December, 23 years earlier
The reporter sat in the courtroom, his pen poised in his hand as the verdict was read.
The jury foreperson was a large woman with more middle than top or bottom. Her muumuu-like dress blossomed around her like a parachute. Her hand was steady but sweat glistened on her face.
“Guilty of first degree murder.” She stood uncertainly for a moment. Then sat down.
“He didn’t do it,” Carol Sandinsky shouted at the jury. Her hands were wrapped so tightly around the banister separating her from her brother, they were white.
“He couldn’t. Can’t you see he’s not right? He’s slow. He’s always been slow.”
Her husband put his arm around her, but she shrugged it off.
William Gilman stood very still as the bailiff handcuffed him and led him toward a side door, an expression of surprise and wonder on his narrow, disheveled face.
The reporter wrote, “Probably thinking this was another dream.”
Like the one he’d had about his niece, the reporter told himself. The dream where she was wet and muddy and cold. The one he’d told the police.
This story was writing itself, the reporter thought.
Carol pushed past her husband and two sons, walking fast down the aisle toward the exit. “It’s your fault,” she shouted at her mother-in-law, who was leaving the courtroom. “You never liked him.”
The reporter followed the woman and her family outside into the courthouse hallway.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you! You lying old hag,” Carol shouted at her mother-in-law.
The woman turned around. “I told what I saw. It was the truth,” she said, pulling herself up as she spoke. The curve in her arthritic back straightened momentarily.
It happened so fast the reporter didn’t even see Carol raise her hand when he heard the slap. Then the gasp from the old woman. He watched as a red imprint of a hand rose on her cheek. Mitch Sandinsky pulled Carol away from his mother, who was weeping.
Now all the family members were in the hallway. The reporter was surrounded by them.
Helen Gilman, Carol’s sister, yelled at Mitch Sandinsky. “You’re a liar just like your mother.”
Mitch yelled back, “He killed my daughter, you sick fucks.”
Just then a bailiff emerged from the courtroom and tussled the parties apart.
The reporter glanced down the hall. Ashley’s half-brothers stood against the veined marble green walls. One was staring at his shoes, his hands deep in his pockets. The other was looking down the long hallway toward the stairs. They both looked lost.