanessa said. “Katie, I don’t know anything about what they’re doing, I’d be a bump on the log, and it would just be…”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Vanessa!” Zoe said, enthused. “Come on, you’ve played a monster, a corpse and…and a body a zillion times. Why not find out about it?”
“Come on!” Katie drew her along. Vanessa did her best to lag. She liked being behind a camera. She loved being the eye that found the visions.
But Katie was determined. They came to Marty’s booth, and he greeted her with a huge kiss and was pleased to meet Zoe. “It’s the trial—just respond as you would if you’d been arrested,” Marty said. “Ah, come now, I did tell you girls that I might need some help.”
“Whose trial? If it’s Anne Bonny and Mary Reid, I don’t know enough of the history—”
Marty shook his head. “Look, everyone knows that a body was found, and everyone knows that Sean and David and crew are about to set off to explore the Mad Miller legend. It’s a mock trial, and you’re going to be Kitty Cutlass—and you just respond however you feel you should. It’s based on the premise that Kitty Cutlass was saved.”
“But Katie is a performer—she’d make a far better Kitty Cutlass,” Vanessa argued.
“I’m the narrator,” Katie said. “Oh, come on, Vanessa. It will be fun. It will take the…well, it will occupy your mind while we all…wait.”
“But—” Vanessa began.
“Oh, come on, please!” Zoe said. “I’ll help get you all set. Marty, are there costumes somewhere?”
“Great—just go down the path there to my friend Sally, the one dressed up as Queen Isabella. She’ll give you everything that you need.”
Despite her protests, Vanessa soon found herself dressed up as Kitty Cutlass. She was not given a chaste costume like Katie’s. She was in a low-cut blouse with flaring white sleeves, a workaday corset and a billowing skirt and petticoat. Zoe arranged her hair so it was halfway tied high on her head, but with curling blond tendrils around her face.
She did not get any kind of holster—she had been stripped of her weapons.
She got handcuffs.
A large area of park had been set up for readings and theatrics; there was a modular stage, simple, with a judge’s bench and just a few stark wooden pews, and a box for the defendant. Vanessa was surprised to see Jamie O’Hara dressed up as the judge, sitting behind the bench. Marty himself was the prosecutor, Katie the narrator and, apparently, she didn’t have a defense attorney.
She was led through the crowd by a couple of Marty’s cronies. She was stunned to see that a full audience had gathered around and that, while they awaited the beginning of the mock might-have-been trial, they were chatting, arguing amiably amongst themselves and giving their opinions. There were avid-eyed children lined up and seated Indian-style before the stage.
Katie introduced the situation in her little speech, and then explained what might have happened had Kitty Cutlass, a woman who was a known accomplice of Mad Miller and accused of the murder of Dona Isabella, been saved from the sinking of the pirate ship and brought in to face the music—the law!
Vanessa, rudely cast into the little box on the stage, almost jumped when Marty began his prosecutorial tirade of her horrible crimes.
Listening to him, she suddenly found herself ready to enter into the game. She didn’t interrupt him; she waited until he was done and denied everything, assuring him that every shred of evidence he had against her was hearsay, circumstantial and in no way proof of any evil deed she might have performed. She had been guilty of loving Mad Miller, and nothing more. And they were wrong about Mad Miller, too. He had never been a murderer. Rather, he had been a man drawn to the life, eager for the rewards of the trade, but a man without a shred of bloodlust in his body.
As she spoke, she looked out at the audience at various times, demanding that they give an opinion. It had all been made up, conjured out of thin air, because every single fact that they were bringing forward was nothing more than speculation.
Jamie O’Hara raged from behind the bench that he would give the prisoner a chance—he would listen to thoughts and recommendations of her peers since the prosecution had failed woefully in bringing forth the burden of proof.
As she looked out then, Vanessa froze.
Many men were dressed as pirates. Many women were wenches, ladies and female pirates, and even the children in the crowd were in various stages of fun costume dress.
But there was one man standing behind the proceedings. He had a rich, full black beard and a headful of curly, almost ink-black hair. He was a tall man, and sturdy and strong. He had been watching from behind a group to the far rear, close to a row of merchants, which ended at a large growth of pines that grew raggedly before giving way to the white sands of the beach.
Her jaw dropped.