“It was a lot.”
There was a purse of his lips, like an air kiss. In that moment I understood. This was all he wanted: to relive it. There was no trapdoor beneath my feet, at least none The Defendant had the pull cord to. He had summoned me here to tweeze the goriest bits from my memory. I could not believe anyone could call him intelligent, or even take him seriously. His act was so transparent, his character so fundamentally hollow, that it should have been an affront to the court, a place that was venerated and inviolable to me.
“What did you do after you saw that Jill was covered in a lot of blood?” he continued to no objection. There was none to make. This was all legal. Unbelievably legal.
“I ran down the hallway to wake up the other girls.”
“Did you go into Denise Andora’s room then?”
Her name, in his mouth, sounded all wrong. Denise Patrick Andora was a denomination that warranted a reverent inflection. Salvador Dalí had sent her mother a condolence card after she died. When you fry, I willed my pleasant features to express, your mother will have to grieve in societal exile.
“Yes,” I said. “I went to check on Denise Andora then. I loved her. So many people did.” In death penalty cases, copies of court transcripts must be saved forever, and I wanted a permanent record of this unsparing truth, for Denise. “I was worried because she wasn’t out in the hallway with the other girls.”
“Can you describe her physical state when you found her?” There was a quick dart of his lizard tongue, dabbing his thin lips.
“Her eyes were closed, and I thought she was sleeping.”
“Did you notice anything out of place in her room?”
“The window was shut, and she had the covers pulled up. Denise ran hot, so that was unusual for her.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t understand your question,” I said stubbornly.
“From your police statement”—The Defendant smacked his lips together lasciviously—“?‘The nozzle of the hair mist bottle was covered in blood and sort of dark brown gunk and hair.’ Do you recall saying that to Detective Pickell?”
I zipped up my knees, pelvis torching with sympathy pains. “I do.”
“Can you describe the hair mist bottle?”
“What does he mean?” I asked Veronica Ramira, whispering a little. I could see in her face that I’d shocked her, but I was realizing that about the only time The Defendant didn’t scare me was when I was in the same room he was. When I could confirm the exact location of his whereabouts with my own two eyes, and there were guards with guns who would put a bullet in his middling brain if he so much as breathed wrong. If I wanted to make him feel like scum on the bottom of my shoe, this would be my only chance.
“What is your understanding now as to why the nozzle of the Clairol hair mist bottle was covered in those elements?” The Defendant hastened to ask before Veronica Ramira could get involved.
I bit my tongue as Veronica Ramira leaned across her client, head bent to block his face, and whispered something. For a moment I thought she was resigning as counsel, having remembered she was a woman.
“I apologize,” she said to me. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
We took a break, and when we came back into the concrete room, Veronica Ramira took over the interview and destroyed my unimpeachable testimony in ten brisk minutes.
“Going back to the conversation you had with Bernadette Daly in the early-morning hours of January fifteenth,” she began, “do you recall telling her that you thought you saw Roger Yul at the front door?”
“I said that was an initial reaction when I first saw someone, because Roger was around a lot, and because they are both on the small side.” I enjoyed suggesting to his face that The Defendant was a small man.
“And Roger Yul was Denise’s steady boyfriend?”
“He was. But not by then. They’d broken up before the break.”
“Did anyone else at the sorority ever date him?”
Panic roused with a guard dog’s growl. Veronica Ramira, unlike The Defendant, had actually graduated from law school and passed the bar. She wasn’t here for cheap thrills; she was here to win her case. “Yes. Bernadette Daly.”
“How long did they date?”
“I believe it was just the one time they went out.”
“And what did they do, that time they went out?”
Sweat beaded at my bra line, but I kept my face placid. “She said they went to see a movie.”
“What about after the movie, in his car?” Veronica Ramira put a slight emphasis on car. She knew. “Did Bernadette talk to you about something that happened in Roger’s car?”
My head roared with blood. Carl and Tina were the only two people on earth who knew what Roger did to Bernadette. And if Carl was trying to win The Defendant’s affections, wouldn’t this be exactly the sort of information he would offer up to The Defendant, as proof that there was someone else capable of the attack on The House?
“In confidence,” I said, bristling, “she did.”
“We are way past worrying about the bonds of sisterhood at the sorority house,” Veronica Ramira said in this infuriating hate to break it to you tone, as though I were the reason we were here, airing all our private and personal matters. “What did Bernadette say happened with Roger?”
I supposed I had no right to be furious with Carl for leaking this to the defense. It was like leaving the trash out and blaming the racoons for getting into it. Carl Wallace was just doing what every member of the rodent-faced press did back then.
“She said that Roger pushed her head into his lap.”
“To perform oral sex, isn’t that correct?”
My neck flushed violently. “Yes.”
“Did Bernadette say how she felt about that?”
It was like being strapped into a speeding vehicle with my hands tied to the wheel and a brick on the gas pedal. I could see the point of impact drawing nearer, and yet I could not turn or slow down. The impact would be unavoidable and deadly.
“She said she was scared and that she didn’t want to,” I answered helplessly.
“What was she scared of?”
“She couldn’t breathe. She was scared Roger would accidentally kill her.”
“Did you also have a frightening experience with Roger in January 1978, approximately one week after Robbie and Denise were killed?”
“Yes.”
“What happened there?”
“He jumped behind the wheel of the car when I was in the passenger seat and drove off without my consent.”
“And for that, you pressed charges against him, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Aggravated kidnapping charges. Of which he was convicted last fall, correct?”
“Correct.”
“You had the choice not to press charges, and yet you did. How come?”
The answer was the base of the tree, coming at me one hundred miles an hour. “Because I thought he was dangerous and should be behind bars.”
“I have nothing further.” Veronica Ramira turned to The Defendant, who in just a few short months would be described by theNew York Times as a “terrific-looking man with light brown hair and blue eyes, rather Kennedyesque.” That was on the heels of theMiami Herald asking Is Quiet, Bright Student a Mass Killer? Though any flashes of brilliance in that bleak room emanated directly from Veronica Ramira, no one wanted to remember it that way.
“I have no more questions,” The Defendant concluded with a parasitic smile, looking tremendously self-satisfied for doing fuck all but attach himself to a woman who was good at her job.
PAMELA
Tallahassee, 2021
Day 15,826