She stood under the hot shower, her eyes closed, her head resting against the tiled wall. Through the steam that fogged the room, she could hear her favorite morning DJs, Paul Castronovo and Young Ron Brewer, cracking jokes about the Marquette trial and all the ‘crazies’ that had camped out on the courthouse steps hoping to win an opening-day seat in the clerk’s morning lottery. While their producers scrambled to try and get O. J. Simpson on the line, they invited listeners to call in and play the Name That Nut! game, offering a ‘Paulie’s Pick’ gift certificate if the nut in question turned out to be French. Changing the station wouldn’t change the subject, either. Down the hall in the living room, David Marquette was the top story on the morning news; Doctor Death sure to be the headline on her doorstep outside. For at least the next few weeks, Julia knew that there would be no escape from the madness that had once again descended on Miami as it readied itself for another high-profile murder trial.
She was so exhausted, both physically and mentally. After Lat had picked her up – thankfully without quizzing her as to how she’d come to be in that crappy part of the beach at 3 a. m., jogging in the rain in shorts and an oversized T-shirt, nothing but car keys and five dollars in her pocket – he’d simply taken her back to her car, which was parked on a side street down the block from Rick’s condo on SoBe. No questions asked. Maybe he’d figured out who she’d gone home with and didn’t want to get into it. Or maybe he’d just correctly assumed she had nothing to talk about – that she was in whatever she was in alone.
She shook her head to get the stream of embarrassing thoughts out of it. She wished she could just redo last night – she wouldn’t even have gone out. She wouldn’t have had that conversation with Rick. She wouldn’t have asked the question that she didn’t want to know the answer to. She hadn’t wanted to call Lat, but there was no one else and she’d been scared when she’d finally stopped running and realized she was a long way from Kansas. A really long way. Surrounded by a lot of strange faces in a lot of darkened doorways who’d realized the very same thing.
There was no way that she was going to go back up to Rick’s apartment, hop back in bed and pretend everything was dandy in the morning. She wasn’t that good an actress. So she’d just headed home. And although she’d tried, she hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes once she did lay her head down on the pillow. Besides just the nagging worries she’d finally voiced to Rick, there were too many things to think about with the rapid approach of morning. In just a few hours, she’d be picking her first death jury in her first murder trial, and although Rick would be the one asking the prospective jurors questions, she’d still be there in the camera-filled courtroom, helping to ensure that, out of a pool of hundreds, thetwoofthem picked thetwelveright ones. Menandwomen who – in spite of the intense publicity, and the death-penalty protestors and mental-health advocates swinging from the palm trees outside – could set it all aside at the end of the day and cast their vote to flick the switch.
Rick. She blew out a long breath and rinsed away the shampoo that burned her eyes. Today was sure to be awkward. Was he awake? Did he even know she was gone yet? Would he notice? Would he care? Just the fact that the last question had crossed her mind was a sad commentary on the state of their affair. Things had maybe not been right for a long time, but still she’d stubbornly plugged along, not willing to pull her finger from the damn just yet. Blaming their growing distance on long hours and exhaustion and closing her eyes and ears the whole time to the real reasons they would never make it.
The water finally began to turn cold, snapping her out of her thoughts. She quickly finished rinsing off, wrapped herself in her oversized purple terry robe and headed for the kitchen with Moose at her heels. The comforting scent of fresh-brewed coffee drifted through the apartment, and she could already taste a cup with a cigarette. The Breakfast of Champions, she thought as she tapped a fresh pack of Parliaments on the counter. It was amazing how quickly she’d let herself get hooked again on a bad habit.
She poured herself a steaming mug, lit a cigarette and opened the kitchen window that looked out on the complex’s deserted pool area downstairs. Empty beer cans and a couple of liquor bottles overflowed from one of the garbage receptacles; pizza boxes were left behind on a lounge chair. Someone must have had a heck of a party last night.
