Chapter Thirty-Five

 

In the holding cell during the break, Bryce, Kendra, and her father couldn’t stop smiling. They slapped Bryce on the back, then embraced him. The celebratory mood in the room was so tangible you could reach out and touch it. Outside, the late morning sun filtered through the bare limbs of the trees and left a subtle yellow glow over the room.

“I knew it was in the bag,” her father said, looking trim as an athlete and fashionable with his gray streaks in his dark hair an exact match for his obviously expensive three-piece suit. There was a splash of sapphire-colored silk in his breast pocket.

Kendra laughed. “Oh yeah, Dad, when did you know that?”

Her father winked, then gave her a huge grin. “The minute you were assigned to the case.”

Kendra shook her head. That would be her dad—so self-confident it would never occur to him that he might lose, only how big his win would be.

The truth was, she couldn’t have done this without Radhauser and her father. It took all three of them to solve the case. Radhauser got a subpoena for Henry’s medical records. And her father convinced Dr. Durham to testify, should Henry fail to tell the truth.

Her father stopped grinning and turned serious. “Let’s take a look at your closing.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” she said, “You gave me my wings and I’m flying solo on this one.”

* * *

Andrew Marshall didn’t say anything new in his closing statements, he merely reemphasized the state’s contention that Bryce abused Scott Sterling, and possibly even Skyler, based on the bruising reported by both the ER physician and the medical examiner.

Marshall claimed Bryce had a man-endangering state of mind when he chased after Scott for pushing Skyler. And that he was enraged with Dana and wanted to get even by hurting her children. He again showed the jury photos of Skyler’s battered body and reminded them of Scott’s testimony that Bryce threatened to kill him.

All in all, Bryce could see Marshall’s arguments lost their steam, didn’t convey the weight they’d carried before Valerie untangled the 9-1-1 tape, Dana admitted the scars were from a tubal ligation, not an ice pick, and Henry confessed to putting the drug in Skyler’s bottle.

When Kendra stood, Bryce sucked in a deep breath and sat, straight backed and still, nearly afraid to breathe.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when this trial began, my client was charged with murder in the first degree and one count of child abuse. You’ve heard the prosecution’s case against Caleb Bryce and our defense. You heard Henry Evans come forward and admit he was the one who put the Haloperidol in Skyler’s bottle.”

“When you entered this courtroom,” she said, pausing to look directly into the eyes of each juror. “You were charged to administer justice. Your job is to weigh the facts honestly and sincerely, not influenced by emotions. The scales of justice must always be balanced by an honest gauge. You will provide the gauge, I’m sure, and weigh the facts that determine the truth of this case.” She addressed them the way she’d talk if she stood in front of the twelve most intelligent people on the planet.

“And perhaps the most compelling testimony on the child abuse count came from Scott Sterling, the alleged victim. He told you, in the honest voice of a child, that Bryce never struck him before that night. After a day when Scott pushed his baby brother down the stairs and ran behind a neighbor’s house because Bryce refused to give him ice cream before dinner. A day when Bryce learned Dana planned to take the kids and move back in with her ex-husband, Reggie.”

She moved closer to Bryce.

He knew her hand was on his shoulder, he could feel the gentle weight of it. But, intent on her closing, he was aware of it only fleetingly, like a thought that passed through his mind and disappeared.

“Caleb Bryce is not a violent man. You heard Dana Sterling testify she lied to Reggie about Bryce stabbing her with an ice pick. That the scars on her abdomen were from a tubal ligation surgery. You also heard her say that Bryce would never deliberately hurt her children.”

“Yes, it’s true that after being kicked, bitten and spit on by Scott, Bryce slapped him on the behind with his open hand. And yes, he threatened him. It was not a death threat, ladies and gentlemen, it was the frustrated voice of a man pushed to the limits of patience by a four-year-old boy. What parent among you has never been pushed to a similar limit?” Kendra sighed and shook her head.

Calling for logic and fairness from the jurors, Kendra stood by her client’s side and kept her hand on his shoulder. “My client is a good man who has been put through hell by the state of Oregon. He was charged with a murder he didn’t commit and was so severely beaten in jail for being a child murderer that he could have died from his injuries. The newspapers and television reporters have slandered him.”

“The responsibility for trying this case has been a heavy one,” she said. “And, throughout it, I have felt my duty to Caleb Bryce. It is a duty I now hand over to you, to render justice fairly and impartially. Let your verdict be based on the law and the evidence you heard here and I am confident you will free him from the one-count of child abuse and allow him to go home and piece his shattered life back together.”

