The man with the stringy long hair and gladiator sandals sat in the rain on the courthouse steps, dressed in a straitjacket and shorts. Taped to his chest was a sign that read ‘Don’t Medicate Me Just to Kill Me’. The rain had gotten the sign wet and the words had started to run and drip. He was being interviewed by a reporter.
Julia hustled into the courthouse past them – and the rest of the large, strange crowd of protesters, reporters and trial watchers – obscured thankfully from view by her oversized umbrella. She moved along with the restless herd of defendants, witnesses, attorneys and cops, through the metal detectors and lobby, pushed like cattle onto the escalator. At this time in the morning, waiting for a spot on an elevator might take hours. She could feel people pressed up against her, touching her with their wet clothes and umbrellas, breathing on her. Counting from ten wasn’t good enough anymore, so she started at forty, clenching and unclenching her fists, trying hard to breathe through the silk scarf she’d wrapped around her neck and buried her head into.
‘Hey there,’ a voice whispered in her ear. ‘Where’ve you been hiding?’ She felt a hand on her shoulder and it made her jump. She sucked in a breath and turned around to see John Latarrino standing on the step below her in a pair of dress slacks and a crisp white shirt that was dotted with raindrops, his gold detective’s badge around his neck, his gun holstered at his side next to his cellphone, a sports jacket casually slung over his shoulder. His hair was wet, and a couple of drops ran down off his neck and into his shirt. He smiled at her.
Mel had invoked the rule of sequestration – better known simply as ‘the rule’ – the second the jury was sworn, which excluded all prospective witnesses from the courtroom during trial, so that their testimony wouldn’t be influenced by listening to someone else tell a different version of events. Since Lat might be called back in rebuttal, he was still considered prospective. Julia hadn’t seen him since he’d testified last week.
‘I stopped by your apartment this weekend,’ he said as they stepped off the escalator on four and into the utter bedlam that waited for them. ‘But you weren’t in. I was looking to see if you wanted to take a Sunday-afternoon spin with an outlaw.’ The smile suddenly melted into a concerned frown when she didn’t respond. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked her in a low voice, gently grabbing her elbow and turning her to face him.
She nodded quickly, but turned away from him. Without uttering a word, she disappeared into the sea of cameras and strangers that waited outside 4–10. A sea held back by a few police and correction officers, a portable metal detector as an extra security precaution, and plastic retractable movie-theater stanchions.
With her head down, she made her way through the crowd and onto the metal-detector line behind those reporters and bystanders who were lucky enough to have won their courtroom seat in Judge Farley’s lottery. A couple of signs bobbed up and down in the crowded hallway, as they did outside. Some were handmade by angry people with magic markers and time on their hands, others were supplied and held up by volunteers from organizations like NMHA, the National Mental Health Association, NAMI, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and, of course, the ACLU. Someone suddenly stuck a sign that read ‘The Death Penalty Is Murder!’ in her face, hitting her in the forehead. ‘You know, you’ll be going to hell, too!’ its holder sneered as she passed, so close Julia could feel the spray of his spittle on her face.
‘Back off, asshole!’ she heard Lat shout behind her as she pushed her way past a wide-eyed and amused reporter who had turned to watch the scuffle. ‘Take your shit outside. Cormier! Get him out of here! Nobody should be touching her!’
‘Let’s go, pal,’ said another voice. ‘You’re out. You crossed the line.’
‘Freedom of speech, Officer! I can say whatever the fuck I want to a prospective murderer! Does it make you feel important to put an insane man to death, lady?’ was the last thing she heard as she made her way down the aisle to the State’s table.
…7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, I… breathe.
Until Monday morning, the focus of the trial of the century had been on the murders. On the cold, calculated brutality of the facts. On Jennifer and Emma and Danny and Sophie. On Jennifer and David’s marriage. On David Marquette as a vicious psychopath: a cunning, manipulative, abusive and secretive man who wore two different faces – one for the outside world of doctors and patients, friends and colleagues, and a very different one at home behind closed doors. This focus was not just in the courtroom, but also in the press, as news commentators wrapped up the day’s events in court, and then speculated about the testimony of tomorrow’s witnesses.
But Mel Levenson had changed that focus. At least temporarily. For the past three days, the defense had put on their case. Defense psychiatrists Al Koletis and Margaret Hayes had told the courtroom about David Marquette’s bizarre delusions. All about the world he supposedly lived in since he was a teenager. About the voices he heard and the twisted faces he saw. The defense and their witnesses and their doctors had dissected Marquette’s childhood, his family life, his marriage and his institutionalized twin brother. Now the topic du jour for the international press and around every water cooler in the country was insanity. What it meant legally. What it was medically. And that publicity, in turn, had flooded the streets and the hallways with the curious and the concerned. Legal commentators for CNN and Fox and MSNBC now debated the morality and constitutionality of medicating the mentally ill so that they could stand trial or even be executed, while famous criminal cases of those who’d pled insanity before were discussed ad nauseam on primetime television as the video reels of their trials ran over and over again. Most of those defendants, the legal analysts noted, had failed miserably. David Berkowitz. Jeffrey Dahmer. Ted Bundy. Sirhan Sirhan. Henry Lee Lucas. Charles Manson. John Wayne Gacy. Andrea Yates. Spitting out statistics alongside mug shots, analysts pointed out that insanity was offered as a defense in less than one percent of all criminal proceedings, but was actually successful in only a quarter of those cases where it was pled.
Now was Julia’s turn as the State began rebuttal. She hadn’t wanted to ever come back to the courtroom. To this circus. After Friday night’s strange phone call, she’d spent the weekend again holed up in her apartment with Moose, sorting through her Marquette file boxes, afraid to venture out even if just to get the morning paper, for fear that a hidden reporter might snap her picture and put it on the front page. Then the protesters might be able to find out where she lived. The invisible pressure in her head made it feel as if it were about to explode, and she willed herself not to look behind her at the sea of strange faces who watched her. He could be out there right now. In the rain. In the hallway. In the courtroom. Right behind her with his raspy breathing and creepy laugh. Ironically enough, it was Andrew who’d talked her into coming back, cautioning her about what might happen to the rest of her legal career if she left now and moved back to New York on the next plane out like she wanted to. Andrew’s transfer to Rockland was set for this Saturday morning and she was flying up late tomorrow night to be there when it happened. To help him get settled in. No one knew how long he’d be at Rockland. It could be another ten or fifteen years. It could be as little as two. It all depended on his evaluations and what the psychiatrists said. But Julia knew one thing for certain: she wanted to be near her brother. She wanted to support him and his recovery and she wanted to be able to visit every weekend, not just once a month when she could get a decent airfare. He was all she had left, and she was all he had, and she wanted to build a life for him to eventually come home to, be that in two years or twenty. And she wanted it to be far away from Miami.
She looked up from her seat as the door to the hallway opened and watched as David Marquette, flanked on all sides by police and correction officers, was shuffled into the courtroom. The jail had gotten so many death threats after the ME testified last week that, in addition to the standard metal accessories, Marquette now sported an armed entourage and wore a bulletproof vest whenever he stepped foot out of his cell, lest some nut try and take him out with a bullet.
That was what was so funny, Julia thought as Farley took the bench in his usual huff and Jefferson commanded the courtroom to rise. The State would risk the lives of four other men just to keep this one alive long enough so they could kill him themselves. Even Jay Leno had made a joke of it last night on The Tonight Show.
What a laugh.