She wondered, as she blew a smoke ring out the window, if it was just coincidence that her brother liked to smoke the same brand of cigarettes. Then there was coffee – Andy took two sugars and cream in his, too. No sugar at all in tea. And foods – they both hated tomatoes, but loved pizza. Pepperoni pizza with black olives. Juicy Fruit gum and 3 Musketeers bars. Little stupid, strange peculiarities that she’d only recently found out the two of them shared. Invisible, innocuous ties. She couldn’t help but wonder sometimes with a bit of unease, just how many more of those there might be …
Andrew’s transfer to Rockland was now just weeks away from finally happening – which was exciting, but also unnerving. Although it was still a lock-down psychiatric facility, Rockland wasn’t maximum security and the rules were sure to be much more relaxed there. Instead of just visiting a few hours every couple of weeks under strict supervision, Andy might actually be able to leave for the day or come home with her on a weekend pass. And, of course, as Dr Mynks had expressed at Christmas, the ultimate goal was for her brother to one day be released back into the community. What an overwhelming, exhilarating, frightening moment that would be for him. And for her. The man hadn’t been on the other side of razor wire and barred windows in fifteen years. He hadn’t been able to sleep past seven or stay up after ten or make it through the night without bed checks every thirty minutes. He hadn’t picked what he wanted to eat or when he wanted to eat it. He hadn’t played in a park or eaten in a restaurant or stepped foot in a grocery store. What would freedom feel like for him? What would it sound like, taste like, look like? It made her think of all the defendants that, as an ASA, she’d pled to lengthy prison sentences without much thought at all. After a while, for a prosecutor, years just became numbers; the defendants, just names on a calendar.
The defendant scores thirty years state prison. The offer’s twenty, followed by five probation.
The defendant’s a habitual. The offer’s ten and ten.
He pleads to the charge, does the statutory max with a three-year min-man for the gun.
She closed her eyes. Even in the quiet of her kitchen, with no one else around, she felt this overwhelming, almost debilitating pressure, squeezing her head like a vice. A pressure to please, a pressure to succeed, a pressure to do the right thing, when she wasn’t sure just what that was anymore. A pressure that seemed to be growing more intense everyday. She had a sudden urge to call her brother and just hear his voice before she got in her car and drove back down to the circus that was waiting for her at work. She knew the nurses would have him up by now. Even though he didn’t know what case it was, or what it was about, he did know she was starting a big trial today and he knew she was anxious about it. Last week he’d confessed to her that before he’d dreamed of playing baseball, he’d wanted to be a lawyer, too. Another invisible tie.
A lone pink foam noodle slowly drifted across the blue water and she thought of the empty pool in the back of the Marquette house, the kiddie toys that floated across still water, never to be used again. The elaborate swing set in the backyard and the slip-and-slide in the front. The hopscotch board – the game Emma and Danny had never finished playing – that she’d stepped carefully past, down a brick pathway that led up to the perfect house. But things were never as they seemed, were they? Behind the grand door a real-life horror story had awaited her.
Never pretend to know someone’s life, Julia. You’ll only know what they want you to know, when it is they want you to know it.
We’re talking three little kiddies bludgeoned and stabbed in their sleep by their daddy.
God willing, the little guy never knew what hit him. Just went to sleep with a kiss from Mommy and never woke up.
Look at me, Daddy! Look at what you’ve done to me!
She shook the creepy thoughts away, crushed out her cigarette and shut the window.
The same body, two completely different men. The same story, two completely different tales.
The same troubling thoughts, going full circle in her head. Round and round and round. Nothing was black and white anymore; everything was gray and all she wanted was for the disquieting insecurities to just stop. She wanted someone to stop them for her. And everyone else besides Andy seemed to have an agenda.
While she hadn’t expected her relationship with her brother to be what it was when they were kids – on many levels they were still strangers – she was surprised by how easy it was to know him again. How comfortable she felt around him, even when there was nothing to say. She’d been very careful not to go near the night their parents died, but maybe, hopefully, they’d never have to. Maybe, she thought, they could just go forward. She didn’t want to know the details. Julia understood Andy’s illness now. She understood what it had done to him. And she knew she could forgive him. That was enough, wasn’t it?