After delivering his instructions, Judge Shapiro charged the jury to deliberate.

The twelve jurors walked, solemn-faced and single file from the courtroom, down the hallway and into the jury room. The alternates were dismissed with the thanks of the court.

Kendra gathered her papers, then shook Bryce’s hand before he was led back down the stairs to the basement holding room.

When, about five minutes later, Kendra joined him, Bryce looked up from his untouched lunch tray. “What do you think will happen?”

She settled into the chair across from him and gave him a big smile. “I’m going to adopt my father’s strategy and believe there is no way we can lose.”

* * *

When Judge Shapiro granted the brief recess, Radhauser slipped out of the courthouse and drove home to pick up Gracie. After he’d discovered Henry’s involvement, Tilly and Bryce’s mother were so certain of release, they planned a celebration of his homecoming, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was Gracie’s first time out after the mastectomy. Lizzie was spending the night at her nana’s house to give Nana a chance to catch up on bill paying and other chores around her house.

He pulled into his driveway. As he neared their house, he spotted a bronze SUV with Arizona plates parked in the circular drive just outside their front door. He studied the car for a moment, uncertain what to think.

Once inside his house, he found his wife in the living room, dressed in a red gingham blouse, a long denim skirt and red leather boots. She looked beautiful, all made up and ready for the party.

A young woman who appeared to be in her early twenties was sitting across from Gracie at a small table in front of the bay window. Gracie had made tea. The room smelled like cinnamon and orange peels.

As soon as she saw him, the young woman leaped up and held out her right hand.

Radhauser took it.

She was pretty, tall and slender with long dark hair, smooth skin and dark eyes that seemed to search inside him. She wore a pair of jeans and a navy-blue sweatshirt with the University of Arizona Wildcat’s logo. “I’m Lisa Flannigan,” she said. “I drove from Tucson to see you.”

He let go of her hand. His body reacted before his brain did—accelerating his heart rate. A vein pounded in his temple and a sudden, bone-chilling panic washed over him. This was the daughter of the man who killed his first family. Lisa had been thirteen, the same age as Lucas, and was home with her mother the night of the collision.

He tried to fight the images inside his head, but they kept coming. The smell of the morgue in the basement of Tucson Medical Center. Two little boys in body bags. Laura and Lucas so silent and still on those stainless steel gurneys, white sheets covering them.

Lisa must have spotted the horror on his face, because her look became one of despair.

Gracie stood and began to clear the dishes from the table. She looked at Lisa, her face as tender and kind as he ever saw it. “I’ll give you two some privacy.” Before Gracie left the room, she stood on her tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered three words. “Listen. Consider. Forgive.”

A wave of something like fear hit Radhauser and nearly knocked him over. He could listen. But forgiveness? Considering how much this girl’s father took away, how could forgiveness be possible?

Neither of them moved or spoke until it seemed like the roof might fall in on them under the unbearable weight of their silence. Dust motes spun in the pewter shafts of light that slanted through the west windows.

Lisa was first to speak. “Is it okay if we sit and talk for a few minutes?”

Radhauser nodded, then took one of the brown, leather wingback chairs in front of the fireplace.

Lisa sat on the sofa directly across from him. Her hopeful, homecoming queen smile had returned. “I’m getting married on Christmas Eve.”

“Congratulations,” Radhauser said. “December is so beautiful in Tucson.”

“I’d like to tell you about my father.”

“I don’t want to hear anything about him.” He closed his eyes for a moment in which he could feel the anger, the familiar heat churning inside, try to rise to the surface.

When he opened his eyes, Lisa gazed at him, the hope on her face morphed into doubt. “I know my father stole something precious from you. He took my little brothers from my mother and me, too. Along with his presence in my life. But please, won’t you just listen?”

“Didn’t you ever visit him at the prison in Florence?” Radhauser said. “It’s not like he’s dead.”

“My father didn’t want me to visit. I lived eleven years without seeing my dad. But he wrote me letters every week. They arrived on Tuesdays, like clockwork. But I was living a nightmare of my own—you have no idea what’s it like to be the daughter of a man in jail for murder. Four murders. And as I’m sure you already know, my father is up for parole.”

“I won’t change my mind,” he said. “What you’re about to ask of me is too much.”

“Please listen, Mr. Radhauser. I spent my teenage years hurt and livid with him.” She took a photograph from her sweatshirt pocket and handed it across the coffee table. “Because of them.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.

Radhauser stared at the photo. Twin boys, around five years old, sat on a tree limb, one in front of the other. They were dark-haired like their sister, grinning, and as cute as they come.

