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Nearly one-hundred people filed into a courtroom built for eighty-five, one by one, after first passing through two metal detection posts and then a court deputy with a wand. The crowd was much more subdued than the previous day's audience. Gone was the carnival atmosphere of people looking for a vicarious thrill. There was no easy banter nor friendly verbal jousting. And for the first time in forever, it was even difficult to lay a bet down on the verdict in Mary Eileen Sullivan's trial.
“What do you think, Tony?” Julie had asked yesterday as her eyes flickered with excitement. The past three days had been better than TV, “Does she get off?”
“Yeah, I think so,” said Tony who was much more interested in what he perceived as his destiny with Julie than Mary Eileen’s fate. Both were huge fans of true crime television shows and documentaries. He and Julie had set up tents on opposite sides of the courthouse lawn two days before Mary Eileen’s trial began. Retired, after twenty-five years toiling at St. Isidore Foundry, they were ready to relax. Unfortunately, relaxation became boredom, so separately, they had decided to move away from their TV sets and get a taste of real life.
Gradually their tents had moved closer together until finally there was no need for two anymore.
The day before they'd been lighthearted and excited. Today, Tony and Julie were almost somber as they prepared to hear from the killer herself.
Others of retirement age with the freedom to hang out at St. Isidore’s trial of the century went entrepreneurial. Suzie and Joseph had been selling homemade hangman’s noose-and-tree ceramic figurines to the Deadies who came from around the world to visit St. Isidore’s Suicide Forest. After first selling their little statues of men, women, children, and families swinging from trees, from a roadside cart, Suzie and Joseph had rented a storefront on DeVos Avenue. Business boomed. They opened a second location. But sensing the aroma of fresh opportunity and money, the couple had pulled their cart out of the barn on their twenty-acre hobby farm — purchased with their business profits, thank you Deadies very much — and set up shop on the courthouse lawn.
Adam King, who owned the Reading Room, St. Isidore’s premier (and only) bookstore, moved racks of true crime books to the sidewalk outside the courthouse. He knew a business opportunity when he saw one. Adam wasn't alone. St. Isidore’s tavern and restaurant owners opened an impromptu food festival the week of Mary Eileen’s trial.
Of course, what little criminal underworld there was in St. Isidore also sensed a chance to make money off the trial. Bookies had been taking bets for months on the fate of Mary Eileen.
But today, the audience, many of whom had lined up outside the courthouse before sunrise, knew that they would be witness to a historic day and were treating it with the reverence they felt the moment deserved.
Once the crowd was settled, and Judge Leopold in her seat, the first and only witness of the day was called to the stand; Mary Eileen Sullivan.
"You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help you, God?"
"I do."
Late night TV show comics had made more than a few jokes about what would happen when Mary Eileen's hand touched the Bible.
The fire-and-brimstone crowd was disappointed, of course. Mary Eileen's hand came away unscathed.
Instead of crying out in agony, she and her audience settled in for what all knew could be an emotional confrontation when it was Patrica Fry's turn to cross-examine.
Michael Morris approached his client.
"Why did you decide to take the stand? I never let my clients do this unless I am sure they are innocent. You insisted, and I relented. I am not certain this is in your best interest, yet you do. Why?" Morris asked.
Mary Eileen paused and looked down as she touched the small silver cross on her necklace. It was the only piece of jewelry she wore, so it stood out against the dark gray dress she had worn through her trial.
Just as Judge Leopold opened her mouth to prod Mary Eileen to answer the question, she spoke.
"I want to tell my story without psychiatrists or anyone else getting in the way.”
All twelve members of the jury, as did the audience, leaned forward, some nearly falling out of their chairs to make sure they didn’t miss a word. Reporters stopped scribbling. There would be no need for notes. All felt that the words they were about to hear would remain ingrained in their memories for all time.
“Fine, let's begin. Mary Eileen, did you kill David Van Holt?”
Her eyes grew shiny with tears as Mary Eileen looked into her attorney’s eyes and then at the jury, before glancing back down at her hands.
“Mary Eileen...” Morris prodded his client. Testifying and subjecting herself to cross-examination had been all Mary Eileen's idea. But as they discussed the testimony the night before, Morris began to think this might be the best way to persuade a judge and jury to send his client to a mental health facility for treatment, rather than being warehoused in prison.
And from a purely selfish point of view, Morris knew the world was seeing this trial on cable TV and was no less interested than any of the people in the courtroom. That couldn’t be anything but good for him, as long as Morris was able to make Mary Eileen lose control. He wanted her to lose it, emotionally, but not so much that the jury became afraid of her. He wanted their sympathy, not their fear, or worse, their revulsion.
Before she sat down in the witness booth, it had been a long night for Mary Eileen. Talking to Morris and being forced to relive the nightmares of two murders, and the bloody cover up of both killings had been horrendous for Mary Eileen. She had been obliged to bring up everything she’d kept hidden from the world, even from herself. Mary Eileen had thrashed about in the orange plastic chair. She had slammed first her fists, then her head on the table between her and Morris.
This morning, Mary Eileen looked back up at Morris, took a breath, and whispered, “Yes, yes, I did it.”
“You did what?”
Mary Eileen paused again.
“Mary Eileen, what did you do to David Van Holt?”
“I killed him.”
“Louder please.”
“I killed him!” Mary Eileen nearly stood up but caught herself as a court bailiff was moving to her side to push her back down into her seat.
“I killed him,” she whispered, slumping in the hard wooden chair.
Morris said as gently as possible, “How did you take the life of David Van Holt?”
Mary Eileen was distracted by the sound of David’s mother gently weeping.
Judge Leopold looked up but decided not to use her gavel. After suffering two miscarriages, she understood only too well a mother’s grief.
“I shot him in the head. I came up behind him with my gun, and I shot him in the head.”
"Oh my God!" said David's mother from the third row.
Two men helped her out of the courtroom.
Michael Morris paused. He licked his lips and looked at the jury trying to gauge how they were taking his client’s admission. Surprisingly, they seemed concerned for Mary Eileen Sullivan.
As Morris looked back at his client, he realized why. Mary Eileen’s expression had changed. Her chin was thrust out. Her shoulders were straight. She was no long slumped in the chair.
Morris asked,“Why?”
“He would not leave my apartment. We were divorced. I told him to leave. He would not. What was I supposed to do? I had a life to live,” Mary Eileen said as she slapped her hands on the oak railing in front of her. “I have a life to live! Damn it! He had no right!”
“So, you shot him?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me more about how and why it happened.”
Mary Eileen began to tremble, just as she had in the jail’s visitor’s room the night before. Morris had her very, very close to the edge. Mary Eileen hesitated. She chewed her lip. Morris didn’t push. He waited.
“I didn’t remember any of it, until my first session with Dr. French. But now I do. I remember the bullets hitting his head, and it was like his face exploded. He fell on to the table. And David was gone.”
Mary Eileen's stern facade had faded. Now she was an attractive young woman whose auburn hair was all the more stunning because of her pale complexion.
“But until your sessions with Dr. French, you did not remember the actual murder?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you, or do you, remember cutting up his body with a chain saw, putting it in cement and hiding the body parts in your cellar?”
“I do now.”
“Does this seem a rational act to you?”
“Objection,” Patricia Fry said. “He’s asking the witness to reach a conclusion that she is not qualified to make.”
“Overruled,” said Judge Leopold. She and the world wanted to hear Mary Eileen’s answer.