She poured herself another cup of coffee, grabbed a couple of Advil from the cupboard and headed back to the bathroom. Her head hurt from the lack of sleep and from thinking too much. On her way through the living room her eyes caught on the chaos playing out on the TV. A perky blonde FOX News reporter stood in front of the Miami courthouse, where news vans from every conceivable station in the country – and even from around the world – already lined the streets. A split-screen aerial view from the helicopters hovering overhead showed clusters of small white tents dotting the parking lot and sidewalks – underneath which ran elaborate mini-command centers for the various media outlets. A large, red BREAKING NEWS banner ran across the bottom of the screen.
‘Jamie, the Miami Herald is reporting this morning that Marquette is now being named a suspect in the unsolved homicides of two other North Florida families in Wakulla and Santa Rosa counties. In January of 2004, thirty-six-year-old Diane Tebin and her nine-year-old daughter, Lilly Rose Tebin, were found slain in their home in Milton, just outside of Pensacola. Mrs Tebin had been raped and stabbed repeatedly, but no suspect has ever been identified in those murders. Then, the following November, another family and another brutal murder. Forty-three-year-old Sharon Dell of Craw-fordville, Florida, her teenage daughter and toddler son were all discovered dead in their home on the outskirts of Tallahassee by Mrs Dell’s mother. Ms Dell, a recent widow, had, like Diane Tebin, been raped and then stabbed repeatedly.
‘Now, neither Miami-Dade Police nor Coral Gables officials are commenting, but our sources have learned that these murders have been linked somehow back to the slay-ings here in Miami. Calls to Marquette’s defense attorneys have gone unanswered, and Major Crimes lead prosecuting attorney Ricardo Bellido – who, it was also announced this morning, will be succeeding Miami’s retiring State Attorney, Jerry Tigler – also wouldn’t comment on the latest developments in the case. David Marquette, as you know, Jamie, is the Miami doctor who’s pled insanity in the grisly October murders of his wife and three small children in Coral Gables, Florida and is set to begin trial this morning here, at the Miami courthouse behind me. His case, as you can see, has garnered much international attention, sparking an often heated and bitter worldwide debate on capital punishment. Dr Marquette, a dual citizen of both France and the United States, claims he suffers from schizophrenia. Just last week, France filed an official complaint with the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the United States concerning their treatment of Dr Marquette at the time of his arrest. Death-penalty protests in Miami and Washington have …’
Julia practically dropped her coffee and ran to the front door. She grabbed the Broward Edition of the Miami Herald off her mat, ducking quickly back inside when she spotted the news van in the parking lot.
Jesus, they’d found out where she lived …
She slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, breathing heavy. She remembered Charley Rifkin’s warning, prophesied months ago.
If Dr David Marquette becomes the next Scott Peterson du jour … the press will be camping out in both your backyards until Corrections finally sticks the needle in.
She stared at the headline in her hands in complete disbelief.
‘You’re right, Jamie. You are so right,’ Perky continued excitedly back in the living room. ‘This is sure to affect the sympathy factor. Death-penalty opponents and mental-health advocates around the world are also likely to feel the reverberations. And, no matter how you might personally feel about these issues, it’s once again Miami that’s in the unwanted glare of the international spotlight. It was only a few short years ago when the serial killer Cupid was tried and convicted in this very same courthouse for drugging, raping and killing eleven young women. Now here we are again, back in Miami with perhaps another brutal serial killer …’
The phone rang. ‘Hello?’ she asked hesitantly, her eyes glued to the television.
‘Julia! Jesus Christ!’ Rick shouted. ‘Where the hell have you been? Iroll over this morning, the phone’s ringing off the fucking hook, and you’re gone. You gave me a damn heart attack!’
She said nothing. She couldn’t.
‘No note, no phone call – Jesus. What time did you leave? Hello? Are you still there?’ he asked when she still hadn’t answered him.
‘Yes,’ she said softly.
‘Look, Idon’t know if you’ve turned the news on yet,’ he finally said with what sounded like an angry, exasperated sigh, ‘but you better. Something’s happened. Ivonne Ledo called – Farley’s JA. The judge wants everyone in chambers asap.’