New Haven, Connecticut
Inside the cold conference room, eleven-year-old Sofia shivered. She’d wished she’d brought her sweatshirt.
The detective and district attorney were right outside the door. She could see them through the glass window. Every once in a while, they looked at her.
The room was empty save a few chairs and a big video camera on a tripod.
Sofia chewed on her fingernails; shifting restlessly on the uncomfortable orange plastic chair they had told her to sit on. She was in the middle of the room. The other chairs were behind the camera.
The door opened.
“Are you nervous, honey?” It was the social worker that had met with her that first night at the police station.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re shivering.” The woman with the tidy brown bun and gray suit turned to look at the thermostat control on the wall. “No wonder. It’s like the arctic in here. I’ll turn this up full blast.”
She turned back to Sofia. “I have a really soft and warm cardigan in my bag. It’s in the hall. Can I get that for you until it warms up?”
Sofia nodded. Her teeth were chattering.
The door opened and the woman slipped out. Nobody was in the hall right then. Sofia wondered what they would do if she just left. Without testifying against her dad. But then the thought of him free from jail sent shivers down her arms that had nothing to do with the room’s temperature.
Her dad needed to be locked up. That’s why she was doing this.
The dad she had loved was gone. In his place was a monster, a murderer, a person who killed people and cut off their fingers. He’d lied to her. Their entire life was a lie. She would never, ever forgive him.
The district attorney had told her that they would videotape her so she didn’t have to go into the courtroom. He said he was worried about her safety because it was a “mob” trial.
“Sometimes people in organized crime aren’t very nice to witnesses,” he’d told her.
Her face would be in the dark on the video and her voice would be distorted while she testified. Everyone in the courtroom would watch her on a big screen while she was safe in another room. The district attorney had told her they could protect her—her and her mom. That she and her mother could even change their names and move far away. Later, he told her that her mother had refused the help. Sofia shrugged. She didn’t tell him that she already had plans to move far away—without her mother. As soon as she was old enough, she’d move far away and never talk to her mother again.
Besides, she wasn’t frightened of the “mob.” She’d met the Giovanni Family. They liked her.
She was more afraid of her own mother and father.
Before the district attorney had picked her up that morning, she’d been in her room sick with anxiety and worry. When she noticed her mother standing in her doorway, watching her, she screamed and jumped.
Her mother didn’t say a word. Simply stared at her with such hatred Sofia had never seen. Like Sofia was a bug that she wanted to step on. Usually, her mother simply ignored her, even scolded her without looking at her, like she was a nuisance and an embarrassment.
For most of her life, Sofia had simply tried to stay out of her mother’s way.
When she saw how affectionate her friends’ mothers were, Sofia pretended not to notice that her mother was a stranger who never hugged her. She hadn’t abused her. She had just ignored her.
So, the attention right now was unnerving. It was as if her mother was seeing Sofia for the first time.
“You little bitch. You have no idea what you are about to do.”
Sofia gaped at the name.
“You are ruining everything. You will pay for this. You think you are something special.” Her mother spat, actually spat, on her pink-carpeted floor. “You are no saint. You are the same. You have your father’s blood. You share his DNA. You have already proven that. He and you are the same. You punish him for providing for this family? Giving you this life? You could live like your cousin Tomas. How is his life? You like his life? Do you want to drop out of school to work so we can eat? That is what you are doing to our family. You mark my words. You will pay for this.”
Sofia watched her mother in the mirror. Her mother’s face was mottled with red. Her eyes were bulging. Her whole head was quaking with anger. A chill ran down Sofia’s spine, but she remained motionless staring at her mother’s reflection until a horn honked outside. The district attorney was there to pick her up.
Her mother’s voice was low and deadly. “How soon you forget?”
Sofia closed her eyes for a second. And then her mother kept speaking. Sofia clapped her hands over her ears to drown out her mother’s words.
But she couldn’t stop the flood of memories. Angelo’s body on the ground. The empty crib. Her mother’s shouting and distorted face. The police.
“No!” She screamed, trying to drown out the memories. Opening her eyes, she rushed from the room, pushing by her mother’s bulk straddling the doorway. Her mother hip checked her, slamming her into the wall, but Sofia only stumbled for a second and kept walking without looking back.
As she neared the stairs, she turned and met her mother’s eyes. “You are the one who is going to pay. You and Daddy will pay for what you’ve done.”
Her mother stood there, mouth agape. Without waiting for a response, Sofia stomped down the stairs and out the door, slamming it behind her.
Getting into the big sedan out front, her heart was pounding, but she felt free. She trusted the detective and the district attorney. They were the ones who told her what would happen. Not what her mother had said. They had told her that with her help, with her testimony, her father would never see the light of day again.
She was afraid of what he might do to her if he got out. But then she realized she probably needed to be more afraid of what her mother was going to do to her if he didn’t.
But the thing Sofia was most afraid of was her mother being right—that whatever made her dad do those awful things was inside her, as well. It was her greatest fear—that she was like her father. She pushed back images of Angelo’s motionless body. No. No. No. It was an accident.