“For ten of those eleven years, I never answered a single letter. But to his credit, he didn’t give up. He kept writing them.”

Radhauser returned the photo.

She tucked it back into her pocket. “Believe me. I know what it’s like to think you hate, to be so full of rage you can barely stand to keep living. But I also know what rage can do to your soul.” Her voice was soft now, sweet in a way that tore at him.

“It’s different for you,” he said. “You’re his daughter.”

She bowed her head, as if in prayer. “I didn’t always want to admit that. But yes, I am his daughter. And I finally visited him last week. He’s changed. My father has been sober for eleven years.”

“That’s not much of an accomplishment in his current location.” Aware of the cruelty in his voice, he tried to swallow against it. Prisoners had ways of getting drugs and alcohol.

“My dad joined AA. And now he runs the in-house program. He sponsors some of the younger inmates and they tell him things they can’t tell their family. He counsels them toward sobriety, love and forgiveness. And at the same time, he’s trying to find forgiveness for himself.”

“Am I supposed to give him a trophy?”

“I understand your bitterness,” she said. “When I finally went to see him, he cried and apologized through most of our visit. He was so ashamed. And I realized he also lost two sons. Yes, he behaved irresponsibly. He should never have allowed my little brothers to ride in the back of the truck, or driven so drunk he drove the wrong way on the freeway. It was his fault, and, don’t you see, that only makes it worse for him. In my opinion, everyone deserves a second chance.”

Radhauser thought about Caleb Bryce and the scene he witnessed between him and the mother who left him to fend for himself in a big-city hotel room at six-years-old. The way he listened to her apologies, fought his hurt and rage, and finally pressed his hand against hers on the Plexiglas wall. Bryce found a way to forgive his mother and had gazed at her with such longing Radhauser looked away—felt small, ashamed, and a little unworthy.

Rachael Bryce would have done anything for a second chance with her son. Maybe Lawrence Flannigan felt the same way about his daughter. Maybe he wanted nothing more in the world than to be with her and his wife again.

“Detective Radhauser,” Lisa said, tears welling in her eyes again. “I want my father—no, I need him, to walk me down the aisle at my wedding.”

Radhauser had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Their eyes met.

In hers, he saw the pain of losing her little brothers and growing up without a father. It pierced him inside, knowing he had the power to make some of that hurt go away. He understood something new about life. You live it forward, but understand it in retrospect.

A comradeship hung in the air between them, like they were two veterans of the same awful war. He wanted to say he understood how she must feel about her lost father. Wanted this beautiful young woman to have her dream wedding. Didn’t Lisa deserve happiness?

Someday, if he was lucky, he would walk Lizzie down the aisle on her wedding day.

What did he have to gain by giving a victim statement that might prevent Lisa’s father from his parole? Keeping Lawrence Flannigan in jail for another ten years would not bring Laura or Lucas back. He had a new life—Gracie, Lizzie, and the little boy they were all so eagerly awaiting. Maybe the anger he’d harbored all these years added to Gracie’s stress. Maybe it even contributed to her breast cancer.

This was Radhauser’s chance to be a better man. A man who listened, considered and let go. The man Gracie wanted him to be.

As the words formed inside his mind, he felt a cool tunnel of air loosening in his chest—releasing everything clenched and bitter that had lived inside him for over a decade.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

Outside, the sun had gone down, and the sky turned silver and darkened to a light purple near the horizon. The trees had been stripped almost bare by November.

He opened her car door, then turned to face her. “Tell you what, Lisa Flannigan. I’ll tear up the victim impact statement I wrote.” He thought about Rachael Bryce again. “Everyone who has worked as hard as your dad to be a better person and make amends to the people he hurt deserves a second chance. I wish you every happiness in your married life. And I hope I’m around to walk my daughter down the aisle someday.”

Her smile was as big as Texas. She hurled herself toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Your wife told me you’re a good man, Detective Radhauser. I didn’t believe her at first. But, she was right.”

When Radhauser turned and headed back to his house, Gracie stood on the porch, a mixture of tears and laughter in her eyes.

“The doctor called. My lymph nodes are negative.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him hard, then put her arm inside his. “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “Come on Mister I-won’t-ever-change-my-mind. I want to meet Bryce, Miss Tilly and Kendra. Not to mention the great Kendrick Huntington Palmer III. We’ve all got some major celebrating to do.”

She paused and gave him a big grin. “And by the way, Murphy called. He sounded a bit sheepish, but he’s lifted your suspension.”