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Patricia Fry knew her career was sitting on the witness stand. That wasn’t Mary Eileen Sullivan up there on the hard oak chair. That was Patricia’s destiny. If she closed this case with a win — and that would be a guilty verdict on two charges of first-degree murder with a double sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole — she was going to the State Capitol in Lansing, and after that, Washington.
She’d given enough time and money to the leading Democrats of St. Isidore County to know a victory of that magnitude would result in a meteoric rise in her career’s trajectory.
Patrica fantasized about this being the last day she’d walk into the St. Isidore County Courthouse while she drove through what passed for morning rush hour traffic in St. Isidore.
The courthouse, next to a ridiculous looking city/county building, where you had to take two different elevators to get to her office, was a testament to the mental midgets who couldn’t see any reason to live anywhere else. Built in 1963, with the same kind of cinder blocks that were used to create elementary schools back in the Cold War days, the building usually smelled like her third-grade classroom. Maybe it was the pencil shavings left behind by decades of civil servants. Maybe it was the courthouse cafeteria. But it felt like a school.
However, the building did have the advantage of having lots of windows to let in as much sunshine as possible in a town often covered by clouds bringing rain to St. Isidore if it wasn’t snowing or sleeting.
“Since a lot of people are here for a divorce, a trial, or sentencing; the architect figured we needed lots of windows to take advantage of any sunshine possible,” Patrica had been told on her first day.
It is such a tiny community pretending to be major, Patricia thought more than once during the past ten years she’d lived in St. Isidore. Home to three minor league teams—hockey, basketball, and baseball—several radio stations staffed by people either on their way up or on their way down the career ladder of broadcasting success; St. Isidore screamed average, as far as Patricia was concerned.
Born and raised in the white-collar suburbs of Detroit, Patricia thought of herself as one of those on her way up and out of Swinging Izzy. She certainly never considered herself to be a lifelong resident of this town. And, it would never be her home.
However, if Judge Leopold sentenced Mary Eileen to anything less than life without parole, or God forbid if the jury came back with a not guilty because of insanity verdict; it would be “Welcome to Walmart” time for Patricia Fry.
Patricia had never taken defeat well. Of course, no one likes to lose. Everyone wants to win. But Patricia was different. She had to win. It’s not that her parents drove her unmercifully. It’s not that she was sent to bed without dinner for bringing home less than a perfect report card.
It was simply that something inside of Patricia would not allow her to be less than perfect, or even worse, to be defeated.
“Patricia, you have the drive to win, I can’t fault you for that,” her high school debate coach, Richard Worth told her while they were traveling to the state championship tournament.
Patricia had only nodded. She’d heard about half of what Mr. Worth said. Most of her mind was focused on her team and making sure they didn’t stumble. Everything Patricia wanted — doing her undergrad work at Stanford then getting her law degree from Yale or maybe Harvard — was riding on this debate championship.
“But you need to relax,” Mr. Worth said. “Winning isn’t everything.”
God, what tripe, Patricia thought. But she looked at her coach with a very practiced attitude of submission. Of course, you are right; her eyes told adults or anyone who criticized her quest for victory and glory. How foolish of me not to see the truth of what you are saying.
But in her mind, Patricia was screaming, “Why can’t these morons just stay out of my way?”
“Patricia, you are not only driven to succeed,” a psychiatrist had told her of what was politely called her “nervous breakdown” following a miserable debate team practice.
“You are more than driven, Patricia. You are pathological about winning. You not only ignore the effect you are having on others most of the time; the sliver of time when you do recognize your impact, you simply don’t care.”
Patricia remembered looking up at Dr. Julianne French with her much-practiced gaze that said, “Gee whiz, how could I have missed that,” as the psychiatrist sat on the witness stand. When Patricia started her cross-examination of the good doctor, she could see French had no memory of their time together. As a result, Patricia was driven even more to make the doctor look foolish.
“If you think I was pathological about winning the state high school debate tournament, Dr. French, you should try to read my mind now,” Patricia had said to her bathroom mirror while practicing for her day in court.
She was no longer a teenager dreaming of sugar plum fairies with job offers from the largest law firms in America dancing through her head. Patricia Fry focused on Washington. She would pick up Hillary’s torch if only she could win this trial.
But, she’d fumbled the opening statement. While Michael Morris was brilliant, eloquent, and dramatic; Patricia had been dreary, drab, and redundant. Her speech had been utterly forgettable. Even Judge Leopold had caught her breath a couple of times and seemed to be pulling for her when Patricia started mumbling words rather than enunciating her thoughts.
“You’re trying too hard,” Patricia had told herself. “Slow down. Stop if you have too. Give the jury a chance to catch up.” However, when she did force herself to stop, Patricia only looked confused.
But she had recovered. Patricia had to admit to herself that she had been nearly magnificent with her witnesses. She had picked Dr. French to pieces. Patricia had attacked the psychiatrist's diagnosis, using the Socratic method of questioning to trap French with her own psychobabble.
The way she laid the case out, there could be no doubt in any juror’s mind that Mary Eileen Sullivan knew what she was doing when she’d killed Hans Mueller and David Van Holt. They heard surviving friends and relatives cry on the witness stand. They saw the forensic evidence, the chopped up body parts encased in cement. It was all textbook.
But Patricia also knew that while she had done everything a law professor might want, she’d been talking to herself as much, maybe more, than the jury. She knew she had missed the mark. But fortunately for Patricia, Mary Eileen Sullivan had confessed. She was a killer. And paradoxically, all Patricia had to do was to prove the woman was not crazy.
Her boss, Prosecutor Logan, had slipped her a note reading, “You’re batting .500...bottom of the ninth..bases loaded...Knock this bitch out of the park.”
Patricia smirked but fought back an urge to look back at Logan. She never liked the military and sports metaphors that her boss threw around to inspire his troops, as Logan put it. There was no need to “knock this bitch out of the park.”
Raising an objection to Morris’ last question of Mary Eileen had been a mistake. Patricia had been too quick on the trigger and she knew it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Fortunately, Judge Leopold had overruled her.
Mary Eileen had already dug her own grave. Now, Patricia only had to let Mary Eileen bury herself. She could hardly wait to hear this double-murderer explain to a jury of her peers why killing her ex-husband and then her boyfriend were the acts of a rational woman.