With a loud bang, the door swung open hitting the wall opposite and the conference room filled with people. The social worker handed Sofia a soft sweater that smelled of perfume. Sofia quickly put it on.
“Sorry,” the detective said. “Time to start.”
Everyone settled into the chairs and grew silent. A spotlight behind Sofia was turned on. She could feel the heat on the back of her hair. A man she didn’t recognize got behind the camera. “Okay. We’re live in five. Five, four, three, two, one.” He pointed at the district attorney.
She could barely make out the district attorney’s face in the dim light, but focused on his eyes. “Thank you for being here today,” he said. “I realize this is not easy, in fact, probably the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do.”
“Objection.” At first Sofia was unsure where the voice had come from: a small speaker at the other end of the table.
“Overruled,” said another voice.
“First, please state your name.”
Sofia did.
“Could you please tell us what happened the night of May 15, 1980?”
Sofia nodded.
“You’re going to have to answer verbally for the record,” the district attorney said.
“Okay. Yes.”
There was some mumbling and loud voices coming from the speaker.
“Objection. Your honor may we approach?”
“This better be good,” a voice said.
“Your honor, we just received something we think you need to see.”
“Relevance?” Sofia heard the sound of shuffling papers.
“We think introducing the juvenile record of the witness to the jury is relevant in order for them to fairly evaluate her testimony.”
Sofia froze. The district attorney jumped up. Someone put a hand on his arm. He shot an alarmed look at Sofia. His eyes held a question. Sofia stared unable to look away. Unable to move or speak.
“Overruled. Juvenile records are sealed for a reason. I also don’t appreciate this coming in at the last minute.”
“But, your honor?”
“Sir, you are in danger of being held in contempt of court.”
The district attorney sat back down. Sofia realized her entire body was shaking.
“Let’s start when you woke up in the middle of the night.”
Focusing on the district attorney and not the camera, Sofia recounted what she had seen that night.
“I woke up from a bad dream and went to my mom and dad’s room. But it was empty. Then I heard the garage door closing. I looked outside and saw my dad’s car driving down the driveway.” She looked up at the district attorney not sure if she should continue. He nodded. “Sometimes he leaves at night. But I didn’t know where my mom was. I looked in the kitchen. Then I thought maybe she was in the basement.”
“Why did you look in the basement?”
“Because that’s where the washing machine was and I thought maybe she was doing laundry.”
“Did she often do laundry at night?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes.” Even in the dim light, she could see the district attorney giving the detective a look. Sometimes her mother burned things, awful-smelling clothes and who knew what else, in the basement furnace.
“So, you went to the basement. What did you first see when you went down there?”
“Blood.” The district attorney shot another look at the detective.
“Where was the blood?”
“All over the floor. And the wall.”
“What did you do?”
“I screamed.”
“Then what?”
“I kept screaming for my mom.” Sofia shifted. The warmth of the light on the back of her head was making her hair itch.
“Did she come?”
“No.”
“What did you do then?”
“I looked in the closet.”
The district attorney had lowered his head reading his notes. “There’s a closet in the basement?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in the closet?”
“It’s kind of a pantry. There’s extra food and cleaning stuff.”
“Okay. How come you looked there?”
“I dunno.” Sofia shrugged. “To see if my mom was in there?”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“Did she ever come when you screamed?”
“No.”
During their first meeting, the district attorney had told Sofia that after she called 911, police had stopped her father’s car near the border of New Jersey several hours later. He had a body in his plastic-lined trunk. The man had been stabbed. They found the knife in the trunk with him. It had her father’s fingerprints on it. The district attorney also told her that the finger didn’t belong to that body. It belonged to a woman who had disappeared the day before. Her body was never found.
When the police had stopped her father, her mother wasn’t in the car.
It was only later—hours after she called 911—that her mother came home. In new clothes that Sofia had never seen before.
“What did you do then?”
“I went upstairs.”
“But before that—what else did you see before you went upstairs?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
“Did you see anything else that wasn’t normal in the basement before you went upstairs?”
“Yes.” At first, she’d thought it was a small animal. A mouse or something that maybe the cat had brought inside. But then she noticed the fingernail. It had pale pink sparkly polish. When she saw it, she’d leaned over and threw up, her vomit splashing all over the floor.
“What did you see?” She realized this was the second time the district attorney had asked this.
“A finger.”
“Was it attached to a person?”
Sofia shook her head.
“Please answer verbally.”
“No.”
“Where was it?”
“On the floor of the closet.”
“Is there a gap between the door of the closet and the basement floor?”
Sofia scrunched up her face for a second. “Yes.”
“Is that gap big enough for the finger to fit under.”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
She looked up and the district attorney made a gesture that she shouldn’t answer.
“Did some of the blood also go in the closet?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us about when you first noticed the finger.”
“I just saw something pink.”
“Did you touch it?”
“No.” Sofia shrunk back in horror, making a face.
“What else was around the blood?”
“On the floor?”
“Yes, on the floor.”
“A big bottle of bleach.”
“Anything else.”
“A mop.”
“Did it look like someone had cleaned?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
“No, it looked like someone was about to clean but …”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
“Just one more question.”
“What did you do after that, when you went upstairs?”
“Called the cops.”